CASCADE OF MOLTEN GLASS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2092, 29 May 1907, Page 1

CASCADE OF MOLTEN GLASS

At a bottle manufactory in the South of England, considerable damage was caused by a remarkable accident —the bursting of a tank of mol ten glass. Forty men were working in the department where tho accident occurred.

The glass is melted by gas furnaces in a huge tank built of stone-, and at the" time of the occurrence this tank contained 160 tons of molten glass in a mass 3ft thick. The first indication that there was anything wrong was when the glass was noticed to bo coming through the masonry at the real;.

The officials and workmen hurried to the spot, and water and sand woro thrown on the fiery liquid, but it w: of no avail. Having once found an opening, the glaf.s soon enlarged, the

breach, and poured out in a whitehot stream, sweeping everything before it. Tho heat was intense, and though the roof of the building was 20ft high, the rafters caught alight, and soon the place was in flames. After flooding the stone floor the glass found its way. into an underground chamber-, over the walls of which it ran in cascades. About ope hundred tops ip pH escaped, A large structure known as the filling house was gutted by the flames, tut the engine and boiler houses and + ha elec- • lie light plant were saved. Afterwards the solid glass had to be hewn Hiyay ill blpchg.