ARSENAL, As briefly noted in an extra issued on Monday a tremendous explosion occurred in the camp to the east of the Kiangnan Arsenal at a few minutes to one o'clock yesterday morning. The report was hoard by mumber of people in. the Settlements and caused a great deal of speculation and some amount of consternation, many people being undertheimpression that an explosion had occurred near at hand. First enquiries conveyed. the impression that it was not quite so serious as it afterwards turned out to be, the number of killed being put at only one or two.
visit to the: scone of the catastrophe however revealed the true state of affairs. Instead of the loss of life being small, it was found that at least twelve' were killed outright, and more are expected.to die. Six men had been conveyed to the Shantung Road Hospital, four of whom are not expected to recover.
The place where the explosion occurred is a small camp, about 250 feet square, situated about a quarter of a mile ina direct line to the east of the arsenal and soned by 320 braves, under the command of a major. On. reference. to. the. rough plan of the camp published it will be seen that the magazine which blew. up was almost in the centre of the camp. In the magazine, which was only a temporary structure, were stored about 16,000 rifle cartridges, eighty pounds of prism powder made up in. flannel cartidges, a quantity of gun cotton, and a number of: packages of percussion caps... Close tothe magazine was a: watch: tower, of the ordinary type: in-use such camps, the wooden' supports of which were quite' rotten. The theory is that.this..tower was not strong enough to withstand the high wind blowing.at,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.