THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
247 
been culled from the “ Annual Register,” the <e Dictionary of Dates,” 
and various sources. 
It is a remarkable circumstance that in three instances the number of 
persons killed is set down as 3000. There is a roundness about this 
figure which suggests grave doubts as to its accuracy; but the exact 
figure is of less consequence than the fact—of which there can, I 
imagine, be no doubt—that three explosions of a tremendously disas¬ 
trous character did occur at the places named, in 1654, 1769, and 1794. 
Other explosions of a very formidable description are recorded, by which 
1000, 400, 300, 200, 180, and (on two occasions) 100 persons respec¬ 
tively are said to have been killed, and immense damage was done to 
property. Here, also, I do not think too much importance should be 
attached to the precise figures—which appear open, in nearly all cases, to 
very considerable doubt; but the fact that records exist of so large a 
number of very fatal explosions, shews that the apprehensions of danger 
from explosions which is periodically excited by such accidents as the 
one which ocurred at Erith in 1864, and the more recent explosion in 
the Regent's Park in October, 1874, are by no means fanciful or exag¬ 
gerated, but may be justified by an appeal to actual occurrences. Of 
such occurrences, the well-authenticated. explosion at Leyden, 1807— 
by which 200 persons are said to have been killed, and a large portion 
of the town to have been destroyed—and the explosion at Eisenach, in 
1810—by which it is recorded 54 persons were killed, and great 
damage was done to property—afford suggestive examples, and illus¬ 
trate very effectively the dangers which may arise during the transport 
of gunpowder through populous places. 
Several minor accidents are included in this list as having occurred 
at gunpowder factories, and I have hesitated as to whether they ought 
to be mentioned; but I have determined on doing so, on the ground 
that they are contributions towards the more complete record of explo¬ 
sions which I am not without hope of being able to compile hereafter, 
and also because the importance of an explosion is not always to be 
measured by the resulting loss of life—a point which is well illustrated 
by the Regent's Park explosion, where only three persons were killed, 
but where the damage to property was very extensive, and by the 
explosion of the “Lottie Sleigh” at Liverpool, when no lives were 
lost. 
Home Oeeice, Whitehall, 
1st July, 1875. 
