LATEST FROM SAN FRANCISCO.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 8, Issue 396, 23 July 1866, Page 3

LATEST FROM SAN FRANCISCO.

TEREIBLE 1 EXPLOSION AND LOSS .5 !,• OP LIFE. By the Zephyr, from San Francisco* we (Daily Times) have files' to the 2Rth April,' and extract the following account of one of the most terrible and disastrous explosions oh record, from the Alta California of the 17th April:— The most awful, most appalling, and most heart-rending calamity which it ever fell to our 16t to chronicle, took place in this city on Monday. A little after one o’clock, a terrible explosion, by, which the whole centre of the city was shaken, startled our citizens. It was followed by a shower of broken glass, splinters, morter, broken bricks ’and human remains. Some thought it was an earthquake in a new form, others that the acids used in the assay offices or the mint had exploded, and - others said : that a boiler somewhere had burst, and all rushed pell-mell from their stores, desks, and offices, into the streets.It was soon ascertained that it was in the rear of Wells, Fargo ahd Co.’s that the explosion had occurred, and the : scene which met the eyes of those whd hastened there is beyond the power of mortal description. Two boxbs of nitto-glycerine, the newly-invented explosive agent, had been placed there in the morning. One of these boxes, it now turns out, was improperly packed, and vras leaking. To this fact the whole terrible catastrophe is traceable. < [Here follows a very long account of the accident, together with a list of the killed and wounded, which are much too long for our columns.] •