The Locomotive - Lighthouse Survival Blog

26 THE LOCOMOTIVE. [February,
injured meu are nearly all frightfully scalded. McDonald and McAdam can hardly re-
cover. Bricks and massive stonework were hurled everywhere within a radius of a hun-
dred j'ards. Seven other boilers were displaced and the settings leveled. Xot a portion
of the boiler-house remains standing. How so many of those who were working
around at the time escaped is a mystery, as flying bricks and stones, pieces of timber,
and scalding steam and water were thrown with great force in a seething circle.
Coal Yard (239). A donkey engine and boiler of about lO-horse powder, used in
hoisting at T. S. Corson's coal yard, New Bedford, ]\Iass., exploded on Dec. 28th.'' The
boiler and engine were blown into the river and lost. The engineer was temporarily
absent, and nobody was hurt.
Carpet Cleaning Shop (240). A boiler used by the Electric Carpet-Cleaning Company
on Duquesne Way, Pittsburgh, Pa., exploded on Dec. 29th. Jacob O. Cox, foreman
of the concern, was blown through tlie side of the building. He was picked up
fifty feet away, unconscious, crushed, and bleeding, and he died shortly after. Clar-
ence Shaw% a boy employed as a driver by the company, who was in the jDlace when the
explosion occurred, was badly scalded and bruised, and may die. The building was badly
wrecked by the force of the explosion and the flying sections of boiler and timbers. Shaw
was hurled with terrible force through a big opening in the north wall of the room. His
body jiassed out, but his feet caught in the wreckage inside the wall, and he hung suspended
in the air, head downwards, and fifty feet above the sidewalk. It required some
little time to reach him, owing to the fact that the room was filled with broken timbers.
Steel Mills (241). A boiler at the Illinois Steel Mills in Joliet, 111., exploded on
Dec. 29th, and James J. Eastwood, the fireman, was frightfully scalded by steam. He
may live, however.
Saw-Mill (242). On Dec. 29th a boiler exploded in Duke & Blurus's saw -mill, in
Jaken, Ga. James Wilbanks, Griffin Phillips, and Joe Smith were killed. The prop-
erty loss was small,
Saw-]Mill (243). A saw-mill boiler at Oakdale, near Lima, Ohio, exploded on Dec.
31st, blowing the building to atoms and killing Frank Smith and Lon F. Miller. Sev-
eral others who were near the mill at the time were injured. The shock was felt for
miles.
Summary of Boiler Explosions for the Year 1892.
We present herewith our usual summary and classified list of the boiler explosions
that have taken place during the past year. So far as we could learn, the total number
of explosions was 269, against 257 for 1891, and 226 for 1890. In several cases, more
than one boiler has exploded at the same time. When this has happened, we have
counted each boiler separately, believing that in this way a fairer idea of the amount of
damage may be had.
It is diflficult to make up an accurate list of the killed and injured, because in making
out our lists we have to depend largely upon the newspapers, and the accounts we
find there are often unsatisfactory. We have spared no pains, however, to make the
summary as accurate as possible, and in some cases we have gone over as many as twenty
accounts of a single explosion in order to extract such information as we could concern-
ing the injuries and the loss of life involved. So far as we could learn there have been
269 explosions during the year, which resulted in the death of 298 persons, and in