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laboratory techniques and people.

We discovered what we now know to be a very real hazard - the dust itself explodes. It's the dust mixed in proper proportions with air. Air, itself, is explosive if you get dust into it. It's the electric tensions that are developed between particles when mixed with air that causes the explosion.

The code that we were then in the midst of adopting for dry cleaning establishments was very, very rigid because, of course, gasoline and benzine were the only fluids then used in dry cleaning. They were known to be so very explosive that it was a very drastic code, providing that all of the machinery should be grounded, for instance, and that all electrical equipment should be handled in a certain way. It was very expensive to do it, but very essential.

We began then to work on a code for dust for industries and parts of industries where dust was generated. We found that the only safe thing to do was to utilize practically the same principles of grounding everything, as a method of preventing dust explosions. Great headway has been made in that. The code now controlling it in the State of New York is pretty fair. I think the codes recommended by the National Safety Council, many of which have been adopted, are pretty good on that point. But the