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

70 then- friends as the prince to the king. The enjoyments of life were as sweet to them as to another; and, if they had lost their lives in any other way but by an explosion in the mine, there would have been a rigid and strict inquiry into the cause of liow they came by their deaths, regardless of who were the perpetrators, and without any mockery. But the brave industrious, and fearless miners are sacrificed at the shrine of neylio-ence by scores, and the cause or circumstances connected with their death have to be hushed up by prevarication, dissimulation, and intimidation. And tins, too, we find in a Coroner’s Court applied to a Government In- spector of Coal Mines, both by the Coroner himself and also by one of the witnesses. What, I ask, is meant by “ You had better not say anything about Burradon,” and “ No, nothing about Burradon.” What are we to understand by these incomprehensible and cautionary remarks? Are we to conclude that these gentlemen knew something which was kept back from the public on that lamentable occassion ? And dare witnesses presume to laugh in that court when cross-examined by the Inspector ? Oi was the witness forced into laughter by the simplicity discovered in the question asked ? And why attempt to extract the opinion of a hum- ble .miner in tlie presence of his master ? It is enough to compel him to perjure his own concience unnecessarily, and ought to be avoided. For my part, I say that any person professing to be proficient in the science requisite to the situation he holds, and who has carefully studied, the elements of nature, and seen their operations in the mine;' and who has also, by his own observations and practical experience acquired the true principles of ventilating a coal mine, ought in himself to be able to find out the cause from the effects produced and held up to his view without asking questions of wliat is right and what is wrong of the unskilled mmer at the Coroner’s inquest. That is not the place for the inspection of mines. You will never derive any benefit from that quarter until the system is altered. Yet, you miners of the present day, apart from those dread catastrophic, have one advantage to cheer you on to perseverance. The great spread of knowledge even in your own ranks, and the wonderful improvements already achieved in the system of mining, ought to encourage you in the hope that the day is not far distant when some of you will understand the operations of nature’s inimitable laws in the coal mines, and that in ^2?*’ own ^ne y0" be equal with the astronomer, describing the far off sky bestudded with wonders; or the philosopher expounding the virtue of knowledge; or the truly scientific chemist at his analytical solutions extracting the carbonates and gases from stone, the sulphur and acids rom metal. lie mine is also an analytical laboratory, where there is a perpetual process going on of amalgamation of all the gaseous productions therein; separated from their native bed where they had been pent up for ages, and which, agitated by the penetration of the strata, and pre- cipitated by the force of pressure, are now all combining and uniting with the circulating volume of atmospheric air. To understand tlæ requisite treatment for this volatilized mass of matter, and to do away wit!) explosions, is the lesson you now must endeavour to learn Then will my name and memory be rewarded for the misfortunes of the past.