ON coroners' inquisitions on boiler explosions. 47 



speeds. This proves that we can have no ground for certainty that wo have 

 found even an approximation to the hest form, unless we have gone experi- 

 mentally over almost the whole ground and tested a very wide variety of 

 shape. But, independently of this aspect of the question, it is, I think, cer- 

 tain that on very many important questions, such as, for instance, the proper 

 ratio of length to breadth, there is no really established principle of judg- 

 ment on which reliance can be placed. Yet most weighty considerations 

 affecting economy and efficiency are involved in the settlement of even that 

 single question. Eut unless we build mere experimental ship-sized models, 

 there seems no possibility of detennining the question by full-scale expe- 

 riments. 



It is true that the circumstances under whicli my experiments were 

 tried did not admit of such exactness as to render them absolutely conclu- 

 sive as the sole basis of the theory of comparative resistance in terms of 

 dimension. Nor do I bj' any means pretend to be certain that there are 

 no elements of resistance other than I have taken account of in my theoretical 

 justification of it; but if any such do exist, they can be detected, and the 

 laws of their operation discovered with far greater facility and completeness 

 by small-scale than by full-size experiments. And I contend that unless the 

 reliability of small-scale experiments is emphatically disproved, it is useless 

 to spend vast sums of money upon full-size trials, which, after all, may be 

 misdirected, unless the ground is thoroughly cleared beforehand by an ex- 

 haustive investigation on small scale. 



Report of the Committee apjwinted to consider and report how far 

 Coronei's' Inquisitions are satisfactory Tribunals for the Investiga- 

 tion of Boiler Explosions, and how these Tribunals may be im- 

 proved, the Committee consisting of William Fairbairn, C.E., 

 F.R.S., LL.D., ^c, Joseph Whitworth, C.E., F.R.S., John Penn, 

 C.E., F.R.S., John Hick^ C.E., 31. P., Frederick J. Bramwell, 

 C.E., Thomas Webster, Q.C, Hugh Mason, Samuel Rigby, 

 William Richardson, C.E., and E. Lavington Fletcher, C.E. 



I. Boiler explosions continue to occur with their accustomed frequency and 

 fatality. Since the Meeting of the British Association held last year in 

 Norwich not less than 46 explosions have occurred, by which 78 persons 

 have been killed, in addition to 114 others having been injured ; and as 

 these catastrophes take place with considerable regularitj-, there is every 

 reason to apprehend that a similar number of explosions, causi7ig the loss of 

 a similar number of lives and a similar amount of bodily injury, wiU trans- 

 pire before the next Meeting of the British Association, unless some very 

 immediate measures are adopted for arresting these sad disasters. 



The fearful explosion which occurred on the 9th of Juno last, at Biugley, 

 by which as many as fifteen persons were killed and thirty-three others in- 

 jured, some of them veiy seriously, will be fresh in the remembrance of 

 every one ; more especiullj- from the fact that amongst those killed and in- 

 jured were a number of women, having no connexion whatever with the 

 works at which the explosion occurred, as well as a number of little children. 

 These children were exercising in an adjoining playground, when just as 



