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

66 the fallen stones. The witness travelled this part on Monday morning, and it was as clear of gas as Newcastle Town Moor. That was four days before the explosion. Now, I have observed before that the natural course of the circulating volume of air was by south to east. Suppose they had wrought one wall of coal off*, extending some pillars east and west, that would be a breadth of 121 yards; and if there were two walls wrought off, it would furnish an extensive reservoir for the collection of hydrogen gas. They could not, indeed, have provided nature with a more convenient laboratory for its operations. The air at this point becomes somewhat heated by the respirations of men, boys, and horses. In this state it passes through this district. It is first borne up to the north board, and as it returns to eastward, it is also pressing to the south by the influence of the atmosphere. Let the candid observer watch the process of nature, as the air is gliding down by the south wall side of this little goaf, and he will discover the phenomenon I am about to describe. Let him enter in from the south, at any part of its extent from west to east, and he will pass through the current stream of air, in about three yards from the south wall side, admitting that the whole space oi breadth be uniform in height from south to north. Let him step on to the middle of the space or goaf, and he will feel the medium sensation. Let him advance up to the north wall side, and in all probability he will find himself involved in a volume of inflammable gas. And how came it there, is the question? This is a useful lesson to those who have not had the opportunity of learn- ing it by their own practical experience in the coal mines. As I have observed, the air had become heated by animal respiration, &c., and caloric being the name given to heat of every description by chemists, we now have caloric added and uniting with the circulating volume of air. Hydrogen gas is produced by the decomposition of water, and by putrid animal and vegetable matter, and caloric is necessary to all gaseous com- pounds. This might be the source from whence the hydrogen gas is generated. When the air is passing down through this little goaf, in the whole distance from west to east, caloric is in operation, abstracting the hydrogen gas from the body of air. By its own natural gravity it ascends in a rotated movement into the calm and more elevated space to north; when there, the hydrogen in. its turn abstracts the oxygen from the caloric, and their union forms the volume of inflammable gas. This process I have carefully watched with the candle alone, and will prove it again. But in this instance, the process had been in operation for months before the explosion, and no doubt would have continued so long as the present system of ventilating the district was continued. The accumulated volume of hydrogen gas is at all times inflammable, by the partial goaf, with three sides open, affording it communication with the circulating current of air at intervals, arising from certain causes; and when the bearing up door is open at the bottom of the westernmost headways, or the air taken off by whatevei' cause, it will immediately appear at the west end of the northernmost board, as if there was a pressure of air laid on at the east end of the board, by the perceptible movement of the hitherto compressed and stagnant volume, extending its course as a counter current to west, and also down the headways to south, if the air