At the time of the Texas explosion I was a trainee industrial chemist. My boss had been the safety officer at St Mary's explosive factory during the war. He helped us make "safe" explosives which we used to blow Cedar stumps out of the ground to retrieve the good cedar wood for wood turning. The original cedar cutters cut the tree about 10 feet above ground and old stumps were around in fair quantity. The base of the tree was twice the diameter as it was further up the tree and was too wide for the crosscut hand saws used.
