The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-19 00:00:00

The Powder Magazines at Purfleet,

Just now public attention is keenly directed to a
thorough examination of the conditions under which
powder is stored in Government and private moga-
z:nes, and the precautions which are or ought to be
taken to mitigate the risk with which the mere prey
scum of these tremendous mines threatens whole
districts. That great good will ultimately arise
from this investigation cannot be doubted for a
mouent, and if the evidence given at the Belvedere
inquiry as to the neglect of proper care in Mr
Ball's magazines is to be relied on, the public can.
not be too earnest in their efforts for complete and
searching inquiry. At any rate, the question has
not been of their raising, but has, on the contrary,
been forced on their attention in the most terrible
manner possible. The appalling proofs of the ex-
plosion spread far and wide round Erith show the
danger in which the inhabitants have lived, and the
evidence given at the inquiry shows them also the
hourly peril in which they must be content to dwell
for the future, unless these terrible storehouses are
batter built and better regulated than they seem to
have been in the case of the magazines on Erith
marshes. We do not for a moment entertain the
belief that it will ever be possible to de away with
powder magazines, and magazines, too, containing
vast stores of powder collected on one spot. Bread
is not more necessary to our individual life than
gunpowder is to our national. Good powder is only
to be got from England. Oar export trade of this
explosive material is larger than that of all the rest
of the world, while, peaceful people as we are, our
annual consumption in fleets, forts, and colonies is
almost as great as that of all the rest of Europe
put together. But we apprehend that those who
have been ruined round Erith would not for a
second deny the necessity for large powder maga-
zines ; and as a rule powder when in the magazines
is in the safest place which experience or human
ingenuity can devise to store it. It is from powder
in transit that all the danger really arises. It is the
lax state of the law as to powder barges, or what
are used as much—the lax state of the law as to what
number of barrels they shall carry, and what re-
gulations shall be enforced as to lights and fires on
board, which not only endangers the magazines to
which they are bound, but actually perils the very
existence of the metropolis itself in their passage up
the Thames. The inquiry into the general manage-
ment of those powder barges of private firms cannot
be too searching, nor the regulations under which
in future the perilous traffic should be carried on
too strict or too rigidly enforced.
Since the disaster at Erith a great deal has been
said as to the general management of the Govern-
ment magazines at Purfleet, and all sorts of state.
meats have appeared as to the quantity of powder
which is kept there, and the risks to which it is
exposed. We propose, therefore, to give the public
a plain account of how Purfleet is managed and
what it contains. If, on the one hand, we state that
the powder stored there is enormous—enough in
quantity to appal the boldest when they think of
the chances of accident—on the other hand, we shall
be bound to admit that everything which the ex-
perience of a century, the progress of science, and
even imaginative and over-scrupulous fears can sug-
gest in the way of precaution should be adopted. If
ever Purfleet blows up—and if it does London will
be th% first to know it—the accident will not be
caused by Parfleet proper, but will be due to some
one or other of the barges always landing or receiv.
ing powder there. The quantity of powder that
blew up at Erith the other day was less than 1,000
barrels, or short of 50 tons. The quantity that
Parfleet stores is 52,000 barrels, or two thousand
three hundred tons. It is not the largest magazine
in the kingdom. There is another, within four
miles of one of our most important seaport towns,
which stores nearly four thousand tons. This latter,
however, is a mere surplus storehouse, which is
rarely opened—a vault where the powder is en-
tombed and carefully guarded. Another, which we
have no scruple in mentioning, for its situation is a
disgrace to the Admiralty—Upnor Castle—contains
some 1,500 or 1,600 tons of powder. Sheerness and
Chatham, with their forts and dockyards, would
cease to be even geographical expressions if any.
thing went wrong with the constantly opened ma,
gazine which is in their midst under Upnor Castle,
There are other magazines, too, in different parts of
the kingdom, which are as large as Purfleet; but
these are mere magazines—i. e., storehouses, which
are seldom opened or rcquired but in time of war.
The impor tined of Parfleet consists in its being the
great receiving house where every atom of powder
used by the Government—whether made at their
own works at Waltham Abbey, or privately at
Dartford, Faversham, and Hounslow—is landed,
examined, tested, and if approved, passed into store,
and if rejected returned at once to the barges. Thus
in the ordinary fulfilment of its duties not a day
passes without the magazine being open—scarcely
a day in which it has not been either to test, receive,
or send away loads of powder. When first esta-
blished, a century ago, the magazine was isolated
from everything. Now there is a village close to it,
and beautiful villas are scattered over the country
around it far and near. The ground occupied by the
Government is about 25 acres, and this is mostly
moated round and walled and rewalled in almost
a series of concentric circles about the magazines.
There is a permanent guard of two officers and
80 men, with a large staff of watchmen, coopers,
storekeepers, overseers, clerks, &o , all of whom

with their wives and families live withi❑ the walls
in the "garrison," as it is termed. Every cue, no
matter how remotely connected with the works in

this part of the garrison, even the tailor who makes
the flannel dress, and the shoemaker wbo stitches

the soft leather shoes to be worn in the magazine, is
on the staff, and has to conform to the rules of being
within the walls before 9, and having all lights and
fires out in the quarters by 10 30. Yet, large as is this
staff, the " powder.mtn," the actual workers in the
magazines, are only 19 in number, and all these are
the sons, and, in some cases, the grandsons of those
%ll° first worked here. They have lived among
powder all their lives, and are familiar with every
thing but its explosive character, for at Purfleet, as
at all Government magazines, there has rover been

an accident. The first accident here would be the
last, and would lay half Kent, Middlesex, and

Surrey in ruins. The visitor who is fortunate enough

to obtain the rarely accorded permission to inspect
these magazines is taken charge of by no less a per-

son than the chief of the establishment, Mr Cleeve,
whose vigilance regards even a visitor as a possible
source of danger, and therefore to be intrusted to no
hands save his own. Passing through the sentries
and a series of doors you come to one at which the
_ _

watchman is on duty, which admits to a small turfed

enclosure between high walls, where &sentry is pac•
ing on a little strip of asphalto laid in the grass.
_ _

This is the last of the sentries, for near at hand

is the magazine ground, where, to the cautions

eyes of the powder-men, a sentry with his steel

equipments would b© regarded with as much

favour as a bonfire. Beyond the sentry is a
small cooperage which leads to a long, low,
narrow room with a wooden partition, about 2

feet high, running across the floor, separating one
end from the other. At the end you enter hang

workmen's clothes and shoes; at the other be-
yond the partition, which is magazine ground,

nothing bat flannel dresses and soft leather shoes

are kept. At the further end of the room you leave
your walking-stick or umbrella, or knife, or any-
thing that is of iron or stael. Here, too, for the
same reason you pull off your boots, and in case of
mud or grit being on your dress have furthermore to
clothe yourself in a loose flannel blouse and trousers.
Then only;do you step over the partition to put on
a pair of the soft stitched leather boots. Having
thus fulfilled all the strict conditions which the
duty of the " clotheaman" imposes on you, he opens
the last door of all, which admits you to a spacious
grass-grown enclosure, crossed in all directions with
little wooden pathways, and in the centre of which
stand five largo, low blind looking buildings. They
have no windows but many lightning conductors ;
all their doors are open, and you can just see
through the half gloom the great tiers of powder
barrels stacked in blocks like gigantic vine bins.
Nothing strikes the visitor more than the silence of
this place. The 19 powder-men employed here are
all busy, for at the wharf in front of the magazines

one vessel has to be loaded, and another unloaded—,

BO that the passage of the copper barrows, each with
their two barrels of powder, is incessant, yet still
there is no noise. The barrows clove silently, and
tho men, in their soft shoes, seem to glide over the
polished woodwork without a sound. Not a word is
spoken, and the dry creaking of the barrels in the
magazieo3, as they are moved from tier to tier, come
with a sound which is here almost noise. Occasion-
ally, as some less full than others are lifted down, one
can hear the dry hissing rattle of the grains as they
turn over, but this, and the actual creaking of the
somewhat thin barrels, and the soft rumble of the
trucks taking them away, is all that can be distin-
guished. Outside, on the wharf, one can hear the
sound of gentle hammering, with occasional words
of direction, but within the magazines themselves
all is as quiet, and almost as dark as night. There
is a regularity, a method, and an evidence of careful
supervision everywhere, which insensibly imparts a
feeling of perfect security even in the gloomiest of
the high, narrow passages which wind among the
stacks of powder.
The external aspect of these magazines, with their
lean-to roofs and stable-looking architecture, gives
no idea of their real features of construction. To use
a familiar image, each magazine is constructed like
two railway arches, which are built of the strength
called bombproof, and afterwards covered over with
the sloping roof and walls with which all acquainted
with the river are so familiar. There are five of these
buildings, and each is fitted to allow the storage of
44 " lots" of 200 barrels in each lot, with two end
lots of 400 barrels, making the contents of each
magazine 10,400 barrels, or 52,000 barrels in the
whole five. Sometimes this quantity has been ex-
ceeded by 2,000 or 3,000 barrels being stored in the
passages between the " lots" or bins, but it is always
sought to avoid this if possible. As a general rule
there is never more than 52,000 barrels nor less than
42,000. The latter quantity only is now in store.
Though we speak of them as five magazines, yet in
reality all five are one. There is not more than 50ft
between each wall, and all are kept with open end
and lido doors during the day, except during the
time the workmen are at dinner, when the thickly-
plated double copper doors are closed, and the keys
resigned to Mr Cleeve, who alone of all the staff can
enter the magazine at any hour of the day or
night. Every lot or bin is numbered with the even
numbers on one side, the odd on the other, and each
lot contains solely the sample of one manufacture,
whether private or Government, with the maker's
name and date of its reception, and the letters
"L. G.," "L. G. R.," and "E. R.," denoting
large grain for common powder, large grain
rifle for rifled guns, and "E. R." for the best
kinds used only for Enfield rifles.
Thus, so perfect is the system of storing that at
any hour of the day or night the exact bins or lots
can be found by the powder-men, and either stored
away or taken out for shipment, In fact the magas
zines are generally so dark that daylight makes but
little difference in the gloom of their interior, and
during the Crimean war, when the demand for
powder was loud and urgent, the powder-men in
relays worked night and day through the darkest
winter nights—as a matter of course without lights,
but, what is not a matter of course, without ever
making a single mistake as to the "lots" and quali-
ties ordered for shipment. In some of the gloomiest
parts of the magazine a piece of copper framed in
wood, like a hand mirror, and tinned over so as to
reflect a light upon the name and number of the
barrels, is kept for use, but it is a mere formal piece
of magazine furniture, and seldom called into requi-
sition, so well do the men know the exact position
of each barrel. It is almost needless to say that no
lights or ironwork of any kind are ever allowed to
approach even the outer walls which enclose the
magazine building, and the most jealous scrutiny
is maintained to see that not an atom of dust comes
into the stores. The brickwork of the massive
arches is lined with pegged boarding, which fits
like cabinet work, to guard against the falling of a
grain of dirt from the masonry. Incessantly are men
employed in sweeping and sprinkling the wooden
tramways not only inside the magazine, but on all
the wooden paths around it. A careful examination
of the refuse thus brought together by the brooms
only shows a fluffy kind of mixture almost entirely
composed of hair off the blankets used, or wool
from the workmen's dresses. Of dust, in the ordi-
nary acceptation of the term, there is scarcely a
trace, and of powder, or of anything which could be
supposed to resemble it, there is'absolutely nothing.
The barrels are never rolled, but are wheeled ig bar-
rows, as we have said, two at a time. A leaky pow-
der barrel is almost unknown at Purfleet, so rare is
its occurrence, though some of the barrels have been
in use bioce 1808 and 1813. When it does happen
that a barrel leaks it is never placed in the maga-
zine, but at once removed in a hide to the examining
house, and its contents changed to a new barrel.
There can be no question, however, but that all
powder barrels are made too slight, and that a law
which will render it compulsory to have powder
barrels water tight would at once do away with
more than half the chances of accident from powder,
especially when in transit from port to port or from
mills to magazines. The great rules at Pur fleet are

first, that nothing bat powder is admitted to the'
magazines—that is to say, that portfires, rockets,
shells, &c. are excluded with as much vigilance as
if they were lights. The second rule is, that no
powder, not even half an ounce, is ever left out of
the magazines; the third, that nothing is E. vit. done
in a magazine but to lift in powder and lift it out

again. To attempt to open or cooper a cask in the
magazine, which Messrs Curtis and Harvey's work-
men speaks of as being done habitually by them,
would at Purfleet lead to instant and final dismissal.

It is impossible to condemn this practice of working
in the magazines too strongly. In one important
respect, however, Purficet has departed from its safe
and wholesome rule of not admitting anything but
powder to its magazines. Quarter-barrels and halt-

barrels of rifle ball-cartridges are now often stored
there. Considering that it is still a doubtful ques.
tion whether the greased cartridges do not heat
when kept long in store, this deviation from the old
rule seems at least to be questionable as regards its
safety, In face of the gigantic issues at stake in
case of an accident at Puifleet, would it not be more
wise to avoid even a suspicion of calamity by storing
the cartridges elsewhere ? For the rest, as far as
general precautions are concerned, nothing seems
to be neglected. The alarm-bell is rung when there
is any appearance of thunder in the air, that the
doors and all the apertures of the magazines may
be closed at once. This precaution is a wise one,
though it would savour much more of precaution in
its real sense if the antiquated lightning conductors
which now cover each low-lying magazine were at
once removed from the buildings themselves and
placed higher on poles around them. During the
night the watchmen have to admit the guard out-
side the magazine each hour, and the sentries them-
selves have to strike each quarter hour of their
watch upon large belle, so that any want of vigi-
lance in this respect is so easily discovered that it
becomes almost impossible. In fact, as regards the
magazines the care which is taken of them leaves
nothing to be suggested nor nothing to be desired,
except, perhaps, that they were further away from
London.

But the Putfleet magazines have to be regarded
from three points of view—first, as a place for the
transhipment of powder to and fro; and, thirdly, as
a place for testing powder. These are its three great
working aspects as regards the Government, though
as regards thn general public there is still another

view to be taken of the whole, which is P"•rfleet as

a place of safety. Looking only at Purfleet as a
mere place of storage for powder, there is no doubt

that it is safe enough. As far as its storage is con-

cerned there seems no chance of accident unless from

" unavoidable calamity." What that calamity would

be to England our readers may guess by bearing in

mind that less than 50 tons exploded at Erith, and

that Purfleet, as a rule, stores 2,300 tons. As a
place for testing powder, Purfleet, with its tre-
mendous magazines of explosives, seems objection-

able. Government cannot manufacture much more

than half the powder it requires at Waltham

Abbey, and has therefore to buy at the rate of some
25,000 or 30,000 barrels a year from private firms.
All this powder, whether from private houses or
Waltham, is tested for cleanness, strength, and ab•
sorption of moisture at Purfleet, the private firms
being allowed_to be 5 per cent. under the Quern-