SS2 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1794. 



fields of coal and the dykes or beds 

 of stone which separate the fields. 

 The quantity of inflammable air ap- 

 pears to bear proportion to the 

 depth of the works below the level 

 of the sea. 



When they began to sink the coal- 

 pits at Whitehaven so deep that 

 coals were dra^vn from below the 

 level of the sea, inflammable air was 

 found in such quantities, that it fre- 

 quently took fire from the flame of 

 the candles used by the workmen 

 under ground, which caused violent 

 and dangerous explosions, by which 

 numbers of the workmen were 

 burned and maimed, and by which 

 several lost their lives. Mr, Sped- 

 ding, a late eminent engineer and 

 director of the coal-works at White- 

 haven, discovered that sparks pro- 

 duced from flint and steel were not 

 nearly so productive of these explo- 

 sions, by kindhng the inflammable 

 air, as the flame of candles was. He 

 therefore contrived a machine, com- 

 posed so that by being turned about 

 by a wheel it struck a great number 

 of flints against steel in a perpetual 

 succession. This gives a light suffi- 

 cient for the workmen to work by 

 iiV such depths as the inflammable 

 air abounds in, whereby the danger 

 is greatly abated. Without this or 

 some similar contrivance the deepest 

 coal-works would probably before 

 this have been totally given up, as 

 being so dangerous to the men em- 

 ployed. 



It is now about one hundred and 

 fifty years since coals are supposed 

 to have been first raised here for ex- 

 portation. What the quantity ex- 

 ported has been at diff^erent periods 

 cannot now be well ascertained. 

 Witliin the last tventy years the ex- 

 port trade has increased above one- 

 third part of what it now is. White- 



haven colliery has produced for a 

 few years last past from one hundred 

 thousand to one hundred and twenty 

 thousand tons, Dublin measure, 

 yearly. Two tons contain about a 

 chaldron and a quarter, London 

 measure. In general, a Whiteha- 

 ven waggon of coals contains two 

 Dubhn tons, each ton weighing 

 from twenty-one to twenty-two 

 hundred weight. The best coals 

 are invariably the lightest. One- 

 third part of the main band seam, 

 which lies in the middle thereof, 

 would, if separated, be as good as 

 the best Newcastle coal. The bank 

 or bottom is worse in quality, but 

 when mixed, they are allowed to 

 be the best coals raised in the coun- 

 ty of Cumberland. 



On thesouth-west side of White- 

 haven, in the part called Preston- 

 Isle, thcrcappears to be coalenough 

 to supplycxportation at the present 

 rate lor near two hundred years to 

 come. There are three day holes, 

 called Bear-mouths, where the men 

 and horses go from the surface down 

 a sloping cavern totlie works; they 

 are made into the difft;rcnt seams of 

 coal. By these entrances horses are 

 daily brought down to draw the 

 coals from the places where they 

 are hewn, in waggons, along a 

 waggon-way under the ground, 

 made as before-mentioned, to the 

 bottom of the respective pits, where 

 they are put into baskets, and drawn 

 perpendicularly up to the earth's 

 surface by steam-engines, through 

 a space of near three hundred yards 

 in depth in some places. Each 

 engine performs what twenty-four 

 horses used to do formerly. The men 

 also walk up and down these caverns 

 to and from their work, which is 

 much easier and less troublesome 

 than being let down and drawn up 

 ' ^ through 



