226 Steam Boiler Legislation. [April, 



destructive effects of boiler explosions. It is taken from 

 some hundreds in the possession of the " Steam Users' 

 Association for the Prevention of Boiler Explosions." It 

 does not exhibit one of the most fatal and disastrous 

 occurrences to life and property as some others ; but the 

 catastrophe is sufficient to claim the sympathies of the 

 public, and to enlist the interference of the Government, 

 and that more particularly when we are assured that immu- 

 nity from these disasters may be obtained from careful 

 periodical inspection. It is not high pressure steam that we 

 have to fear, but unsuitable vessels, designed and con- 

 structed by ignorance, and want of proper inspection we 

 have to guard against. These defects remedied, by sound 

 principles of construction in the first instance, and careful 

 inspection in the second, would go far to make boiler explo- 

 sion the exception and not the rule. 



" This explosion, which took place a few minutes after 

 one o'clock on the afternoon of Monday, December 23rd, 

 was of a very disastrous character, as many as six persons 

 being killed, and four others injured, while the dye works at 

 which it occurred were levelled to the ground. 



" The boiler, which was set immediately under the drying 

 room, was of the ordinary Cornish construction, being inter- 

 nally fired, and containing a single furnace tube. Its length 

 was 18 feet, its diameter in the shell 6 feet, and in the 

 furnace tube about 3 feet 2 inches, while the thickness of 

 the plates was three-eighths of an inch, and the blowing-off 

 pressure about 25 lbs. on the square inch. 



"The boiler failed at the bottom of the external shell, 

 rending longitudinally from one end to the other, when the 

 whole was lifted from its seat, and the entire works laid in 

 ruins. It was to this that the loss of so many lives was 

 due, and not to scalding, or injuries received directly from 

 the boiler, but to the fall of the works upon the poor fellows 

 who were crushed and buried in the ruins. 



" The cause of the explosion was but too apparent on 

 examination. The boiler, which was set on a midfeather 

 wall, had been shamefully neglected; the external brickwork 

 flues were very damp, leakage had occurred at many of the 

 seams, the boiler had not been properly examined, and ex- 

 ternal corrosion had been allowed to go on eating into the 

 plates till they were wasted away at the bottom of the shell 

 to the thickness of a sheet of brown paper, almost from one 

 end of the boiler to the other. The boiler was totally unfit 

 for work, and it is a matter of surprise how it withstood the 



