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

VENTILATION OF COAL MINES. Tire temble accident at New Hartley has awakened public sympathy on behalf of the miner, and the wants of the sufferers by that calamity have been provided for with a generosity unparalleled in the history of mining disasters. Let not the lesson read to the mining interest by that sad catastrophe be suffered to pass unheeded. Accidents will occur, but how many that have happened in our pits might have been prevented either by foresight and a trifling expenditure on the part of the masters, or by care and attention to the pit rules on the part of the men. A great defect at Hartley (apart from the absence of a second outlet) was the non-walhiig of the shaft where the stratafication was known to be bad, an oversight that is now visible to the unfortunate owners, who, in their sad reverses of fortune, have my profound sympathy. But, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, I think none of us will be inclined to pass heavy censure upon these gentlemen, who worked their pit on the same principle as many others are being wrought, and appre- hended no unusual danger. But. in the Burradon case things wore a totally different aspect. That accident 1 venture to assert, might have been prevented, as might almost every other pit accident caused by an explosion of gas. You will re- incmher that the officials at that colliery gave positive proof to the world o their incoinpetency to manage the important departments entrusted to . . care. You will remember, too, the absence from the coroner’s inquiry of a very important person, the master wasteman. He appeared to be a sort of sleeping partner in the firm, instead of having faithfully represented the state of the return to those responsible for the daily operations in the pit, and, if necessity required it, to the chief agent M B 'e had d0ne tlns’ which ™ his duty> it might have saved 111. C. Carr many a sad and bitter thought. He would have told them, or instance, that they had lost the return on the north side of the bhaight-up travelling board, by the pressure or creep from the large; -2 acre g°ai tø the north, which had destroyed every visible passage for . 3< i*1 was necessary for them to immediately provide another, winch could have been done by converting the straight-up board into a return passage, by building up the scale, and doubling the doors at ink >°° i r 1*5 board’ knockiug out the stopping to the north, in the si e o i(> inner door, and taking the air through again into its ?assa? t0 north and west- I think this is what the two officials ,tO ,iave /Jon<; on that day when Dryden and poor Carr were leaving i woi . ryden and Carr saw danger imminent, so much so that it