TooJ'civ Pits are sunk :;i many Collieries. 439 



were driven out N in the Coal, the upper or W one for carrjing 

 out the fresh Air, and dragging the Coals to the Pit l)ottom, the 

 other lor retnrning the lieated Air, and bringing the Water to the 

 Pumps*; and a similar pair of Gates having been extended in' 

 the Coal S from the bottom of the Pit, the ivorkings, by means 

 of long chambers, galleries or board-ways therefrom, up the slope 

 or plane of the Coal-seam, and leaving intervening pillars thereof, 

 has ever since been going on, by means of this one verticalPit .'. 



In this Pit, ample power of Engines and Pumps had been 

 provided, for lifting to the siirface (or to the Day-Level or drain, 

 which naturally discharges the water) all the water which it was 

 cfJculated would soak through the whole breadth of strata (or 

 enter b\ their exposed edges) covering the present Colliery, and 

 the two parts of the old or Heaton-Bank Colliery, in the rise o£ 

 it : and it fortunately happened, that when the Boards or work-^ 

 ing Gates first proceeded near to the Level Gates of the southern 

 division of the former Colliery to the W, its vast subterranean 

 reservoir of water, was quietly and by degrees discharged into 

 the new works, so as not to drown them or over-power tha 

 Engines: but the large body of water in the northern division of 

 the former Colliery still remained penned up, and threatening 

 sudden destruction to the men, on cutting through the Fault and 

 approaching the old Coal-hollows beyond it. - 



It has already been hinted by a Correspondent, in your 1 l7th 

 page, that too few pits are sunk, in many of the Collieries in 

 this district, to prevent the dangerous accumulation of inflam- 

 mable gas ; and the same conclusion must, I think, occur to every 

 reader of the above description, and particularly as to the want 

 of an Air-pit (or even more than one perhaps) at the western 

 extremity of the new Colliery at Heaton, where the depth of the 

 ••earn is stated not to exceed 1 10 yards beneath the surface ; and 

 through which the unfortunate Men and Boys now lost to i?o^ 

 ciety, might with certainty have escaped !. 1 would not be sup- 

 posed to maintain, that this defect of management, in having 

 too few vertical Pits, is peculiar to the districts of the Tyne and 

 the Wear, althougii it would be wrong to deny that it seems more 

 prevalent there as a system, than elsewhere ; because, I have 



* In ordinary cases, where the extent of the works and q'lantity of hy- 

 flfogeiioiis and carbonic fiascs evolved, wonlcl not cndcngfr explumms, or 

 the air he too impure for convenient reapirulion, it is usu.il to reverse the 

 arriinjjciiicnts here mcntioiiec) (and on which I mny perhaps have been 

 i.iisinformed), and cause tiie fresli Air to descdid by the I'unipiiiii-pit, and 

 p.) out therefrom by the Water- Levels; and the same Air, after visiting and 

 v»'iitilating fvcry part of the works, returns hy the Level-Gates or rol/y- 

 wuijt, and ascends :tie drawing-pit. See my Df r'by. Report, vvl. i. p. S42. 

 E e -4 ^'-J 



