H.—29

46

[e. b. conbY.

166. That is, to generate heat? —Yes. 167. Do you know anything about carrying flax?—l have carried large quantities of hemp from Manila, and flax from New Zealand to London. 168. Have you had any fires in connection with it? —None whatever. 169. Have you had your attention drawn to the stowage of flax in any particular method? — No; we superintend the stowing of flax in Manila ourselves. 170. Have you any rules with reference to stowing flax?—None whatever. It is not even pressed ; it is just closed in. 171. Would you put flax alongside wool? —No; you have a partition between—a space. 172. Would you stow flax on top of wool? —I would not if I could avoid it. 173. Supposing your ship was not full, would you rather refuse the flax?—Oh, no, I would not. I would put it on top, with dunnage underneath the flax. 174. Have you had any experience in regard to carrying skins? —Yes; we carry skins from here also. 175. Do you consider that a cargo of skins is more likely to be dangerous than a cargo of wool —wool dumped in the ordinary way?—The skins would not fire, but they might deteriorate and get into a damp and mouldy condition. I have heard of them heating, but never of them firing. 176. Is it not a fact there is a certain amount of animal matter connected with skins, and therefore more likely to heat than wool?—Precisely. 177. Were the "skins covered that you carried?—No. 1 may say 1 have carried skins from nearly all parts of the world. 178. Do you not think that they would be more likely to cause combustion or ignition?— Heating without combustion. 179. Have you ever had any tow since you have been in New Zealand ?—No; I do not remember any tow. Thomas Hill Easterfield sworn and examined. (No. 18.) 180. The Chairman] What is your full name?—Thomas Hill Easterfield. 181. What are you?—Professor of Chemistry at Victoria College. 182. You know, of course, the subject of our inquiry, and we wish to know what information you can give us on the matter. I also desire to say this on behalf of my colleagues and myself that if you would suggest during the course of your evidence that you should make experiments which might assist us and give us a lead in the matter, the Commission is quite prepared to arrange for you to do so. What you say now need not be final. You know nothing about the actual shipping? No. I can also say that I. am neither a wool or flax expert; I could not tell the quality of flax on its points, for instance, or anything of that kind. I notice that the scope of the inquiry covers cargoes of inflammable matters generally, that is according to the summons 1 received. I think' that what I have to say can be expressed very shortly. First of all, I would point out that I have been approached in the past, both by wool-shippers and by flax-shippers, each wishing me to make experiments to show that it was always the other people who were at fault, the wool people saying that the wool could not possibly catcli fire, and the flax people saying that the flax could not catch fire; and the attitude I have always taken up is this: that if it is a matter of public interest then all experiments must be made at the public expense, and if it is a matter of private interest, where a particular individual wanted to throw the blame on to other articles, then the private individuals must have systematic experiments carried out, and that it would be a -matter of expense, and (hey must pay for it; but that has been sufficient for them in the past and they have gone away. I would point out, however, that a considerable amount of information is already known concerning the firing* of vegetable matter generally. I am only speaking generally; my views are more derived from what 1 have seen in other cases than from anything I have observed actually in connection with wool or flax. In the case of ordinary haymaking, 1 suppose that no farmer in New Zealand will deny —I "have heard it contradicted by farmers —that a haystack will heat if it is put together too wet. That is a matter of very general experience in the Old Country, where we have very wet summers; we expect that if a stack is put together wet it will first of all heat, and steam will be seen coming out. Providing the farmer takes it down sufficiently quickly, the hay may be saved, but the quality will be injured, and if he does not do that the whole stack will probably burst into flame. The' cause of this in the first instance is undoubtedly bacteriological, and the action of the bacteria causes the preliminary heating; but when the heating has taken place to a certain extent, it gets so hot that the bacteria are actually killed. 183. The Chairman] That would be in the interior of the stack? —Yes, the interior of the stack /it would get so hot that you could not put your hand inside. The stack is not yet sufficiently hot to catch fire, but at a' sufficiently high temperature for the oxygen which gets into the loosely stacked havstack to cause oxidation to take place, and as it takes place the temperature rises with increasing rapidity. Here I might just refer to a well-known law amongst chemists, which is that if a particular chemical action takes place—we will say at a certain rate—and you raise the temperature ten to fifteen degrees, you usually find the rate at which the action is taking place is doubled Now, supposing vou raise it another ten degrees you would double it again. That is to say as the temperature "rises in arithmetical progression the rate of action increases in geometrical progression, and since the output of heat in a given tense is measured by the rate at which oxidation occurs, you can see that after a certain temperature is reached firing will take place with great facility. Supposing we are met with the difficulty of a wet summer in the Old Country, when occasionally we may not have during the whole of the haymaking season a single dry day, then ruin may be averted if, as has been done largely during the last twenty-five years, we turn the crop into ensilage—that is to say, we submit it to a great pressure—the grass is packed together so tightly that the oxvgen, of course, cannot get inside. You get preliminary heating, and a large