bomb vs stegosaurus

Driscoll snapped off two shots, one into the beast’s chest, the other into its head. No effect, other than to madden the monster. It stamped ferociously, letting out a deep-chested hiss like a rasping bellows. Driscoll saw that Denham still held the bomb.
“He’s gonna make up his mind in a second. When you drop, keep close to me. Don’t get up until I do.”
The dinosaur thrashed its head, then lunged forward, like a charging rhino. Denham stood braced until it was seconds away.
Then he threw.
The missile landed squarely in front of the beast’s feet. It exploded instantly into boiling blue vapor. The gas completely covered the beast’s forequarters, head, front feet, and all.
“Down!” Denham threw himself flat, and Driscoll dropped alongside him, feeling the director’s hand on the back of his neck. Before he could protest, Driscoll’s mouth was full of moss.
Driscoll inhaled the damp, rich smell of earth, and the sap of growing roots grew bitter on his lips. Just forward of him the ground shook violently from the fall of a great weight. He moved to rise, but Denham’s clamped hand refused to release its pressure. Half a minute crept by, seeming to Driscoll like an hour. Then Denham loosed his hold and tapped Driscoll’s shoulder twice.
Driscoll stood up. Scarcely the length of his own body away lay the twitching head of the beast, mouth open, tongue lolling, eyes glassy. Behind the head its enormous dome of a rib cage rose and fell spasmodically. Driscoll measured the distance with his eye and exclaimed, “Good Lord! It came fifty feet before the gas finally stopped it.”
Denham sounded triumphant: “But I did stop it! Didn’t I tell you one of those bombs would stop anything?”


Merian C. Cooper's King Kong, Chapter 11