116 THE CHEMISTRY OF COLLIERY EXPLOSIONS 



The disruptions exhibited the effects of destructive 

 energ}^ in local areas at intervals, varying from 38 yards 

 to 343 yards.* Loaded and empty wagons, previously left 

 standing upon the rails, were found lying in all directions, 

 their contents scattered abroad, the woodwork, iron attach- 

 ments, wheels or axles bent or broken ; strong doors fixed 

 to guide the ventilating currents had been shattered to 

 particles and scattered along the floor of the tunnels for 

 fifty yards beyond the remains of the door-posts, while the 

 strap iron hinges, weighing 14 lbs. each, were lying 20 

 to 30 yards away, bent into semicircles, or broken through 

 the bolt holes ; the rails were torn from the sleepers ; 

 wood structures, built of beams 10 and 12 inches square, 

 were broken up ; brick and stone arches were dismantled ; 

 beds df stone forming the roof, and supported by occasional 

 props, were broken down in thicknesses of 1 to 4 feet, in 

 lengths from 4 to 25 yards ; frames of timber, thickly fixed 

 under weak or faulty roof, were thrown down and falls of 

 strata caused, measuring from 400 to 800 tons. One of the 

 victims was shockingly mutilated, and others in the vicinity 

 of a disruption had their clothes partly torn from their 

 bodies. 



The spaces between the disruptions presented the follow- 

 ing contrasts : the victims were not mutilated, not a bone 

 was broken, nor their clothes disturbed ; quiet death by 

 suffocation was all that could be observed ; the thickly 

 erected frames of timber sustaining weak and faulty roof 

 were in their normal positions, and the strata undisturbed ; 

 brick and stone arches were undamaged ; wood structures 

 were also undisturbed ; rails and sleepers were unmoved ; 

 and loaded and empty wagons were standing upon the 



* Coal-dast an Explosive Agent, p. 30. 



