1888.] on Safety Lamps in Collieries, 205 



Coal is not only, like knowledge, power, but, like the precious 

 metals, it is wealth. The average price of coal at the pit's mouth in 

 1886 was 5s. per ton, and thus its total value was 40,000,000?., but 

 when we consider the average price paid for it, we must double, if 

 not treble, this lump sum. The number of collieries open was about 

 3500, and since it costs 100,000Z. to open a colliery 2000 ft. deep, 

 when we think of the railways, the canals, the ships, the shops, the 

 marts employed for its transit and its distribution, we can only con- 

 clude that the capital embarked in this industry must equal, if not 

 exceed, the National Debt. 



The hewing and raising of coal is unquestionably a dangerous 

 occupation. " The price of coal is pit-men's lives," said an old collier 

 to George Stephenson. 520,000 persons are employed in our col- 

 lieries, and the output per person is 308 tons. 953 persons met 

 their deaths in 1886 ; but it is satisfactory to know that a miner's 

 life is more than twice as safe now as it was thirty years ago. 



The number of persons employed per death was — 



In 1856 242 



In 1886 545 



The number of tons raised per life lost was — 



In 1856 64,700 



In 1886 188,800 



Most people, if asked what was thfe principal cause of this loss of 

 nearly 1000 lives, would answer explosion of fire-damp, but this 

 would not be true. The principal cause of accident is falls of roof 

 and sides. In 1886 there were from — 



Falls of roof and sides .. 

 Explosions 

 Trams and tubs 

 Miscellaneous .. 



Thus falls of roof form 41 per cent, of the whole, and explosions 

 23 per cent. 



Explosions attract immense attention, from their publicity and 

 their appalling suddenness and magnitude. It is dreadful to take up 

 a morning paper and read of 268 fellow creatures engulfed, as at 

 Abercarne in 1878, or 164 at Seaham in 1880 ; but the daily and 

 steady loss of life by ones and by twos fails to get chronicled, and 

 passes unheeded by with the very great majority of the 20,000 violent 

 deaths that occur in these islands every year. 



In order that you may see how coal is won, and hewed, and raised, 

 how dangers are incurred and surmounted, I will take you into a coal- 

 mine—one of the Cannock Chase collieries of Staffordshire — by aid 

 of a beautiful series of photographs, taken by means of magnesium 

 light by my friend, Mr. Arthur Sop with, the eminent manager of 

 those mines. 



