4 MEMOIR ON THE 



3. A series of detonations, successively increasing in loudness, were followed 

 by a final explosion of which, agreeably to an affidavit, the report resembled a 

 " loud clap of thunder." This tore into pieces the building within which it took 

 place, threw down seven houses in the vicinity, and drove in the fronts of the 

 houses on the opposite side of the street, at the distance of eighty-seven feet. 

 The whole of the space within which these tremendous effects took place, was 

 filled with a dazzling flame, and various masses, intensely ignited and vividly 

 luminous, were projected aloft as if expelled from a volcano, so as, on alighting, 

 to spread the conflagration far and wide. Shipping anchored in the Hudson River, 

 probably at the distance of more than a quarter of a mile, were greatly endangered 

 by these deflagrating missiles. 



4. So violent was the atmospheric concussion, that people were prostrated by 

 the consequent blast, when too remote to be injured by the flames or flying frag- 

 ments. Some persons were wounded or killed, but so small was the number, in 

 comparison with that of the multitude which might have been mutilated or de- 

 stroyed, that there was more gratulation for the escape of the many, than sorrow 

 over the few who actually perished. This comparative immunity was due to the 

 warning given by the detonations which, as already mentioned, preceded that by 

 which the mischief was effected. 



5. The natural inference arising from the detonations thus alluded to, was, that 

 gunpowder had been stored in parcels of various amounts on the different floors of 

 the store, the smaller portions above, the larger below, and that the detonations 

 were the consequence of the successive ignition of the parcels thus situated. The 

 cry of gunpowder was raised on the occurrence of the first explosion, and caused 

 the retreat of almost everybody near the quarter whence it proceeded. Hence 

 before the final catastrophe, the streets about the store were entirely vacated, so 

 that scarcely any person was injured besides those in the houses opposite to the 

 conflagration. 



6. Notwithstanding the reasonableness of the belief at first created, as to the 

 agency of gunpowder, there was the most conclusive evidence, so far as the oaths 

 of worthy and well-informed witnesses could avail, that no gunpowder was con- 

 tained in the building within which the explosions occurred. Of course, the real 

 cause of the disaster became a subject of perplexing consideration for chemists in 

 general, and especially for those adepts in chemistry, to whom the Corporation of 

 the city concerned applied for an elucidation of the mystery. 



7. It was fully established by the statements of the highly respectable proprie- 

 tors, and that of their store-house clerk, that there were in the store more than 

 three hundred thousand pounds of nitre, secured in double gunny bags, containing 

 one hundred and eighty pounds of nitre each, in piles alternating with heaps of 

 combustible merchandise ; yet as, agreeably to ordinary experience, such com- 

 bustibles deflagrate when ignited with nitre, without exploding, this did not remove 

 the unfavorable impressions unjustly created respecting the occupants of the store. 

 The stowing of any large quantity of gunpowder adequate to the effects produced, 

 had been culpably imprudent and illegal; and coupled with a most solemn denial 



