EXPLOSION OF THE NEW-ENGLAND. 477 
destroyed, and that part of the upper, or promenade deck, 
which extended from said cabin to the engine-room near the 
centre of the boat, had been sw^ept entirely away. The engine 
remained without injury ; but the steam-pipe which led from 
one of the boilers Avas broken off at its junction with the main 
steam-pipe in the engine-room, near the point where it unites 
with the steam-pipe from the starboard boiler. The Safety- 
valve, which is attached to the main steam-pipe at the junc- 
tion of the two branch pipes near the engine, remains unim- 
paired, and is a large and apparently well constructed valve. 
A mercurial steam-guage is attached to the main steam-pipe 
at this point, which serves to indicate to the engineer the 
pressure of steam in the boilers. The mercury was not thrown 
from this guage by the explosion, and the guage remained in 
good order after the accident. Two other mercurial guages 
of the same description were shown to us, which had been 
attached, one to each of the boilers on that part called the 
steam-chimney, which having no water in contact with its in- 
ner surface, becomes heated more than any other portion of 
the boiler. These guages had been torn from their places at 
the time of the explosion, and in one of them a portion of the 
mercury with which it had been charged was found remain- 
ing after the accident. 
The mutilated portions of the boilers which were examined, 
gave abundant evidence of the great power or force of the 
explosive action. They were found to be dismembered and 
torn in a manner which it is difficult to describe. The boilers 
were not, as occurs in some cases of steam-boat explosions, 
rent merely in the main flue, thus giving vent to the steam, 
or, as in other cases, with a head torn off and lacerated, and 
still retaining their external form, and remaining in their beds ; 
but the boilers of the New-England were torn asunder, and 
folded in massy doublings, like a garment ; and they were so 
crushed, flattened, and distorted, that, as they lay upon the 
wharf, after they were raised from the bed of the river, it was 
difficult for a common observer to discover how the mutilated 
parts were ever connected into symmetry, so as to combine 
just proportion and strength. 
The appearance of the boilers, however, was such as to in- 
dicate that they had been constructed in a substantial manner. 
The copper, in all the ruptured parts, had every appearance 
of being tough and free from flaws ; nor did it exhibit the 
flaking and discoloration which great heat is_ known to pro- 
duce upon the metal when not covered by water. The {\fter 
