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resulting inthe death oftwo men, the probable fatal injury ofa third man and the severe scalding ofa fourth, occurred inLake St. Clair at 10:20 o'clock Wednesday morning. The "straightback" steamer Choctaw, Capt. W.W. Brown, coal-laden from Cleveland to Milwaukee, had fairly entered the lake whenthe cylinder head blew out with a terrific report and fiightful results. The immense iron hull shook from stem to stem with the shock and as the action of the engine ceased she broached to' under thestrong easterly gale prevailing. The anchor was dropped, a flag ofdistress was atonce hoisted and the sister ship Andaste, which left Cleveland atthe same time and was nearby, at once went to therescue, when it was found that Nelson Chambers, the steward, was dead, C. Jones,deckhand, and P.P. Thompson, oiler, fatally bumed and F. Smith, engineer, also bumed but not fatally. The Andasta took offthe dead and injured men and at once started for Detroit, arrived there at 4 o'clock p.m. when the injured men were taken to the Marine Hospital. Jones died about ten minutes later. The coroner was summoned and took charge of the body ofChambers. The room where theexplosion occurred is about 20x35 feet and thetriple expansion engine was situated in thecentre of theroom. The accident occurred to" the steam chest of the high pressure cylinder; At the time the explosion occurred, the engineer, F. Smith, was standing very neartheengine andtheoiler wasalso in the room. Theoilermade his escape from one door of the room while the engineer started for the other means of exit. The engineer says he hadjust reached the top of the first staircase when he caught a glimpse of the steward, N. Chambers, standing in the door of the galley. For some unknown reason. Chambers ran across in the direction of the dining room, which wasfilled withsteam, andof course simply cooked to death. If he had run to the stairway or if he had crawledout of the dining room windowhe would have been saved. Henry Chambers, Nelson'sbrother, wasassistant to hisbrotherand he statesthat at the time of the explosion he and Nelson were in the kitchen above the engine room, and when he sawthe steam coming into the room he made a break for the stairs and thought Nelson would follow, but Nelson went the other way into the dining room andpicked up a rolling pin on the table thathe had beenusinga few minutes before. It is thought he wasgoing to use it to break a window in the dining room andthus make his escape, buthe wasovercome bythe steam and fell on the ' veered to windward so as to be broadside to the wind 8 |{1 [Tl rij ^i0' pr fUL 1 or] 1 [ I1' J t floor. Henry, noticing Nelson had not followed him up, ran back to look for him and seeing him in the dining room ran in, picked him up and carried him outside, but Nelson died in a few seconds after being brought out ofthe room. As he lay in his brother's arms he said, "Oh, dear Henry! Lord have mercy on us," and fiius passed away. Henry Chambers escaped without an injury. At the time ofthe explosion.Deckhand Jones and a fireman were asleep in the rooms located directly over the engine room. The fireman crawled out of his window and so made his escape, but the deckhand lost his head and rushedout into the steam in the hallway, fell down a flightofstairsand crawledup anotherone,but by the time he reached the deck he was so badly bumed that he died shortlyafter being taken to the hospital. The causeof the explosion, as given by Engineer Smith, was that the valve in the steam chest, which had been welded together, gave way and the steam in the chest used the valve as a hammer to smash the side of the chest to pieces. He says thatwith 160pounds of steamto the square inch, whichwas the amount of pressure on the boiler at the time ofthe explosion, the force ofthe broken valve hammering against the side ofthe chest was irresistible. The steam chest having been broken, thebursting ironfrom itssides broke thewater column andthewater from the boiler gushed out on the floor. It is not certain just who or what is to blame for the explosion. It is suspected that the valve burst where it had been welded. The welding was done by the Cleveland Steamship Company. If the welding was improperly done, that companyis responsible. The vessel Choctaw is what is known as the monitor pattem of ship and was builtby the Cleveland Steamship Company lastyear. It was loadedwith 2500 tons ofcoal for Milwaukee and belongedto the LakeSuperiorIron Company, beingbuilt for carrying iron ore. Nelson Chambers, the victim of the accident, was the youngest son of Lewis Chambers of this town and would have been 24 years ofage next month. He was an honest, industrious yoimg manand was a greathelp to his old father. He had recently bought theoldNoahDupuis property on George Street and had it fitted up for his father, who moved thereto but two weeks ago. Before leaving for Cleveland he wasveryanxious to have thewater extension made to theproperty, which he said wasabout the lastthing he had to do before leaving for his season's work. He left home lastThursday forCleveland andtook hisbrother Henry as assistant withhim. OnSunday, in company withtwo other Amherstburg fnends, he attended church in Cleveland and the boat left there Tuesday night. Nelson had been for the past