90 Account of an Explosion of Oil Gas 



Dr Brewster, Mr Hunter of Thurston, and others, when the 

 gas meter G, and the pipes leading to and from it, were found 

 quite entire and right. The knee, or pipe before mentioned at 

 b, Fig. 2, which supplied gas to the burner in the shoe-house, 

 was found, as it was before the accident, rivetted to the wall, but 

 without the jet burner belonging to it. The fastenings of the 

 service pipes, and every part of the gas apparatus were exa- 

 mined, and appeared to be in the best order. 



It is, of course, impossible to ascertain, by direct evidence, 

 how the shoe-house came to be filled with gas; but Mr 

 Milne's workmen and the company's inspector concur in opi- 

 nion, that it could not escape from the service pipes or the 

 meter ; and that there was no other possible way in which it 

 could have escaped, except from the open pipe belonging to 

 the burner b in the shoe-house. Dr Brewster concurs in opi- 

 nion with the inspector, that this pipe would fill so small a 

 space as this unventilated shoe-house in little more than two 

 hours, and he also concurs with him in the belief, that it was 

 from this pipe that the escape took place. They are further 

 confirmed in this opinion, by the mode in which the gas burn- 

 ed in the dining-room in the earlier part of the evening, for if the 

 end of this pipe were left without the burner during the day 

 time, the atmospheric air would enter the service pipe through 

 it, and displace the gas in the distributing pipes throughout the 

 house to a certain extent, so that, when the gas was first lighted 

 in the dining-room, the pure gas, propelled forward by the at- 

 mospheric air, would burn with its usual brightness, until it was 

 expended, and the flame came in contact first with the mixture 

 of gas and air, when it would burn blue, and next with pure at- 

 mospheric air, when the light would be extinguished ; but when 

 the gas was turned on by the stop-cock on the general service 

 pipe, the pressure on it would naturally force the atmos- 

 pheric air wholly out of the pipe and the lustres would light 

 again ; while, at the same time, the gas would be driven out 

 with great velocity by the pressure from the street through 

 the open pipe b in the shoe-house, so as to fill the place in a 

 very short period. Dr Brewster is of opinion, that the jet 

 burner could not be displaced from the mouth of the pipe by 

 the explosion, and he also stated, that had it been allowed to 



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