Abstract
II. THE disaster on board the Triumph, combined with the fact that this xerotine siccative had been issued to H.M.'s ships generally, the authorities and officers of the navy having been in ignorance as to its dangerous nature, re-directed official attentionto the loss of the Doterel on April 26, 1881, while at anchor off Sandy Point, by an explosion, or rather by two distinct explosions following each other in very rapid succession, which caused the death of eight officers and 135 men, there being only twelve survivors of the crew. The inquiry by court-martial into the catastrophe had led to the conclusion that the primary cause of the destruction of that vessel was an explosion of gas in the coal-bunkers, caused by disengagement of fire-damp from the coal with which these were in part filled. Its distribution through the air in the bunkers and in air-spaces adjoining the ship's magazine was believed to have taken place to such an extent as to produce a violently explosive mixture, and that this had become accidentally inflamed, causing a destructive explosion, which was followed within half a minute by the much more violent explosion of the ship's magazine, containing four or five tons of powder, to which the flame from the exploding gas-mixture had penetrated.
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Accidental Explosions Produced by Non-Explosive Liquids 1 . Nature 31, 493–496 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/031493c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031493c0