DANGEROUS CARGOES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 128, 6 July 1914, Page 10

DANGEROUS CARGOES.

The average landsman believes dynamite to be the worst cargo a ship can carry, but the sailor knows better. Jack would tell you that carbide of Calcium is : a deal more dangerous than dynamite. This is 3ilie ; Chemical from wliich acetylene gas is made, and the gas is constantly given off if the carbide is! exposed to the air. Some little time ago the Hamburg barques .Hebe was towed into Plymouth Sound in a disabled ponditioii. Aboard her were 200 tons of carbide. All the war vessels in the Sound were ordered to take refuge, ard the He.be was forbidden to come in for repairs until the whole of her perilous cargo bad been removed by a War Department barge. The cargo carried by the burnt Volturno was of the sort calculated to make a'fine bonfire. It included rags, peat moss, barrels of spirits, tar #rid oils, together with drums of various chemicals. Small wonder that water had little effect in subduing the flames. Chemicals form a very dangerous cargo, especially acids such nitric or sulphuric, which are both carried in tens of thousands of tons in the course of a year.