CASCADE OF MOLTEN LEAD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 1 June 1907, Page 3

CASCADE OF MOLTEN LEAD.

BURNING STEAM IN A BOTTLE manufactory.. mis;: < — London. April 6. Considerable damage was caused at the bottle manufactory of Robert Candlish and Sons, Seaham Harbor, by a remarkable accident—the bursting of a tank of molten glass. Forty men were working in the department where the accident occurred.

The glass is melted by gas furnaces I in a huge tank built of stone, and at the time of the occurrence this tank contained ISO tons of molten glass in a mass 3ft thiek. The first indication that there was anything wrong was when the glass was noticed to be coining through the mserary at the rear, and an alarm was at one* raised The officials and workmen hurried to the spot, and water 1 and sand were throws on the fiery liquid, but it was of no avail. Having once found an opening the glass soon enlarged the breach and poured out in a white-hot stream, sweeping everything before it. The 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 one hundred tons in all escaped. A large structure known as the filling house was gutted by the flames, but the engine and boiler houses •nd the electrie light plant were ttved.

Afterwards the solid glass bad to be hewn away in blocks.