Qommus'ioJiers of Mineral Drainnge, &c. recommended. 41-5 



where the old Basset Hollows, or drowned rise-ivorks, are in dif- 

 ferent restates IVoni those in which the new I'ouudations have been 

 put down. 



It has often appeared to me to be improper, that a Coal-owner 

 haiins; wrought out his Coals to his very boundary line in the 

 deep, and perhaps beyond it in places, as too commonly happens, 

 hv accident, and left an immense reservoir of water under- 

 siroiwd, which did noc originuUy exist there, resting ngni/ist the 

 i'onls of his neighbour in the deep, should be able to insist on 

 retaining this in lerrorem over such neighbour, for suddenly over- 

 powering his Engines, unless the same are made nmch larger 

 than necessary, and pcrhr»:>s of drowning a great part of the Men 

 in such deep works!. 



A general Law, appointing Commissiovcrs of Mineral drain- 

 age audver/liialion, on similar principles to those so very long and 

 t'eneficially acted on by the Commissioners of Sewers, on or near 

 the surface, niight remedy these hardsliips, in the ways 1 have 

 iaggc;ted above, or any other more equitable and eligible nwdes, 

 which the professional abilities that they Avould be enabled to 

 call around them niight devise and recommend : such Law, to 

 empower xUr-pits to be opened and maintained (at the expense 

 of the party wanting them) for the purpose of freeing the dry 

 old Coal-hollows in Estates under different owners or tenures, of 

 their not less fatal reservoirs of noxious Airs, accumulated in 

 miulern times h/ the ads of the parties, and therefore fit subjects 

 for legal removal, in common with recent nuisances of every 

 kind, for which our Laws provide the remedy. 



Your Correspondent N, in page 365, very properly hints, that 

 tb.e drifting through the up-cast Dike or Fault, in the efforts 

 making in the rise of Ileaton Colliery, for letting off the water of 

 the northern division of Heaton-Burn Colliery, ought to have 

 induced more subsequent cuiition: — indeed, the cutting through 

 this natural barrier, ought not to have been attempted (and per- 

 haps was not) without first loreing t'arough the Fault-stuff and 

 several yards beyond, in the obliquely rising direction in which the 

 Coal-hollows lay on the other side ; and this preceding of the drift, 

 by a lore-hole of several yards in length, ought not to have been 

 omitted on any account, until the water was thus first tapped 

 by the bore-hole, and through which it might safely discharge a 

 part at least of the penned waters : it unfortunately, however, ap- 

 pears, that theOverseer in this case,from insensibility of the danger 

 he was running, and inducing to others, neglected this ])recaution- 

 ary boring, uhen most wanted; and even when the Drifters 

 pointed out the alarming dripping of water fr6m the joints in the 

 l.ottom of the Coal-seam, which then formed some space of the 

 roof of the oblique ascending d.ift, iuitoad of inuiicdiately or- 



dcrinc, 



