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XL] MY NEW IDEAS

adoption and to the consequent annual saving of life and property. I was led to it by having seen the effects of the explosion of a powder barge on the Regent's Canal when I was living in the neighbourhood (some time in the sixties); and again while living at Grays and often passing the great magazine at Purfleet¹, where there had been an explosion some years before. On reading of the elaborate and costly precautions at all such magazines, and of explosions occurring somewhere almost every year notwithstanding all precautions, it occurred to me that there was a simple way of rendering such explosions impossible, and at the same time reducing largely the cost of storing all explosives.

The plan was to store all gunpowder, cartridges, and other explosives in metal drums, either hexagonal or circular in form and of uniform size and height, fitted at top with an air-tight cap of a size suited to the kind of explosive it contained. These drums would be arranged in rows in shallow, open tanks, filled with water so as to cover the lids, the water being kept at a uniform level by an inflow and overflow. Such tanks would need no protection whatever, except against thieves, and no precautions whatever would be required. For the conveyance of powder, etc., trucks and barges with water-tanks could be used, and in factories all explosive materials should be kept under water, so that if an explosion occurred during the actual processes of manufacture it would be strictly limited, and could not extend either to the stores of material or of the finished product, since if the water were all blown away by the concussion the contents would remain uninjured.

I drew up a careful statement of the advantages of this plan, with a drawing of the proposed drum, and sent it through a friend to Sir Thomas Brassey², then a Lord of the Admiralty, requesting him to lay it before the proper authorities. In reply I received a memorandum from the Director of Naval Ordnance, referring me to the "Treatise of Ammunition, 1881" (a copy of which was sent), as to "the present service powder-cases." He added that the plan would be difficult, and perhaps impossible on board ship, on account of the extra space required. The last paragraph was —

[2] [p. 396] MY LIFE [CHAP.

"For permanent depôts of powder like Upnor³ the idea seems worthy of attention, and Mr. Wallace might address the War Office on the subject after informing himself as to the present service powder-cases.

"F. A. HERBERT.

"20. 6. [18]82."

As the Treatise sent merely showed that copper drums were in use something similar to those I suggested, but the interminable pages of instructions and precautions made no reference whatever to water-storage, I did not trouble myself to send my plan to the War Office. I, however, sent it to a few newspapers, where it appeared, and I received in consequence a letter from the editor of the Ironmonger approving of the plan for large stores of powder, but fearing it could not be applied to retail dealers, where explosions, often fatal, were continually occurring, almost always through "gross negligence."

It thus appears that good authorities could see no practical objections to the plan in most cases, neither did they deny the absolute security that would be obtained by it ; yet the crop of explosions, with loss of life, goes on every few years, and till some one in authority takes it up, will, I presume, continue.

PREDICTIONS FULFILLED.

Having devoted three chapters to an account of my various experiences in connection with modern spiritualism, which have, however, been far less extraordinary than those of many of my friends, I may not improperly conclude this record of my life and experience with a statement of a few of the predictions which I have received at different times, and which have been to some extent fulfilled.

In 1870 and the following years several communications in automatic writing were received through a member of my family purporting to be from my brother William, with whom I had lived so many years. In some of these he referred to