100 Mr. Farey on different Modes of -working Coals, 



as that gentleman appears to imagine; nor is the mode of 

 working Coals, which he denominates " Way-going work," 

 either any late invention, or by any means so limited in use, 

 as to be at this time practised, at less than 30 Colleries in all 

 England, as is erroneously asserted. 



In my " iSIineral and Agricultural Report on Derbyshire," 

 vol. i. pages 188, 344, &c. published in 1811, this very im- 

 proved method of working Coals, was, as far as I know, for 

 the first time noticed in any publication : it is therein briefly 

 described, not as any recent invention, but as the mode in 

 which, from time immemorial, several hundred Collieries 

 had been, and continued to be worked, in Derbyshire and in 

 Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire adjoining, under the name of 

 " the long-xvay of working*." 



Ever since I was, in 1807, first witness to the wonderful 

 saving of Coals, and to the great securitj/ to the Workmen, as 

 well from local falls of the Roof, as from explosive or choaking 

 Damps, which this mode of working effects, besides its nu- 

 merous other advantages, (see vol. iii. pp. 348 and 399, &c. of 

 my Derbyshire Report) I have neglected no opportunity of 

 recommending its adoption f, wherever the wasteful and dan- 

 gerous mode of " Pillar-work " prevailed : In the spring of 

 1817, p. 60 of your 49th volume, I made this recommendation 

 to the Coal-Owners and Agents of the Tyne and Wear Di- 

 strict J, and mentioned a case (that of Sherri/'hall Colliery in 



* This excellent mode of working, was in 1/76 transferred to the Coal- 

 works of the Carron Iron Furnaces, in Stirlingshire, Scotland ; but the pro- 

 visions of a Lease, stipulating for stout " Pillars of Coal" to be left, were 

 for some years, there, absurdly interposed to suspend its use: since which 

 period, it has spread, partially," into most of the British Coal-fields ; but as 

 yet, without becomian; any where else so general, as in and near to Derby- 

 shire, I believe. 



In 1814 !\Ir. Richard Griffith jun., in his "Report on the Leinster Coal- 

 district," in Ireland, p. 85, calls this *' the Aroffrf-??;f/^orf of working;" and 

 speaks of it as a Yorkshire practice, with " shallow and thin beds of Coal ;" 

 instead of describing it as the established and general practice, with alnsost 

 all their wrought seams, in the great Coal-field which extends thence 

 southward into Nottinghamshire, as above mentioned. 



f C/iesterf i-/(l {see Derb. Rep. iii. p. 655) and its vicinity, I have long 

 considered, as one of the best situations for observing and studying this 

 Mode, and have, professionally, referred the managing Agents, of a score or 

 more Coal-owners, my Employers in Great Britain, to this spot, for prac- 

 tical information, preparatory to iDtroducing the practice in other Coal- 

 fields. 



X Mr. Holmes, in his "Treatise on the Coal-Mines of Durham. and 

 Northumberland," published a few months earlier, page 89, represents 

 Mr. James Ryan, as having proposed this, as his own new mclhod of w orking, 

 calculated to save Coals and perfect ventilation; but it does not appear, 

 that the " Society of Arts," admitted this claim of Mr. R. either in the 

 |iamj)hlct they issued, or in their ;)4th volume of Transactions, snbsrqucnUv 



published. Dalkeith, 



