48 REPORT— 1869. 



they were passing close to the wall of a two-storied building on the premises 

 at which the explosion occurred, the boiler burst, demolishing the building, 

 burying the children in the ruins, and crushing eight of them to death, in 

 addition to seriously injuring seventeen others. 



Sad as it is when those connected with boilers and who gain their liveli- 

 hood from working them arc injured, it is even more so when outsiders, who 

 have no interest in their use or control over their management, are victimized 

 by their explosion, more especially when these victims are women and 

 chUdreu. Such, however, is by no means an infrequent occurrence. In one 

 case, a child asleep in its bed, unconscious of all danger, was kiUed on the 

 spot by a fragment of an exploded boiler sent through the roof like a thunder- 

 bolt. In a second case, a young woman working at her needle in an upstairs 

 room in her own dwelling, was struck by a boiler which was hurled from its 

 seat, and dashed against the window at which she sat. The injury she received 

 was serious ; her leg had to be amputated, and death shortly after ensued. In 

 a third case, just as an infant was making its first assay at walking across the 

 kitchen-floor in a collier's cottage, a fragment of an exploded boiler came crash- 

 ing through the roof, and striking down the child, killed it on the spot. In a 

 fourth case, a woman was standing at her own cottage-door with an infimt in 

 her anus, when one of the bricks sent flying by the bursting of a boiler 

 struck her little one on the head, and killed it in its mother's arms. In a 

 fifth case, a group of boys were sporting in a meadow, when the boiler of a 

 locomotive engine, just drawn up at an adjoining railway-station, burst, and 

 scattering one of its fragments among the group, killed one of the boys on the 

 spot, and injured another. In a sixth case, a house in which an infirm old 

 woman lived, confined to her bed in an upstairs room, was demolished by a 

 boiler explosion, so that the poor woman, witli the bed on which she lay, was 

 rudely brought to the ground. In a seventh case, a man passing through a 

 public thoroughfare on horseback was struck by the debris showered around 

 by a boiler that happened to explode at the moment ; so that even those 

 casually passing by the premises at which steam-power is employed are not 

 safe from the attacks of bad boilers. It is no uncommou thing for dwelhng- 

 houses in the vicinity of boilers to be invaded on the occurrence of an explo- 

 sion with huge fragments, and to have tlieir windows and roofs riddled as if 

 they had been bombarded, while in some cases they are altogether de- 

 molished. Many other cases similar to the above might be added ; but the 

 facts already given are, it is thought, sufficient to show that those who use 

 steam-boilers are not the only parties who sufter from their explosion. Thus 

 the subject acquires a wider interest, and becomes not only important to 

 steam-users, but also to the public at large. 



It is therefore desirable that public attention should be tlioroughly aroused 

 on the subject of steam-boiler explosions, while it is clearly well worthy of 

 the consideration of the Members of the British Association. 



II. The Committee pass on, in the second place, to state that the attention 

 of its Members has for years been directed to the cause of these sad cata- 

 strophes, and that they have invariably found that steam-boiler explosions, 

 though so complicated and disastrous in their results, have sprung from 

 causes of the simplest character. 



In some cases explosions arise from the boilers having been originally mal- 

 constructed, the furnace- tubes, for instance, not having been strengthened, as 

 experience has shown to be necessary, by encircling rings or flanged seams, 

 or other approved and suitable means ; and, in consequence of the neglect of 

 these simple precautious, which may readily be adopted by any one, a con- 



