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Terrible Explosion

Terrible Explosion image
Parent Issue
Day
13
Month
April
Year
1842
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

-0i ihe 25ih ofFebruary, about twelve miles below Tusealoosa, thu steamboat Norlh Siur vas blown intü fragmenls. Fifieen were lulled, atid eight or lea severely wounded; soine olthein not likcly to recover. Mr. Maxwell, a passenger, by whose extraordinary presenee of rmtid a great tnany were saved,thus describes the scène: 'The inain deck was shivered into spiin ter?; and tho headf, lcgs, and arms of'apparently a dozen hum.in being, belonging to the crew, were prejecting out here tuui there from the mass of inflammable sub- htaiicco thal had now fullun intn the huil, and in a confused pile were niingling with red hot embers from the furnace, while their groaría and their cries fgr help catne lliurribly and awfully to my cara. One poor fellow, when Í pulled him ashore, with both lgs broke, begged me, for God'rf sake, lo cut thern off; tic has since died, I understaud. So poweiful was tha explosión, (bat ono of the boilers, with its immense weight, was blowu at least 150 yards, over the topsofihe highest trees, into in open ñtíld, and nol far from it lies tho plate of the sal'ety valve, sunk four or five feet into the earih, like the buil of a Cfinnon. It is my opinión thut the boilers were not such as the luw required. They j were not thicker in the sheels than au or j dinary copper cent. I likewise believe there was iit'.Ie or do waler in them. Ai the moment of explosión, noiiting uppear ed lo come from her, ei;her in the shape of ' sieam, or water; but a noxious gas passed I through the cabin, from the boilers, wilh such tremendous pressure, tlim our huts were carried ofFby the current. Bat the most convincing proof that there was no water in the boilers, is f und in tho fuet, that a piece of the boüer, al the moment of explosión, about .100 pouuda in weight, came like a shell from a cannon, carrying J state rooms, rouf, and evcry obstructiun, like chaff before it, and feil on thu cabiu floor, within a few fect from where 1 was ! standing, which burnt ihrough the woollen carpet, and set the cabin fl'-or in a blaze. The women and children crossed the flaming wreek, and were all saved by ropes, wilh greal difiiculty. Mr. Maxwell received great assistuncc in his exertions, from a man who he supposed lo.be a negro. It was a fellow passenger, by the name of Col. M'Pherson, who was thrown up in the air by the explosión, and feil back on the deck, with a countenance pt rfectly blackened. Mr. Maxwell publishes a card, apologizing for the authoritative manner in which he gave him orders; and assuiing him that it was enlirely owing to a mistake as to his caste. It has heen ascertained that the whole rnimber of books in the public übraries in the United States, is 750,000 volumes - The aggregate of all 'he volumes in all the public libraries of Burope, is 14,527,000!