The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1878-08-24
Terrible Disaster in POttsviIIe.

PoTTsv1LLE, Aug. 17.-At half-past four
O'Clock this afternoon mass of black terri
flying clouds swept up in majestic grandeur
from the west, and in few moments the en-
tire heavens over Pottsville were crashing
and blazing with electric discharges. The
storm ragged in sublime fury, then spread
its wings to distant horizons and sped on
towards the East. While the sky over
Pottsyille was in full possession of the terri
BILE storm and bolts of electric fluid were play
ing among the neighboring mountains,
shaft of red-hot forked lightning descended
with frightful roar into the very founda-
tions ofa powder magazine. The arsenal
belonged to Weldy 4 Co. About eleven hun
dred kegs of giant blasting powder were
stored away in the recesses Of the massive
building.
But with the ndescribable brightness of
the lightning the magazine and all the
buildings around it were literally blown
into atoms. words can give no idea of the
shock.
1t was like the bursting forth of volcanic
crater, where explosive gases have been ac-
cummulating for ages. Pottsville is large
town. Its buildings rest on solid rock foun-
dations, but on this afternoon, when the
l,l00 kegs of giant powder were touched by
the lightning the town and all the earth a.
round shook as if planet had struck them.
To recount the numberless distant windows
destroyed on this remarkable occasion
would give but faint idea of the terrible
force of the powder.
Inmates of houses were hurled from
chairs as if they were in the path of an
avalanche. Large and deeply rooted trees
which had withstood the elemental fury of
a hundred storms were torn asunder,
snapped off like twigs, while their massive
fragments were scattered to the winds. All
this was but the work of an instant, yet the
destruction was terrible and complete.
Twenty-Five houses were crushed as if they
were eggs under a locomotive. Solid and
substantial lees were literally torn into kind
ling wood.
Cheerful hearthstones and pianos were
hurled into cutters mile away. The frag-
ments of all these houses and business
structures went flying through the air like
bursting shells. The life of no one was safe
Slate roofs, masses of flooring, hugh sections
of timbers, chimney towers and foundation
stones were all mingled together and in the
twinkling of an eye they were flung into
the blazing clouds only TO come laundering
down again and crush the terrified citizens
of Pottsville to mutilation and death.
At the very moment when the appalling
catastrophy was about TO occur, a party Of
young people were holding picnic in a
pleasant grove about half a mile away
Girls were chatting with their partners
children were filling the woods with their
happy voices. when suddenly the storm
burst upon them, and vivid lightning;
made the sky seem TO their young eyes as il
it were filled with 10000 burning, blazing
ribbons. In the midst of this scene of wild
and awful splendor long zigzag mete oi
light hurled its dazzling mass oflight into the
bowels of the powder magazine, and before
the astonished company could catch theil
lost breath, a swath fifty feet wide wa;
mown through the forest. The picnic
grounds lay directly in its dreadful path.
The thousands of cubic yards of stone in
the foundations Of the magazine were rent
into square cannon balls as large as dry
goods boxes and propelled with the swiftnes.
of birds shot through the swaying trees-sC
| that venerable trunks were cut Off level with
the ground, and the bodies thrown with re
morseless fury among the helpless children
| There was no time 10 pray, no time 10 cal
mother; no time TO seek shelter behind the
adjoining rocks. All nature was in combat
all nature was seeking the einuocent plessur,