The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1911-02-08
DYNAMITE'S TERRIFIC POWER.
RELEASED, SPREADS TER
ROR AND DEATH.
ITS FORCE TRAVELS As MILES

Cargo of Explosive Lets Go in New
York, Leaving Not Splinter
of Ship. Windows Shattered in
Buildings, and Skyscfapers Totter
Under Terrific Charge. Damage
Close to Millions.
NEW YORK.-A cargo of dyna-
mite in transit from a freight car to
the hold of a lighter moored at Pier
No. Z, Communipaw, N. j., let go
shortly after noon today $50 yards
south of the Jersey City terminal of
the Central Railroad of New Jersey,
and in the widespread ruin that fol-
lowed seven men are known to have
been killed, seven more are missing.
hundreds are wounded and varying
reports leave from fifteen to twenty
more unaccounted for.
Thirty seems to be conservative
estimate of the dead, and property
damage will hardly fall below $780,
600.
The cause of the explosion is vari-
ously attributed from the dropping
OF a case of dynamite to a boiler
explosion on a boat. The direct
cause probably never will be known.
The Jersey City Terminal was
wrecked.
Three ferry boats in the slips were
torn and splintered.
Lower Manhattan, across the riv-
er, was shaken from the street level
to the top of the Singer tower.
Severe damage was done in Brook
Ign and Staten Island, and to the i'm
migrant detention station on Ellis
Island.
The shock was felt at AmityvilIe,
Long Island, thirty-five miles dis
tant, and in New Jersey at Long
Branch, forty-fve miles away.
The damage is so widely scattered
that it is impossible as yet to more
than roughly estimate it, but in Man
haitian alone is placed at 100000,
on Ellis Island at $4,000 to $685.
600, and in all headquarters of
million appears to be a fair esti-
mate.
The lighter receiving the dyna-
mite, the Katherine w, owned by
James Healing of Jersey City, van
ished utterly with her crew of seven
men, including the master, Edward
TraVer. Alongside was the lighter
Whistler, which was so badly shat
tered that she sank with her crew
OF two, while the Swedish steel bark
entine Ingrid was stripped of her
rigging and the lives of two deck
hands aboard snuffed out. Frag-
ments of one mans head was found
swinging high on tangled piece of
rope.
The Katherine w. was tied to the
outer end of the pier, and a crew of
deck hands was unloading a con-
signment of fifty-pound boxes from
two box cars to the lighter when the
crash came. One report was to the
effect that the explosive was con-
signed to contractors up the river
for blasting along the Palisades;
yana.
Boat Drops From Sight.
With the explosion the Katherine
''' iAPAJ OlSc ppCd4 Gu. 4NOI d SpllH-
ter Of her has been four d. Only the
whistler's flag pole has been found.
The freight car went up in a puff
OF dust. On the rear deck of the
barkentine Ingrid were found pair
of iron trucks that were also torn
to bits.
Fifty yards back stood another
car of dynamite. The explosion
ripped the roof off of it and broke
in the doors, but the dynamite it,
self did not explode
For 100 feet the pier itself was
utterly demolished.
All about were strange freaks of
the explosion.
In the train shed of the terminal
nearly the whole southern exposure
OF the glass roof collapsed, shower
ing the passengers with broken glass.
one man was struck by a twenty
pound fragment and 30 badly cut
that be died. An engineer in a To-
connective vas blown from his cab