Note 48 — 1850.

The accidental destruction of the three smaller chambers was providential, for had they exploded, the battery-shed, with Captain Frome and his assistant, would inevitably have been carried away, and crushed among the falling masses: as it was “the electricity of the two Grove’s batteries, on igniting the powder in the larger chambers, caused an instantaneous disconnection of the Smee’s battery from the smaller chambers, and, at the same time, the table on which they stood was jerked violently forward between two and three feet, upsetting the Smee’s battery on the floor, and throwing out from the others also a quantity of the acids.”—‘Illust. Lond. News,’ September 28, 1850.