THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
259 
ON 
ACCIDENTAL EXPLOSIONS. 
A Lecture delivered at the Loyal Institution of Great Britain, in March 
BY 
F. A. ABEL, F.B.S., 
President of the Chemical Society, Vice President of the Society of Arts and the Society of Telegraph 
Engineers, Hon. Member of the Loyal Artillery and Loyal United Service Institutions, fyc. 
The winter of 1874-5 lias been unusually prolific in so-called acci¬ 
dental explosions. On Christmas Eve a colliery explosion entailed the 
sacrifice of seventeen lives, and on one day last January the “ Times ” 
published accounts of no less than six fatal explosions—two in collieries, 
involving the loss of eleven lives; three boiler explosions, by one of 
which seven persons were killed and twenty injured) and one coal-gas 
explosion, by which two lives were lost. All these were of the class 
ordinarily termed accidental, but in every case the casualty was traced 
to a cause which could have been foreseen and guarded against. 
The term “ accident,” applied in its strict sense to disasters caused 
by explosions, would imply that these were due to some circumstance, 
or combination of circumstances, entirely unforeseen, and that they were 
consequently unpreventable. An explosion which occurs during the 
preparation or investigation of a compound the explosive nature of 
which is as yet unknown.) may be purely accidental) but if, after the 
properties of the substance have been thoroughly ascertained and made 
known, an explosion occurs during its production, by some person who 
has not properly made himself acquainted with, or has neglected in 
some point or other, those conditions essential to its production with 
safety, the knowledge of which is within his reach, the term T acci¬ 
dental^ can certainly not be properly applied to it, although in all 
probability it would be so designated popularly, and even by those 
entrusted on behalf of the public with the investigation of its origin 
and results. The explosion occasioned by a person employing a lighted 
candle to search for a gas-escape in a room where there is a powerful 
odour of gas, or a gunpowder explosion resulting from the dropping 
of a spark into an open powder-barrel from a candle which is held over 
it, should properly have as little claim to be called “ accidental ” as a 
boiler explosion occasioned by a person tying down the safety-valve. 
There may be criminal intent in the latter case, which is entirely absent 
* Reprinted, by permission, from the “Proceedings of the Royal Institution” for 1875. 
34 
