Daily Yellowstone journal., 1886-07-28
FLOUR AS AN EXPLOSIVE.
What Might Happen IL Miliers Were Il
BECOME Anarchists

What Might Happen III Miiiers were 20
BECOME Anarchists
A Minneapolis man talked long with o
manufacturer Of mill machinery whom he
met at the Gilsey house the other evening.
The latest improvements in bran busters,
smut machines, cookie separatnrs aud corn
meal bolts were fully discussed. Then
came the strikes, and both admitted that
in most cases the strikers were right-the
exceptions, Of course, being those of strik-
ing millers.
''If the millers were Anarchists" said
the Minnesota man, ''they could blow up
every flour mill in Minneapolis without
using dynamite. God only knows the
power millers have in their hands If they
were devils enough to use it. A flour
mill in operation is almost rs dangC rous
as powder magazine, and has 10 be
watched ms closely. Every coil miner is
afraid of fire damp, and every miller
knows his mill is likely TO De blown up
with terrible explosion at any moment
To most people this would sound like an
exaggcraiion, but tell you ii is a solemn
fact. What blew up your mills in Bar
clay street II few years ago? What leveled
whole block of stone mills in Mime
uPoAAH htA hNAi- NllANNf ~ AiAtAA ~ af''tNNN SS
though cyclone had struck the cityi
Nothing in the world but fiour-one Of
the deadliest and most powerful eNplo-
sives known.
s.If you stand in n flour mill. near the
stones, and look across the room toward
the sunlight you will see that the air is
loaded with fine grain dust. |! you had
microscopic eyes, you would see Yourself
surrounded with small atoms of grain of
all kinds. Those atoms form an ex-
plosiye substance more powerful than any
known TO Nihilists, and their presence,
though inevitable, is what makes flour
mill as dangerous as powder pit. Sup
pose you take a dry ear OF corn and set it
on fire. II win burn slowly, Shell the
ear aud fire the kernels and it burns much
more rapidly. Grind the corn and il will
burn like paper. Reduce it To powder
to dust-and, if ignited il goes off like q
flash. That is the state in which flour is
dangerous, when Il is finer than Hour. IL
a mill becomes overcharged with this
dust, and il is ignited, away goes the
mill.
''Several years ago the large Washing
ton mills in Minneapolis caught fire.
They were going at the time. Those who
knew the danger gave the alarm and got
out as lively as they could"
''Did the mills blow upy''
81 should say they did. The walls
were made Of stone, six feet thick, and
when the explosion came they tumbled
out like straw board. The sheet-iron
roof was blown SO high from one of the
Washington mills that the wind carried
1t two miles. Men watching the fire at
a distance were blown through windows,
knocked down, hurled through the air
and several were killed. Sometimes the
lighting Of II pipe in a grain house viii de-
molish the building. In Scotland mill
a man once lii cigar. In a second the
room seemed filled with fire, and there was
q terrible roar. When the smoke cleared
away the four walls Of the mill lay fiat
on the ground and the roof of the mill
lay several hundred feet away, With the
exception of a bad scare and singeing
not a person was hurt The dus; burned
creating a great heat.-New York Star.