354 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 219. 



which was being used as a shampoo, illus- 

 trates anew the manifold uses to which 

 these hydrocarbons are being put, and it 

 brought out strongly the belief of com- 

 petent authorities, like Lord Kelvin, that 

 these substances could be ignited by fric- 

 tional electricity ; a theory which had been 

 offered before in explanation of accidents in 

 which there was no other apparent source 

 of ignition. 



The widespread distribution of these 

 spirits in the hands of retailers, or as used 

 for carburetters in isolated vapor-lighting 

 plants and as employed in the arts for sol- 

 vents, cleansing agents and for other pur- 

 poses has led to their accumulation, through 

 leakage or by being discharged after use, 

 in low places, such as cellars, cisterns, wells, 

 sewers and the bilges of ships, where they 

 have remained, in some instances for long 

 periods of time, unknown and unnoticed, 

 their origin even being completely forgotten 

 and untraceable, until, when, in the course 

 of events, these out-of-the-way places have 

 been reentered, these bodies have given rise 

 to accidents. It is a well-known precaution 

 of the past before entering a well or cave to 

 test its atmosphere for carbon dioxide by 

 means of a naked candle, but this very 

 method of procedure has, since the intro- 

 duction of petroleum, been the cause of 

 accidents, and to be assured of security we 

 must now remove and test the air before 

 entering. 



The extended consumption of naphtha for 

 carburretting water gas, and the ease with 

 which it is convej'ed through pipes, has re- 

 sulted in the use of systems of pipe lines in 

 our cities to carry the oil from the trans- 

 portation lines or store tanks to the works. 

 Such a line was laid in Rochester, New 

 York, and on December 21, 1887, it gave 

 rise to an explosion which killed three men, 

 seriously injured twenty, destroyed three 

 large flour mills, tore up the streets for a 

 considerable distance and inflicted an esti- 



mated loss of $250,000. This pipe line, 

 which was made of 3-inch wrought-iron 

 pipe, one and one-half miles in length, had 

 been in successful use for six years, the 

 spirits being pumped through it every two 

 weeks in lots of from twelve to fifteen thous- 

 and gallons each. From the Appeal Book' 

 in re Ann Lee vs. The Vacuum Oil Co., 

 Rochester, 1889, we learn that the convey- 

 ance of the naptha was complete on De- 

 cember 7th ; on December 8th the contrac- 

 tors constructing a sewer exposed a section 

 of the pipe line for several feet, and in 

 blasting beneath it a piece of rock struck 

 the pipe with sufficient force to bend it up 

 nearly nine inches at the point struck and 

 to separate it at a joint farther on under- 

 ground and closely connected with a sewer ; 

 that on the day fixed for the next delivery, 

 December 21st, the Oil Company, being 

 unaware of the then-existing conditions, 

 pumped the full supply into the pipe, none 

 of which reached the gas works, but, on the 

 contrary, found its way, by the broken joint, 

 into tlie sewers, and was thus distributed 

 over the city ; that the pumping of the oil 

 began at 12:15 p. m.; the odor was noticed 

 shortly after 1 p. m., coming from a sewer 

 at a point nearly a mile distant from the 

 break ; the first explosion occurred at this 

 point at 3:20 p. m., and immediately ex- 

 tended westward back to the break and 

 eastward to the outlet of the sewers, tossing 

 up manhole plates, uplifting roadways and 

 overturning buildings ; that the explosive 

 mixture was ignited by a fire under a steam 

 boiler, and that this vapor found its way 

 from the sewer to the fire through an un- 

 trapped water closet at a point where ex- 

 haust steam was being injected into the 

 sewer. 



At the trial, Mr. F. L. King, p. 173, 

 stated that crude naphtha, flashing point 

 13°F., percolated through earth six times as 

 fast as water at the same temperature, his 

 several experiments being made with tern- 



