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

68 first and northernmost board. When nearly done, I took my lamp and left the men, to look up this board, not that I dreaded anything, but that I liked best to make my observations alone. At four yards up the board to west I saw the volume of inflammable gas, and at six yards up it filled my lamp with flame. I then turned back and told the men my dis- covery. We had this sheth coursed in threes, and as we proceeded we found the whole body of air was pressing away, down and up the south board, as if the other two were both fast, and the air could not get up them. At every pillar I examined the north board, and found it filled with inflammable gas from east to west, and end to end. We were nothing alarmed, as we knew no one could get near hand it but ourselves, and so we proceeded on our journey. In passing through the walls to south, avo found the air rushing away to the south board, and down it in a similar way, and so on through the whole sheth. of boards, the result being pro- duced by the natural pressure of the atmosphere. I returned with, two old men the following day, and put stone steppings in the south and middle board, at the west end of the up going boards, which was seven pillars in length. But long before we had got these stoppings finished we had the volume of inflammable gas in motion, passing by the west side of these stoppings on its march to destruction. We then allowed a few days to pass over, and again returned to examine the state and condi- tion of this north board, which we found quite dean and clear of any gas. I then took my candle, and with an earnest search examined it from end to end, to find if possible the blower or fissure, or whatever it was that discharged the hydrogen gas; but the search was not satisfactory to me. We then went and spread down the two board encl stoppings, reducing all things to their former state again. I next went to the east end of this north board and, with my candle, I examined and watched narrowly the process to my own satisfaction, I went one pillar up, and repeated the process from pillar to pillar, with equal satisfaction. I now became clearly convinced that the cunning caloric was at its stealthy work again, like the spider at his web, weaving afresh another volume of hydrogen gas. We then left it again for a week. When we went back the board was foul, but not so bad as before by far. Yet I had learned the lesson I sought—the one I now tell to you. We again rebuilt the stoppings, and adopted a similar plan throughout the whole waste, so that we were not again troubled by the enemy’s intrusion. From this description some may think and perhaps say, we were trifling with danger too far, and in- curring it almost unnecessai'ily. But such is the school of the practical miner. He must dare its dangers, or remain, in ignorance. Again, hydrogen gas is only dangerous when, in the hands and trusted to the care of those who are not acquainted with its nature, and do not know how to handle it. It is the simplest of all gasses, and the easiest to con- quer and expel from the mine. Yet it is the most subtle and deceptive to deal with, if allowed to rove at random in a field of vanity, without system or rule, without science or practice. Let no man think that the current of air will pervade the whole district of workings without the necessary mechanism being strictly attended to. But the man skilled in the art of ventilation by science recognised ths evil in the beginning and