54 REPORT—1845. 
venting the necessary communication, may cause the death of the men under ground 
if there is no way of escape. 
2. The working panels of moderate and regulated dimensions, so that no air-course 
shall be of greater length than a given distance.—It is well known that in the method 
formerly in use of coursing the air through all the main passages of a mine, there 
were often instances in which the air had to pass through from fifty to seventy miles, 
or even more, between the downcast and upcast shafts. Since it has been found 
that the quantity of air introduced by a shaft of given magnitude can be very much 
increased by dividing the underground current into several currents, each taking a 
different direction, the length of the air-courses in well-managed mines has been 
greatly reduced, and is now rarely more than three or four miles. The advantage 
of this is manifest; but although the principle is generally acknowledged, there is 
good reason to believe that many collieries are worked without regard to such im- 
proved methods. Besides the greater quantity of air actually introduced by thus 
splitting the current, the destruction of life consequent upon an explosion may be 
also much diminished thereby, provided the detached portions of work called panels 
are of moderate size, and do not so communicate with one another as to render it 
impossible to escape from any one to the pit bottom without passing through air 
affected by the condition of the rest. 
The author added, with reference to these two methods, that they were already 
adopted to a very great extent in the well-regulated collieries of the Newcastle coal- 
field, and rather needed to be enforced in some cases of exception than be looked 
upon as expressing any new views. 
Passing on then to the case of the great explosion in the Haswell colliery on the 
28th September 1844, the author pointed out that of the whole number of sufferers 
on that occasion, not less than thirty might have been saved had there been a free 
separate communication to the bottom of the downcast shaft from a panel adjoining 
that in which it is presumed the accident happened. Since accidents must happen 
occasionally, it is manifestly extremely important that their fatal results should be as 
far as possible limited to the actual spot in which they occur, and not involve, as 
they have frequently done, the lives of those at work in distant parts of the pit. 
It is therefore proposed that 
3. An air-drift should be cut from each separate panel communicating with the 
bottom of the downeast shaft. ‘The driving a gallery through coal is not looked on as 
any expense in working, since the coal extracted pays for the work done, and this 
method is therefore suggested as a practical, inexpensive, and efficient method of 
avoiding at least some of the fatal results when an explosion does take place. 
But the author does not consider that the working of the pillars and the vicinity of 
the goaf is by any means the most usual cause of such emissions of gas as lead to explo- 
sions, and he quoted the example of a recent explosion in the Killingworth colliery, 
which took place on the 16th of April, as an instance in point. Then, and in many other 
explosions on record, the immediate cause of danger arose from a sudden outburst 
of gas in workings where the coal had only been recently laid bare, and where a small 
fault was met with. These outbursts of gas, called, locally, blowers, are sudden, and 
often instantaneous, giving no warning whatever of their approach, and therefore 
not to be guarded against. The ventilation, as now effected, being generally suf- 
ficient for all purposes, it could not, the author believes, be so far increased as to 
prevent accidents from these eruptions of gas, while, on the contrary, it might happen 
that by a more rapid admixture with pure air and quicker transmission of the explo- 
sive current through a great part of the air-course, greater damage might arise than 
even now, when flame was reached and the gas became fired, In such cases, and in 
all mines where any quantity of gas is expelled by blowers, the author considers that 
there is-only one means of safety to be adopted, namely, 
A. The exclusive use of the Davy lamp in all underground workings in fiery mines. 
“ This is a measure which at present has scarcely been adopted in full in any mine, 
but which is certainly well worthy of consideration. There may be mentioned, I 
am aware, two very different objections to its use, but I have good reason to believe 
that neither of them is very valid, and I am therefore anxious to press most earnestly 
on the consideration of all those engaged in coal-mining operations the importance 
of this plan. It will be said, on one hand, that the expense is too great, and that the men 
