534 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 4 



set about half way up the concrete wall. Within a minute after the 

 pasting of the paper began, a "pop" was heard within the treated 

 room and immediately this was followed by a low, rumbling explosion 

 which blew the door off entirely and threw the workmen to a distance 

 of about thirty feet. These men were unconscious for several minutes 

 but not seriously hurt. The two in front of the door were protected from 

 the flame by the door while another man standing beside the door was 

 quite badly burned in the face, the flames being deflected toward him 

 by the falhng door. Fire immediately followed the explosion and in 

 spite of the convenient presence of an abundant supply of water and 

 a large force of men, it was found very difficult to extinguish the fire. 

 The corn shucks were burned more or less to a depth of two or three 

 feet in the mass. The gas still continuing to rise was too dilute for 

 explosion but still inflammable and was not easily quenched even with 

 an abundant supply of water. Undoubtedly the concrete w^all to- 

 gether with the corrugated iron roof saved what must otherwise have 

 been a complete loss of the building and contents. 



As it is the explosion caused two slight cracks in the concrete wall 

 a foot or more thick. The floor over the corn and the entire roof of 

 the building was hfted probably at least a foot in height and then fell 

 back to approximately its original position. Wooden partition walls 

 were blown out in all directions. Heavy 4x4 studding was split 

 and misplaced. It is evident that the explosion occurred throughout 

 the mass of corn as corn was hurled in all directions. An interesting 

 evidence of this may be seen where a 2 x 10 inch floor timber was split 

 lengthwise about in the middle, the upper part being lifted with the 

 floor above and a space thus occurred between it and the lower part 

 which was lifted less. Between these two parts of this floor timber, 

 five or six ears of corn were found wedged tightly after the explosion. 

 They had evidently been caught in the act of passing through this 

 space as the timbers settled together. 



The injury to the grain was not great although the shucks were 

 burned more or less on several hundred bushels of corn. Even on 

 ears where the fire destroyed all of the shuck on one side, live, active 

 weevils occurred and were evidently unaffected on the other side of 

 the ear. The damage to the building is comparatively small on account 

 of its type of construction but may prove to be greater than now 

 appears. 



Naturally an accident of this kind calls for the fullest investigation 

 and this was given by the writer about two weeks after the explosion 

 occurred. 



After fully examining the premises, talking with those who had 

 apphed the treatment and studying the conditions existing at that 



