The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-01-12

t t N New York, Jan. 12-In f1imsy ~ooden building near which were stored about 100000 loaded 3-inch shells, awaiting shipment to Russia, fire started yesterday afternoon at kingsland, N J., a. little town about a mile and a half south of Ruther- ford.
 The building was in a forty-aere inclosure housing thirty-seven struc- lures used for. the making of munl- lions. and owned and operated by the ; Canadian Car and Foundry Co.,, which has been engaged for fourteen months in turning out war material for the Cxars armies.
 Within a couple of minutes after the first flash of flame was seen, about 3:3O o'clock, there began a terrlnc 1,onnbardment, which lasted for hours and which, even at II o'clock last ] night, was going, on in desultory fashion.
 whether, in the rush and confusion of escaping from the munirion plants s inclosure, any of the 2,000 men who were at work there lost their lives could not be told at midnight. No puositive information as to casualties had been received up to that hour.
 There was an early report that fifty or sixty men had lost their lives. At Il o'clock a story persisted aDout Rutherford, the nearest town of any size to Kingsland, that about twenty had been killed. But this was all very indefinite.
 Those survivors who were seen py reporters at various places did not know positively of a single death. It may be that there was no loss or life, for all stories agree that there was an interval of time between the beginning of the fire and the start of the explosions, during which ev erybody might have escaped.
 1t was impossible at midnight to approach within quarter of mile of the munition plant inclosure. The fire. which had communicated to al most every building in the place, was sitll blazing fiercely. The banging of shells still sounded. The shells mostly high explosive, although some were shrapnel-were dropping in all parts of the surrounding country, as far away as three miles. From the continuous roar of them, when the fire was at it's height, it seemed as though all of the 100000 must have let go.
 Ti1e monetary loss will probably be well into the millions.
 Hospitals in Newark, Jersey City, Rutherford and other nearby points received a score or so of persons who had been injured. Most of them suf- fered from exposure to the cold and from immersion in the icy water of the swamps and creeks which sur- , round the Canadian concerns plant.
 Those who escaped had to pick fh cir way over wide entanglements of barbed wire This. fortunately, was not charged with electricity, as it is when a night shiftWB working in the plant Many were torn and cut. Then they had to wade the little streams which run through the Hackensack Meadows Hundreds in their flight ran across the frozen surface of the Passaic river. The Ice was none too thick, and many broke through and were seen struggling in the water. It is not particularly deep right there, but some may have been drowned.
 The. general belief at midnight, however, was that there had beer, little. if any, los of life.
 Shock Is Felt In Yonkers
 For many miles apout, the innum- erable explosions of the shrapnel and .lH. E'' shells were felt. As far to the north as Yonkers windows were shaken Tn Brooklyn there was felt a sustained rattle described as Hike a gigantic, truck carrying; tons of gir- ders over a cobbled roadway" Jer- seys City, Paterson, Passaic. the
 s~~ n@i ether places as distant as ten and fifteen miles felt quavers as though from an earthquake.
 Tn Manhattan, after the usual noises of the day had subsided, a dull booming could be heard last night and the glare of the fire flied the western sky Thousands of per- sons watched and listened from the tops of buildings in the high parts of the city. The blow-up of the Kings land plant was quite as bad, if not worse than that on Black Tom Island last summer.
 Danger of Other Explosions
 There was still great danger, at midnight, of further havoc being wrought, and perhaps of loss of life being inflicted. Along one edge of the forty inclosure were eleven small buildings, about 20 by 30 feet inextent, used as magazines. Some of these were filled with trinitrotoluol the deadly 'T. N. T''-and others with black powder. Each of those compositions was used in the shells which were turned out for Russia.
 There were hundreds of tons of these explosives in the magazines. It was hoped at midnight that their concrete construction (they were the ;Cl..- c..crete housss on the grounds) might save them and prevent the greatest explosion of all.
 Traffic on the Delaware, Lacka- wanna and Western Railroads Boon ton Division which runs directly past the munitions plant,i was at a stand still for hours. The windows of some trains, which were standing empty at great distance away were smash ed by shell fragments So, too, were the windows and sides of trolley cars. some as far as mile distant.