Tu view of the fact that within a mexsurable distance of time afoamers carrying petroleum in bulk will be passing through the Suez Canal, the recent Board of Trade enquiry into the loss of the s.s. Lu, is of fertioaler interest, The Lue was an iron ritish steam screw vessel, built in 1888 for carrying petroleum oil in bulk, According to the official report of the enquiry, in September 1891 she brought @ cargo of 2,241 tons of refined petroleum vil from Batoum to London, and in Octuber another cargo of 2,207 tons also from Batoum to Venice, She then returned to Batoum and Toaded @ cargo of 2,229. tons for Autwetp, with which she left Batoum on 28: h October last, with a crew. of 22 hat songers, the latter being is two children and his wit experienced heavy weather, and on the morning of 2ad November, when she was heading for the Dora Vhannel, Grecian Archipelago, it was blowing very hurd, and the sea was breaking over the ship. Atabeut 8.15 a.m. it was reported that there was a ight smell of petroleum in the bunker, and wut 10 a.m. fire was seen by the chief ongineer,.in the engine room, ov the -port ide, and the smoke was suffocating. When he returned on deck the last wedges were being knocked out of the bunker hatch coamings, when the hatches were immediately forced up by. the pressure from below, and flames shot up to a height of about 12'ft. Orders were at once given to Munch the boats, and although effort was used only six persons sueed in reaching the shore. survivors found they had landed on the 8.1. of Cape Philagra. They took shelter in a hat during the night; they leo thought they heard' two reports or explosions, The next day. the remains of the vessel were found on the shore. She was broken to pieces: to-n-degree- which: they -considered could not be accounted for by the weather, or as described by the chief mate, It aust have been mn explosion to have caused her to be in.the pieces I saw."
Having hieurd the evidence, those holding the enquiry came to the following conclusion 1, That the accident was due to the igniriot in or about the stokehole of some mineral il, which bad escaped from the cargo tanks, and travelled aft by the pott-side bunker through the open door in the bulkhead of the same, 2, That the, escape of the oil from the tanks into th *side-bunker was not duo to any inherent weakness or cofeotive work in such tan '3. That the escape of the oil from the side-bunker into the stokehole was due to the defective d of the vessel, which failed adequately to isolate portions of the vessel into. which leakage was. possible, and even under certain conditions probable, from other non-cargo spaces '4. That the design of the vessel, and to some extent her it and discipline, failed in more than one particular to satisfy the conditions of safety (indicated in the fore-fe age, we consider it indispensable should be jing report) which, with our present know-observed, whether in the carriage of refined or crude mineral oil.
5. That this accident, strengthens the observations contained in the report on. the Tancarville (3), a8 to-the necessity for: an amendment of the law to enable proper regulations, general and Jocal, to be: made. for the conveyance of petroleum, whether in the form of mineral pil or mineral spirit, and. whether in barrel or in bulk and thal a prominent feature in euch amendment should be a power
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