锅炉爆炸。
一个智能估计，现在在纽约市使用的蒸汽锅炉数量将近3,000，其中大部分在厚厚的社区或制造业，酒店等，爆炸有可能导致人类生活的可怕破坏，什么都不说财产。使用中的数量和类似地位于其他城市和制造城镇的数字是相称的。从哈特福德蒸汽锅炉检查和保险公司办公室保存的记录中，似乎在十年内，该国发生了848次锅炉爆炸，1,768人被杀害，并增加了1,904人或多或少的受伤。这是完全可以预防的灾难的可怕记录。我们说可以预防，因为毫无疑问，如果蒸汽锅炉得到适当的照顾，就不会有爆炸。诚实的建筑，有能力的人经常进行检查，经验丰富，有能力且值得信赖的工程师的仔细处理，将使锅炉爆炸的灾难几乎绝对免疫，随之而来的是他们的生活损失和财产破坏。几乎每次爆炸都伴随着一场或多或少比例的大火，因此，它合法地属于消防官员的官员的权限，要求拥有足够的保护手段，以防止锅炉爆炸的人提供。
哈特福德蒸汽锅炉检验和保险Company has demonstrated to a great extent the fact we have asserted, and, by their careful inspection of the boilers owned by their customers, have, unquestionably, prevented many very serious calamities. Referring again to their statistics, we find that their inspectors have made 150,042 separate examinations, which included internal and external inspections. As many as 1,674 dangerous defects were pointed out which needed immediate attention. No less than 788 boilers were condemned as worn out and unsafe to run. If this result was obtained among boilers whose owners had sufficient interest in them to desire insurance, what would the result be if the same rigid inspection was extended to all boilers, including those whose owners’ only thought regarding them is to get the greatest amount of work out of them at the least possible cost? Steam boilers are too frequently treated with a degree of neglect that should insure their explosion. One-sixth of the explosions which took place in Manchester, England, in 1863, were traced to external corrosion. An impression prevails in many quarters that dirty water, greasy water, hard water, or salt water, is good enough to feed a boiler with. People who ought to know better think that all the impurities are driven off by steam ; when just the reverse takes place, for the dirt, grease, lime in the hard water, or the salt are separated by the heat and form a sediment, causing internal corrosion.
