60 On ventilating Coal-pits, 



or explosive gas, almost jiroportionally large numbers (above 

 what is usual in large Collieries any-where else) of Men and 

 Boys, thoughtless of their danger, were daily employed. 



Judge therefore, reader, who it is who are " sporting on the 

 verge of a precipice," " trifling with human existence," " play- 

 ing at the game of life and death," &;c. : I, who have candidly 

 pointed out the peculiar circumstances of management, which 

 have led to the catastrophes which all deplore, and who have 

 laboured to bring back these important Works, not to any new 

 or theoretic point of improvement of my own point'ng out, but 

 merely to the moderate exltnt rj" individual underground IVorks *» 

 and great compiiralive security to t lie Men, ivhieli Itiey had 

 and enjoyed 40 or 50 years aso!, and which the Colliers in 

 nearly every other part of the British Empire still enjoy! ; and 

 long will continue to do so, I trust, from their Managers being 

 luUy aware, oi the perfect insufjiciency and danger of any lamp, 

 in place of t lie effectual I'entifation of moderately extendkd 

 WORKS, especially while conducted on the post and stall, or pillar 

 and board system (as about Newcastle), instead of the incompa- 

 rably better plan, of "the long-way of working," wherein scarcely 

 any pillars are wasted, or empty spaces left, for air or water to 

 accumulate in !. 



I lately inspected an underground Work, carried on for five 

 years past, in the midst of a considerable Coal district, wherein 

 the post and stall plan had entirely been followed, from time 

 immemorial, and in which Work, its very considerable money 

 produce per acre, from the same scams, had been nearly doubled 

 by the change, to tie Derbyshire or long-way of working ! ; and 

 whereby, security also from accidents, is in a greater degree ob- 

 tained. Here, as everywhere else, where I have had opportu- 

 nities in the last autunm, of considting experienced Coal-viewers, 

 Agents and Overlookers, to the number of 20 or more, I have 

 found them unanimous, in esteeminfj Safety-lamps no other than 

 dangerous toys ; and calculated to bolster up and prolong a bad 

 system of working. While thus supported, and by the con- 

 scious honesty of my own motives, I shall not be dismayed, or 

 remain silent, in consequence of all the expressions of " indig- 

 nation," which Lecturers, Chemists, Amateurs or Theorists can 

 hurl at me. 



When Mr. M., writing in London, boasts of " the unanimous 

 Buflfrages of a general meeting of the coal-trade," I beg to hint 

 to him, that the Public, whom he addresses, are no more likely 



* Dr. Clanny (see Pliil. Mag. xlvi. p. 408), and Mr. Holmes (in p. 168 

 of his work on Coal-mines) seem to admit the necesssity of what I pro- 

 pose; but are too deeply involved in the Lamp contest, to yield me any ef- 

 fectual support herein. 



I think 



