1885.] on Accidental Explosions by Non-explosive Liquids. 226 



in exiHosives has since then been subject, has rendered the recurrence 

 of that identical kind of catastrophe almost out of the question, but 

 an illustration has not been wanting quite recently of the fact that, 

 but for the respect commanded by the rigour of the law, barges passing 

 through towns would probably still carry freights composed of 

 petroleum spirit and powder or other explosives, being at the same 

 time provided with a stove, lamp and matches for the convenient 

 production of explosions. In August 1883 an explosion occurred on 

 the canal at Bath, in a barge which sank immediately, the master 

 being slightly injured ; the freight of the vessel consisted of petroleum, 

 benzoline, and lucifer-matches. 



The last four years have furnished several very remarkable illus- 

 trations of great injuries inflicted on ships by explosions, the origin of 

 which was traced to the existence on board of only small quantities of 

 some preparation containing petroleum spirit, or benzoline, with the 

 nature of which the men who had charge of them were not properly 

 acquainted. These materials had consequently been so dealt with as 

 to become the means of filling more or less confined spaces in the ships 

 with an explosive atmosphere which, when some portion of it reached 

 a flame, was fired throughout, with violently destructive effects. 



The first authenticated case of an accident due to this cause 

 occurred in June 1880, on board the Pacific Steam Navigation 

 Company's steamer Coquimho shortly after her arrival in the 

 morning at Valparaiso from Coquimbo. A violent explosion took 

 place, without any warning or apparent cause, in the fore-peak of the 

 vessel, blowing out several plates of the bow and doing other structural 

 damage, besides killing the ship's carpenter; the explosion could 

 only be accounted for by the circumstance that a small quantity of a 

 benzoline preparation used for painting purposes (probably as 

 "driers") was stored in the fore-peak and that a mixture of the 

 vapour from this with the air had become ignited. The sufferer was 

 the only person who could have thrown light upon the precise cause 

 of the accident, but there was no other material whatever in that part 

 of the ship to which the explosion could have been in any way 

 ascribed. 



In May 1881 an explosion of a trifling character occurred on 

 board H.M.S. Cockatrice in Sheerness Dockyard, in consequence 

 of a man going into the store-room with a naked light and holding it 

 close to a small can which was uncorked at the time, and which 

 contained a preparation recently introduced into the naval service as 

 a " driers " for use with paint, under the name of Xerotine Siccative. 

 This preparation, which was of foreign origin, appears to have been 

 adopted for use in the naval service and to have been issued to 

 H.M. ships generally without any knowledge of its composition, and 

 without attention being directed to the fact that it consisted very 

 largely of the most volatile petroleum spirit, which would evaporate 

 freely if the liquid were exposed to air at ordinary temperatures, and 

 the escape of which from a can, jar or cask, placed in some confined 

 Vol. XI. (No. 79.) ' q 



