442 The Oijeclions to unking more Pils, obviated. 



risks were run than usual, and such as Men in plenty could be 

 got to run for the ordinary pay, and such as his ivages induced 

 him to run !. 



Secondly, with respect to the letting dovvn of Water into the 

 works, by new Pits, it must be admitted, that the upper measures 

 frequently connect with such an extent of porous surface ex- 

 posed to the rains, or to the beds of Rivers or large waters, that 

 every new pit sunk, uith only the ordinary precautions in its 

 walling cr lining, would infallibly increase the quantity of water 

 in the Coal-works beneath, almost beyond the expense of En- 

 gines, that could, at the present selling price of Coals, be em- 

 ployed to pump it out: yet on the other hand, the method of 

 tight walling the Pits, in the water-setting or Lias Lime, as 

 has long been practised in the vicinity of the Somersetshire Coal 

 Canal, with such perfect success, as to be enabled to extend their 

 Coal-works, that are perfectly dry, down the slope from their 

 Pit bottom, to vast depths beneath the surface, some of them to 

 near twice the depth of any Pit near the Tyne, I believe, might 

 be as certainly practised in the latter district, whose upper mea- 

 sures are not more charged with water, than those over the deep 

 works in Somersetshire: and even without t1iis tight- walling,- 

 there are numerous instances where the soakage water, in dan- 

 ger of being let down into a deep Colliery by new Pits, might be 

 otherwise drawn off, by soughs or drains, or be prevented enter- 

 ing the measures, by attention to the bottoms of the Brooks and 

 Rivulets, and the protecting of the porous rocks or strata from 

 access of such water, by a sufficient covering of clay or water- 

 tight earth, by more attention to draining the surface, (see my 

 Derby. Report, i. 351), &c. 



The necessity of either dispensing with some of the Pits that 

 would be proper, or of tight-walling such, arises in many iu'- 

 stances, from the pen of water in the old works uxiherise (and 

 in the range, in many other instances) ^landing in the old Pits 

 against the porous rocks and strata that are cut through therein, 

 and which must be again cut through in every new Pit, charged 

 with such constant supply of water, to be thereby let down into 

 the deep works, as long as such pens of water in the old woiks 

 are suffered to rem,ain, which they ought no longer to do, as I 

 shall further mention presently. 



Thirdly, as to the almost insu])erablo objection, which Gen- 

 tlemen and Farmers have, to permitting Colliers to sink in, or 

 nave access to their Parks, Lawns or Farms, whenever it is in 

 their ])ower to prevent it : it must be admitted, that the spoil 

 and disfigurement of tlie surface, which the Collier generally 

 makes, in a very short time after his commencing operations, and 

 the wide and careless spread which he is too apt in time to give, 



to 



