Four persons were blown overboard, but recovered. The sufferers all belonged to the boat.

Josephine, May, 1845, when 16 miles below Madison, burst. A part of her engine was driven with tremendous force into one of the state rooms, passing thence through the hurricane deck, disappeared in the river. One man killed.

Lucy Walker, Captain Vann, bound from Louisville to New Orleans, when five miles below New Albany, blew up. Just before sunset, some of the machinery got out of order, and the engine was stopped to repair it. While engaged in making the repairs, the water in the boilers got too low, and about five minutes after the engine ceased working her three boilers exploded with tremendous violence. The explosion was upwards, and that part of the boat above the boilers was blown into thousands of pieces. She was in the middle of the river at the time, and parts of the boat and boilers were thrown on shore. Sixty persons were killed, including the captain, pilot, second mate, second clerk. Pieces of the boilers, not thicker than half a dollar, were found on the Kentucky shore.

La Fourche had a vertical boiler, with fourteen flues. Twentyfive miles above New Orleans, seven of these flues collapsed. The collapse was not unexpected, the pilot having been called from his post to a safer one, with the residue of the hands, just before it occurred.

Marquette, July 1, 1845, burst her boiler while backing out, the wheels having made only one revolution. The force of the steam went directly up. Thirteen persons were killed and 7 wounded. Majestic, on the 24th May, 1835, when just leaving Memphis collapsed a flue, scalding forty passengers, of whom fourteen died. Medora, was just putting out from Port Hudson, bound for Shreeveport, when both her boilers burst.)

The boilers of the Navy Express exploded on Wednesday, the 25th July, 1838, at Blakely, Alabama. The force of the steam was upwards, and, so great as to carry the chimney a hundred feet. Twenty passengers on board none injured. The explosion was owing to the insufficiency of the boilers, they not being thicker than common sheet iron, and were taken from the steamboat Ione, which formerly exploded at the same place.

Oronoco, on her way to New Orleans, collapsed a flue while opposite Princeton, about 100 miles, above Vicksburg, blowing all between the boilers and the stern of the boat into the river. The deck was crowded with passengers. The explosion took place after getting under way, at the third stroke of the engine,

Pilot, in starting from the wood yard of Mr. Felix, at Gretna, Mississippi river, in March, 1844, the starboard boiler burst. Captain Gow, Mr. Felix, Wm. Gow, the first engineer, second engi neer, and steersman, were all severely wounded, and Wm. Gow and the second engineer died from their wounds.

The towboat Pilot, Captain Brown, off the Balize, on the 10th of March, 1845, at midday burst all her boilers.

The towboat Persian, Captain Riddle, burst a boiler on the Mis

sissippi river, November, 1845, killing three persons and wounding nine others.

The towboat Phoenix, Captain Annable, proceeded with the ship Flavius, to Lafayette, La., and had just cast off her lines and made one revolution, when she exploded. Her entire forward deck was blown to atoms. Three of her eight boilers were blown overboard. Six persons killed, and eleven wounded.

The Phonix burst a boiler on the 21st of January, 1847; she had alongside of her the Leontine and ship Manchester, and astern the ship Ironsides. On the Manchester six passengers were killed, six wounded, and four missing. Two of the crew of the Leontine were wounded, and the vessel sustained considerable damage by the explosion. The Phoenix getting too near land, had stopped her engine and was about swinging round, when she exploded; the pilot, second engineer, mate, steersman, two deck hands, and two firemen were killed. The head engineer was badly wounded.

Queen City, 1846, from New Orleans to Cincinnati, collapsed a flue, scalding some twenty-five passengers, mostly German, twelve of whom died.

Richmond, on the Upper Mississippi, collapsed six flues, and burst three of her boilers from want of water. No damage was done.

Rob Roy, bound from New Orleans to Louisville, burst her boilers on the 9th of June, 1836, near Columbia, Mississippi river. The engineer on watch, states that the water was above the upper cocks in each side of the boilers, which is evident from the manner in which the flue collapsed, being from the side, and not from top to bottom, as is the case when caused by want of water. gine had been stopped to oil the wrist, and ship bilge-pumps. Seventeen lost, eight killed, and thirty-four wounded.

The en

Siren, Captain Sharpless, plying between the Chattahoochee, river and Apalachee bay, burst one of her boilers, February, 1845, about midnight, as the boat was rounding out from Toney's landing, and killed fourteen persons. The captain was thrown aloft and fell in the water, from which he escaped unhurt. The boilers of the boat were of no account, having been used too long.

St. Louis struck a bar near Princeton. The jar separated the connecting steam pipe, by which the second cook and one of the deck passengers were scalded to death. Another deck passenger jumped overboard and was drowned.

Simon Kenton was on her way down from Quincy, and when backing out from the landing at Clarksville, broke her connecting steam-pipe.

The Tuscaloosa, on the Alabama river, eleven miles above Mobile, burst two of her boilers, tearing the boiler deck completely to pieces, and shattering the aft part of the boat considerably. Immediately after the explosion, the boat took, fire, and burned to the water's edge.

Tennesseean, a towboat, blew a sheet out of one of her boilers. West Wind collapsed her flue near Louisville, Ky., killing one person instantly, wounding four others beyond a possibility of re

covering, and injuring several others slightly. It was caused by sheer recklessness. She had Evans's safety-valve, but so fixed as to be of no service. She had just reached the head of the canal and was ready to start again when the flue collapsed with a tremendous report.

Wilmington, Captain Chas. H. Gay, bound from New Orleans to St. Louis, when near the mouth of the Arkansas river, her middle boiler burst, which dreadfully shattered the vessel. The other two boilers by the explosion were thrown into the river. Immediately after the accident, the boat took fire, but it was soon put out.

The Walker burst on her way to Mobile. It was not caused by any negligence of the engineer, but by the weakness of the boiler which exploded. The steam cocks were examined a few minutes before the accident, and the top cocks, which ordinarily should let off steam, discharged only water.

One of the Wyoming's boilers blew up at the Cincinnati landing, caused by an undue pressure within that boiler, over that of the other, being the result of a stoppage in the cast iron connecting steam pipe on the top of the boiler; it being stopped so as to make the opening not more than seven-eights of an inch, instead of four and a half between that and the boiler next to it, it being the outside on the starboard side.

In the history of those explosions it is observable, that a great number occurred directly after starting, after having stopped, and holding on steam. In most cases at the second or third revolution of the wheels.

This list, although not as perfect as I desire, is the most complete and accurate register of explosions extant; being reliable almost in every particular, except dates, which in some instances are given from the memories of my informants. A still larger one might have been formed of collisions, loss by taking fire or snagging; all of which causes were attended with sacrifice of life equal or greater to what has been thus registered, but such cases not being embraced directly in the queries sent me, and requiring more time in the ascertainment of facts and dates than was allowed, I have overlooked them, confining my statements only to steamboat explosions. These, it will be observed, are, in the great mass of cases, bursting of boilers or collapsing of flues-one almost as fatal in consequences as the other.

I shall give the full history of two explosions only, those of the Moselle, in 1838, and of the A. M. Johnson, in 1847, being two of the best defined in their effects as well as causes, and both of these having undergone a systematic investigation in this city. They are also two of the most fatal on record, for thorough and extensive destruction of both boat and passengers. I saw the Moselle an hour after she blew up, and can state many of the results from personal observation, and the residue from reliable testimony. The Moselle. was a new boat, had made two or three trips, up to that period among the quickest ever known, and the captain, Perine, a young man ambitious of acquiring and maintaining a reputation for beating every boat in that trade. She had taken her cargo and most of

her passengers at the public wharf, and although crowded with the latter, passed up to the lower ship yards, just at the upper edge of Cincinnati, to take in another party of emigrants with their effects, from a raft that lay there. The Moselle was not a large boat, but having four boilers, had great power. With her reputation for 'speed she had become crowded, with eighty-five cabin passengers and at least one hundred and sixty-five deck passengers, of whom a large share were Germans emigrating west. These, with the crew, some thirty, made an aggregate of two hundred and eighty. The probability is, that there were a few more who escaped notice, as they did record, in the brief space which intervened before the tre mendous explosion which followed and the final gathering on board. The bow of the boat was shoved off, and at the second or third revolution of the wheel an explosion ensued, which destroyed every part of the upper works as well as the machinery of the boat. The hull drifted a considerable distance, and was landed just below the city water works, where it sunk a perfect wreck. The passengers were unhappily on deck and especially, as is usual, for. ward, as affording the broadest platform, and were immediately over the boilers. More than two hundred human beings of all ages and conditions were instantaneously projected a prodigious distance in the air. One man, in his head foremost fall, passing as far as his shoulders through a house roof, distant two hundred and twelve feet, and fifty-nine feet in height above the water edge. The body of the captain was thrown up the bank along side of a boat on the stocks, two hundred feet from the river. A portion of one boiler, which weighed four hundred and fifty pounds, was thrown one hundred and seventy feet. A second portion, three hundred and thirty-six pounds in weight, was thrown four hundred and eighty feet distance. This must have been projected to a great height as it entered a roof which it broke through, at an angle of sixty degrees. A third portion, which weighed two hundred and forty-five pounds, was driven four hundred and fifty feet on the hill side, and seventy feet in altitude. A fourth portion, weighing two hundred and thirty-six pounds, went obliquely up the river eight hundred feet, passing over the houses on the upper sidewalk. A fifth, which weighed one hundred and forty-seven pounds, three hundred and thirty feet off into a tan-yard. To understand the full force of these measurements, which were carefully made, it will be recollected that the Moselle, at the period of explosion, was a hundred and sixteen feet from the edge of the water, and a hundred and ninety-two feet from the top of the river bank.

There can be little doubt that the cause of this explosion was simply the subjection of the boilers to inordinate pressure. It was ascertained that she came up to the raft under a steam pressure of a hundred and twenty-five to a hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch. She lay there with boilers closed and a furnace as hot as dry wood could make it, for twenty minutes or more. This must, undoubtedly have more than doubled that pressure. There can be no dispute of the quality of the iron. Pieces of the boilers may still be seen in the Cincinnati museum, which determine the fact

that the iron drew out to half its thickness before the fracture took place.

The first engineer, Madden, was well known to be one of the most reckless men in that capacity on the river, and had been drinking freely before coming on board, just as the boat started from the dock. He, too, shared the feeling of the captain, that no boat should be suffered to pass the Moselle, and there can be ao doubt that the steam was suffered to accumulate for the purpose of making a meteor-like transit by the public wharf, which had to be passed on the way to St. Louis.

The explosion of the Moselle is a clear and distinct illustration of the consequence of urging a boat by a violent head of unknown but uncommonly high pressure, and is one among many lessons to the same effect of the folly of supposing, as many western engineers suppose, that the power of a sound boiler in resisting the heaviest pressure has no limits, so long as the proper supply of water is kept up.

The case of the A. N. Johnson is of a different kind, exhibiting the incompetency of the engineer or his neglect of attention to his boiler, rather than the recklessness in the Moselle case. The A N. Johnson left Maysville on the 28th December, 1847, with a hundred and fifty-nine passengers and a crew of thirty-six; total, one hundred and ninety-five. Of this number, as far as can be ascertained, a hundred and seven were scalded to death or blown inte the river, besides a considerable number wounded or scalded whe have survived. The boat blew up from a deficiency of water, and that deficiency caused either by the incompetency or carelessness of the first engineer, Mr. Venum, who knew that the pumps were defective, yet had not attended to remedying the defects, while at Cincinnati, after making his first trip, in which he ascertained those defects. He employed as second engineer a man who had no knowledge of his business, and under whose charge the engine actually was at the period of the explosion. This was done to save expense The water was suffered to run too low, either through the fault of the pumps, or neglect to examine the boilers. The first engineer used the boilers without knowing that they were clean, as he himself admits. He allowed the engines to work when he knew the pumps did not supply, and urged his fires till they were so hot as to excite the apprehensions of the firemen, a class not usually excitable on that point. One of the boilers was blown aft through both cabins, landing in a corn field three hundred yards below. Another boiler broke into two pieces, one of which was found the river edge, not far off, the other in a corn field, two hundred and fifty yards above. The third boiler was supposed to have passed through the hull, occasioning that rapid sinking of the boat, which contributed, together with other circumstances, to the great loss of life in this case.

Explosions result from various causes, among which are:

1. Defects in the quality of the iron used in the construction of flues and boilers, or the manufacture of either of them out of sheet The first is the iron of inadequate thickness for ordinary use.