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

61 While this little treatise is passing through the press, our ears are again astounded with the report of a colliery explosion. The scene of this catastrophe was Coxlodge Colliery, where twenty more of your fel- low-workmen have been hurled into eternity; victims again, no doubt, to that monster of the coal mines—negligence. It is necessary, however, that I should support such an opinion by evidence. This Leonard’s cross- cut was driven north so many degrees east, parallel with the boundary- line of Gosfortli, and formed, as it were, a string to the bow of the main horseway, There were two boards driven on the noith side towards the out end for stowage, and were, I dare say, solidly stowed up. There were several headway boards driven down south, beyond the centre of the bow, for the same purpose, and these were also solidly stowed up; but beyond these again, a pair of headways turned off the main horseway, and were driven down south to the line of Leonard’s cross-cut. At about thirty yards down the west headways a board turned off to west, but to what dis- tance it was driven up, or for what purpose I know not, as it was then holed into no other place. When the timber was taken out of these headways and that board a portion of stone fell, leaving us a passage over the fallen stones of about four feet high. Many a time I was up to the face of that board with the lamp, and, strange to say, I never once found any inflammable gas in it, although there was plenty to the south and west. The present workings I can only view by anticipating their forma- tion, which does not affect the principle I am about to illustrate. Our evidence must be taken from the depositions in. the Coroner’s court. The first witness says he has 9,000 cubic feet per minute of atmospheric air to ventilate Leonard’s cross-cut and the workings therein. This would be ample indeed, if properly guided through the whole of the workings. To convert that current of air into a volume of inflammable gas it would re- quire a source generating 67,000 cubic feet of hydrogen gas per minute and to men of scientific knowledge this must appear as an impossibility, particularly when they know that the native gas of the adjacent stratifi- cation throughout the district of limited extent is carbonic acid gas ; but as hydrogen gas is generated from a variety of sources, we will include all, incidental and accidental, and when we do so, it is manifest that this current of air, if mechanically applied through the workings, would not leave a particle of hydrogen gas therein ■ it would be all swept away as it issued fiom its sources, just as a feather is born© away by tlie wind, and effected by the same law too. Tn all the twenty years’ practice at this colliery,. I never once saw hydrogen gas collected into a volume but the place of its lodgment was clearly indicated; and I conclude from my own experience in connection with the destructive element, that all those extensive explosions might really be prevented by proper caroand judg- ment ; the contrary of which must be defect or negligence. Again, take a scientific view of the two bodies, and mark the difference of gravity. One cubic foot of atmospheric air weighs nearly l |oz., or G00 grains, whereas one cubic foot of hydrogen gas weighs only 38 grains. Now, carry that forward to 9,000 cubic feet of each, and then describe the disparity. ' You will also see the circulating volume propelled into motion by the pressure and influence of our common atmosphere, and towed onward in its course