Two scientific theories were advanced to explain the cause of the explosion. Hugh Lee Patterson, a partner in a chemical company at Felling and Washington examined the evidence and ran tests; and offered a theory that a sudden water inundation onto burning sulphur would have had sufficient energy to cause the explosion. His theory, meticulous in its calculations, estimated that of water would have been necessary, having a power equivalent to 8 tons of gunpowder. However no satisfactory mechanism was advanced for the sudden ingress of such an amount of water, amounting to a couple of tons. Neither were victims of the explosion scalded, as might have been anticipated.