One would have thought it impossible that there should be
an unprecedented accident; but it is said that the catastrophe on Loch Fyne, by which seven persons lost their lives on Saturday, had never occurred before. It has been the custom of the baffles of Glasgow to attend the annual " monster blasts " in the great Crarae Quarries on that loch, and this year the custom was observed. Seven tons of powder were fired at once, dislodging, it is believed, some 80.000 tons of granite, and after the stone had fallen, the visitors strolled into the quarries to see the result. Some three hundred ladies and gentlemen were standing about talking, when one after another was observed to fall apparently dead, till nearly a hundred bodies were stretched on the stone. They were at once carried out by the quarrymen ; but it was found that seven were dead, and that thirty more were more or less injured, a few severely. The visitors had been asphyxiated by the sulphurous vapour caused by the blast, the shortest among them feeling it first and most severely. Those who died, died instantly, and one witness, who fainted but recovered, testified that the sensation was "rather pleasant than painful" No blame attaches to any one, the vapour having been retained longer than usual by the horse- shoe shape of the quarry, which stops the breeze on three sides
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