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

67 is continued off for any length of time. This process in nature is produced by the pressure of the atmosphere being taken o ie wes en of the northern board, when the hydrogen gas, which is ever ready to climb the hill first, advances and comes m contact with the mens naked lights, and hence the^explosion ha.ve ented In my opinion tins was not sucn a, »iiguu , it to be. 1 infer this from the quantity and quality of the ove; damp. There must have been a large quantity of hydrogen and oxygen exploded to produce such a vast amount of carbon and nitrogen as was to»vered in the main horse-wav that killed the men. I have made no inquiry, and wit no information on the subject. My statement is based on the law of nature, which was at all times my guide when in practice. And 1 h id the opinion nearly corroborated by the deposition of another witness, who savs lie examined this north board, where the explosion occuued, two <1.1 VS after ami behold ! the place was sweet, and not a particle of hydio ten Vas being to be seen. The reason why lie saw no gas is quite clearly demonstrated to me. The officials of the Colliery had applied the necessary means, they had put up doors and stoppings to bear the air up to the north board, a precaution that ought to have been taken before, and which would have prevented the explosion. Vet they were always in ieopardy, because their system of ventilation was false, and contrary to nature. Let them take this advice, and act upon it. Put a crossing arch over the main horseway, at the east headways end, where we mice Irul one to carry their air over into the north return passages. They will then be able to ventilate the district effectually, with 4,000 cubic feet of atmospheric air, and never more see one particle of hydrogen gas. They will at once adapt a preventative against any more explosions ; and the reason is that they will then ventilate the district m unison with lw of nature by shifting the pressure of the atmosphere from the south to tho noX’Xh is th? natural place of lodgment for hydrogen gas. Some busy looker-on might say-“ But- how are we to get ti t workings of this angle situated to the east of these headways ventilated? Put a deal stopping into their present return or south cross-cut, with a slide regulator in it, of 18 square inches. That will do for that poi tio of the district, as its homeward bound course is also by the north, which is the only place of residence for hydrogen gas. It was just about bUO vards due north from the place of this explosion, where I expelled so many acres of hydrogen gas in hours, which I have previously described, and Liven the plan of the workings. And a slieth of boards east of it was the nlace where I first discovered the busy caloric stealing the hydrogen gas from the circulating fluid, and forming a volume of inflammable gas There is a man employed at the colliery yet who was with me the»first dav I found it so; but at that time we concluded that the north board W exposed one of those blowers which frequently break out in the Wlw]e working district. Our road in, to travel this waste or slieth of boards was by the east headways to north, which was the horseway, and back to south, down the west headways. On this day, I had three men besides myself for the purpose of working up the falls as we came to them We were engaged in ridding some fallen stones a few yards north of th