Scenes And Incidents From The Life Of A Practical Miner
With A Treatise On The Ventilation Of Coal Mines

12 of men, and ablest of viewers, and the explosion is supposed to have originated in the flues leading from the engine clown the pit. Now, whether the hydrogen did accumulate in the flues, or how the volume was ignited, I know not, but this I know, that it will accumulate in the flues when the fire is damped, and the damper, or ventilator, is nearly closed, if some other means be not applied to ventilate the flues ; the vapour generated by the dam]) coals is hydrogen gas, and a slight escape of oxygen over the fire, will readily unite with the hydrogen, and of course fill the Hues with inflammable gas. As the coals consume, this process diminishes, and the fire becomes of more intense heat, .destroying the oxygen, and disengaging caloric in the shape of vapour j this advances on the volume and meets with a repulsive shock when the two come in contact, and by friction, or electricity, the hydrogen gas is ignited, hence the explosion in the flues. This phenomenon is exposed to the view of every inhabitant of the earth when they gaze on the vivid lightning s flash, and listen in silence to the awful grandeur of the* loud-voiced thunder, bursting through the clouds of vapour, condensed in the upper regions of the atmosphere. The electric fluid converts the hydrogen and oxygen into water, and it pours down in torrents on the surface of the "lobe. As an author snys:—<lXhe atmosphere is vast laboratory in which nature operates immense analysis, solutions, precipitations, and combinations; it is a grand receiver, in which all the attenuated and volatilised productions of terrestrial bodies are received, mingled, agitated, and separated. Notwithstanding this mixture, of which it seems impos- sible for us to ascertain the nature, atmospheric air is sensibly the same, with regard to its intimate qualities, wherever we examine it. Perhaps some one may say, as soon as he gets his head below the surface, and descends into the bowels of the earth, what now has Natures law, or atmospheric air, to do with us? If there be such a man, I tell him he knows little about the ventilation of a coal mine, and the sooner he seeks informa- tion on this important subject, the better for himself, and lor those who arc working under his care. In my practice, I had one of these fire flues, 154 yards in length from the engine, built with bricks and lime, along the inside of our common drift, as a security against setting the seam of coal on fire. Yet, it was often on fire at the end of the flues, notwith- standing this precaution. Although we had a constant feeder of water running through the flues, yet there was always a quantity of soot covering the water, and whilst the brakesman was adding fuel to the. fire, such was the heavy draft of air, that it bore the burning embers away, which lighted on the soot, and set fire to it; when the ordinary current of air was sufficient to hear it along in a body of fire to the end of the flues, where it spread out to a greater bulk, and came in contact with the coal. We, the wastemen, had to inspect this flue, up to its end, every Sunday morning, and to enable us to do so, we had an iron door in a frame, set on the top of the flues, 14 yards from the boiler, and 140 yards from the end of the flue, and such was the intense heat (under ordinary circumstances), that we were obliged to open this door and let the air press along, before we dared to attempt our passage. But when the soot was on fire, in the Hue below us, or the coal at the end of