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

30 into this Kity’s drift at six o'clock (when the weather would permit), it being the summer season of the year. We had two shifts or relays of men to facilitate the process, and as the work proceeded we had to go down different pits to suit convenience according to where the stoppage was, and the workmen required. At the north-east termination of this drift stands the Old Engine Pit, a little to the south of Kenton village, and in the field north of the Town Moor. But as the principal portion of the work lay where it was most convenient for the men to go down the Granary Pit, about 1,200 yards to the west by north of the Engine Pit, we put up a gin, and for years we had to improve and secure the passages from that pit,, in the summer of the year only. From tins pit too there was a north-east cross-cut which extended for more than a mile in that direction. The workings to the north and west side were holed into what was called “the old men’s workings,” to what extent I know not. But they abounded in carbonic acid gas, and on the slightest change of atmosphere, the gas would rush out from these lioleings an envelope us in darkness and deadly vapour, in which event we had to plod through water the whole distance to the shaft m the dark; and it was always my opinion that the agitation of the water preserved our lives on several occasions of this kind. , In referring to the plan, it will be seen that three pits, i.e., the blake- law the Granary, and the Old Engine Pit form an obtuse angle, by a close stone drift set out of the main drift, in a south-east by east direc- tion to the Engine Pit, which was sunk on a hill side, or rising ground, to the north, and is 100 fathoms deep, from the surface to the seam of coal being the southernmost extremity of the royalty, and depth of this colliery; the shaft is ten feet diameter, and had a segment latticed off to protect the spears, pumps, &c., when a current going colliery. They had all the water the mine made to lift out by tins engine, to bank, or nearly so, until she became connected with Kity’s drift, when they then shortened the lift forty fathoms, and, of course, reduced the weight and volume of water on the spears and buckets also, by delivering it at the mouth of the drift, and conveying it over the forty and twenty fathom pits with boxes away to the Tyne side; they also shortened the hit for the coals, by working off the strata from the north side of the shaft or drift, and fixed there a lifting engine, with its matenals for working, and drawing the coals from the mine, sixty fathoms below, when they, too, were sent to the Tyne side through this drift for a time. . As improve- ments in the system advanced, they, however, abandoned this drift, except for the water, and had to continue to pay rent on wayleave for it. But, in 1818 a fresh company of gentlemen became tbc owners of the colliery, who ’ceased to pay this rent, they laid off this engine, took it down, removed all the materials connected with it, leaving the water to take its own level, which soon brought it to Coxlodge Pits, being further to the depth than Kenton; and thus did our troubles begin. By this descriptive detail of the localities, by which you will better under- stand the formation of the working in these pits, all connected together to the north, the east, and the west of this Engine Pit, winch ceased to be a coal working pit in 1814, and was abandoned altogether m