13:2 Explosion at Felling Colliery. [Feb. 



Article VIII. 



^ccoimt of a new Explosion of Inflammable Air in the Coal- 

 Mine at Felling, near Gateshead. Communicated by ^/aeXeeivo?. 



Scarcely a year has elapsed since we recorded the loss of 91 

 persons by an explosion in the colliery called Brandling Main, at 

 Felling, near Gateshead. * At half past one o'clock in the morning 

 of the 24th Dec. this mine again exploded, and killed 23 persons 

 and 12 horses ; 21 persons escaped alive, 13 of whom were severely 

 burnt, but are all likely to recover. Only one horse was saved. 

 The persons whose work laid up the south headways, from the 

 upcast shaft, were all destroyed. Those in the boards on the north 

 and east were saved. Some suppose that the inflammable air took fire 

 at the crane lamp, in the south headways, as the persons, and the 

 materials of the mine, on the outside of it, were much shattered ; 

 but those on the inside of it had suffered little violence, the men 

 having perished by the choak-damp. This explosion was every way 

 much less severe than the former ; but as it happened when the 

 morning shift of men were relieving the night shift, it might have 

 been more destructive in its effects than it has been. A group of 

 the fresh men were waiting to go down ; and those who had just 

 descended met the fatal whirlwind of fire in their way to the 

 southern boards, which lie under the village of High Felling. That 

 part of the mine is intersected with several dykes, or fissures, which 

 notunfrequentlydischargegreat quantities of inflammable air, through 

 apertures called blowers, and which make the coals on the floor 

 dance round their orifices, like gravel in a strong spring. Whether 

 this accident is to be attributed to one of these foul discharges, or 

 to the falling of some stopping, which prevented the regular ven- 

 tilation of the wastes, or to some neglect of standing orders at the 

 rarifying furnace on the upcast shaft, it is perhaps now impossible 

 to discover : but this is certain, that so powerful was the stream of 

 fresh air in all the working parts of the mine, that the candles 

 could with difficulty be kept from being blown out; and the persons 

 employed in it were unanimous in declaring, that they never 

 wrought in a pit so wholesome and pleasant ; and that every means 

 were provided, and most judiciously and actively employed to 

 prevent its exploding. Among the sufferers are the overmen, Mr. 

 Wni. Hasvvcll and Mr. Robert Morrow ; and their deputies, Mr. 

 Martin Greener and Mr. Robert Stoves. 10 of the bodies were 

 got out on Friday, 6 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday, and 4 on Monday. 

 They were all Ijuried at Heworth. 8 widows, 15 children, and a 

 helpless old woman, who depended on her son, have lost their 

 ■whole means of support by this calamity ; the interests of several 



• Annah of Pliilosophy, vol. i. p. 355. 



