246 
MINUTES OF PEOCEEDINGS OF 
A LIST OF SOME REMARKABLE AND IMPORTANT EXPLOSIONS 
OF GUNPOWDER WHICH ARE RECORDED AS HAYING 
OCCURRED PREYIOUS TO 1866. 
COMPILED BY 
MAJOR V. D. MAJENDIE, a.A., 
H.M.’S INSPECTOR OF GUNPOWDER WORKS. 
The following list of explosions of gunpowder makes no pretence to 
completeness, or to absolute accuracy. Indeed, one of the objects with 
which it has been submitted to the Royal Artillery Institution is that 
those who are in a position and willing to do so, may, when they see it 
in the “ Proceedings,” supply its probably numerous deficiencies by 
sending me information with regard to explosions not here included 
of which they may be in possession; and I shall be very grateful to any¬ 
one who will furnish me with such particulars, or who will point out 
any inaccuracies as to dates or other details in this list, or who will 
supply me with confirmatory information relative to the different explo¬ 
sions here mentioned. I shall thus be enabled hereafter, I hope, to 
compile a more complete and reliable record of this class of accidents. 
In fact, I should like the present list to be regarded merely as a 
skeleton which, with the assistance of my brother officers and others, I 
hope to be able some day to fill up. But, incomplete as it is, this list 
of explosions does, I believe, offer sufficient points of interest to warrant 
its publication in its present form; and it is, so far as I am aware, the 
fullest record of the sort at present extant. A noticeable point is the 
large proportion of serious explosions caused by lightning. Particulars 
as to these have been mainly obtained from a little book called the 
“Thunder Cloud,” by Professor Tomlinson. I am also indebted to 
some anonymous correspondents of “ Notes and Queries 33 for a good 
deal of the information ; and the details as to other explosions have 
