282 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
the store was li era ita: In all there were three hun- 
30,000 on the first floor, and 80, 000 on the third floor 
the eae the aggregate was more than double the weight 
of the nitre 
It was, $6 wever, the anoaunk opinion of mn best acquainted with 
the subject, that when ignited with combustibles, nitre produces only 
that species of combustion which is called deflagration by chemists 
ployed by the Cerporation of New York) to explode nitre by ignition 
with combustibles. 
Nevertheless, agreeably to Hayes, of Massachusetts, an explosion 
was effected in his laboratory, by bringing water into contact with 
about 100 lbs. . incandescent nitre; also the accidental falling of a 
ye of melted nitre on some water, in the piel of the University 
of ace had been productive of a similar 
The explosion of a vessel laden with nitre, which, while lying in 
Boston harbor, was burnt to the water’s edge, an others similarly 
in a letter, addressed to the distinguished chemist above mentioned, 
in July, 1845, Dr. Hare had adverted to the explosion which su ucceeds 
ps combustion of atpry um upon water, as arising from the combina- 
n of one ~ ion of the water with the resulting incandescent 
-and the oxyd, in causing the water and heated globule to coalesce, is 
equivalent in efficacy to the momentum of the hammer when a bar of 
_ upon an anvil. 
Dr. Hare presumes that no explosion can take place unless the re- 
agents for producing it are held or brought together, at he moment of 
reaction, by a certain foree, either chemical or mechanic 
Some chemical compounds, such as are formed with penal acid, 
or with ammonia, by metallic oxyds, also the chlorid of nitrogen an 
perchloric ether, explode violently without sonboene® so as to frac- 
ture a plate or saucer, upon which a small quantity may be det onated ; 
but pulverulent mixtures, such as gunpowder, pase Yn ex- 
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