56 Analyses of Books. (Juiy, 
Some of the men survived till they were brought up the shaft into 
the atmosphere, when they died, perhaps unable to bear the sti- 
mulus of the atmospheric air after the state of exhaustion in which 
they had previously lived for some time. ' 
After a considerable explosion takes place in a coal-mine, the 
pitmen are often drenched with water, which is probably occasioned 
by the rapid combustion of hydrogen gas in such a confined situa- 
tion, as may be readily understood by persons conversant with che- 
mistry. At the same time all the partitions and divisions being 
broken down, whilst the air courses are converted into a complete 
wreck, and the whole atmosphere of the mine so much agitated, it 
is to be expected that the carbonic acid gas will be distributed 
through the bottom of the mine, and suffocation become the fate of 
those persons who escape the immediate effects of the explosion.— 
Out of 19 horses only six died. 
It is melancholy to relate, that in the short space of a month 132 
useful and laborious persons have been numbered with the dead at 
Heaton and the Success collieries, leaving nearly 300 widows and 
orphans to be subsisted by charity and parochial assistance. 
It is curious, and perhaps worthy of remark, that Robson and 
Miller, accomplices with Edward Smiles in the robbery at Mr. 
Cuthbert Pye’s, Scaffold Hill, some time ago, are amongst the 
killed in the late accidents at Heaton and Success collieries; and 
upon the 3d inst., the day after the latter accident, Mr. Cuthbert 
Pye himself died at Scaffold Hill. 
The efforts at Heaton colliery, though very considerable, have 
not yet been so far successful as to remove the water, and permit 
the interment of the unfortunates who were lost in that colliery. 
On Monday, June 5, another explosion occurred at the Tyne 
Main colliery, by which one man was severely, though not fatally, 
scorched. 
As most of the explosions in coal-mines have taken place in the 
summer season, it appears desirous that particular care be taken 
during the hot weather, which, perhaps, by expanding such an 
elastic fluid as hydrogen gas, may afford a facility to such dreadfut 
accidents. F, 
Newcastle, June 12, 1815, 
ep SSO ES ETT 
ArTICLE XIII. 
ANALYsSEs OF Books. 
I. Transactions of the Geological Society, Volume 2d. London, 
William Phillips, 1814. 
. (Concluded from Vol. v. p. 452.) 
XI. Account of the Coal-Field at Bradford, near Manchester. 
By Robert Bakewell,—This coal-field is about two miles long, and 
