FIREWORKS EXPLOSION.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 18 July 1901, Page 4

FIREWORKS EXPLOSION.

(per press association)

Invercargill, July 16.

At the Sneyd inquest this afternoon, Charles Bead, second officer of the Monowai, detailed the correct method of using ships’ signal rockets and said that firing them in any other way was extremely dangerous. Sergeant-Major Wall, instructor on war office explosives, described a rocket. Among other things it contained a quantity of gutta-percha, 3ozs of gunpowder and 2ozs of gun cotton. When the gun cotton exploded the iron cylinder would he blown into fragments. Ho did not regard the socket used in this case as safe. It was not strong enough to withstand the explosion of gunpowder in the base of the rocket, while its shape rendered it dangerous. He would expect if a rocket were fired out of such a box, gunpowder, instead of forcing the rocket upward would exept its force on the box on the lino of the least resistance. Gun cotton was four and a half times stronger than powder, and if the rocket exploded near the ground he would expect to find fragments of the metal casing near by. The gunpowder produced had not deteriorated. Accidents of the kind might happen without negligence in the hands of experts. A socket 2 inch square on the inside for a rocket 3] inchin diameter was not safe.