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

44 duty of a miner. To work they go, and up with the lines. As tlie process went on, they, the men, true to the figure (as you see by the plan), holed in the goaf at 26 yards 2 feet 6 inches. The water rushed out and inundated the horseway by flooding up the inlets to the water level. Thus began difficulties of various discriptions, serious in their effects, and costly to contend with. After the water was all run off, and the rubbish led out, they commenced to work two yards breadth of the coal off, to form an air way, timbering by the side of the goaf to protect the workmen; hut as they proceeded in working away the coal, they exposed and undermined large splintei's of stone which had previously been supported by the solidity of the coal, these extended to the upper part of the goaf in an oblique direction, and were of such immese size and weight that no timber could be applied to support them. To these difficulties were added the frequent presence of hydrogen gas, without the means of ventilation to keep the workings clean, and enable the men to proceed with the formation of the air’s passage. The consequence was, they were lost for a time, and it became very costly before they could discover the right channel again. Whereas, if they had permitted the place to have gone on at 20 yards up (as you see by the plan), they would have completed 115 yards with no expense at all, tlic roof being poste, while the price of the coals would have more than covered the cost of the work required. This leads me to the conclusion, that many men serve their time to be viewers, &c., whose knowledge and intellectual capacities are not far raised above mediocrity, and that those noble gentlemen, the generous govenors of our glorious country, are under a delusion. I am afraid they ai’e misled by the report of envy, and by a false representa- tion of the miners as a body, and a labouring class of the community. It must be ill judged to continue the present system of exclusion, particularly when all the world see their good intentions, which are to alleviate the condition of the miners as far as is compatible with reason and justice; and to procure a system of ventilation which would remove the dread of those direful explosions from the miners’ mind, and impart to their humble homes comfort and health. This, I infer from a sentence in the pamphlet written by a Government Inspector, in which is discovered at last, the grand secret that has been so long and anxiously wished for, “How to prevent accidents in coal mines.” In it, he says, “hence, they (the Government) have constantly refused to countenance snb-inspectors, especially those taken from amongst tlie uneducated colliers.” From this we must conclude, that the general rule, which allows of exceptions in all cases, is not applicable to the miners; whereas the inspector knows, the viewers know, and the workmen in general know best that there always was, is now, and always will be a certain portion of the miners, of first-class education in their line, which alone is requisite in the coal mines. For be it understood, a man may receive all the varieties of knowledge that education can give, lie may issue from the universities, those nurseries to tlie human mind, big with learning, equal to the senate, the pulpit or bar. But, if he has never been in a coal pit, reason will tell him he lacks the knowledge requisite for the inspection of mines.