1 5$ 
Sleetin' Boiler at Lochrbi Distillery 
Wernerian Society, on the 14th of April last, the Writer of it 
has again visited the scene of the explosion, in company with 
Mr Neill, secretary to that society, Mr Bald, engineer, and Mr 
Gutzmer, iron-founder and engine-maker ; when the circum- 
stances of this catastrophe were again inquired into, though 
without being able to come to any very satisfactory result upon 
the immediate cause of the accident. 
Upon inspecting the boiler, in order to ascertain if it had been 
heated to a state of incandescence, one end of the bottom bore 
marks of a brownish colour*, such as iron generally exhibits 
when cooled from a state of redness, while, at the opposite 
extremitv, ascertained to be the end of the boiler next to the 
furnace-door, part of a leaden plug, filling one of the rivet- 
holes, was found unmelted in its place. This leaden plug had 
been introduced with a view more effectually to guard against 
the very accident which we are now supposing to have happen- 
ed, by the bottom of the boiler getting red-hot, and the introduc- 
tion of a jet of water while it was in that state. 
The circumstance of the leaden plug having been found un- 
altered in its place in the inside of the bottom of the boiler, seems 
to show that the part next to the furnace door had not been in 
a state of incandescence, otherv/rse this plug must have been melt- 
ed in the interior, as it was either melted or had been broken off* 
on the exterior side of the boiler, and disappeared. But it is 
possible that a quantity of water had remained in the boiler 
at the moment of the explosion, and that the current of air near 
the furnace door had been sufficient to prevent the inside part 
of the plug from melting. In a boiler 37 feet long, its bottom 
might be so distorted by the heat of the furnace, that a small 
quantity of water might remain at one end, while the other end 
was heated to redness ; and this, on the introduction of water, 
would suddenly produce the extrication of gases sufficient, by 
their expansive force, to cause the explosion. 
It is hardly possible to conceive that such violent and instan- 
taneous effects could proceed from steam raised in the usual 
way, as there were two safety-valves in the top of the boiler, 
which were said to have been loaded with not mo l re than 40 
pounds to the square inch. It seems most probable, therefore, 
that the immediate cause of this accident, was the unduly heated 
