ON THE GENERAL DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 



extSiiguished before it reaches the bottom, it 

 wo.ild be attended with imminent danger to ven 

 ture down till the foul air be expelled. The 

 noxious air may be destroyed by throwing down 

 a quantity of quick lime, and gradually sprin 

 kling it with water; for as the lime slakes it will 

 absorb the mephitic air, and a person may 

 afterwards descend in safety. Where lime is 

 not at hand, a bush, or such like bulky sub 

 stance, may be let down and drawn up several 

 times ; or seme buckets of water may be thrown 

 into it, till the air be so purified, that a lighted 

 taper will continue to burn at the bottom. These 

 precautionary hints will apply to all the other 

 cases referred to, where this species of gas may 

 happen to exist. To which I may also add, as 

 another hint, that in every situation where fixed 

 air is supposed to exist, it is more dangerous to 

 sit or to lie down, in such places, than to stand 

 erect ; for, as this gas is the heaviest of all the 

 gases, it occupies the lowest place ; and there 

 fore, a person lying on the ground may be suffo 

 cated by it, while another standing at his side 

 would feel no injury, his mouth being raised 

 above the stratum of the noxious fluid.* I shall 

 only remark farther on this head, that several 

 disorders have been contracted by persons sleep 

 ing under the branches of trees in the night 

 time, and in apartments where great quantities 

 of fruit, or other vegetable matter, are kept, 

 from ignorance of the fact, that during the night, 

 the leaves of trees, and all vegetable matter 

 perspire a deleterious air, which, when it has 

 accumulated to a certain degree, may induce a 

 variety of serious complaints, and sometimes 

 prove fatal. 



The disasters which have happened in coal 

 mines, and other subterraneous apartments, form 

 another class of accidents, many of which have 

 been the effects of ignorance. Of late years 

 an immense number of men, boys, and horses, 

 has bcea destroyed by the explosion of inflam 

 mable air in the coal mines in this country, par 

 ticularly in the north of England, where the 

 most affecting and tragical scenes have been 

 presented to view. On the forenoon of Monday, 

 25th May, 1812, a dreadful accident took place 

 at Felling, near Gateshead, in the mine belong 

 ing to C. T. Branding, Esq. When nearly the 

 whole of the workmen were below, the second 

 set having gone down before the first had come 

 up, a double blast of hydrogen gas took place, 



* The grotto del Cani, a small cavern in Italy, 

 about four leagues from Naples, contains a stratum 

 of carbonic acid gas. It has been a common prac 

 tice to drive dogs into the cavern, where they suffer 

 a temporary death, for the entertainment of stran 

 gers. But a man enters with perfect safety, and feels 

 no particular inconvenience by standing in it, be 

 cause his mouth is considerably above the surface 

 of the stratum of deleterious air; but were he to 

 lie down he would be instantly suffocated. The 

 ne precaution may also be useful in walking 

 UMrough certain caverns in our own country. 



and set the mine on fire, forcing up an immense 

 volume of smoke, which darkened the air to a 

 considerable distance, and scattered an immense 

 quantity of small coal from the upcast shaft. In 

 this calamity ninety-three men and boys pe 

 rished. The mine was obliged to be closed up 

 on the following Saturday, in order to extinguish 

 the fire, which put an end to all hopes of saving 

 any of the sufferers. On the 6th October, in 

 the same year, and in the same county, (Dur 

 ham,) a coal-pit, at Shiney Row, suddenly took 

 fire, by explosion of the inflammable air ; in 

 consequence of which seven persons were se 

 verely scorched. And on the Saturday follow 

 ing, (October 10th,) the Harrington Mill pit, 

 distant from the other about two or three hundred 

 yards, also took fire ; by which four men and 

 nineteen boys were killed on the spot, and many 

 people severely wounded and burned, and two 

 boys were missing. This dreadful catastrophe 

 was likewise occasioned by the explosion of fire 

 damp. f The above are only two or three ex 

 amples of a variety of similar accidents which 

 have happened, of late years, in the coal dis 

 tricts in the northern part of our island. That 

 all such accidents could have been prevented by 

 means of the knowledge we have hitherto ac 

 quired, would perhaps be too presumptuous to 

 affirm ; but that a great proportion of them v, ere 

 the effects of ignorance on the part of the mi 

 ners, and might have been prevented by a ge 

 neral knowledge of the nature and causes of 

 such explosions, and by taking proper precau 

 tionary measures, there is every reason to be 

 lieve. That this is not a mere random asser 

 tion, will appear from the following extract from 

 the Monthly Magazine for February 1814, p. 

 80: &quot;Mr. Bakewell, in his late lectures at 

 Leeds, stated the, following circumstance, which 

 strongly evinces the benefits which arise from 

 educating the working classes that, in the coal 

 districts of Northumberland and Durham, acci 

 dents are constantly taking place from explo 

 sions in the mines ; so that not less than six 

 hundred persons have been destroyed in the last 

 two years. But, in one of the mines which was 

 frequently subject to explosion, not an accident 

 of any consequence had taken place for the last 

 twelve years ; the proprietors, besi ! es other 

 precautions, having for a considerable time past 

 educated the children of the miners at their own 

 expense, and given them proper information re 

 specting the nature of the danger to be avoided&quot;^ 



+ See Monthly Magazine, vol. xxxiii. p. sso, and 

 vol. xxxiv. p. 462. 



I This section of the present work was written in 

 1*16, and the facts referred to in it happened within 

 three or four years of that date. Since that period 

 Sir Humphrey Davy s ingenious contrivance, called 

 the safety lamp, has been invented, by means of 

 which, we have every reason to believe, many ace: 

 dents in coal mines have been prevented, and many 

 lives preserved from destruction. The peculiar pro 

 perty of this lamp is, that the miner may move about 



