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

62 In a floating fluid, his works confine Through endless ages, since nature first began Her creative power over God-like man; The common air, the source from which all things spring, The foetid maggot and the haughty king, With all that breathes has He set forth In water, air, and on the earth; The rolling billows and foaming floods, The earth’s green verdure and lofty woods Are subject all, to the immortal nod Of the great alchymist—the omnipotent hand of God. “ A regular circle of compositions and decompositions are thus per- petually going on, and all organised beings are made to surrender in due time to the general mass of those elementary substances which nature kindly lent them for the preservation of their existence. Such a supposi- tion is not only countenanced by the most eminent of our modern astro- nomers, but is more honourable to the Deity, and more analogous to the general economy of the universe.” It is also sufficient to induce us to conclude that nothing artificial— nothing wliich deviates from the general law—will, for any length of time, operate with advantage in the affairs of men, or be productive of safety to those in the mine, where the principle of decomposition is in full force throughout the whole system and process of mining. Hydrogen gas is generated from a variety of substances, and must be met with an equivalent volume of atmospheric air, whose nitrogen possesses the power of diluting or decomposing it as it issues from its sources. Yet very different from this was the case at Wallsend, in 1835, when 101 of your fellow-workmen were swept from the stage of being; and such was the mighty magnitude of the natural derangement from the violence of the concussive shock by that awful explosion, that all animated nature ceased to exist in the twinkling of an eye, as was seen by men found as if in the act of working in their places beyond the range of the explosive blast. And this, too, was the effect of a false and defective ventilation at that colliery, notwithstanding the natural provisions and many facili- ties they possessed. They had their air’s returning passages reduced to creeping holes, and could not observe the heavy friction to which is was subjected, amounting to a serious obstruction on the general volume of air circulating through the workings of the mine. They saw the sluggish movement and vitiated state of the air; they saw, too, the hydrogen gaining a mastery and spreading its dangerous volume for several weeks (as at Burradon) before the explosive blast did occur, as was represented by the man Craister, before it happened, Yet, as the result shows, there was no one at that time engaged on the colliery who possessed the requisite knowledge to avert the advance of the approaching danger, or prevent the soul-stirring effects of tlio sad catastrophe which followed, desolating the homes of the miners, and destroying the happiness and comforts of life. I now conclude this record of practical experience in the coal mines, under the hope that you may profit by the development of the science of ventilation it unfolds to your view. For your future good, I have im- posed upon myself the task of clothing my ideas in this dress: for any imperfections (it being my first attempt) I humbly beg your lenient con-