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

61 have been left to public conjecture, and its truths involved in mystery. I give you this information to show the possibility of men of this kind being employed in the coal mines previous to, and after this man, John Brown, of Coxlodge Colliery. I may further add that this, although a slight explosion in comparison with some, formed the greatest vacuum on the adjacent goaves I ever witnessed in my time of practice. It filled tlie waste with inflammable gas, back the whole distance to the main returning drifts, where the whole district currents were united in one volume of air. Neither was that all, inasmuch as the hydrogen gas flowed down from the er» ne along the horseway over the ingoing and ordinary- district volume, for several pillars to east, with this singular phenomenon. At the sole or bottom of the drift was seen and felt the atmospheric stream of air, wherein we could cany our lamps free from the effects of the hydrogen gas; while by raising them eighteen inches up, they immediately became filled with the flame which was for a time an impediment to our exertions. As soon as it became comparatively safe to do so, men ventured up to the crane, creeping on their hands and knees, in this current of air, and below the inflammable gas. On arriving at the crane they found the two men that were there injured to such an extent that, they could not get out, though they were still living, supported by the low-lying current of air. Their groans led the searchers direct to them. One, a hewer, had his thigh bone broken, the other was the man that died from the injuries he received. The expansion from the goaves continued for several hours, while the gas was visibly seen spreading in a convolving volume over the top of the ingoing air. The waste was full of inflammable gas, which only became diluted when united with the general volume of air returning from the other districts. We now persevered on the same principle, and succeeded in getting to the regulating stopping, which we immediately broke down, increasing the quantity of air threefold in this district. With such a volume of air in circulation we soon got the ascendency over tlie difficulties we had previously to contend with, and after the operations of a few hours we got all made clean and right, and things restored to a workable state. Tliis accident is one of the lessons nature teaches us in the school of ex- perience, and furnishes the practical miner with the knowledge requisite for his future guidance. It also shows the necessity of never at any time, nor under any circumstances, permitting hydrogen gas to collect itself into a volume in any part of tlie mine. Tt is a lesson, too, that T am sure my worthy friends at Walker Colliery will profit by, as it shows with sufficient clearness that when once collected into a volume of what- ever extent, there is no saying by whom, or by what means, the destruc- tive element may be lighted up. You who have seen the sad havoc of an extensive explosion in a coal mine, know as well as 1 do that, there is no shelter for the miner to escape the explosive blast and its concomitance of deadly vapour. Ah ! no, the young, the old, the strong, the weak, Alike are laid, in eternal sleep, By elemental strife, the ever-changing mass, Its forms and solids are dissolved to gas; Emerging matter with caloric combine