SINGULAR EXPLOSION.
(From the Wallaroo Times, December 23). Last week we published some particulars of a very singular explosion which had taken place in Hughes' shaft, Moonta, at the 100 fathom level. Men were engaged in drilling for a blast in a place which had been unworked for a length of time, when a violent explosion took place unattended with smoke or smell. There was a crackling noise, and splinters of porphyritic rock flew about the faces and arms of the operators, cutting them severely, and leading one man to say that he needed two pair of hands to go on with the drilling, and save his face and arms at the same time. There was an idea that "an old unexploded gunpowder blast had been touched upon in the drilling, but there is nothing to justify the belief, and just as little, perhaps, that it was an explosion of lithofracteur. Certainly none for lithofracteur. We are not aware whether any examination of the spot has been made so as 'to throw light on to the mystery, but by the merest accident.we yesterday opened a volume of the "Mirror" for 1825 just at the place where there was printed a description of the mineral phenomenon called by miners of the Peak, Derbyshire, slid-en-sides which is a species of galena, otherwise sulplmret of lead. This slicken-sides is described in the "Imperial Dictionary" as "lining the walls of very small rents. It has a most remarkable property, that when the rock in which it is contained is struck with a hammer a crackling noise is heard, which is generally followed by an explosion of the rock in the direction and neighborhood of the vein." " Rhodes' Peak Scenery," which is the name of the book from which the passage in the " Mirror " is taken, mentions that Hayclilf Mine, even then no longer worked, was. once the grand depository of this phenomenon. Then follows a description of the ore, and that is followed thus,—" The effects of this extraordinary mineral are not less singular than terrific. A blow with a hammer, a stroke or a scratch with a miner's pick, are sufficient to rend those rocks asunder with which it is united or embodied. The stroke is immediately succeeded by a crackling noise, accompanied, with a sound not unlike the mingled hum of a swarm of bees. Shortly afterwards an explosion follows, so loud and appalling that _ the miners, though a hardy race of men and little accustomed to fear, pale and tremble at the shock. This dangerous combination of matter must, consequently, be approached with caution." Now, as galena occurs in the Wallaroo Mines, and possible in the Moonta Mines, was the explosion in Hughes' shaft in the latter locality caused by slicken-sides 1
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4319, 23 January 1875, Page 3
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461SINGULAR EXPLOSION. New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4319, 23 January 1875, Page 3
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