608 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



extraction is attended with a new set of difficulties which come 

 in the train of increased depth. The problem of raising from 

 depths hitherto unattempted is mainly a mechanical one, while 

 the correlative problem of dealing with increased temperature 

 due to such depth is largely a scientific one. It therefore 

 becomes apparent that, as the more easily worked seams and 

 veins gradually approach exhaustion, the need for scientific and 

 ingenious methods of reaching those less accessible becomes the 

 more pressing, and will demand all the resourcefulness we are 

 capable of. This means that the directing head must be some- 

 thing more than a mere practical man : he must be a man of 

 technical training and scientific ideas. Here then we have at 

 least one point of contact between mining and science. 



Great as has been the advance on what we may call the 

 engineering side of mining in recent years — an advance it has 

 shared in common with other industries — it should not be lost 

 sight of that there has been an advance also in another direction, 

 and of equally great importance. It is one of the objects of 

 science to discover and interpret the laws of nature. The 

 operations of mining, far from being exempt from these laws, 

 stand in their own peculiar relationship to them. The con- 

 ditions are such as do not obtain at the surface, and independent 

 investigation becomes therefore more or less necessary. 

 Lengthened experience of underground conditions has led to a 

 much better understanding of the laws which govern the various 

 operations of mining than was the case fifty or sixty years ago. 

 And the effect of this has been mainly in the direction of safety 

 and economy — two primary objects to be aimed at in all 

 industrial concerns. Our increased knowledge in this respect 

 has made more salutary conditions possible, and has, even 

 within the last few years, been the means of greatly reducing 

 those dire calamities which with awful suddenness too often 

 dealt death to hundreds of underground workers. Investigation 

 into coal-dust explosions, and the behaviour of gases under 

 conditions approximating to those obtaining underground ; a 

 better knowledge of the laws of ventilation, and the means of 

 applying them, together with the introduction of safer means of 

 illumination, have largely contributed to this result. Indeed, 

 had it not been for this enlightened view of matters, much of the 

 purely mechanical improvements would have been inapplicable. 

 Again we see an adjustment, a relationship, between mining and 



