Evening star., 1908-01-26


up by belch of molten metal from blast furnace
in Pittsburgh; and the coroner found that the
furnace had not been properly working for several
weeks, so that some of the had left their job.
A rush of, orders hadkept the company from making
the necessary repairs in time.
When Flywheels Explode
A ND even in ordinary factories the lywhee may
become more deadly than any shrapnel ever
rammed into artillery breach. One can hardly pick
up an engineering journal without noting fywheel
explosion. myself counted eighteen in two months
and many unrecorded altogether. The
engine is wrecked costly machinery ruined, build
ngs damaged, and all persons in the path of the
flying cast iron missiles are either killed or badly
manned.
In July, 1905, thirty foot fywheel, weighing
seventy thousand pounds and revolving at three
and half miles minute, burst in mill at Cumber-
land, Maryland The whole building was instantly
wrecked and the roof thrown down on the workers,
Of whom two were killed outright and ten mangled
One such accident may do one hundred thousand
dollars worth of damage. There are no safe fly
wheels, the insurance companies say. because no
machine will run continuously without some acci-
dent.
This was shown by startling episode at steel
mill in Cleveland. A powerful engine running
smoothly and at normal speed. when the governor
belt broke and the engine began to race. There
safety devices in but these proved unavail-
ing. Running to shut off steam. the engineer in
his excitement got his arm caught in spToSket ke
the valve 1t terrible position. for the man
foresaw disaster. The engine was by this time
fairly flying. Just as the oiler was running to his
comrades assistance the great twenty-foot hy-
wheel, weighing forty-eight thousand pounds, burst
with a terrifying report from centrifugal force
Both men were struck down, and everything wrecked
in the path of the broken monster. One fragment
weighing thousand pounds was hurled
through the roof for eight hundred feet, and in
falling wrecked house The steel roof trusses
were cut like pipe stems, heavy grders smashed
into shapeless masses, and brick walls battered
down.
With exploding boilers the risk is even greater;
oil %ho cnrn
inspectors for them-whose work, by the way, IS
also extremely perilous In truth the workman
Of to-day runs more risk than any professional
are made to promote cordial relations between
master and man, the safeguarding of life and limb
is but little thought of.
take no heed of purely industrial diseases s-the
"phossy jaw" of the matchmaker, miners asthma,
hatters shakes. and potter's consumption: nor
of the human price OF white lead, with its wrist
DROP" and score of other nsdious maladies that
lurk in material or work room. Nor do l include
the slaughter caused by street cars automobiles,
and general road traffic. The New York surgeons
alone basing their figures experience and hospital
records, estimate at least hundred and fifty
thousand accidents in that city every year And
New Yorks own coroners reported IN 1900 sixty
eight deaths among the men boring IN subaqueous
tunnels by compressed air.
must pass over such trades as dynamite and gun
powder making and handling; for figures are not
forthcoming Farming and numbering fatalities
also defy the statistcian Certain it is that every
year sees the farmer using more and more machinery,
and that of kind more dangerous than any factory
machinery. 1t is usually full Of knives and cutting
edges and seldom cared for But the facts are hard
to get, for the victims scattered over millions
of square miles. The same is true of lambermen,
north south, east, and west.
The Price of Skyscrapers
A ND we are kept almost equally in the dark
about the toll of life taken by marvellous con-
struction work In New York forty-story skyscrap-
ers are going up, and in every city building is in
progress at feversh rate; and yet we know that