Mr Bald on tJie Fires if^t take place in Collieries. 10$ 



will, to a certainty, increase the evil. Nevertheless, it is often 

 necessary to run this risk ; and, when the fire is extinguished, 

 to take measures for preventing a recurrence of the accident. 



If the fire can be approached, the effectual plan is to shovel 

 it out, and send the burning materials up the pit to the surface. 

 In this service the miners are sometimes dreadfully scorched ; 

 but what is more dangerous are the deleterious vapours arising 

 from the fire, which are very much mixed with the fumes of sul- 

 phur : these often so much overcome them, that they drop 

 down, and they are then dragged, like dead men, to the fresh 

 air, where generally they soon recover ; but the effects are such, 

 that they often suffer in their health for years after. If, how- 

 evei*, the miners lie, for any considerable time, in such air, very 

 few of them can be, by any means, reanimated. 



The next plan is to choke the fire, as it is termed, by shutting 

 up, with clay-puddle, every pit and mine connected with the 

 burning mass. This, in many instances, succeeds ; but we have 

 seen instances where such means were ineffectual, and the fire 

 continued to increase, by drawing a supply of air to support com- 

 bustion through cracks and crevices, which are sometimes open 

 from the surface, and are unseen. 



When the fire exists near the dip part of a colliery, where the 

 drainage is performed by machinery, the fire is easily extinguished 

 by stopping the machinery, and allowing the water to grow up. 

 If the fire is toward the rise or out-crop, this circumstance su^ 

 pends aJl the colliery operations, until the water is again drawn 

 off by the machinery. On the other hand, if the rubbish is full 

 of pyrites, the spontaneous ignition is greatly increased by the 

 water hastening the decomposition of the pyrites. Hence there 

 is, at best, but a choice of evils. 



If coals on fire have a level free drainage, it is, in most cases, 

 impossible to dam up the water ; and the only resort is, to extin- 

 guish the fire by smotherings and preventing the access of air. 



In the collieries in Staffordshire, particularly in the coal named 

 the Ten Yards Coal, actually thirty feet thick, and which I 

 have frequently examined, s|X)ntaneous ignition is very frequent. 

 The miners term it, in that district, the Breeding Fire, because, 

 without any visible contact of actual fire, the coal rubbish be- 

 comes red hot. 



