, 1869-10-22

NUNH uPVH u HONl4it nav 1 lc JtlN VI udlllC
hung about the denseIy packed vessels, and APP
peared to envelope them. The actual damage,
however, which had been inflicted at this time
does not appear to have been great. But at
ii the tide turned, and with it turned he flames.
In their retreat they were more harmful than
they had been in their progress up the river.
They dashed probably with more irresistible
force against any obstacle they met, and five
and-tWenty vessels were soon blazing wrecks.
BargeS and boats went floating about in a white
heat, eddying round the vessels as yet untOuCh-
ed, and propagating destruction but suddenly
two larger ships broke loose from their anchors,
as if in pain and agony, and hurled themselves
across Il compact body of merchantmen. This
was the crisis. Hitherto the night had been
both brigasand still, but now a strong south
east WIND began to blow, and assisted in spread
ing the calamity. The tocSin Of the Calhedral
tplled mOurntuIIy, summing the city to pray
against the total anninilutiou Of its merchant
fleet, which seemed imminent but all Bordeaux
was out on the quayS, gazing h0rror-stricken,
and loudly beWajling the catastrophe. On the
contrary, on board the ships themselves, which
were most directly menaCed, no sign Of life was
visible. The sailors, apparently, were paraIyz-
ed or fascinated by the catastrophe, and Shrank
out of sight as though utterly powcrleSs to avert
1t. a. l. ldlIlc, HUNtNtI, jDliLlditlN Is mortar, anu
it began at last, after six or seven hours Of in
cessant fury, to sh } W symptoms Of exhaustion
at the moment when its victory was all but won.
The crews Of the vessels, chief those which,
being unladen, presented Il higher surface Of
copper sheathing to the flames, and had so far
escaped, plucked up courage, and fought their
aSSailants. Thus, although az late as h~alfpast
7 o'clock there We're still fourteen vessels on
fire, or smouldering as they lay burnt down to
the waters edge, the worst Of the peril is rep0r-
ted as over about 2 the next morning.
There is nothing in the least mysterious about
this blOW-0f the terrors of which the mere pc
cuniary damage is no measure whateyer-Which
has struck the commerce of Bordeaux. An
Antwerp steamer brings into the Gar0nne forty
tons of what the world calls Petroleum, but
what the secretaries Of Petroleum Companies
insist should more properly be called Benzoline.
A man in charge of one Of the two barges to
which the Petroleum had been transferred from
the steamer lights a torch. He throws the half
burnt match down among the cases of spirit,
and they forthwith explode, The locality Of
the u~nlading was three miles below Bordeaux,
and had been selected by the port authorities as
a safe quarter for vessels to discharge inham-
mable cargoeS like Petroleum or Naphtha. If
the Garonne were not a tidal river, it probably
Would nave Deen a SAFE quarter: Dut me port
authorities do not seem to have adequately APP
p~reciated the fact either that lighted oil floats,
or that with the tide it can float as easily up the
stream as down. The disaster was, it is true,
intensified by the error of judgement which in
duced the Captain of the Port to try to drown
the Fire but the original explosion itself had
probably already dispersed numerous jets over
the surface of the river. A certain amount of
speciality is observable in the circumstances of
the casualty but in its general features it is
what might have happened with the same or
more deplorable results on fifty other rivers