Society for prevent'mg Accidents in Coal Mines. 71 



their intensity, and so loud as tliat they could be distinctly heard 

 at the distance of forty feet. The Sicilian guide witnessed these 

 phaenomena with extreme dismay; and imagining that Mr. 

 Tupper produced the sounds in virtue of some supernatural 

 power, he immediately began to cross himself, and invoked the 

 prr,tection of his saint. His alarm, hov/ever, speedily subsided, 

 when, upon being desired to elevate his own arm, he found it as 

 musical as that of Mr. Tupper. Mr. Lanfiar, who was a little 

 behind the rest of the party, now joined them, and found that 

 his fingers possessed a siiiiilar property. In the course of five 

 minutes, reckoning we presnme from the arrival of Mr. Lannar, 

 their fingers lost their acoustic property, the cloud having by 

 this time passed to a considerable distance. Mr. Tupper had re- 

 ceived an injury in his left shoulder joint by a fall from his horse; 

 but he never experienced any return of the pain after the copious 

 electrization which he received on Mount vEtna. 



The preceding phainomena admit of a ready explanation, upon 

 the simplest principles of electricity. As snow is a conductor 

 next in order to water, and very little inferior to it in its power of 

 transmitting electricity, it is quite obvious that the bodies of the 

 travellers were not overcharged with the electric fluid in conse- 

 quence of any difficulty which it experienced on passing into the 

 earth. Their fingers therefore acted like so many points in draw- 

 ing electricity from an atmosphere highly charged, just in the 

 same manner as when the hand or the head is presented to an 

 electrified prime conductor. Tiie variety in the character, as 

 well as in the intensity, of the sounds v/hich were produced at the 

 points of their fingers, arose from the different velocities of their 

 fingers, and may be readily imitated by any other species of sound. 

 The buzzing noise which M. Jalabert heard round his head had 

 a different origin, having been produced by the di'^charge of the 

 electric matter whieir iiad been accumulated in the gold band, 

 and which foiuid a readier escape into the atmosphere by the 

 numerous points of gold thread, than by the imperfect conduct- 

 ing power of the hat whicli it encircled. 



SOCIETY FOR rREVENTING ACCIDENTS IN COAL-MINES. 



A society under the above denomination was established in 

 Sunderland in 1818, which has for its objects to ascertain with 

 more precision than has hitlierto i>een effected, the causes of 

 those explosions which so fre(jucntly occur in coal mines, pro- 

 ducing extensive and dejjlorable calamities ; and the mea^iures 

 wliich may be best calculated to prevent them. 



The first Report of the Society was published a few weeks ago. 



The Committee state with regret, " that hitherto no suggestion 



E 4 has 



