If the safety valve of a boiler be accidentally jammed, or if the plates or stays be much worn by corrosion, while a high pressure of steam is nevertheless maintained, the boiler necessarily bursts; and if, from an insufficiency of water in the boiler, or from any other cause, the flues become highly heated, they may be forced down by the pressure of the steam, and a partial explosion may be the result.

Considering these facts, Mr. Merrick shrewdly suspected that the dynamite explosion had been the work of the mill hands, yet why it was harmlessly exploded in a field was a factor that puzzled him exceedingly.

You heard a dozen explosions last night, and you'll hear a dozen this afternoon, and the biggest explosion of all is usually the fourth or fifth.

"Don't be alarmed, gentlemen," I heard O'Connor shout, "the explosions were only the flash-lights of the official police photographers.

Neither Thursday nor Hetty allowed a word to escape concerning the placing of the bomb in the Tribune office, but the explosion was public knowledge and many were bothering their heads to explain its meaning.

But in the other case, when the first explosion is over, the noise it makes grows less and less, and is heard by fewer and fewer persons; until it ends by the action having only a shadowy existence in the pages of history.

The explosion was a thing worth going many miles to see.