4 i2 MY LIFE 



adoption and to the consequent annual saving of life and 

 property. I was led to it by having seen the effects of the 

 explosion of a powder barge on the Regent's Canal when I 

 was living in the neighbourhood (sometime in the sixties) ; 

 and again while living at Grays and often passing the great 

 magazine at Purfleet, where there had been an explosion some 

 years before. On reading of the elaborate and costly pre- 

 cautions at all such magazines, and of explosions occurring 

 somewhere almost every year notwithstanding all precautions, 

 it occurred to me that there was a simple way of rendering 

 such explosions impossible, and at the same time reducing 

 largely the cost of storing explosives. 



The plan was to store all gunpowder, cartridges, and other 

 explosives in metal drums, either hexagonal or circular in 

 form and of uniform size and height, fitted at top with an 

 air-tight cap of a size suited to the kind of explosive it con- 

 tained. These drums would be arranged in rows in shallow- 

 open tanks, filled with water so as to cover the lids, the water 

 being kept at a uniform level by an inflow and overflow. Such 

 tanks would need no protection whatever, except against 

 thieves, and no precautions whatever would be required. For 

 the conveyance of powder, etc., trucks and barges with water- 

 tanks could be used, and in factories all explosive materials 

 should be kept under water, so that if an explosion occurred 

 during the actual processes of manufacture it would be strictly 

 limited, and could not extend either to the stores of material 

 or of the finished product, since if the water were all blown 

 away by the concussion the contents would remain uninjured. 



I drew up a careful statement of the advantages of this 

 plan, with a drawing of the proposed drum, and sent it through 

 a friend to Sir Thomas Brassey, then a Lord of the Admiralty, 

 requesting him to lay it before the proper authorities. In 

 reply I received a memorandum from the Director of Naval 

 Ordnance, referring me to the " Treatise of Ammunition, 

 1881," (a copy of which was sent), as to " the present service 

 powder-cases." He added that the plan would be difficult, 

 and perhaps impossible on board ship, on account of the extra 

 space required. The last paragraph was — 



