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

16 away, the water level is laid on to the horseway as an in-going passage for the air. Time passes on, and the dread of danger, in illiterate minds, passes away too. But the contents of this goaf are carbonic acid, hydrogen, &c., and, as caloric in a latent state lies hid in all bodies, the falling of water on the strata disengages caloric in the form of sensible heat; and compression of the particles will throw it off. Accordingly, we now see this goaf charged to the vent with gases. A sudden change in the atmosphere now takes place, and now begins the elementary strife in the goaf, behind these stoppings; as in the case of a boiler over- charged with steam, something must give way, and, of course, the weakest part is one of these stoppings. Then comes rushing forth the gas from the goaf into the water level board, it is borne away by that portion of the air for several pillars, uniting with the oxygen, and form- ing an extensive field of inflammable gas. At length it ascends into the horseway, and there comes in contact with a naked light, and an explo- sion follows of the most disastrous description, for every man and boy employed in that pit at the time would inevitably be killed. This, I wish you to understand, is, in all probability, what would have been the case if they had persisted in their design, and barred off this goaf; but I had permission to try an experiment, and such a catas- trophe was averted. We now let several weeks pass over, and noticed many sudden changes of atmosphere, but without dreading any early outburst. It was, however, tlie autumnal part of the year, when goaves are most critical to deal with; and after eleven weeks had passed over I took the two men with me that were at the experiment on the lamp, and when I opened the door, behold a cloud as black as midnight enveloped us, and immediately put out the light in the lamp. I propped the door so far open, to admit a portion of fresh air, and took the men to the north and west side of the down- cast pit, into the return passages, to ascertain its condition, as it advanced up to the furnace and up-cast pit. To our great satisfaction, not a par- ticle of hydrogen gas was visible. We then returned to the door, and stopped, I opened the door to enable us to enter; when we found every brick constituting the stopping had been forced out of the headways as if by a blast, right across the four and-a-half yard board. Here, reader, you see my dreaded anticipations realised. We now let the goaf exhaust itself into the return for a few days; when, the security of this goaf being left entirely to myself, we again put a temporary deal stopping into the same headways end. We then pulled down the old injured arch and built a twenty inch stopping on each side of the horseways.- Then T procured a pipe, twelve feet long and six inches in diameter, and ex- tended this pipe from stopping to stopping, building it properly in each, above the reach of horse or man; I also made all the other stoppings good and safe. When that was done, I took out the deal stopping, and that pipe to this day operates as a safety valve for the goaf, which would appear as a phenomenon to those without scientific knowledge in tlie system of mining. It can be seen on any day at Goxlodge Colliery, iu the Prince Regent Pit, 400 yards from the shaft; and I need only remind you, that if such a preventative had been applied in the Houghton Pit,