THE RECENT FEARFUL DYNAMITE DISASTER.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 2, Issue 129, 24 July 1895, Page 4

THE RECENT FEARFUL DYNAMITE DISASTER.

The Sau lTraneisco Chronicle of May 22nd contains tho following ; ' With a flash and a r< ar the nitroglycerine h.;use of the California Powder Works at Pinole blow ui> at | 10.-JU o'clock yesterday morning, at.d ! almost simultaneously tho mixing > house, scarcely a hundred feet away, ■ exploded with a cruel, sympathetic i crash. Two great white clouds of smoke arose over the black holes torn in the ground, and when they rolled away ibe sun revealed the almost eomplete wreck of ono of tho biggest powder plants in the country. Prom over the. hills the startled villagers camo, some of them crying for relatives who worked in the mill. When they reached the crest of the bluff which sheltered the buildings they beheld a woeful spectacle. Even the foundations of the nitro glycerine house were gone, and in their place was a black crater, from winch ribbons of pungent smoke trailed slowly through the scorched leaves of a group of eucalyptus trees. Further to the right was the immense hole dug by the sympathetic explosion in the mixing-house.

' Scarcely a vesligo of cither building remained in these great holes. Tlio wreckage was blown in every direction, nnil in the hurricano of broken metal and wood swept the torn and bleeding bodies of fifteen men. Five of the: ; e were reckoned as being among the most expert makers of high explosives in the country. The other ten poor creatures were Chinese. ' Wlitn the villagers and surviving mill hands recovered from the shock they commenced to search for tho dead. Through the wreckage-strewn plain below and up and down the hill sides th'-y travelled, but the result of their search was mournfully unsatisfactory, and the remnants of flesh picked up here and there were so ghastly that many of the men grew sick and had to return to their homea. One body had been spared to some extent the frightful mutilation suffered by the others. It was that of young Clare Johnson, foreman of the nitro glycerine house. One leg had been torn fiom hia body, which lav Uijf n *Jw hillside in a 'heap of >'•'--' w . ood - Marry Minugl) ■•"" m;uJe nit T ro * 11 ftp* "■ fhe upheaval of Hell liato id iNew York harbour, was also recognised, but all that remained of his body for the villagers to carry to the shattered engine-house was his head and breast. The other thirteen men were torn to atoms, and the bleeding shreds formed a ghastly part of tho whirlwind that swept through the trees and over the valley of ripouing grain below. ' The concussion spared but little in the neighbourhood, trees were broken in twain, great iron cylinders were hurled to remote portions of the field, and buildings a hundred yards away were ripped, shattered, and in some instances levelled with the ground.'