THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
275 
regards the first point, it certainly gives ample power to licensing 
authorities; but that legislation is urgently needed in regard to the 
second, was demonstrated by the recent fearful catastrophe on the 
Grand Junction Canal. 
The liability of oil or spirit to leak from casks or barrels, even of the 
best construction, consequent upon the rough usage to which these are 
unavoidably subjected when transferred from store to ship or carriage, 
and the reverse, need scarcely be pointed out. But even in the 
absence of leakage from the openings of the barrels, or from any acci¬ 
dental point of escape, evaporation or diffusion of the volatile petroleum 
will occur through the wood itself of which they are constructed, espe¬ 
cially in the warm holds of ships or in stores exposed to the sun, even 
though the precautionary measure is frequently adopted of rinsing the 
barrel out before use with a solution of glue. It is evident that the 
object of imparting an impervious coating to the interior of the barrel 
can thus be only very imperfectly attained, and that, even if it were, 
the alternations of temperature to which the barrels must be exposed 
must in course of time open up places for escape by leakage or 
evaporation. 
It is stated, on the authority of the manager of the extensive depot 
for petroleum oil and spirit of the London Wharfing and Warehousing 
Company, at Plaistow, on the Thames, that in spite of the adoption of 
special arrangements for keeping down the temperature of the petroleum- 
spirit stores, whereby it is made not to exceed 62° Fahr. in the very 
hottest weather, the loss of spirit by leakage and evaporation is very 
considerable, amounting to an average of 18 per cent. As the loss on 
petroleum oil from leakage at the same establishment amounts to about 
9 per cent., it is evident that the limpidity and volatility of the spirit 
give rise to a loss as great again as that which is simply due to leakage 
from imperfectly closed vents or defects developed by rough usage. 
The dangers resulting from the escape of petroleum spirit or its 
vapour from receptacles in which it is kept, in confined spaces, where 
little or no ventilation exists, has been but too frequently exemplified 
by explosions more or less violent, followed by fires, in localities where 
it is stored or handled, or in the holds of vessels in which it is trans¬ 
ported. Accidents of such kinds have been due either to carelessness 
in transferring petroleum from one vessel to another, in a shop or store 
in which a light has been burning at the time, or to a light being 
carried into, or a match struck in, a store where vapour has been 
escaping until it has formed an explosive mixture with the air. The 
explosion which occurred in a sewer at Greenwich last January, and 
was productive of much damage, was clearly traced to the entrance 
into the sewer of certain petroleum products (from a patent gas 
factory in the neighbourhood); the vapour from these had formed an 
explosive mixture with the air, which had become accidentally lighted— 
perhaps by the dropping of an inflamed pipe-light through one of the 
sewer-gratings. The speaker has a vivid recollection of an accident of 
this kind which he witnessed at the Boyal College of Chemistry in 
1847. Mr. C. B. Mansfield, who was then engaged in his important 
researches on the composition of coal-tar naphtha, which led a few 
36 
