OCR Text |
Show IT CAN'T BE DONE. There is one born every minute! This time a young man in New Jersey decided to try out the old theory that a lighted match would be extinguished if quickly plunged into gasoline. Result! He is now in the hospital in a critical condition, his body badly burned. Theoretically, a lighted match cou'd he extinguished by gasoline if it could be quickly plunged through pure air into the liquid. Unfortunately, Unfortunate-ly, it is impossible to fulfill these requirements, re-quirements, as wherever there is gasoline gas-oline there is also gasoline vapor immediately im-mediately above it. This vapor mixed with air forms a powerful explosive, the same as that which propels motor cars. In the foregoing experiment the lighted match had to pass through a layer of vapor with air which immediately im-mediately exploded and covered the victim with flaming gasoline. As an interesting sidelight of this experiment, the National Board of Fire Underwriters reported a 1929 fire loss of $15,500,000 caused by petroleum pet-roleum and its products and listed under the heading "Strictly Preventable." Prevent-able." It also points out that people who attempt to do dry cleaning in their homes with gasoline are court-ine court-ine disaster. Whenever anyone feels inclined to take liberties with gasoline he should remember that potentially it is nothing noth-ing less than a death-dealing explosive. explos-ive. The vapor from one gallon of gasoline mixed in proper proportions with air, has explosive possibilities equal to 83 pounds of dynamite. |