ly of inventors and industrial magnates. His father, Emmanuel
Nobel, was the inventor of nitroglycerine, and of fixed submarine
torpedoes or mines. His two brothers, Robert and Louis Nobel, founded
the naptha and petroleum works at Bacou, one of the largest industrial
enterprises of Russia. Alfred himself invented dynamite and dynamite
gum, and a smokeless powder, ballistite, which he patented in 1867,
1876, and 1889. It is mainly due to the works of the Nobel family that
Sweden has attained the reputation of Master Producer of Explosives.
Chemical research has always been a specialty among Swedish men of
science, and a large number of the known chemical elements were
discovered and made known by Swedish scientists.

In 1876, Alfred Nobel had perfected his invention of dynamite gum. He
went to Paris with his patented invention, and there formed a company
with a capital of ten million francs for the manufacture of dynamite.
It proved to be an article of the greatest industrial importance, and
one destined to revolutionize mining and engineering. Erelong he had
established extensive works in France, Scotland, Germany, Belgium,
Austria, and the United States. He produced over $25,000,000 worth a
year. He became, in fact, the world's purveyor of an article which was
now exclusively used in mining and engineering works. Thanks to it,
engineers were able to pierce tunnels through the Alps, miners to sink
their shafts into the bowels of the earth, and harbor constructors to
remove sunken rocks out of the way of shipping. But thanks to it, too,
the Communards were enabled to blow up the finest monuments of Paris
in a few hours. It was at once a powerful instrument of industrial
development, and of progress in the conquest of man over inert matter,
and a terrible engine of devastation in warfare, and of massacre and
vandalism where homicidal and destructive passions were aroused in
mankind.

It was perhaps this thought, that in benefiting industry he had also
made war more destructive, which led Alfred Nobel, who was a most
pacific and humane man, endowed with the kindliness and sympathy of a
great mind, to make the provisions he did in his will. He devoted
all his fortune to the encouragement of scientific discovery and the
reward of endeavors to diminish standing armies and the chances of
war, to promote fraternity among nations, and the settlement of
international disputes by peace congresses. His will, in its very
concisen