GEOLOGY. 227 



with water in it- standing some twenty feet befow the highest edge. 

 This water was much discolored and boiling strongly, throwing up 

 quantities of white steam, with sulphurous vapor which much annoyed 

 us. There was apparently an underground rush of boiling water from 

 the southeast side into the sea, which might be traced a long way by 

 its dark color, as well as by the white vapors emitted. Nothing can 

 be more singular than the appearance of this mass of ashes in the mid- 

 dle of the sea. You may form some idea of the force of the fire that 

 must have been required to form it by considering that it is, as near as 

 could be guessed, three quarters of a mile round, and that, where it 

 now stands, former charts give soundings in one hundred and thirty 

 fathoms, and from the soundings lately made it seems to stand on a 



large base." 



CURIOSITIES OF COAL MIXING. 



From the last volume of the Transactions of the North of England 

 Institute of Mining Engineers we derive the following interesting in- 

 formation relative to what may properly be termed the " curiosities of 

 coal-mining." 



" What is called Murton Pit, not far from Durham, is remarkable 

 for the difficulties overcome in sinking to the coal. In the process of 

 excavation, the sinkers encountered probably the largest body of water 

 ever met with in any one mining adventure. The estimated quan- 

 tities seem incredible. No less than nine thousand three hundred gal- 

 lons of water were lifted every minute from a bed of quicksand which 

 lay at a depth of five hundred and forty feet from the surface. This 

 bed was forty feet in thickness, and for its whole extent thoroughly 

 saturated with water. Any person may conceive of the difficulty of 

 sinking through such a quicksand. To encounter and defeat not far 

 short of ten thousand gallons of flooding springs, minute after minute 

 and day after day, might well have appalled any engineer. But the 

 engineer fought the floods with their own weapons : he made use of 

 the vapor generated from water steam and added horse-power to 

 horse-power, until, in all, he placed steam engines around that one pit 

 to the extent of no less than one thousand five hundred and eighty- 

 four horse-power. Night and day those purnping-engines were at work 

 in pumping up the floods ; cranks, ' crabs ' and all kinds of requisite en- 

 gineering were added, and the water was obliged to give in, or, 

 rather, to come out. Murton Colliery is now a thriving concern, and 

 sends up tubs of coal instead of gallons of water every minute to the 

 surface. But at what cost was this water pumped out ? At an ex- 

 penditure of no less than $2,000,000. 



" It is remarkable that in another sinking for coal, about a couple 

 of miles from the same locality, the same enemy was again encountered, 

 and in a continuation of the same bed of quicksand. The colliery- 

 viewer, however, conducted his campaign so adroitly that he was able 

 to insulate each separate ' feeder ' of water as it was met with in each 

 stratum of sand and limestone ; so that, while an aggregate amount 

 of upwards of five thousand gallons of water per minute was met with 

 in passing through the various beds, so cleverly was the whole passage 

 accomplished that at no time were there more than five hundred gal- 

 lons in one minute to pump away. This, indeed, was a quantity suffi- 



