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Once, ten people were killed by a wave of molasses. Anyone know how (the circumstances)?
Question
#24434. Asked by puffin. (Nov 20 02 11:18 PM)
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puffin
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True, thanks for the correction, Issac Asimov must have gotten the wrong number somewhere. By the way, check out his Book Of Facts for other great trivia like that.
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McGruff
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A few years back, Tom Rowe of Schooner Fare, a folk music trio from Maine, wrote a song about this incident, simply titled Molasses. If you're into folk reminiscent of the Kingston Trio, I highly recommend any of their recordings, but this album, We The People, is especially good.
 http://www.outergreen.com/schoonerfare/8885.html
Partial lyrics:
In the time of the nineteen-seventeen war
Molasses sitting on the Boston shore
When they pumped it in it was twelve degrees
A long cold night in a Boston freeze
In the morning it was forty-two
Molasses vat split clean in two
Two million gallons covered the bay
Twenty-six people drowned in the flood that day
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jackolant
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Was this the first reference to molasses being called molasses? Previously as far as I know (and in Britain now) it was called treacle.
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Kainantu
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For you jackolant.
You will quickly know the difference between treacle and molasses.
Treacle is readonably sweet. Molasses is disgusting. Tastes like raw Hoi Sin Sauce.
(Shoe polish with grains of sand in it)
(Bile sandwich)
(Gravox undiluted - get the message!)
...Technically treacle is a generic word in Britain for any syrup made in the process of refining sugar cane, and it can range from very light to very dark. In practice, the lighter syrup which is produced when the sugar cane juice is first boiled, is called light treacle or golden syrup.
The second boiling produces a much darker syrup, which British cooks call treacle and we call molasses (or dark molasses). The third boiling produces what we both apparently call blackstrap molasses, which is very dark and somewhat bitter and which health-food advocates think is heaven on earth, although it is more often used to feed cattle...
http://www.ochef.com/316.htm
and
http://www.ochef.com/751.htm
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