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Photographer: Barry Swackhamer
Taken: May 26, 2014
Caption: Artifacts from the Steamboat Bertrand
Additional Description: Matches

Crate after crate of matches, still tipped with a highly potent sulphur mixture, were recovered from the Bertrand.
During the excavation, a worker handling the matches accidentally set his jeans on fire. The matches also almost burnt down the conservation laboratory after they spontaneously ignited during treatment. Because they posed such a safety hazard they were buried instead of being conserved. In a interview in the early 1990s, Jesse Pursell still expressed amazement about all those matches.
Submitted: June 3, 2014, by Barry Swackhamer of Brentwood, California.
Database Locator Identification Number: p274936
File Size: 3.434 Megabytes

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