On Fire Damps in Mines, &c. 1 1.7 



v/hcre they came in contact with a ivli'ui-dyke; and on which 

 knottv p;eo2;nostic points, i>e truly remarks, tiiey show us, that "^ we 

 are much furtlier from an accurate knowledge of the constituents of 

 bodies, than is generally believed, and that se%'eral of oin- elements 

 are undoufjtefilv compounds." They show us also, " that changes 

 are still going on in the internal parts of the earth, which ars 

 totally bevoud our comprehension." I ask no more of the learned 

 Editor, than to apply these, his own maxims, to the causes of the 

 evolution of injiaminahle gas in coal mines. 



Notwithstanding the long period this Editor boasts, of having 

 spent in coal countries, and his late high geognostic pretensions, 

 he must submit to be told by practical colliers, that such great 

 munbers of person'! having !)een killed at once, on the too frequent 

 explosions of late years in the Newcastle pits, has arisen from 

 the magnitude of their uvder-ground works, and the small num- 

 ber of shafts they sink for separate ivorks, owing to their great 

 expense ; and has not leen owing to the mere circumstance of 

 their great depth beneath the surface ; much less so, to the ex- 

 treme ignorance of the art of coal-mining, with which his " de- 

 licacy*," great as it is, has not permitted him to neglect 

 charging on them : mixed indeed, with certain sly hints, that he 

 himself has something new and wonderful to propose, whereby 

 collieries may " be constructed on more scientific principles," 

 when the funds of the new Society shall enable them, bv a pre- 

 mhim siifpciently large, to draw forth these new means of saving 

 " the numerous lives sacrificed to the present system." 



If the learned Editor would condescend to inquire properly of 

 the practical men, the facts through six or eight times as many 

 Coal-districts as he seems yet to be sufficiently acquainted with, 

 and to consult the published accounts of violent explosions in 

 coal-pits, which have been recorded in English publications, 

 from the earliest ones mentioned in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions to the ])rcsent time, he will find a very large majority of 

 these to have happened in pits only a third, a fourth or even a 

 fifth part of the depth of many pits in England (some even near 

 Newcastle, I believe) wiiere no explosions have ever happened, 

 and that consc<iuently his whimsically conceived, and irremedi- 



* The learned Editor says, the overseers of the cual-tniiies "nlTcct my- 

 stery niid concealment, llenre one is ajruid to depend upon tlio iiit'uriTiti- 

 tioii which tliey coinmuiilciitf." 'J'liis may acroriiit for liis own obvious ()e- 

 ilciiiiiy ill iiifonnatioii, on :\ subject in which he seems so fond of oblrud- 

 ;.'i<; hunsflf ; but l( t n;e assure him, from extensive experience among the 

 "-lass of men whom he thus asperses, that the very revei se is the case, and 

 that his cause of complaint (if just?) is to be souiiht in tiis own manner <.)i 

 conimunicatin;;: this at least is tiic explanation o^'errd by several of his 

 j)cr»onal acquaintaiu.e. 



H 3 able 



