MISCELLANIES. 



50^ 



curring and burying them in its 

 ruins. 



At two o'clock Mr. Straker and 

 Mr. Anderson had just ascended 

 the John Pit, and were gone to 

 examine the appearance of the air 

 issuing from the William Pit. 

 Menham, Greener, and Rogers 

 had also ascended. Two of the 

 party were at this moment in the 

 shaft, and the other two remained 

 below, when a second explosion, 

 much less severe than the first, ex- 

 cited more frightful expressions of 

 grief and terror amongst the rela- 

 tives of the persons still in the mine. 

 Rogers and Wilson, the persons in 

 the shaft, experienced little incon- 

 venience by the eruption : they 

 felt an unusual heat, but it had no 

 effect in lifting up their bodies, or 

 otherwise destroying the unifor- 

 mity of the motion of their ascent. 

 Haswell and H. Anderson, hear- 

 ing its distant growlings, laid 

 themselves down at full length on 

 their faces, and in this posture, by 

 keeping firm hold of a strong 

 wooden prop, placed near the shaft, 

 to support the roof of the mine, 

 experiencedno other inconvenience 

 from the blast, than its lifting up 

 their legs, and poising their bodies 

 in various directions, in the manner 

 that the waves heave and toss a 

 buoy at sea. As soon as the at- 

 mospheric current returned down 

 the shaft, tliey were drawn to 

 bank. 



This expedient of lying down 

 and sulfering the fury of the blast 

 to roll over them, is mentioned in 

 the Life of Lord Keeper North, 

 under the year 167fi. It is most 

 efficacious where the mine is wet, 

 for atmospheric air always accom- 

 panies running water ; but the 

 warning of a blast bcing'^ usually 



sudden, it requires a degree of ex- 

 perience and coolness not com- 

 monly united, to exercise any pre- 

 caution against it. The miner 

 knowing its irresistible power, 

 instantly sees the inefficacy of every 

 attempt to escape, and, like a phy- 

 sician attacked by some incurable 

 complaint, and conscious that his 

 art is unequal to its cure, makes 

 no struggle to save his life. 



As each of the party came up, 

 he was surrounded by a group of 

 anxious inquirers. All their re- 

 ports were equally hopeless ; and 

 the second explosion so strongly 

 corroborated their account of the 

 impure state of the mine, that 

 their assertions for the present 

 seemed to be credited. But this 

 impression was only momentary. 

 On recollection, they remembered 

 that persons had survived similar 

 accidents, and when the mine was 

 opened, been found alive. Three 

 had been shut up during forty days 

 in a pit near Byker, and all that 

 period had subsisted on candles 

 and horse beans. Persons, too, 

 were not wanting to infect the 

 minds of the relatives of the suffer- 

 ers with disbelief in the accounts 

 of the persons who had explored 

 the mine. It was suggested to 

 them, that want of courage, or 

 bribery, might be inducements to 

 magnify the danger, and represent 

 the impossibility of reaching the 

 bodies of the unfortunate men. By 

 this species of wicked industry, the 

 grief of the neighbourhood began 

 to assume an irritable and gloomy 

 aspect. The proposition to exclude 

 the atmospheric air from the mine, 

 in order to extinguish the fire, was 

 therefore received with the cries of 

 " Murder,'' and with determina* 

 tions of opposing the proceeding. 



