446 Collieries set on Fire ly Fire-damp Explosion. 



deling the Borers, and sending all the Men out of the Pit, except 

 two or three necessary for the boring, or at least apprising the 

 whole of their imminent danger, and stationing persons to give 

 instant alarm for their escape : the operation of boring was not 

 only put off several hours, but directions seem to have been given 

 for increasing the danger, in an eminent degree, in the mean 

 time, by " squaring up the work," that is, working out the an- 

 gles of the sides and end of the drift, ready for measuring ; by 

 the commencement of which operation, it seems probable, that 

 the under surface of Coal hi the roof of tlie drift, so fatally pressed 

 by water on its upper surface, v/as enlarged, and it was enabled at 

 once to fall, to the large extent which must have happened, to 

 so (piickly fill with water the large empty spaces in the lowest 

 parts of Heaton Coal-works. 



Some persons, from not duly considering the distinctions that 

 exist, between the cases of the Boatswain or other petty Officer 

 commanding a boat's crew in cutting out an enemy's ship, in 

 their perfect (and truly lamentable) contempt of danger, to their 

 own lives and those of great numbers of others, may think it 

 improper, that even an oblique censure should be thrown on the 

 habitual hardihood, or even the temerity of Coal-overseers and 

 their Men; or at least, that a veil ought studiously to be thrown 

 over the errors of those, who have fatally suffered for the same. 

 I cannot however subscribe to such a doctrine, or think it other 

 than the duty of those who may happen to be able, to give to 

 the public explicit and full information on the circumstances at- 

 tending events, which cannot fail of exciting their interest and 

 sympathy, in order that past errors and dangers needlessly ha- 

 zarded, may operate to the prevention of similar or analogous 

 ones in future : every further communication therefore, of your 

 Readers on the s[)ot, who can throw new or further light on the 

 case of Heaton Colliery, ought to be, and I doubt not will prove 

 acceptable in your pages. 



It will be recollected by many of your Readers, that the doom 

 of the many unfortunate Colliers who perished in Felling Col- 

 liery SE of Newcastle, in 1812*, was supposed by many on the 

 spot, to be sealed, by the necessity which existed, of closely co- 

 vering over all the pits of that Colliery, soon after the Fire-damp 

 explosion happened, in consequence of the same having set fire 

 lo the loose Coals, in some parts of the Works, and which fire 

 there seemed no other immediate mode of extinguialiing. This 

 is not a very uncommon calamity, following the gaseous explo- 

 sions in Coal Works. On inquiry in the proper quarter, I have 

 been informed, that the burning of some refuse Coal, at the Coal- 



* Sec the Monthly MHgn/.iiie, vol, .\xxv. p. 649. 



pit 



