As it must to all men, Death came last week to Hudson Maxim, 74, inventor of deadly explosives. It came slowly, quietly—preceded by 24 hours' coma. It found him at his home at Maxim Park, Lake Hopatcong, N. J. It had tried unsuccessfully, many times before, to find him in his laboratory. Although several of his assistants had been blown to bits, he emerged from all his dangerous experiments with only his left hand missing.
He knew so much about high explosives that he was often playful with them. One afternoon, while entertaining some friends at tea, he poured a few drops of liquid from the burner of the teapot into a vial, said: "Come out on the back porch and I will show you an experiment." Far out into the yard, he flung the vial. A terrific explosion ensued. In that vial, he explained to his friends, there was some nitro-glycerine.
Son of a poor miller who dabbled in philosophy and science, Isaac Hudson Maxim was born in Orneville, Me. In his youth he pitched hay and won fame as wrestler at county fairs; but at home his sister, Lucy, four years older, could throw him with ease. The Maxims were a hardy clan. After an elementary study of chemistry at the old Maine Wesleyan Seminary, Hudson went into the printing business, soon invented a color process for the Evening Journal of Pittsfield, Mass. This newspaper was the first in the U. S. to print a daily edition in colors.
Hudson, however, preferred mere active chemistry, so he turned his attention to explosives. His first important discovery was smokeless powder, which he sold to the Du-Ponts in 1897. Then he produced "Maximite," an explosive that can be shot through armor-plate and exploded on the other side. Among his other inventions are: a high- velocity rifle shell capable of a speed of a mile a second; and "Motorite," an energetic compound to generate intense heat to make steam to propel a torpedo.
His nephew, Hiram Percy Maxim, invented the Maxim silencer. His older brother, the late Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, produced the Maxim machine gun which was standard equipment for most of the armies of the world before the War. Sir Hiram once accused Hudson of posing as the inventor of this gun and attempting to infringe upon his (Hiram's) name by setting up a company Under the name of "H. Maxim:" The two brothers were never reconciled after this.
It is said that Hudson Maxim loved a good fight. Perhaps that is why he wrestled in his youth and boxed in his age. He exercised always, took tennis seriously and played it creditably. He preferred preparedness to pacificism; moderation to Prohibition; the odors of his laboratory to the per fume of bathing beauties — he took the role of Father Neptune at the Atlantic City pageant only once, in 1922.
He wrote facilely on a strange variety of subjects: The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language, Defenseless America, Dynamite Stories, The Rise of An American Inventor (his autobiography).