114 €n Coal-Mines. {Ave. 
civil engineer, calculated to put the whole into such a train as shall 
enable the public to avail themselves of the advantages compre- 
hended in the proposal. It would only be to anticipate the contents 
of the intended pamphlet, were I now to enter upon any details. 
I shall, therefore, merely observe, that the plan seems admirably 
well suited to a most humane and useful object, and will, I should 
hope, meet with every encouragement. 
There are one or two points more to which I wish to allude, as 
meriting more notice than has yet been bestowed upon them. One 
of these is the state of discipline which obtains in coal-mines. It 
is an acknowledged truth, that the various unfortunate events in our 
colli¢ries, though passing under the general denomination of acéi- 
dents, are frequently, if not always, brought about by circum- 
stances to which the epithet forteitous ean scarcely be applied. In 
those instances where the escape of any of the miners affords an 
opportunity of ascertaining the particulars, the aecident can gene- 
sally be traced to have originated in want of science in some of the 
immediate superintendents, or ignorance of the workmen, or want 
of attention in the boys, to whose care are entrusted some of the 
most important arrangements,* but more especially still, in most 
reprehensible and over-weening confidence in all, which being 
translated, means nothing more or Jess than the grossest carelessness. 
In fact, this latter circumstance may, to a certain degree, be re- 
garded as the primary cause of all the mischief that happens. 
Unless, therefore, somie method be devised for preventing relaxa~ 
tion in the discipline, and for instituting some reformation in the 
interior economy of the mines, it is obvious that all other means, 
however perfect, must come lamentably short of their intended 
effect. This desirable change, however, can hardly be effected but 
by Legislative interference, which it would consequently be for the 
interest of all parties to see exercised. 
Another most essential object would appear to be to establish 
some efficient method of alarm amongst the inhabitants of the 
mine. From the accounts received from the’ survivors of the late 
terrible catastrophe at Heaton colliery, it is evident that had a more 
perfect system of alarm, as well as of discipline, prevailed, a con- 
siderable proportion of the unfortunate miners might, nay would, 
have been saved. Indeed, it is easy to imagine how it may happen 
that a workman, or set of workmen, in any particular district of a 
colliery, shall have satisfactory evidence of approaching danger, 
and save themselves by rushing to the shaft, while they have no 
means of giving timely warning to others working at the distance 
of perhaps more than a mile from them. This actually happened 
at Heaton. The men who were working at the fatal spot where the 
* Mr. Buddle defines-a trapper to be ** the person, generally a boy, who opens 
and shuts thedoors. The trappers have seats near their doors, and remain by them 
all the time the pit is at,work. This is the first branch of pit work the boys go to.” 
(Report, p. 26.) It is of some consequence here to know that these doors, which 
these children are employed to watch, are the apertures through which the air is 
Transmitted ; in other words, they appear to be the main channels of ventilation, 
