THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
293 
circumstances. Recent experience has., however, demonstrated that it 
has not been the custom to exercise any discrimination in the ' stowage 
of packages of gunpowder with other goods, when the former was 
insufficient in quantity to constitute a barge load. It is scarcely to be 
realised that the indifference with which gunpowder has been treated 
by those who undertake its transport by water could have attained such 
an extreme that powder packages could be stored in the hold of a barge 
side by side with casks of petroleum spirit, by persons whose experience 
must have made them cognizant of the liability to leakage of petroleum 
from such casks. Such leakage (occasioned perhaps by rough handling 
in placing it on board) must inevitably furnish in course of time an 
explosive atmosphere by the diffusion of inflammable vapour through 
the air confined in the barge-hold (which is closely covered in) ; the 
extension of this explosive mixture to the small opening which these 
barges contain in the bulkhead separating the hold from the small cabin, 
or its penetration through crevices in the bulkhead, is but an affair of 
time; and then, whichever of the several sources of fire provided on 
board the barge— i.e., the stove, lamp, or lucifer matches—happens to 
come within reach of the quickmatch which the explosive atmosphere 
constitutes, completes the arrangement for inflaming any small quantity 
of petroleum which may have leaked out on, or in close proximity to, 
a powder barrel. But for the fact that a concurrence of several condi¬ 
tions is essential to the communication of fire to gunpowder, through 
the agency of a leakage from a petroleum cask in a confined space, it 
can scarcely be doubted that the rude awakening which the public re¬ 
cently received to the danger they were frequently exposed to in the 
vicinity of canals where powder traffic goes on must have occurred long 
since. The simple flash produced by the ignition of a mixture of hydro¬ 
carbon vapour and air would probably not suffice to ignite powder- 
grains exposed to it; but any small quantity of the liquid itself which, 
leaking from a cask, has furnished the vapour, may be in close proxi¬ 
mity to a few grains of loose powder, or upon a powder barrel which is 
not securely closed, or some other simple conditions resulting in the 
conveyance of the fire to the powder may be fulfilled, and then explosion 
must ensue. 
The imperative necessity for better legislation in reference to the 
transport of powder has been so convincingly demonstrated by the 
Regents Park disaster, that the long-contemplated revision of the law 
relating to explosive agents would, there is little doubt, have been 
hastened thereby had the serious attention of the Government not 
already been devoted to this subject. During the first two years which 
succeeded the appointment of Government Inspectors of Gunpowder 
Pactories and Magazines, the unceasing labours of Major Majendie 
resulted in so convincing a demonstration of the utter inadequacy of the 
existing laws relating to the manufacture, storage, transport, and use of 
gunpowder and other explosive agents to afford protection to the 
public and to those dealing with these substances, that the intention 
(already entertained by the Government in 1865) of framing a bill to 
amend the Gunpowder Act was actively pursued by the late Ministry in 
1873. Although the submission to Parliament of new measures was 
