Explore the full ebook collection and download it now at textbookfull.

com

Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Handbook A

Guide to Good Industry Practices 1st Edition
Nicholas P. Cheremisinoff

https://textbookfull.com/product/dust-explosion-and-fire-
prevention-handbook-a-guide-to-good-industry-practices-1st-
edition-nicholas-p-cheremisinoff/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Browse and Get More Ebook Downloads Instantly at https://textbookfull.com

Click here to visit textbookfull.com and download textbook now
 Your digital treasures (PDF, ePub, MOBI) await
Download instantly and pick your perfect format...

Read anywhere, anytime, on any device!

Pollution control handbook for oil and gas engineering 1st

Edition Nicholas P. Cheremisinoff

https://textbookfull.com/product/pollution-control-handbook-for-oil-
and-gas-engineering-1st-edition-nicholas-p-cheremisinoff/

textbookfull.com

Dust or Fire First Edition Faber Alyda

https://textbookfull.com/product/dust-or-fire-first-edition-faber-
alyda/

textbookfull.com

Lean production for competitive advantage a comprehensive

guide to lean methods and management practices Nicholas

https://textbookfull.com/product/lean-production-for-competitive-
advantage-a-comprehensive-guide-to-lean-methods-and-management-
practices-nicholas/
textbookfull.com

Air Pollution Control and Design for Industry First

Edition Cheremisinoff

https://textbookfull.com/product/air-pollution-control-and-design-for-
industry-first-edition-cheremisinoff/

textbookfull.com
Good Manufacturing Practices for Pharmaceuticals Graham P.
Bunn (Editor)

https://textbookfull.com/product/good-manufacturing-practices-for-
pharmaceuticals-graham-p-bunn-editor/

textbookfull.com

The VES Handbook of Visual Effects Industry Standard VFX

Practices and Procedures 3rd Edition Jeffrey A. Okun

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-ves-handbook-of-visual-effects-
industry-standard-vfx-practices-and-procedures-3rd-edition-jeffrey-a-
okun/
textbookfull.com

Blueprint The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society

Nicholas A. Christakis

https://textbookfull.com/product/blueprint-the-evolutionary-origins-
of-a-good-society-nicholas-a-christakis/

textbookfull.com

The Good and the Good Book Revelation as a Guide to Life

First Edition Fleischacker

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-good-and-the-good-book-
revelation-as-a-guide-to-life-first-edition-fleischacker/

textbookfull.com

From Agriscience to Agribusiness Theories Policies and

Practices in Technology Transfer and Commercialization 1st
Edition Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes
https://textbookfull.com/product/from-agriscience-to-agribusiness-
theories-policies-and-practices-in-technology-transfer-and-
commercialization-1st-edition-nicholas-kalaitzandonakes/
textbookfull.com
Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention
Handbook
 Scrivener Publishing
100 Cummings Center, Suite 541J
Beverly, MA 01915-6106

Publishers at Scrivener
Martin Scrivener ([email protected])
Phillip Carmical ([email protected])
Dust Explosion and Fire
Prevention Handbook
A Guide to Good Industry Practices

Nicholas P. Cheremisinoff, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2014 by Scrivener Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

Co-published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, New Jersey, and Scrivener Publishing LLC, Salem,
Massachusetts.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permit-
ted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior writ-
ten permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to
the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax
(978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be
addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030,
(201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts
in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or
completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchant-
ability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representa-
tives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your
situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author
shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to spe-
cial, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact
our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at
(317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may
not be available in electronic formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site
at www.wiley.com.

For more information about Scrivener products please visit www.scrivenerpublishing.com.

Cover design by Kris Hackerott

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 978-1-118-77350-5

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents

About the Author xi

Preface xiii

1 Combustible Dusts 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Metrics 3
1.3 Size and Shape 6
1.4 Size Distribution 9
1.4.1 Weighted Distributions 10
1.4.2 Number Weighted Distributions 10
1.4.3 Volume Weighted Distributions 11
1.4.4 Intensity Weighted Distributions 11
1.4.5 Size Distribution Statistics 11
1.5 Why Some Dusts are Combustible 14
1.6 Common Causes of Dust Explosions and Risk Mitigation 16
1.6.1 General 16
1.6.2 Explosion Hazard Zones Classification 20
1.7 Closing Remarks and Definitions 21

2 The Basics of Dust Explosions 29

2.1 Conditions for Dust Fires and Explosions 29
2.1.1 Explosion Limits 29
2.2 Primary and Secondary Dust Explosions 39
2.3 Explosions within Process Equipment 40
2.3.1 Baghouse Dust Explosion Case Study 41
2.3.2 Blender and Grinder Dust Explosions 44

v
vi Contents

2.3.3 Dryer Dust Explosion Scenarios 46

2.3.4 Case Study of an Aluminum Dust Explosion 47
2.4 Other Examples of Catastrophic Incidents 52
2.5 Ignition Sensitivity 54
Recommended References 61

3 Factors Influencing Dust Explosibility 65

3.1 Introduction 65
3.2 Particle Size and Dust Concentration 66
3.3 Particle Volatility 66
3.4 Heats of Combustion 68
3.5 Explosive Concentrations and Ignition Energy 70
3.6 Classification of Dusts 73
3.7 Oxidant Concentration 75
3.8 Turbulence 76
3.9 Maximum Rate of Pressure Rise 77
3.10 Presence of Volatile and Flammable Gases 78
3.11 Limiting Oxygen Concentration 82
3.12 Important Definitions and Concepts 84
Recommended References 91

4 Explosion Prevention in Grain Dust Elevators 93

4.1 Introduction 93
4.2 Causes 95
4.3 Properties of Grain Dusts 98
4.4 Case Studies 102
4.4.1 Toepfer Puerto San Martín Explosion,Argentina,
October 2001 102
4.4.2 Coinbra Paranaguá Explosion, Brazil,
November 2001 102
4.4.3 Aca San Lorenzo Explosion, Argentina,April 2002 103
4.4.4 Grain Elevator Dust Explosion in Minnesota,
August 17, 2012 105
4.4.5 De Bruce Grain Elevator in Wichita, KS 1998 105
4.4.6 Grain Elevator Explosion in Kansas City,
October 29, 2011 105
4.4.7 Port Colbourne Elevator in Ontario, Canada, 1952 105
 Contents vii

4.4.8 Explosions at Various U.S. Facilities 106

4.4.9 Other Examples 106
4.5 Best Industry Practices 107
4.5.1 Bucket Elevator Legs 109
4.6 Osha Grain Handling Standard Audit Questionnaire 120
4.6.1 Section (d) Emergency Action Plan 120
4.6.2 Section (e) Training 121
4.6.3 Section (f) Hot Work Permit 121
4.6.4 Section (g) Entry into Grain Handling Structures 122
4.6.5 Section (h) Entry into Flat Storage Structures 124
4.6.6 Section (i) Contractors 125
4.6.7 Section (j) Housekeeping 125
4.6.8 Section (k) Grate Openings 126
4.6.9 Section (l) Filter Collectors 126
4.6.10 Section (m) Preventive Maintenance 126
4.6.11 Section (n) Grain Stream Processing Equipment 127
4.6.12 Section (o) Emergency Escape Note: Applies
only to grain elevators. 127
4.6.13 Section (p) Continuous-Flow Bulk Grain
Dryers Note: Applies only to grain elevators. 127

5 Coal Dust Explosibility and Coal Mining Operations 131

5.1 Introduction 131
5.2 Coal as a Fuel 132
5.3 Heat and Energy 134
5.4 Coal Dust Suspension, Confinement, Resuspension
and Explosions 135
5.5 Processing Equipment Explosion Hazards 137
5.6 Coal Mining Operations and Safety 147
5.6.1 Overview 147
5.6.2 Origins of Coal Bed Methane and Explosions 148
5.6.3 Longwall Mining 153
5.6.4 Controlling Explosion Risks at Coal Mine
Working Faces 156
5.6.5 Stratification 161
5.6.6 Use of Portable Methane Detectors 162
5.6.7 Summary of Monitoring Principles and Best Practices 164
viii Contents

5.6.8 Estimating and Controlling Methane Concentration 169

5.6.9 Managing Ignition Sources 175
5.6.10 Case Study – The Massey Mine Disaster 176
5.6.11 Other Case Studies 179
5.6.12 Application of Rock Dusting 186
5.6.13 Methane Degasification 190
5.6.14 Prevention, Early Detection and Fire Suppression 196
Recommended References 203

6 Preventing Fires and Explosions Involving Metals 207

6.1 Introduction 207
6.2 Combustibility Properties of Metals 208
6.3 Explosion Temperatures 215
6.4 Dry Powder (Class D Fires) 216
6.5 Case Studies 226
6.5.1 Combustible Metal Dust Led to Fatal Flash Fire 226
6.5.2 Watco Mechanical Services 227
6.5.3 Metal Recycling Facility Fire - California 227
6.5.4 Other Case Studies 228
6.6 Good Industry Practices for Prevention and Risk Mitigation 246
6.6.1 General Good Practices 246
6.6.2 Considerations for Operations and Maintenance 253
6.6.3 Assessing and Mitigating Equipment
Explosion Hazards 254
6.7 Risk Screening Guidelines and Resources 265
Recommended References 272

7 Phlegmatization, Diluent Dusts, and the Use of Inert Gases 275

7.1 Introduction 275
7.2 Phlegmatization 276
7.3 Addition of Diluents 279
7.4 Application of Inert Gases 279
7.4.1 Best Practices 282
7.5 Case Study 289

8 Augmenting Risk Mitigation with Leak Detection and Repair 305

8.1 Introduction 305
8.2 Why Ldar Programs are Needed 306
 Contents ix

8.3 Sources of Fugitive Air Discharges 307

8.4 Good Industry Practices 308

Appendix A: General Guidelines on Safe Work Practice 319

Glossary of Terms 349

Index 357
About the Author

Nicholas P. Cheremisinoff is a graduate of Clarkson College of Technology,

where he received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineer-
ing. He has nearly 40 years of industry, applied research and international
business experience, and is the author of numerous engineering refer-
ence textbooks concerning good industry practices in the management of
dangerous and hazardous materials. He is the Principal of No Pollution
Enterprises, which is a firm specializing in environmental and worker
safety litigation support.

xi
Preface

Airborne dust created by the handling of many industrial materials can

combine in an air/dust mixture that could result in a violent, damaging
explosion. A combustible dust is defined by the NFPA (Standards 68 and
654) as “any finely divided solid material 420 microns or smaller in diam-
eter which presents a hazard when dispersed or ignited in air.” ISO is even
more conservative and reports any finely divided solid material smaller
in diameter 500 microns may present an explosion hazard. Most organic
(carbon containing) and metallic dust will exhibit some combustibility
characteristics. Therefore, if dust is present in any form within a working
environment efforts should be taken to assess whether the potential for a
hazard exists or not, and to devise appropriate practices and safeguards to
mitigate the risks.
Preventing dust explosions has gained increased attention in recent
years. In the United States the Chemical Safety Board has proposed new
regulations to reduce the dangers of combustible dust. The European
Community has already implemented two directives for that same pur-
pose. Directive 94/9/EC, often referred to as ATEX-95 (Atmosphères
Explosives), defines the safety requirements concerning equipment and
protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres.
The other EC directive, 1999/92/EC (ATEX 137), outlines the minimum
requirements for the protection and safety of workers at risk from explo-
sive atmospheres.
Dust explosions can result when a flame propagates through combus-
tible particles that have dispersed in the air and formed a flammable dust
cloud. Whether an explosion happens or not depends on the supply of oxy-
gen to the fire and the concentration of the fuel. If the concentration of the
oxygen or the fuel is too high or low, then an explosion is very unlikely.
Consider the combustion engine in your car – there are three com-
bustion components (fuel, air/oxygen and the ignition spark) which

xiii
xiv Preface

work together in a controlled manner to produce an explosion inside the

enclosed cylinder. For the explosion to take place, the ratio of fuel to air
must be in the proper proportion. If the fuel tank is empty, the air source is
blocked or if the ignition does not work, then any one of these components
is considered controlled, combustion cannot occur and the motor will not
start.
Industrial dust explosions can be instigated by many sources, including
static sparks, friction and glowing or smoldering materials. But before dust
can explode, the following factors need to be present:

• The dust must be combustible.

• The dust must be capable of becoming airborne.
• The dust must have a size distribution capable of flame
propagation.
• The dust concentration must be within the explosion limits.
• An ignition source must be present.
• The atmosphere must contain sufficient oxygen to support
and sustain combustion.

When all of these factors are present, a dust explosion can occur.
Eliminating just one of these requirements would make a dust explosion
very unlikely. This then is the overall objective of the volume – to examine
the causes of dust explosions and to provide readers with an overall under-
standing of good industry practices to prevent such events from occurring.
Explosions are defined as sudden reactions involving a rapid physical or
chemical oxidation reaction, or decay generating an increase in tempera-
ture or pressure, or both simultaneously. When the flame speed exceeds
the speed of sound, the event is referred to as a detonation. Otherwise, the
explosion is known as a deflagration. Detonations are much more destruc-
tive than deflagrations. Typically, dust explosions are relatively slow com-
bustion processes. If ignition occurs in a dust cloud in an open area, then
little or no overpressure results and the primary hazard is a fireball. But
if a deflagration occurs in a confined space such as a piece of equipment
or constricted ductwork or tubes, the results may be devastating, causing
substantial damage to operations, injury to operating personnel and even
fatalities. The reader will find a number of case studies documented in this
volume which testify to the devastating results of industrial dust explosions.
The volume begins with a glossary of terms that are commonly applied
to the safe handling of dusts as they relate to fire and explosion issues. The
reader may wish to spend a few moments familiarizing him or herself with
some of the terms if this subject is relatively new to them.
 Preface xv

Chapter 1 examines the physical and thermodynamic properties of

particles which comprise dust. Properties such as size, shape, particle size
distribution and the combustible nature of some materials are examined,
thereby orienting the reader to more in-depth discussions to follow in later
chapters.
Chapter 2 provides a general overview of the characteristics and param-
eters that can be the cause of dust explosions. The basic ingredients that are
required for a dust explosion to occur are discussed and important terms
and concepts relevant to dust instability are examined.
Chapter 3 provides discussions on the various factors that influence
dust explosibility, including but not limited to particle size and particle size
distribution, dust concentration, oxidant concentration, ignition tempera-
ture, turbulence of the dust cloud, maximum rate of pressure rise, admixed
inert dust concentration and the presence of flammable gases.
Chapter 4 delves into the topics of explosions in grain dust elevators,
the causes, and good industry practices for prevention. The first recorded
incident of a dust explosion was in 1785, in a flour mill in Turin, Italy. A
series of accidents during World War I led to a flurry of scientific activ-
ity culminating in the publication of numerous pamphlets and bulletins
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This work identified grain dust as
the specific ingredient common to all accidents, and recommended best
practices were made in order to prevent the occurrence of these accidents.
Despite early industry recognition and statements of good practices, there
have continued to be numerous incidents over the decades leading to enor-
mous human and financial losses.
Chapter 5 is titled Coal Dust Explosibility and Coal Mining Operations.
This chapter provides an examination of coal dust explosions, safe han-
dling operations, and coal mine safety practices. There are three necessary
elements which must occur simultaneously to cause a fire: fuel, heat, and
oxygen (known as the fire triangle). Removing any one of these elements
eliminates the possibility of fire. But for an explosion to occur, there are
five essential elements: fuel, heat, oxygen, suspension, and confinement.
These form the five legs of the so-called explosion pentagon. Like the fire
triangle, removing any one of these requirements would prevent an explo-
sion from propagating. When a burning fuel is placed in suspension by a
sudden blast of air, all five sides of the explosion pentagon are satisfied and
an explosion would be imminent. The reader will find pertinent informa-
tion in this chapter for both good practices for dust management in mining
operations and for general processing operations.
Chapter 6 provides information on combustible metals, their properties
and some common sense guidelines for safe handling of metal dusts. Most
xvi Preface

metals are combustible to a varying degree, depending on their physical

conditions. Many will undergo dangerous reactions with water, acids, and
certain other chemicals; and some metals are subject to spontaneous heat-
ing and ignition. The hazard of an individual metal or alloy varies depend-
ing on the particle size and shape that is present. The reader will find a wide
variety of data and useful information on the safe handling of these materi-
als, plus general guidelines for management of dusts for fire and explosion
prevention that are relevant to all materials.
Chapter 7 covers phlegmatization, the use of diluents and the applica-
tion of inert gases. Each of these practices can reduce the risks of explosible
dusts.
Chapter 8 addresses Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) programs.
Because of the possibility of flammable vapors being present in many oper-
ations, LDAR should be considered a critical part of the dust management
program.
Appendix A is an assembly of general guidelines on safe work practices.
Dust explosion and fire safety management programs should be carefully
integrated with the overall safe work practices and procedures of the facil-
ity. This appendix provides useful general information and good industry
practices for safe work ethics and handling of dangerous chemicals.
The author wishes to thank the staff of No Pollution Enterprises for
assisting in research, styling and proofreading the manuscript. A heartfelt
thank you is also extended to the publisher for their fine production efforts.

Nicholas P. Cheremisinoff, Ph.D.

1
Combustible Dusts

1.1 Introduction
According to the National Safety Council1, dust is defined as “solid par-
ticles generated by handling, crushing, grinding, rapid impact, detona-
tion, and decrepitation of organic or inorganic materials, such as rock, ore,
metal, coal, wood, and grain.” Dust is a by-product of different processes
that include dry and powdery material conveying, solids crushing and
screening, sanding, trimming of excess material, tank and bin feeding and
storing of granular materials, and a number of other processes. The cre-
ation of dust during material handling and processing operations may pose
the obvious problem of inhalation risks to workers, often characterized as
chronic or long term worker exposures. However, when combustible dust
is produced and allowed to accumulate, risks can create immediate dan-
ger to life and health from explosions. Combustible dust explosions have

1
Fundamentals of Industrial Hygiene, 3rd Edition, National Safety Council. Chicago, Ill.,
1988.

1
2 Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Handbook

resulted in the loss of life, multiple injuries and substantial property and
business damage. A few examples2 are:

• In 2002, an explosion at Rouse Polymerics International,

a rubber fabricating plant in Vicksburg, Miss., resulted in
injuring eleven employees, five of whom later died of severe
burns. The explosion occurred with the ignition of an accu-
mulation of a highly combustible rubber.
• In 2003 an explosion and fire occurred at the West
Pharmaceutical Services plant in Kinston, N.C., resulting
in the death of six workers, injuries to dozens of employ-
ees, and hundreds of job losses due to the destruction of
the plant. The facility produced rubber stoppers and other
products for medical use. The fuel for the explosion was a
fine plastic powder that had accumulated unnoticed above a
suspended ceiling over the manufacturing area.
• In 2003 an explosion and fire damaged the CTA Acoustics
manufacturing plant in Corbin, Ky., fatally injuring seven
employees. The facility produced fiberglass insulation for
the automotive industry. The combustible dust associated
with the explosion was a phenolic resin binder used in pro-
ducing fiberglass mats.
• In 2003, a series of explosions severely burned three
employees, one fatally, and caused property damage to the
Hayes Lemmerz manufacturing plant in Huntington, Ind.
The Hayes Lemmerz plant manufactured cast aluminum
automotive wheels. The explosions were fueled by alumi-
num dust, a combustible by-product of the manufacturing
process.
• In 2008 combustible sugar dust was the fuel for a massive
explosion and fire at the Imperial Sugar Co. plant in Port
Wentworth, Ga., resulting in 13 deaths and the hospital-
ization of 40 more workers, some of whom received severe
burns.

These are only a few examples of dust explosions in which there was loss
of life and the substantial destruction of assets and properties.

2
Berry, C., A. McNeely, K. Beauregard, and J. E. Geddie, A Guide to Combustible Dusts,
Occupational Safety and Health Division, N.C. Department of Labor, Feb. 2009.
 Combustible Dusts 3

Before we can understand the causes of dust explosions and ways to pre-
vent them, we need to understand what dust is. The physical, chemical and
thermodynamic properties of dust are important for a myriad of reasons
ranging from the protection of workers from inhalation hazards, explo-
sions and fire, and the overall safe and economic handling of materials that
are prone to creating dust.
In this chapter we focus on the physical and thermodynamic proper-
ties of particles which comprise dust. Properties such as size, shape, par-
ticle size distribution and the combustible nature of some materials are
discussed, orienting the reader to more in-depth discussions to follow in
later chapters.

1.2 Metrics
Dusts are generated from solid or granular materials and can exist over a
wide range of particle sizes depending on the material handling and pro-
cessing operation. They may also form through the processes of sublima-
tion and thermal oxidation as well as from combustion-related processes.
Particles that are too large to remain airborne settle out due to gravity,
while the smallest particles can remain suspended in air almost indefinitely
as colloidal suspensions.
The unit of measure used to characterize dust particle size is the ‘microm-
eter’, more commonly known as a micron or μm. The micrometer is a unit
of length equal to 10–4 (0.0001) centimeter or approximately 1/25,000 of an
inch, or another way of stating this – there are 25,400 microns in one inch.
In metric units a micron represents one-millionth of a meter. By way of
physical comparisons:

• Red blood cells are typically 8 μm (0.0008 cm) in size

• Human hair is 50 – 600 μm in diameter
• Cotton fiber, 15 – 30 μm

The human eye can see particles to as low as 40 microns. Table 1.1 pro-
vides some typical dimensions for materials the reader may relate to.
However, the term particle size requires some thought. What do we
really mean by particle size? Certainly when a particle is spherical, size
equates with the diameter of a sphere. But particles not only come in dif-
ferent sizes, they exist in different shapes.
4 Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Handbook

Table 1.1 Typical particle size comparisons.

Particle Descriptor Particle Size (microns)
Low Range Upper Range
Oxygen 0.00050
Carbon Dioxide 0.00065
Atmospheric Dust 0.001 40
Viruses 0.005 0.3
Rosin Smoke 0.01 1
Tobacco Smoke 0.01 4
Oil Smoke 0.03 1
Smoldering or Flaming Cooking Oil 0.03 0.9
Sea Salt 0.035 0.5
Coal Flue Gas 0.08 0.2
Clay 0.1 50
Corn Starch 0.1 0.8
Paint Pigments 0.1 5
Radioactive Fallout 0.1 10
Face Powder 0.1 30
Metallurgical Dust 0.1 1,000
Metallurgical Fumes 0.1 1,000
Burning Wood 0.2 3
Carbon Black Dust 0.2 10
Combustion-related - motor 2.5
vehicles, wood burning, open
burning, industrial processes
Bacteria 0.3 60
Copier Toner 0.5 15
Insecticide Dusts 0.5 10
Talcum Dust 0.5 50
Asbestos 0.7 90
 Combustible Dusts 5

Particle Descriptor Particle Size (microns)

Low Range Upper Range
Calcium Zinc Dust 0.7 20
Anthrax 1 5
Smoke from Synthetic Materials 1 50
Yeast Cells 1 50
Milled Flour, Milled Corn 1 100
Auto and Car Emission 1 150
Coal Dust 1 100
Fiberglass Insulation 1 1,000
Fly Ash 1 1,000
Lead Dust 2
Spider web 2 3
Mold 3 12
Spores 3 40
Cement Dust 3 100
Starches 3 100
Bone Dust 3 300
Iron Dust 4 20
Red Blood Cells 5 10
Gelatin 5 90
Coffee 5 400
Grain Dusts 5 1,000
Antiperspirant 6 10
Mustard 6 10
Textile Dust 6 20
Tea Dust 8 300
Mold Spores 10 30
Fertilizer 10 1,000

(Continued)
6 Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Handbook

Table 1.1 (Cont.)

Particle Descriptor Particle Size (microns)
Low Range Upper Range
Ground Limestone 10 1,000
Pollens 10 1,000
Textile Fibers 10 1,000
Cayenne Pepper 15 1,000
Ginger 25 40
Saw Dust 30 600
Human Hair 40 600
Mist 70 350
Dust Mites 100 300
Beach Sand 100 10,000
Spanish Moss Pollen 150 750
dot (.) 615
Glass Wool 1,000
Eye of a Needle 1,230
one inch 25,400

1.3 Size and Shape

One of the most important physical properties of particulates is size.
Particle size measurement is routinely carried out across a wide range of
industries and is often a critical parameter in the manufacture of many dif-
ferent products. Size has a direct influence on material properties including
reactivity or dissolution rate e.g. catalysts, tablets; in the stability in suspen-
sion e.g. sediments and paints; for efficacy of delivery e.g. asthma inhalers;
in the texture and feel e.g. food ingredients; in product appearance e.g.
powder coatings and inks; in terms of flowability and handling e.g. gran-
ules; in viscosity e.g. nasal sprays; in the packing density and porosity of a
product, e.g. ceramics.
Understanding how particle size affects products and processes is criti-
cal to many manufacturing operations. It is also important to the safe han-
dling of materials especially in terms of inhalation risks to workers that
 Combustible Dusts 7

come into contact with dusty materials, and as discussed later on, in terms
of explosions and fires.
We begin by recognizing that particles are 3-dimensional objects and
unless they are perfect spheres (e.g. emulsions or bubbles), they cannot be
fully described by a single dimension such as a radius or diameter. To sim-
plify both the measurement and characterization of particles, it is conve-
nient to define particle size using the concept of equivalent spheres. In this
way particle size is defined by the diameter of an equivalent sphere having
the same property as the actual particle like volume or mass for example.
Different measurement techniques and reference definitions use different
equivalent sphere models and therefore will not necessarily give exactly the
same result for the particle diameter. Examples include:

• Sphere with the same maximum or minimum length of a

particle
• Sphere with the same weight of a particle
• Sphere with the same volume as a particle
• Sphere with the same surface area of a particle
• Sphere capable of passing through the same sieve aperture
as a particle
• Sphere having the same settling or sedimentation rate as a
particle

See figure 1.1 for reference. It is important that any size relied on should
be carefully referenced to a specific measurement technique and/or refer-
ence definition.

Sphere with same

Sphere is same minimum length
maximum length
Sphere of same
dmin dw weight
dmax

Sphere of same
dv volume
Sphere having same
dsed
settling rate

ds Sphere of same
Sphere capable of dsieve surface area
passing same sieve
aperture

Figure 1.1 Examples of particle size definitions.

8 Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Handbook

The concept of equivalent spheres is useful in terms of a convenient

metric for the characterization of particles, however, surface area is more
relevant to the subject of this book. Particle-gas interfacial area is a critical
property of a two-phase gas-solid system that has direct relevance to the
property of ignition as we will see from later discussions. For now, how-
ever, we shall continue to dwell on the definitions of particle size.
While the concept of equivalent sphere is reasonable for regular shaped
particles, it may not always be appropriate for irregular shaped particles,
such as needles or plate-like particulates, where the size in at least one
dimension can differ significantly from that of the other dimensions. See
figure 1.2 as an example.
Figure 1.2 illustrates a rod shaped particle for which a volume equiva-
lent sphere would give a particle diameter of 198μm. This is not an accurate
description of the particle’s true dimensions. One option then is to define
the particle as a cylinder with the same volume which has a length of 360μm
and a width of 120μm. This definition more accurately describes the size of
the particle and may provide a better understanding of the behavior of this
particle during processing or handling.

360 m
120 m

198 m

Figure 1.2 Example of volume equivalent rod and sphere of a needle-shaped particle
(Source: after A Basic Guide to Particle Characterization, Malvern Instruments
Worldwide, 2012 Malvern Instruments Ltd., wwwmalvern.com).
 Combustible Dusts 9

1.4 Size Distribution

Let us consider what we really mean by the term particle size. The term
alone refers to a single metric or measurement. But is this truly an accurate
way to describe dust?
To answer this we really must consider dust to be comprised of a particle
system which is made up of many particles. Consider a special case where
all of the particles making up the particle system have the same or almost
same particle size. In this example the particle system is defined as being
Monodisperse. However, in a case where the particle system is made up of
particles different in size, the system is defined as Polydisperse. It is the size
of the particle system or particle diameter distribution which reflects the
regularity or irregularity of the sizes of all the particles.
The term particle size distribution actually refers to an index, which is
a means of expression indicating the sizes of particles that are present in
specified proportions – i.e., the relative particle amount is expressed as a
percentage where the total amount of particles is 100 % in the sample par-
ticle group measured. Volume, area, length, and quantity are used as stan-
dards (i.e., metrics) to define particle amount.
The term frequency distribution is applied to define in percentage the
amounts of particles existing in respective particle size intervals after the
range of target particle sizes is divided into separate intervals or bins. One
may further characterize particle sizes by cumulative distribution (for par-
ticles passing a sieve size) whereby we can express the percentage of the
amounts of particles of a specific particle size or below a size. Alternatively,
cumulative distribution (for particles remaining on the sieve) expresses the
percentage of the amounts of particles of a specific particle size or above.
The concept of particle size distribution depends very much on the par-
ticle size definition used. The shape of almost all particles cannot be simply
and quantitatively expressed as spheres. Rather, particles are complex sys-
tems comprised of irregular shapes, and in some instances are not indi-
vidual particle entities but made up of aggregates. This is why the indirect
definition of a sphere-equivalent diameter is most useful. Under this defi-
nition, when a certain particle is measured based on a certain principle
of measurement, the particle size of the measured particle is expressed by
the diameter of a spherical body that displays the same result (i.e. meas-
urement quantity or pattern). Referring back to figure 1.1 as an example,
consider an equivalent sphere definition based on particle settling rate. In
this example the particle size is based on a measurement method known
as the precipitation method. Here the particle size of the particle (i.e., its
diameter) is calculated assuming a sphere having the same settling velocity
10 Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Handbook

and density as a sphere is the actual particle. However, if another measure-

ment technique such as the laser diffraction/scattering method is used – i.e.,
a method in which the particle size of the particle to be measured assumes
the same diffracted/scattered light pattern as a 1 μm-diameter sphere is 1
μm regardless of the shape of the particle – then we have a very different
size definition and hence a very different size distribution.
If the principle of measurement differs, the definition of particle size, in
other words, the scale itself used as the measurement standard differs. In
which case, completely different measurement results will be obtained even
if the term “particle size distribution” is the same. Accordingly, we really
have no choice but to consider the principle of measurement itself to be a
scale or a standard. For this reason, it is meaningless to scientifically rank
precision or accuracy when comparing various principles of measurement.
In selecting the principle of measurement or an analyzer, one must
clearly understand and state the objectives. Only by doing so can the prop-
erties and specifications of the analyzer (e.g. measuring range, resolution
and sample state during measurement) be determined as appropriate for a
specific measurement. Noting these considerations let’s turn our attention
back to the definitions of distribution.
Unless the particle network is mono disperse, i.e. every single particle
has exactly the same dimensions, there must exist a statistical distribution
of particles of different sizes. It is common practice to represent this distri-
bution in the form of either a frequency distribution curve, or a cumula-
tive (undersize) distribution curve. There are several terms that are used to
define distributions:

• Weighted distributions
• Number weighted distributions
• Volume weighted distributions
• Intensity weighted distributions

1.4.1 Weighted Distributions

A particle size distribution can be represented in different ways with
respect to the weighting of individual particles. The weighting mechanism
will depend upon the measuring principle applied. In all cases, the statisti-
cal representation of the size distribution is based on a weighted basis.

1.4.2 Number Weighted Distributions

A counting technique such as image analysis will provide a numerical
weighted distribution where each particle is given equal weight irrespective
of its size. This is most often useful when knowing the absolute number of
 Combustible Dusts 11

particles is important, in foreign particle detection for example, or where

high resolution (particle by particle) is required.

1.4.3 Volume Weighted Distributions

Static light scattering techniques such as laser diffraction provide a vol-
ume weighted distribution. Here the contribution of each particle in the
distribution relates to the volume of that particle (equivalent to mass if the
density is uniform), i.e. the relative contribution will be proportional to
(size). This is often extremely useful from a commercial perspective as the
distribution represents the composition of the sample in terms of its vol-
ume/mass, and is sometimes related to dollar value for each size fraction.

1.4.4 Intensity Weighted Distributions

Dynamic light scattering techniques provide an intensity weighted distri-
bution, where the contribution of each particle in the distribution relates
to the intensity of light scattered by the particle. For example, using a tech-
nique known as the Rayleigh Approximation, the relative contribution for
very small particles will be proportional to (size).
When comparing particle size data for the same sample measured by dif-
ferent techniques, it is important to recognize that the types of distribution
being measured and reported can produce very different particle size results.
Let us now consider the statistical parameters defining the size distribution.

1.4.5 Size Distribution Statistics

Statistics is defined as the study of how to collect, organize, analyze, and
interpret numerical information from data. This is by no means a simple
topic and one where there are significant levels of interpretation and dis-
agreement among engineers, scientists and mathematicians.
Descriptive statistics concerns methods of organizing, picturing and
summarizing information from data.
Inferential statistics involves methods of using information from a sam-
ple to draw conclusions about the data population. We must always be cog-
nizant of the fact that statistical inferences are no more accurate than the
data they are based on , i.e., the weakest link in an analysis.
An important key to applying statistical definitions is the understanding
of the variables which define a parameter of interest. A variable is the charac-
teristic of the individual to be measured or observed, in this case size. Taking
a more general view, if we wanted to do a study about the people who have
climbed a particular tall mountain, then the individuals in the study would
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
and graphic account given in the second volume of Mrs. Jameson’s
Sacred and Legendary Art.
I have room for a few illustrative examples only.
When St. Ambrose founded his new church at Milan, he wished to
consecrate it with some holy relics. In a vision, he beheld two young
men in shining clothes, and it was revealed to him that these were
holy martyrs whose bodies lay near the spot where he lived in the
city. He dug for them, accordingly, and found two bodies, which
proved to be those of two saints, Gervasius and Protasius, who had
suffered for the faith in the reign of Nero. They were installed in the
new basilica Ambrose had built at Milan. Churches in their honour
now exist all over Christendom, the best known being those at
Venice and Paris.
The body of St. Agnes, saint and martyr, who is always
represented with that familiar emblem, the lamb which she
duplicates, lies in a sarcophagus under the High Altar of Sant’
Agnese beyond the Porta Pia, where a basilica was erected over the
remains by Constantine the Great, only a few years after the
martyrdom of the saint. The body of St. Cecilia lies similarly in the
church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In this last-named case, the
original house where Cecilia was put to death is said to have been
consecrated as a place of worship, after the very early savage
fashion, the room where she suffered possessing especial sanctity.
Pope Symmachus held a council there in the year 500. This earliest
church having fallen into ruins during the troubles of the barbarians,
Pope Paschal I., the great patron of relic-hunting, built a new one in
honour of the saint in the ninth century. While engaged in the work,
he had a dream (of a common pattern), when Cecilia appeared to
him and showed him the place in which she lay buried. Search was
made, and the body was found in the catacombs of St. Calixtus,
wrapped in a shroud of gold tissue, while at her feet lay a linen cloth
dipped in the sacred blood of her martyrdom. Near her were
deposited the remains of Valerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus, all of
whom are more or less mixed up in her legend. The body was
removed to the existing church, the little room where the saint died
being preserved as a chapel. In the sixteenth century, the sacred
building was again repaired and restored in the atrocious taste of the
time; and the sarcophagus was opened before the eyes of several
prelates, including Cardinal Baronius. The body was found entire,
and was then replaced in the silver shrine in which it still reposes.
Almost every church in Rome has thus its entire body of a patron
saint, oftenest a martyr of the early persecutions.
In many similar cases, immense importance is attached to the fact
that the body remains, as the phrase goes, “uncorrupted”; and I
may mention in this connexion that in the frequent representations
of the Raising of Lazarus, which occur as “emblems of the
resurrection” in the catacombs, the body of Lazarus is represented
as a mummy, often enclosed in what seems to be a mummy-case.
Indeed, it is most reminiscent of the Egyptian Osiris images.
I pass on to other and more interesting instances of survival in
corpse-worship.
The great central temple of the Catholic Church is St. Peter’s at
Rome. The very body of the crucified saint lies enshrined under the
high altar, in a sarcophagus brought from the catacomb near S.
Sebastiano. Upon this Rock, St. Peter’s and the Catholic Church are
founded. Ana-cletus, the successor of Clement, built a monument
over the bones of the blessed Peter; and if Peter be a historical
person at all, I see no reason to doubt that his veritable body
actually lies there. St. Paul shares with him in the same shrine; but
only half the two corpses now repose within the stately Confessio in
the Sacristy of the papal basilica: the other portion of St. Peter
consecrates the Lateran; the other portion of St. Paul gives sanctity
to San Paolo fuori le Mura.
Other much venerated bodies at Rome are those of the Quattro
Coronati, in the church of that name; S. Praxedis and St. Pudentiana
in their respective churches; St. Cosmo and St. Damian; and many
more too numerous to mention. Several of the Roman churches, like
San Clemente, stand upon the site of the house of the saint to
whom they are dedicated, or whose body they preserve, thus
recalling the early New Guinea practice. Others occupy the site of his
alleged martyrdom, or enclose the pillar to which he was fastened.
The legends of all these Roman saints are full of significant echoes
of paganism. The visitor to Rome who goes the round of the
churches and catacombs with an unprejudiced mind must be
astonished to find how sites, myths, and ceremonies recall at every
step familiar heathen holy places or stories. In the single church of
San Zaccaria at Venice, again, I found the bodies of St. Zacharias
(father of John the Baptist), St. Sabina, St. Tarasius, Sts. Nereus and
Achilles, and many other saints too numerous to mention.
How great importance was attached to the possession of the
actual corpse or mummy of a saint we see exceptionally well indeed
in this case of Venice. The bringing of the corpse or mummy of St.
Mark from Alexandria to the lagoons was long considered the most
important event in the history of the Republic; the church in which it
was housed is the noblest in Christendom, and contains an endless
series of records of the connexion of St. Mark with the city and
people that so royally received him. The soul, as one may see in
Tintoret’s famous picture, flitted over sea with the body to Venice,
warned the sailors of danger by the way, and ever after protected
the hospitable Republic in all its enterprises. One must have lived
long in the city of the Lagoons and drunk in its very spirit in order to
know how absolutely it identified itself with the Evangelist its patron.
“Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista metis,” is the motto on its buildings.
The lion of St. Mark stood high in the Piazzetta to be seen of all; he
recurs in every detail of sculpture or painting in the Doges’ Palace
and the public edifices of the city. The body that lay under the pall of
gold in the great church of the Piazza was a veritable Palladium, a
very present help in time of trouble. It was no mere sentiment or
fancy to the Venetians; they knew that they possessed in their own
soil, and under their own church domes, the body and soul of the
second of the evangelists.
 Nor was that the only important helper that Venice could boast.
She contained also the body of St. George at San Giorgio Maggiore,
and the body of St. Nicholas at San Niccolo di Lido. The beautiful
legend of the Doge and the Fisherman (immortalised for us by the
pencil of Paris Bordone in one of the noblest pictures the world has
ever seen) tells us how the three great guardian saints, St. Mark, St.
George, and St. Nicholas, took a gondola one day from their
respective churches, and rowed out to sea amid a raging storm to
circumvent the demons who were coming in a tempest to
overwhelm Venice. A fourth saint, of far later date, whom the
Venetians also carried off by guile, was St. Roch of Montpelier. This
holy man was a very great sanitary precaution against the plague, to
which the city was much exposed through its eastern commerce. So
the men of Venice simply stole the body by fraud from Montpelier,
and built in its honour the exquisite church and Scuola di San Rocco,
the great museum of the art of Tintoret. The fact that mere
possession of the holy body counts in itself for much could not be
better shown than by these forcible abductions.
The corpse of St. Nicholas, who was a highly revered bishop of
Myra in Lycia, lies, as I said, under the high altar of San Niccolo di
Lido at Venice. But another and more authentic body of the same
great saint, the patron of sailors and likewise of schoolboys, lies also
under the high altar of the magnificent basilica of San Nicola at Bari,
from which circumstance the holy bishop is generally known as St.
Nicolas of Bari. A miraculous fluid, the Manna di Bari, highly prized
by the pious, exudes from the remains. A gorgeous cathedral rises
over the sepulchre. Such emulous duplication of bodies and relics is
extremely common, both in Christendom and in Islam.
I have made a point of visiting the shrines of a vast number of
leading saints in various parts of Italy; and could devote a volume to
their points of interest. The corpse of St. Augustine, for example, lies
at Pavia in a glorious ark, one of the most sumptuous monuments
ever erected by the skill of man, as well as one of the loveliest.
Padua similarly boasts the body of St. Antony of Padua, locally
known as “il Santo,” and far more important in his own town than all
the rest of the Christian pantheon put together. The many-domed
church erected over his remains is considerably larger than St.
Mark’s at Venice; and the actual body of the saint itself is enclosed in
an exquisite marble chapel, designed by Sansovino, and enriched
with all the noblest art of the Renaissance. Dominican monks and
nuns make pilgrimages to Bologna, in order to venerate the body of
St. Dominic, who died in that city, and whose corpse is enclosed in a
magnificent sarcophagus in the church dedicated to him, and
adorned with exquisite sculpture by various hands from the time of
Niccolo Pisano to that of Michael Angelo. Siena has for its special
glory St. Catherine the second—the first was the mythical princess of
Alexandria; and the house of that ecstatic nun is still preserved
intact as an oratory for the prayers of the pious. Her head, laid by in
a silver shrine or casket, decorates the altar of her chapel in San
Domenico, where the famous frescoes of Sodoma too often usurp
the entire attention of northern visitors. Compare the holy head of
Hoseyn at Cairo. The great Franciscan church at Assisi, once more,
enshrines the remains of the founder of the Franciscans, which
formerly reposed under the high altar; the church of Santa Maria
degli Angeli below it encloses the little hut which was the first
narrow home of the nascent order. I could go on multiplying such
instances without number; I hope these few will suffice to make the
Protestant reader feel how real is the reverence still paid to the very
corpses and houses of the saints in Italy. If ever he was present at
Milan on the festa of San Carlo Borromeo, and saw the peasants
from neighbouring villages flock in hundreds to kiss the relics of the
holy man, as I have seen them, he would not hesitate to connect
much current Christianity with the most primitive forms of corpse-
worship and mummy-worship.
North of the Alps, again, I cannot refrain from mentioning a few
salient instances, which help to enforce principles already
enunciated. At Paris, the two great local saints are St. Denis and Ste.
Geneviève. St. Denis was the first bishop of Lutetia and of the
Parish: he is said to have been beheaded with his two companions
at Montmartre,—Mons Martyrum. He afterwards walked with his
head in his hands from that point (now covered by the little church
of St. Pierre, next door to the new basilica of the Sacre Cour), to the
spot where he piously desired to be buried. A holy woman named
Catulla (note that last echo) performed the final rites for him at the
place where the stately abbey-church of St. Denis now preserves his
memory. The first cathedral on the spot was erected before the
Frankish invasion; the second, built by Dagobert, was consecrated
(as a vision showed) by Christ himself, who descended for the
purpose from heaven, surrounded by apostles, angels, and St.
Denis. The actual head or skull of the saint was long preserved in
the basilica in a splendid reliquary of solid silver, the gift of
Marguérite de France, just as Hoseyn’s head is still preserved at
Cairo, and as so many other miraculous or oracular heads are kept
by savages or barbarians elsewhere. Indeed, the anthropological
enquirer may be inclined to suppose that the severance of thé head
from the body and its preservation above ground, after the common
fashion, gave rise later to the peculiar but by no means unique
legend. Compare the bear’s head in the Aino superstition, as well as
the oracular German and Scandinavian Nithstangs.
As for Ste. Geneviève, she rested first in the church dedicated to
her on the site now occupied by the Pantheon, which still in part,
though secularised, preserves her memory. Her body (or what
remains of it) lies at present in the neighbouring church of St.
Etienne du Mont, where every lover of Paris surely pays his devotion
to the shrine in the most picturesque and original building which the
city holds, whenever he passes through the domain of Ste.
Geneviève. How real the devotion of the people still is may be seen
on any morning of the working week, and still more during the
octave of the saint’s fete-day.
As in many other cases, however, the remains of the virgin
patroness of Paris have been more than once removed from place to
place for safe custody. The body was originally buried in the crypt of
the old abbey church of the Holy Apostles on the Ile de la Cité.
When the Normans overran the country, the monks carried it away
with them in a wooden box to a place of safety. As soon as peace
was once more restored, the corpse was enshrined in a splendid
châsse; while the empty tomb was still treated with the utmost
reverence. At the Revolution, the actual bones, it is said, were
destroyed; but the sarcophagus or cenotaph survived the storm, and
was transferred to St. Etienne. Throughout the Neuvaine, thousands
of the faithful still flock to worship it. The sarcophagus is believed
even now to contain some holy portions of the saint’s body, saved
from the wreck by pious adherents.
Other familiar examples will occur to every one, such as the bones
of the Magi or Three Kings, preserved in a reliquary in the Cathedral
at Cologne; those of St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins; those of St.
Stephen and St. Lawrence at Rome; those of St. Hubert, disinterred
and found uncorrupted, at the town of the same name in the
Ardennes; and those of St. Longinus in his chapel at Mantua. All
these relics and bodies perform astounding miracles, and all have
been the centres of important cults for a considerable period.
In Britain, from the first stages of Christianity, the reverence paid
to the bodies of saints was most marked, and the story of their
wanderings forms an important part of our early annals. Indeed, I
dwell so long upon this point because few northerners of the present
day can fully appreciate the large part which the Dead Body plays
and has played for many centuries in Christian worship. Only those
who, like me, have lived long in thoroughly Catholic countries, have
made pilgrimages to numerous famous shrines, and have waded
through reams of Anglo-Saxon and other early mediaeval
documents, can really understand this phase of Christian hagiology.
To such people it is abundantly clear that the actual Dead Body of
some sainted man or woman has been in many places the chief
object of reverence for millions of Christians in successive
generations. A good British instance is found in the case of St.
Cuthbert’s corpse. The tale of its wanderings is too long to be given
here in full; it should be read in any good history of Durham. I
epitomize briefly. The body of the devoted missionary of the north
was first kept for some time at Lindisfarne. When, at the end of
eleven years, the saint’s tomb was opened, his outer form was found
still incorrupt; and so for more than 800 years it was believed to
remain. It rested at Lindisfarne till 875, when the piratical Danes
invaded Northumbria. The monks, regarding St. Cuthbert as their
greatest treasure, fled inland, carrying the holy body with them on
their own shoulders. Such translations of sacred corpses are
common in Christian and heathen history. After many wanderings,
during which it was treated with the utmost care and devotion, the
hallowed body found an asylum for a while at Chester-le-Street in
883. In 995, it was transferred to Ripon, where it sanctified the
minster by even so short a sojourn; but in the same year it went
forth again, on its way north to Lindisfarne. On the way, however, it
miraculously signified (by stubborn refusal to move) its desire to rest
for ever at Durham—a town whose strong natural position and
capacity for defence does honour to the saint’s military judgment.
Here, enclosed in a costly shrine, it remained working daily miracles
till the Reformation. The later grave was opened in 1826, when the
coffin was found to enclose another, made in 1104: and this again
contained a third, which answered the description of the
sarcophagus made in 698, when the saint was raised from his first
grave. The innermost case contained, not indeed the uncorrupted
body of Cuthbert, but a skeleton, still entire, and wrapped in fine
robes of embroidered silk. No story known to me casts more light on
corpse-worship than does this one when read with all the graphic
details of the original authorities.
But everywhere in Britain we get similar local saints, whose bodies
or bones performed marvellous miracles and were zealously guarded
against sacrilegious intruders. Bede himself is already full of such
holy corpses: and in later days they increased by the hundred. St.
Alban at St. Alban’s, the protomartyr of Britain; the “white hand” of
St. Oswald, that when all else perished remained white and
uncorrupted because blessed by Aidan; St. Etheldreda at Ely,
another remarkable and illustrative instance; Edward the Confessor
at Westminster Abbey; these are but a few out of hundreds of
examples which will at once occur to students of our history. And I
will add that sometimes the legends of these saints link us on
unexpectedly to far earlier types of heathen worship; as when we
read concerning St. Edmund of East Anglia, the patron of Bury St.
Edmund’s, that Ingvar the viking took him by force, bound him to a
tree, scourged him cruelly, made him a target for the arrows of the
pagan Danes, and finally beheaded him. Either, I say, a god-making
sacrifice of the northern heathens; or, failing that, a reminiscence,
like St. Sebastian, of such god-making rites as preserved in the
legends of ancient martyrs. Compare here, once more, the Aino
bear-sacrifice.
But during the later middle ages, the sacred Body of Britain, above
all others, was undoubtedly that of Thomas A’Becket at Canterbury.
Hither, as we know, all England went on pilgrimage; and nothing
could more fully show the rapidity of canonisation in such cases than
the fact that even the mighty Henry II. had to prostrate himself
before his old enemy’s body and submit to a public scourging at the
shrine of the new-made martyr. For several hundred years after his
death there can be no doubt at all that the cult of St. Thomas of
Canterbury was much the most real and living worship throughout
the whole of England; its only serious rivals in popular favour being
the cult of St. Cuthbert to the north of Humber, and that of St.
Etheldreda in the Eastern Counties.
Holy heads in particular were common in Britain before the
Reformation. A familiar Scottish case is that of the head of St.
Fergus, the apostle of Banff and the Pictish Highlands, transferred to
and preserved at the royal seat of Scone. “By Sanct Fergus heid at
Scone” was the favourite oath of the Scotch monarchs, as “Par
Sainct Denys” was that of their French contemporaries.
In almost all these cases, again, and down to the present day,
popular appreciation goes long before official Roman canonisation.
Miracles are first performed at the tomb, and prayers are answered;
an irregular cult precedes the formal one. Even in our own day, only
a few weeks after Cardinal Manning’s death, advertisements
appeared in Catholic papers in London, giving thanks for spiritual
and temporal blessings received through the intervention of Our
Lady, the saints, “and our beloved Cardinal.”
This popular canonisation has often far outrun the regular official
acceptance, as in the case of Joan of Arc in France at the present
day, or of “Maister John Schorn, that blessed man born,” in the Kent
of the middle ages. Thus countries like Wales and Cornwall are full
of local and patriotic saints, often of doubtful Catholicity, like St.
Cadoc, St. Padern, St. Petrock, St. Piran, St. Ruan, and St. Illtyd, not
to mention more accepted cases, like St. Asaph and St. David. The
fact is, men have everywhere felt the natural desire for a near, a
familiar, a recent, and a present god or saint; they have worshipped
rather the dead whom they loved and revered themselves than the
elder gods and the remoter martyrs who have no body among them,
no personal shrine, no local associations, no living memories. “I have
seen in Brittany,” says a French correspondent of Mr. Herbert
Spencer’s, “the tomb of a pious and charitable priest covered with
garlands: people flocked to it by hundreds to pray of him that he
would procure them restoration to health, and guard over their
children.” There, with the Christian addition of the supreme God, we
get once more the root-idea of religion.
I should like to add that beyond such actual veneration of the
bodies of saints and martyrs, there has always existed a definite
theory in the Roman church that no altar can exist without a relic.
The altar, being itself a monumental stone, needs a body or part of a
body to justify and consecrate it. Dr. Rock, a high authority, says in
his Hierurgia, “By the regulations of the Church it is ordained that
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass be offered upon an altar which
contains a stone consecrated by a Bishop, enclosing the relics of
some saint or martyr; and be covered with three linen cloths that
have been blessed for that purpose with an appropriate form of
benediction.” The consecration of the altar, indeed, is considered
even more serious than the consecration of the church itself; for
without the stone and its relic, the ceremony of the Mass cannot be
performed at all. Even when Mass has to be said in a private house,
the priest brings a consecrated stone and its relic along with him;
and other such stones were carried in the retables or portable altars
so common in military expeditions of the middle ages. The church is
thus a tomb, with chapel tombs around it; it contains a stone
monument covering a dead body or part of a body; and in it is made
and exhibited the Body of Christ, in the form of the consecrated and
transmuted wafer.
Not only, however, is the altar in this manner a reduced or
symbolical tomb, and not only is it often placed above the body of a
saint, as at St. Mark’s and St. Peter’s, but it also sometimes consists
itself of a stone sarcophagus. One such sarcophagus exists in the
Cathedral at St. Malo; I have seen other coffin-shaped altars in the
monastery of La Trappe near Algiers and elsewhere. When, however,
the altar stands, like that at St. Peter’s, above the actual body of a
saint, it does not require to contain a relic; otherwise it does. That is
to say, it must be either a real or else an attenuated and symbolical
sarcophagus.
In the eastern church, a sort of relic-bag, called an Antimins, is
necessary for the proper performance of the Holy Eucharist. It
consists of a square cloth, laid on the altar or wrapped up in its
coverings, and figured with a picture representing the burial of Christ
by Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Women. This brings it very
near to the Adonis and Hoseyn ceremonies. But it must necessarily
contain some saintly relic.
Apart from corpse-worship and relic-worship in the case of saints,
Catholic Christendom has long possessed an annual Commemoration
of the Dead, the Jour des Morts, which links itself on directly to
earlier ancestor-worship. It is true, this commemoration is stated
officially, and no doubt correctly, to owe its origin (in its recognised
form) to a particular historical person, Adam de Saint Victor: but
when we consider how universal such commemorations and annual
dead-feasts have been in all times and places, we can hardly doubt
that the church did but adopt and sanctify a practice which, though
perhaps accounted heathenish, had never died out at all among the
mass of believers. The very desire to be buried in a church or
churchyard, and all that it implies, link on Christian usage here once
more to primitive corpse-worship. Compare with the dead who sleep
with Osiris. In the middle ages, many people were buried in chapels
containing the body (or a relic) of their patron saint.
In short, from first to last, religion never gets far away from these
its earliest and profoundest associations. “God and immortality,”—
those two are its key-notes. And those two are one; for the god in
the last resort is nothing more than the immortal ghost, etherealised
and extended.
On the other hand, whenever religion travels too far afield from its
emotional and primal base in the cult of the nearer dead, it must
either be constantly renewed by fresh and familiar objects of
worship, or it tends to dissipate itself into mere vague pantheism. A
new god, a new saint, a “revival of religion,” is continually necessary.
The Sacrifice of the Mass is wisely repeated at frequent intervals;
but that alone does not suffice; men want the assurance of a nearer,
a more familiar deity. In our own time, and especially in Protestant
and sceptical England and America, this need has made itself felt in
the rise of spiritualism and kindred beliefs, which are but the
doctrine of the ghost or shade in its purified form, apart, as a rule,
from the higher conception of a supreme ruler. ~And what is
Positivism itself save the veneration of the mighty dead, just tinged
with vague ethical yearnings after the abstract service of living
humanity? I have known many men of intellect, suffering under a
severe bereavement—the loss of a wife or a dearly-loved child—take
refuge for a time either in spiritualism or Catholicism. The former
seems to give them the practical assurance of actual bodily
intercourse with the dead, through mediums or table-turning; the
latter supplies them with a theory of death which makes reunion a
probable future for them. This desire for direct converse with the
dead we saw exemplified in a very early or primitive stage in the
case of the Mandan wives who talk lovingly to their husbands’ skulls;
it probably forms the basis for the common habit of keeping the
head while burying the body, whose widespread results we have so
frequently noticed. I have known two instances of modern
spiritualists who similarly had their wives’ bodies embalmed, in order
that the spirit might return and inhabit them.
Thus the Cult of the Dead, which is the earliest origin of all
religion, in the sense of worship, is also the last relic of the religious
spirit which survives the gradual decay of faith due to modern
scepticism. To this cause I refer on the whole the spiritualistic
utterances of so many among our leaders of modern science. They
have rejected religion, but they cannot reject the inherited and
ingrained religious emotions.
 CHAPTER XX.—CONCLUSION.

A
ND now we have reached at last the end of our long and
toilsome disquisition. I need hardly say, to those who have
persisted with me so far, that I do not regard a single part of it
all as by any means final. There is not a chapter in this book,
indeed, which I could not have expanded to double or treble its
present length, had I chosen to include in it a tithe of the evidence I
have gathered on the subject with which it deals. But for many
adequate reasons, compression was imperative. Some of the
greatest treatises ever written on this profoundly important and
interesting question have met with far less than the attention they
deserved because they were so bulky and so overloaded with
evidence that the reader could hardly see the wood for the trees; he
lost the thread of the argument in the mazes of example. In my own
case, I had or believed I had a central idea; and I desired to set that
idea forth with such simple brevity as would enable the reader to
grasp it and to follow it. I go, as it were, before a Grand Jury only. I
do not pretend in any one instance to have proved my points; I am
satisfied if I have made out a prima facie case for further enquiry.
My object in the present reconstructive treatise has therefore been
merely to set forth in as short a form as was consistent with
clearness my conception of the steps by which mankind arrived at its
idea of its God. I have not tried to produce evidence on each step in
full; I have only tried to lay before the general public a rough sketch
of a psychological rebuilding, and to suggest at the same time to
scholars and anthropologists some inkling of the lines along which
evidence in favour of my proposed reconstruction is likeliest to be
found. This book is thus no more than a summary of probabilities.
Should it succeed in attracting attention and arousing interest in so
vast and fundamental a subject, I shall hope to follow it up by others
in future, in which the various component elements of my theory will
be treated in detail, and original authorities will be copiously quoted
with the fullest references. As, however, in this preliminary outline of
my views I have dealt with few save well-known facts, and relied for
the most part upon familiar collocations of evidence, I have not
thought it necessary to encumber my pages with frequent and
pedantic footnotes, referring to the passages or persons quoted. The
scholar will know well enough where to look for the proofs he needs,
while the general reader can only judge my rough foreshadowing of
a hypothesis according as he is impressed by its verisimilitude or the
contrary.
If, on the other hand, this avant-courier of a reasoned system fails
to interest the public, I must perforce be content to refrain from
going any deeper in print into this fascinating theme, on which I
have still an immense number of ideas and facts which I desire the
opportunity of publicly ventilating.
I wish also to remark before I close that I do not hold
dogmatically to the whole or any part of the elaborate doctrine here
tentatively suggested. I have changed my own mind far too often,
with regard to these matters, in the course of my personal evolution,
ever to think I have reached complete finality. Fifteen or twenty
years ago, indeed, I was rash enough to think I had come to anchor,
when I first read Mr. Herbert Spencer’s sketch of the origin of
religion in the opening volume of the Principles of Sociology. Ten or
twelve years since, doubts and difficulties again obtruded
themselves. Six years ago, once more, when The Golden Bough
appeared, after this book had been planned and in part executed, I
was forced to go back entirely upon many cherished former
opinions, and to reconsider many questions which I had fondly
imagined were long since closed for me. Since that time, new lights
have been constantly shed upon me from without, or have occurred
to me from within: and I humbly put this sketch forward now for
what it may be worth, not with the idea that I have by any means
fathomed the whole vast truth, but in the faint hope that I may
perhaps have looked down here and there a little deeper into the
profound abysses beneath us than has been the lot of most previous
investigators. At the same time, I need hardly reiterate my sense of
the immense obligations under which I lie to not a few among them,
and preeminently to Mr. Spencer, Mr. Frazer, Mr. Hartland, and Dr.
Tylor. My only claim is that I may perhaps have set forth a scheme of
reconstruction which further evidence will possibly show to be true
in parts, and mistaken in others..
On the other hand, by strictly confining my attention to religious
features, properly so called, to the exclusion of mythology, ethics,
and all other external accretions or accidents, I trust I have been
able to demonstrate more clearly than has hitherto been done the
intimate connexion which always exists between cults in general and
the worship of the Dead God, natural or artificial. Even if I have not
quite succeeded in inducing the believer in primitive animism to
reconsider his prime dogma of the origin of gods from all-pervading
spirits (of which affiliation I can see no proof in the evidence before
us), I venture to think I shall at any rate have made him feel that
Ancestor-Worship and the Cult of the Dead God have played a far
larger and deeper part than he has hitherto been willing to admit in
the genesis of the religious emotions. Though I may not have raised
the worship of the Dead Man to a supreme and unique place in the
god-making process, I have at least, I trust, raised it to a position of
higher importance than it has hitherto held, even since the
publication of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s epoch-making researches. I
believe I have made it tolerably clear that the vast mass of existing
gods or divine persons, when we come to analyse them, do actually
turn out to be dead and deified human beings. In short, it is my
hope that I have rehabilitated Euhemerism.
This is not the place, at the very end of so long a disquisition, to
examine the theory of primitive animism. I would therefore only say
briefly here that I do not deny the actual existence of that
profoundly animistic frame of mind which Mr. Im Thurn has so well
depicted among the Indians of Guiana; nor that which exists among
the Sa-moyeds of Siberia; nor that which meets us at every turn in
historical accounts of the old Roman religion. I am quite ready to
admit that, to people at that stage of religious evolution, the world
seems simply thronged with spirits on every side, each of whom has
often his own special functions and peculiar prerogatives. But I fail
to see that any one of these ideas is demonstrably primitive. Most
often, we can trace ghosts, spirits, and gods to particular human
origins: where spirits exist in abundance and pervade all nature, I
still fail to understand why they may not be referred to the one
known source and spring of all ghostly beings. It is abundantly clear
that no distinction of name or rite habitually demarcates these
ubiquitous and uncertain spirits at large from those domestic gods
whose origin is perfectly well remembered in the family circle. I
make bold to believe, therefore, that in every such case we have to
deal with unknown and generalised ghosts,—with ghosts of most
varying degrees of antiquity. If any one can show me a race of spirit-
believers who do not worship their own ancestral spirits, or can
adduce any effective prime differentia between the spirit that was
once a living man, and the spirit that never was human at all, I will
gladly hear him. Up to date, however, no such race has been pointed
out, and no such differentia ever posited.
The truth is, we have now no primitive men at all. Existing men
are the descendants of people who have had religions, in all
probability, for over a million years. The best we can do, therefore, is
to trace what gods we can to their original source, and believe that
the rest are of similar development. And whither do we track them?
“So far as I have been able to trace back the origin of the best-
known minor provincial deities,” says Sir Alfred Lyall, speaking of
India in general, “they are usually men of past generations who have
earned special promotion and brevet rank among disembodied
ghosts.... Of the numerous local gods known to have been living
men, by far the greater proportion derive from the ordinary
canonisation of holy personages.... The number of shrines thus
raised in Berar alone to these anchorites and persons deceased in
the odour of sanctity is large, and it is constantly increasing. Some
of them have already attained the rank of temples.” We have seen
that an acute observer, Erman, came to a similar conclusion about
the gods of those very Ostyaks who are often quoted as typical
examples of primitive animists. Of late years, all the world over,
numerous unprejudiced investigators, like Mr. Duff Macdonald and
Captain Henderson, have similarly come to the conclusion that the
gods of the natives among whom they worked were all of human
origin; while we know that some whole great national creeds, like
the Shinto of Japan, recognise no deities at all save living kings and
dead ancestral spirits. Under these circumstances, judging the
unknown by the known, I hesitate to take the very bold step of
positing any new and fanciful source for the small residuum of
unresolved gods whose human origin is less certainly known to us.
In one word, I believe that corpse-worship is the protoplasm of
religion, while admitting that folk-lore is the protoplasm of
mythology, and of its more modern and philosophical offshoot,
theology.
 INDEX

Adonis, river, and grave of, 151

Adonis-worship, 245, 312; human sacrifice in, 312; rites of, 313

African burial rites, 29

African tribes, religious belief of, 25

Africana, iv Amu, The Hairy, 135

Alexander, son of Philip, 6

Alexandria, the Eastern London, 15; state of religion in, 368

Allah, isolation of, in Mohammedanism, 412

American cremationists, early, 55

Amon-Ra, or Zeus Ammon, 6

Ancestor-worship, 182

et seq,; in India, 32

Animism, theory of, 437

Antioch, the Venice of its time, 365

Art in primitive Greece, 84

Articles of faith, fresh additions to, 11

Asher a, 135, 189

Athanasius, 7

Atonement, doctrine of, 347; not a primitive idea, 347

Attis, worship of, 313; self-mutilation in, 313; festival of the cult of,
314; parallelism to Indian usage, 314; essentially a corn-god, 314

Aubrey’s Remains of Gentilisme, 139

Aviella, Goblet d’, 401

==Aztec cannibal banquets, no

Baptism, 389, 405

Barrows, Long, used for burials, 55; Round, for cremation, 56,65

Bastian, 134, 139

Baumkultus, Mannhardt’s, 138

Beagle, Voyage of the, Darwin’s, 143

Belief, Egyptian, summary of, 173

Blood, substitute for, no Body, resurrection of the, 43, 54, 63

Buddhism, Freeman on, 380

Builder’s Rites and Ceremonies, Speth’s, 254

Bull-god, the Hebrew, 191

Bureati of Ethtiology, Report of, 106

Burgon, Dean, 418

Burial, cave, 53; dissertation on, 55

et seq.; due to fear of ghosts, 56; earlier than burning, 54; Frazer as
to, 56; resurrection from practice of, 54; rites, African, 29; sanctity
from, sacred well, 152; system, origin of cultivation as adjunct of,
278

Burrough, Stephen (in Hakluyt), 129

Burton, Sir Richard, 416; anecdote of, 27

"Burying the carnival,” 338

Busta, 66

Cade, Jack (Mortimer), 259

Camel sacrifice, 333; compared ?with that of Potraj and Dionysus,

333; must be hastily eaten. 333; compare paschal lamb, 333
Cannibal banquets, Aztec, no “Carnival, Burying the,” 293

Catlin, 50

Cave burial, 53

Ceremonial institution, 200

Ceremonialism, religious, evolution of, 90

Ceremonies for expulsion of evils from communities, 349

Chalmers, Mr., 76, 358, 359

Cheyne, Professor, on stone-worship, 120

Christ, a corn-god, 381; a king’s son, 383; and Meriah, 292; a

temporary king, 379; bought with a price, 385

Christendom, corpse-worship of, at the tomb of Christ, 417;

development of God of ancient Hebrews in God of modern, 225; God
of, 359

Christian and heathen gods, apotheosis, 235; basis of religion, 226

Christianisation of Megalithic monuments, 115

Christianised form of scapegoat, 351

Christianity, a blend of Judaism with the popular religions of the day,

363; a competitor of Gnosticism, 395; a magma of Mediterranean
religious
ideas, 244; as standard of reference, 3; a syncretic product, 363; an
embodiment of Mediterranean cults, 227; Egyptian influence on, 400
et
seq.; elements of, 404; growth of, 362; in the West, 403 et seq.; in
its
beginning oriental, 400; least anthropomorphic creed, 18; Mithraism
a
competitor of, 395; modern worship of dead central force in, 408;
origin
of, author guided by Frazer and Mannhardt, v; peculiarities of, 17;
priesthood not an integral part of early, 11; primitive, three great
motors of, 399; reason for triumph of, 389; religion, typical, 15;
religion, not i a typical, 17; removed from all primitive cults, 17;
specially the religion of immortality, 392; two main forms of, 403

Christian Pantheon, 7

Christians a sect of the Jews, 7

Christus, compared with Meriah, 2285

Circumcision, baptism substituted for, 405; origin of, 200

Clodd, Mr. Edward, v, 21, 254

Codrington, Dr., 132

Conder, Major, 196, 198,199, 415

Conway, Sir Martin, 175

Cook, Captain, 132

Corn-god, as seed, 287; Christ a, 381

Corn-god worship and Potraj festival, analogy of, 304

Corn-gods, animal, 289; substitute for human sacrifice, 289; in

England, 290, 291
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

textbookfull.com