BOILER EXPLOSIONS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2254, 19 May 1881, Page 3

BOILER EXPLOSIONS.

During the year 1880 there were in the United States no less than 170 bailer explosions, which killed 259 persons and wounded 555. It is a remarkable fact, that while the number of explosions per month varies slightly and is rather larger in winter months, the number of resultant casualties was decidedly largest in June. Probably that was due to the exceptional character of that month’s disasters ; but it is only fair to expect that violent deaths will increase regularly with the return of eaoh excursion season. A classification of the boilers shows that forty-seven were used in wood-working mills. Presumably wood was used for fuel under such boilers, and the much less equable temperature produced by the burning of wood as compared with coal would go far to explain the undesirable pre-eminence. The next most numerous class of exploded boilers numbered nineteen, and were used in paper, flouring, pulp and grist mills and elevators. Eighteen exploded boilers were the motors of locomotives and fire-engines, fifteen were marine boilers, thirteen were “portables,” being used in bolsters, thrashers, pile-drivers, cotton gins, &0., and thirteen Were used in iron works. As compared with 1879, there is a large increase in all these figures. In 1879 there were but 132 explosions, which killed 208 persons and wounded 230. This fact is traced to the revival of trade, which demanded the new use of idle boilers, and in many oases, the overworking of others.—“ New York Times.”