CHAPTER XI.

Collieries of the North of England.-Fire-damp.—The dreadful explosion at Felling Colliery described.-Letters from the Bishop of Bristol to the Author.-A Society is established at BishopWearmouth for preventing accidents in coal mines.-Various projects for ensuring the miner's safety. The Reverend Dr. Gray, the present Bishop of Bristol, addresses a letter to Sir H. Davy, and invites his attention to the subject.-Sir H. Davy's reply.-Farther correspondence upon the possibility of devising means of security.-Sir H. Davy proposes four different kinds of lamp for the purpose.-The Safe-lamp-The Blowing-lamp-The Piston-lamp-The Charcoallamp. His investigation of the properties of fire-damp leads to the discovery of a new principle of safety. His views developed in a paper read before the Royal Society on the 9th of November 1815.-The first Safety-lamp.-Safety-tubes superseded by Safety-canals.-Flame Sieves.Wire-gauze lamp.-The phenomenon of slow Combustion, and its curious application.-The invention of the Safety-lamp claimed by a Mr. Stephenson.-A deputation of Coal-owners wait upon Sir H. Davy, in order to express to him the thanks of the Proprietors for his discovery.—Mr. Buddle announces to Dr. Gray (now Bishop of Bristol) the intention of the Coal trade to present him with a service of plate.-The Resolutions are opposed, and the claims of Stephenson urged, by Mr. W. Brandling.-A dinner is given to Sir Humphry, at which the plate is presented to him.-The President and Council of the Royal Society protest against the claims still urged by Mr. Stephenson's friends.-Mr. Buddle's letter in answer to several queries submitted to him by the Author.-Davy's Researches on Flame.-He receives from the Royal Society the Rumford Medals. Is created a Baronet.—Some observations on the apathy of the State in rewarding scientific merit.-The Geological Society of Cornwall receives the patronage and support of Sir Humphry.

A FEW months after the return of Sir Humphry Davy to England, his talents were put in requisition to discover some remedy for an evil which had hitherto defied the skill of the best practical engineers and mechanics of the kingdom, and which continued to scatter misery and death amidst an important and laborious class of our countrymen.

To collect and publish a detailed account of the numerous and awful accidents which have occurred within the last few years, from the explosion of inflammable air, or fire-damp, in the coal mines of the North of England, would

present a picture of the most appalling nature. It appears from a statement by Dr. Clanny, in the year 1813,* that, in the space of seven years, upwards of three hundred pitmen had been suddenly deprived of their lives, besides a considerable number who had been severely wounded; and that more than three hundred women and children had been left in a state of the greatest distress and poverty; since which period the mines have increased in depth, and until the happy discovery of Davy, the accidents continued to increase in number. It may well be asked how it can possibly have happened that, in a country so enlightened by science and so distinguished for humanity, an evil of such fearful magnitude, and of such frequent recurrence, should for so long a period have excited but little sympathy, beyond the immediate scene of the catastrophe. It would seem that a certain degree of doubt and mystery, or novelty, is essentially necessary to create that species of dramatic interest by which the passions are excited through the medium of the imagination: it is thus that the philanthropist penetrates unknown regions, in search of objects for his compassion, while he passes unheeded the miserable groups who crowd his threshold; it is thus that the statesman pleads the injuries of the Negro with an eloquence that shakes the thrones of kings, while he bestows not a thought upon the intrepid labourers in his own country, who for a miserable pittance pass their days in the caverns of the earth, to procure for him the means of defying the severity of winter, and of chasing away the gloom of his climate by an artificial sunshine.

That the benefits conferred upon mankind by the labours of Sir H. Davy may be properly appreciated, it is necessary to describe the magnitude of the evil which his genius has removed, as well as the numerous difficulties which opposed his efforts and counteracted his designs.

The great coal field,† the scene of those awful accidents which will be hereafter described, extends over a considerable part of the counties of Northumberland and Durham. The whole surface has been calculated at a hundred and eighty square miles, and the number of different beds of coal has been stated to exceed forty; many of which, however, are insignificant in point of dimensions. The two most important are about six feet in thickness, and

Phil. Transact. 1813.

+ Dr. Thomson has calculated that the quantity of coal exported yearly from this formation exceeds two millions of chaldrons; and he thinks it may be fairly stated, in round numbers, that, at the present rate of waste, it will continue to supply coal for a thousand years! Mr. Phillips, however, is inclined to deduct a century or two from this calculation.

are distinguished by the names of High main, and Low main, the former being about sixty fathoms above the latter.

From this statement some idea may be formed of the great extent of the excavations, and of the consequent difficulty of successfully ventilating the mines. In some collieries, they are continued for many miles, forming numerous windings and turnings, along which the pitmen have frequently to walk for forty or fifty minutes, before they arrive at the workings; during which time, as well as when at work, they have no direct communication with the surface of the earth. The most ingenious machinery, however, has been contrived for conducting pure air through every part of the mine, and for even ventilating the old excavations, which are technically called Wastes; and unless some obstruction occur, the plan so far answers, as to furnish wholesome air to the pitmen, and to diminish, although, for reasons to be hereafter stated, it can never wholly prevent, the dangers of fire-damp; the nature of which it will be necessary to consider.

*

The coal appears to part with a portion of carburetted hydrogen, when newly exposed to the atmosphere; a fact which explains the well-known circumstance of the coal being more inflammable when fresh from the pit, than after long exposure to the air. We are informed by the Reverend Mr. Hodgson that, on pounding some common Newcastle coal fresh from the mine, in a cask furnished with a small aperture, he found the gas which issued from it to be inflammable; and Davy, on breaking some lumps of coal under water, also ascertained that they gave off inflammable gas. The supposition that the coal strata have been formed under a pressure greater than that of the atmosphere, may furnish a clue to the comprehension of this phenomenon.

On some occasions the pitmen have opened with their picks crevices, or fissures, in the coal or shale, which have emitted as much as seven hundred hogsheads of fire-damp in a minute. These Blowers, as they are technically termed, have been known to continue in a state of activity for many months, or even years together; a phenomenon which clearly shows that the carburetted hydro

* In all large collieries, the air is accelerated through the workings by placing furnaces, sometimes at the bottom, and sometimes at the top of the up-cast shaft; in aid of which, at Wall's-end Colliery, a powerful air-pump worked by a steam-engine is employed to quicken the draft: this alone draws out of the mines a thousand hogsheads of air every minute. Stoppings and trap-doors are also interposed in various parts of the workings, in order to give a direction to the draft.

+ Sir James Lowther found a uniform current of this description produced in one of his mines for the space of two years and nine months. Phil. Trans. vol. 38. p. 112.

gen must have existed in the cavities of the strata in a very highly compressed, if not actually in a liquid state, and which, on the diminution of pressure, has resumed its elastic form.

All the sources of carburetted hydrogen would appear to unite in the deep and valuable collieries situated between the great North road and the sea. Their air courses are thirty or forty miles in length; and here, as might be expected, the most tremendous explosions have happened. Old workings, likewise, upon being broken into, have not unfrequently been found filled with this gas, and which, by mingling itself with the common air, has converted the whole atmosphere of the mine into a magazine of fire-damp.

On the approach of a candle, it is in an instant kindled: the expanded fluid drives before it a roaring whirlwind of flaming air, which tears up every thing in its progress, scorching some of the miners to a cinder, and burying others under enormous ruins shaken from the roof; when thundering to the shafts, it converts the mine, as it were, into an enormous piece of artillery, and wastes its fury in a discharge of thick clouds of coal-dust, stones, and timber, together with the limbs and mangled bodies of men and horses.

But this first, though apparently the most appalling, is not the most destructive effect of these subterraneous combustions. All the stoppings and trap-doors of the mine being blown down by the violence of the concussion, and the atmospheric current entirely excluded from the workings, such of the miners as may have survived the discharge are doomed to the more painful and lingering death of suffocation from the after-damp, or stythe, as it is termed, which immediately results from the combustion, and occupies the vacuum necessarily produced by it.

As the phenomena accompanying these explosions are always of the same description, to relate the numerous recorded histories of such accidents would be only to multiply pictures of death and human suffering, without an adequate object: it is, however, essential to the just comprehension of the subject, that the reader should receive at least one well-authenticated account, in all its terrific details; and I have accordingly selected that which was originally drawn up with much accuracy and feeling by the Reverend John Hodgson, and which is prefixed to the funeral sermon preached on the occasion, and subsequently published by that gentleman.

The accident occurred at Felling Colliery, near Sunderland, on the 25th of May, in the year 1812. This mine was considered by the workmen as a model of perfection, both with regard to the purity of its air, and the arrange

ments of its machinery. The concern was in the highest degree prosperous; and no accident, except a trifling explosion which slightly scorched two or three pitmen, had ever occurred.

Two shifts, or sets of men, were constantly employed, the first of which entered the mine at four, and were relieved at their working posts by the next set at eleven o'clock in the morning; but such was the confidence of the pitmen in the safety of this mine, that the second shift of men were often at their posts before the first set had left them; and such happened to be the case on the following unhappy occasion.

About half past eleven, on the morning of the 25th of May, the neighbouring villages were alarmed by a tremendous explosion. The subterraneous fire broke forth with two heavy discharges from the shaft called the 'John Pit,' which was one hundred and two fathoms deep, and were almost immediately followed by one from that termed the William Pit.' A slight trembling, as if from an earthquake, was felt for about half a mile around the workings; and the noise of the explosion, though dull, was heard to the distance of three or four miles, and greatly resembled an unsteady fire of infantry.

Immense quantities of dust and small coal accompanied these blasts, and rose high into the air, in the form of an inverted cone. The heaviest part of the ejected matter, such as masses of timber, and fragments of coal, fell near the pit, but the dust borne away by a strong west wind, fell in a continued shower to the distance of a mile and a half; and in the village of Heworth, it caused a gloom, like that of early twilight, and so covered the roads that the footsteps of passengers were strongly imprinted on them.

As soon as the explosion had been heard, the wives and children of the pitmen rushed to the working pit. Wildness and terror were pictured in every countenance. The crowd thickened from every side, and in a very short period several hundred persons had collected together; and the air resounded with exclamations of despair for the fate of husbands, parents, and children.

The machinery having been rendered useless by the eruption, the rope of the gin was sent down the shaft with all possible expedition. In the absence of horses, a number of men, who seemed to acquire strength as the necessity for it increased, applied their shoulders to the starts, or shafts of the gin, and worked it with astonishing expedition.

By twelve o'clock, thirty-two persons, all that survived this dreadful catastrophe, had been brought to daylight, but of these three boys lived only a few hours. The dead bodies of two boys, miserably scorched and shattered, were