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the fire in the arsenal at Woolwich, and the explosion of a rocket factory, on Monday, the 24th September, 1883. We beg to draw the reader's attention to the following account, drawn up immediately after the occurrence. Not merely is it interesting as giving an account of the disaster, but as showing how strangely wild and exaggerated rumours may spread, even in this age of telegraphs and telephones.

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'One of those terrible alarms to which all places appropriated to the storage of munitions of war must inevitably be subject held Woolwich Arsenal in a state of the gravest suspense and apprehension for nearly two hours of yesterday forenoon; and it is no wonder that the first rumours of the disaster should have spread with rapid growth, attaining such magnified proportions in London as to induce a general supposition that the Arsenal itself, with great part of the town of Woolwich, had suffered wreck, and that a fearful loss of life with much bodily mutilation had ensued on the explosion of a rocket factory. An explosion, or prolonged series of explosions, of war-rockets, in the immediate neighbourhood of other dangerous material, was enough to create a wide-spread feeling of dread; but by noon at the latest the peril was at an end, and within an hour from that time confidence was restored and the suspended operations of the Arsenal were renewed. The extent of the injury, inside and outside, was, moreover, ascertained even to the smallest particular. Leaving aside for the moment the first wild stories of distant consequences, such as deaths by the fall of the rockets at Plumstead and spots more remote, we may shortly sum up the whole mortality and damage. A man and a boy, who were together in the small building-which measured forty feet by twenty feet, and consisted of a brick-enclosed ground-space with a glazed roof-were killed; two or three of the adjacent buildings were struck,

and one was pierced, by rockets; the barrack-wall in Artillery-road, Woolwich, was grazed by a rocket-head; another missile fell in the back yard of a tradesman named Rees; a rocket entered one of the windows of Messrs. Weekes and Payne, drapers in the town, and fortunately buried itself in a pile of blankets; and yet another descended through an iron roofing, within the Arsenal, into a wooden shed adjoining the office of Messrs. Sales and Co., barge-owners, and contractors to the government. It is remarkable that all these rockets struck places in close contiguity with busy life, yet hurt no one, and did, comparatively speaking, little damage to property. The most alarming incident, beyond the walls of the doomed building itself, was the horizontal penetration of a small brick building, No. 7, which contained explosive material. Entering a window at one end, the rocket went out at the other, having traversed the interior space without further injury than a smashing of glass and a splintering of timber. A melancholy fact relates to the sad fate of the boy, Daniel Carlick, whose terribly mangled body was found in a corner of the building. This poor

lad had been on the sick list for a short time, and had returned to work at six o'clock that morning. His elder companion, Richard Stevenson, was blown out of the building, and when picked up had his head doubled under him. Both man and boy must have been killed instantaneously.

Such-though a few particulars may still be added-is the main sum and substance of a formidable accident. The building where the explosions took place is situated upon what are known as the marshes, a long stretch of lowlying ground skirting the Thames, separated from the Arsenal proper by a canal which, at no great distance, flows into the river. into the river. Here in detached structures, small in size and light in forma

tion, is carried on the work of manufacturing rockets of the various descriptions used in warfare, as well as of examining those which have been returned from home and foreign service, to ascertain that they are in good condition before being re-issued. Over a dozen such buildings dot this part of the marshes, most of them about the same size, and built in the same fashion. The walls are of yellow brick faced, so as to give them some degree of ornamentation, with white, and they are covered with a very light roof supported by thin iron girders. The floors are of wood, kept constantly damp with water to reduce as far as possible the danger of such accidents as that which took place yesterday. Those who are employed in the buildings all wear special shoes with the same object. Between each factory large grass-covered mounds are raised, so that should a disaster happen it would not involve the others. The site of the accident is on the outskirt of the cluster of rocket-houses, and close to the Thames. Like the others, it was all on one floor, forty feet long by twenty wide, without partitions; and on each side were five large apertures, either doors or windows.

It was not used for the manufacture of the missiles, but for examining and repainting them. Thousands of rockets. are constantly being returned to Woolwich, after they have been lying unused at stations for some time, to be examined to prove their serviceable condition and to be refurbished. These were not shell-rockets, but conical iron-headed 24lb. projectiles, generally used for routing or disconcerting cavalry. Their cast-iron heads were cased with steel, and to an inexperienced eye these pointed ends had the appearance of shells, so that surprise was occasioned in several instances by their not having exploded.

Work had gone on all the morning as usual until about ten minutes after ten o'clock, when the superintendent of this

was

department, Mr. Wall, while sitting in his office, heard a noise which his ear at once knew to be caused by the ignition of a rocket. A minute or two enough to bring him to the spot; but short as was the interval the place had filled with flames. It is impossible to ascertain at present how many rockets were actually within the factory, but there must, at all events, have been several hundreds. A day will serve to answer this question, by consultation of the official entries. While lying for examination the rockets are piled at a slight incline, pointed towards the opposite side of the building, in the direction of the open marshes, so that when the fire reached them one after the other, they assailed the walls as if from a battery, and at the same time tore out the windows and doors. Even when Mr. Wall reached the doorway the interior was full of flying rockets, each one menacing a horrible death. Some got through the roof, some through the doorways, some through the windows, spreading for a mile over the Arsenal and over the town, and many, after a long journey, fell into the Thames, on the other side of the marshes. Others, again, struck the solid wall, and ricochetted and rebounded from one corner to another till their strength was expended, the yellow-brick interior being dinted in a hundred places with these imprisoned agents of death fiercely striving to get free. No human being could have existed amid such a storm of fire and steel. It was impossible to save either Stevenson or Carlick, and Mr. Wall had to retreat. By this time the whirling of the rockets over the town had raised the alarm everywhere. Colonel Lyon, the superintendent of the Royal Laboratory, was on the spot in a moment, and directed the operations which he deemed requisite to secure the Arsenal and the men from peril by the falling missiles. Work falling missiles. Work was stopped, and the men turned out of the sheds.

Then they gathered in great swarms on piles of timber lying alongside the canal, from which they watched the conflagration and the blazing rockets as one after another they sped into the air.

Though plenty of courageous workers, willing to risk their lives if need be, were at hand, although abundance of water lay within arm's length in the canal, and fire-engines were on the spot, all attempts to extinguish the flames were attended with grave danger, and had to be conducted from a considerable distance.

For nearly two hours-from ten minutes past ten until noon-No. 16 was practically a battery, firing every now and again blazing rockets high into the air, the destination of which it was impossible to surmise. The gates of the Arsenal were opened, and many of the workmen went

outside in search of a place where safety could more reasonably be expected than within the Arsenal itself.

When the building was examined after the fire, it was found a complete wreck. The iron girders of the roof lay broken and twisted, while here and there heads and pieces of rockets were found knocked out of shape. The walls of the interior formed a strange spectacle. Grimed with smoke, they bore a number of marks where the missiles which could not find an exit had struck and rebounded from side to side. In some instances indentations to the extent of several inches were thus made in the brickwork. The cause of the explosion, or the fire, is not known, and, as the people who could have accounted for the calamity are now no more, it will probably never be ascertained."

VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN

A DUTCH CITY IN THE EAST.

N an early part of
this work we have
described how
Pompeii was de-
stroyed by a vol-
canic eruption.

Such destructions are not confined to one period of the world's history, for the destructive as well as the beneficent forces of nature are ever active, and in our own time we have seen the ruin which has been wrought in the island of Java by the very same kind of action as brought so much harm to old Italy.

The region occupied by the Malay Archipelago must be regarded as a simple hotbed of volcanic forces, the whole of the curved chain of islands,

Java.

[graphic]

some thousands of miles in length, extending from Sumatra to the Philippines, being well besprinkled with volcanoes in full activity. Java has its full quota of these dangerous, if imposing, outlets for subterranean disturbances, the presence of which is frequently made manifest to the dwellers above. The western part of the island is peculiarly subject to shocks of earthquake; and those living in the neighbourhood of the great volcano, the Gedeh, make very little of being swayed in their beds for half-aminute, or longer, or being treated to sudden angry shocks. Now and again serious results occur, as, for instance, in 1878, when the small town of Chandjur, south of Batavia, was destroyed, with its jail. In Batavia itself, these severer shocks are usually felt, though in a

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Witt. On the Koning's Plein, a grassy expanse some two miles in circumference, is the Batavian Museum, and on the grass plot at the entrance stands a singularly beautiful bronze model of an elephant upon a pedestal. This was the gift of the King of Siam, who visited Java some years ago. The Kali Besar (Great River) and Pasar Bahrei (New Market), of which we give an illustration, give glimpses of the native portion of the town, which being constructed chiefly of bamboo and wood, would undoubtedly be better calculated to withstand earthquake shocks than the brick structures of the Europeans. At Buitenzorg (Sans Souci), an elevated town some thirty-five miles from Batavia, and by so much, therefore, nearer the usual centre of volcanic disturbances, is situated the palace of the GovernorGeneral of the Dutch East Indies. It is in the grounds of the magnificent botanical park, containing wonderful arboreal, herbal, and floral treasures, and being in a region which is several degrees cooler than Batavia, is the favourite resort of the Viceroy for the time being.

Of the volcanic disturbances which did so much harm to these parts in the year 1883, we quote the following contemporary account:

"The disturbances began on the island of Krakatoa on Saturday, August 25th, when deep rumblings were distinctly audible at Suraperta and Batavia. Little alarm was felt at first, but within a few hours showers of stones began to fall, and all through the night showers of red-hot stones and ashes fell. By morning all communications with Anjer on the Strait of Sunda were destroyed, bridges being wrecked and roads rendered impassable. The disturbances had extended beneath the waters of the Strait, and they were boiling and hissing violently, while great waves dashed on Java's shores. The temperature of the sea rose nearly twenty degrees. Far

away at Madura, more than five hundred miles distant, furious waves were lashed into mountains of foam as they came rolling in. The rumblings gradually became more and more distinct, and by noon of the same day Maha Meru, the largest of the volcanoes, was belching forth flames at an alarming rate. This eruption soon spread to Gunung Guntur, and many other minor mountains, until more than a third of the forty-five craters of Java were either in active eruption or seriously threatening it. Just before dusk a great luminous cloud formed over Gunung Guntur, and the crater of that volcano began to emit enormous streams of white and sulphurous mud and lava, which were rapidly succeeded by explosions, followed by tremendous showers of cinders and enormous fragments of rock, which were hurled high into the air and scattered in all directions, carrying death and destruction with them. With these terrible eruptions came sympathetic demonstrations from the sea. Overhanging clouds were so surcharged with electricity that at one time more than fifteen huge waterspouts were seen. Men, women, and children rushed in terror from their tottering dwellingplaces, filling the air with shrieks of horror. Hundreds were unable to get out before the houses fell, and were buried beneath great masses of rocks and mud.

On Sunday evening the shocks and eruptions increased in violence, and the island seemed threatened with submersion. At the same time enormous waves began to dash with greater force upon the shores, coming in some places far up into the interior, and great chasms opened in the earth, threatening to engulf the people and buildings. About midnight the most frightful scene of all took place. Suddenly an enormous luminous cloud, similar to that over Gunung Guntur, but much greater in extent, formed over the Kandang range

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