INDUSTRIES 



prove the Victoria Seam, on a site for a sug- 

 gested additional air and travelling shaft. 



A staple was sunk from the Maudlin to the 

 Low Main Seam, Edmondsley Colliery. 



The Margaret Pit, Tanfield Lea Colliery, was 

 being sunk. 



Sunk below the Busty Seam at the New Pit, 

 West Stanley Colliery, proving the Brockwell 

 and Victoria Seams. 



At the end of this year there were forty-three 

 electrically-driven coal cutters and twenty-four 

 driven by compressed air at work in the county. 



1904. — A diamond boring was put down on 

 the Croxdale Estate for the Weardale Iron and 

 Coal Company, Limited, from the surface to the 

 Busty Seam. 



The Dean and Chapter Colliery, near Ferry- 

 hill, begun last year, was sunk from the surface 

 to the Brockwell Seam by James Johnson for 

 Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Limited. 

 The winning will eventually be one of the 

 biggest in the North of England. 



The Dawdon Colliery, near Seaham, was sunk 

 by the freezing process. 



1905. — Ryhope Colliery was sunk from the 

 surface to the Brockwell Seam. 



A diamond boring was put down at ShinclifFe 

 by Messrs. Bell Brothers, Limited, from the 

 surface to the Busty Seam. 



There were forty-two electrically-worked coal- 

 cutters and seventy-four driven by compressed 

 air at work in the county in this year. 



Corresponding to the greater activity in the 

 development of coal mining, rapid advances were 

 being made in the technique of the subject. It 

 has been seen that in the eighteenth century 

 numerous accidents due to colliery explosions 

 occurred, which became more serious in propor- 

 tion as the workings were more extensive and as 

 more people were engaged underground. Apart 

 from the steel mill of Spedding, which rendered 

 for a while good service, but which suffered from 

 the defect of giving an imperfect illumination, 

 and which was also on several occasions proved 

 to have fired gas, no serious attempt was made 

 to combat this deadly enemy until Dr. Clanny, 

 a medical man of Sunderland, commenced to 

 experiment upon the subject. His first experi- 

 ments seem to have dated back to the year 181 1, 

 but his lamp was not perfected until 18 1 3. 

 Meanwhile occurred the great explosion at 

 Felling Colliery on 25 May, 18 12, which drew 

 fresh attention to the subject. In the next year, 

 1813, a society was formed in Sunderland to 

 prevent explosions in coal-mines, with a com- 

 mittee consisting of gentlemen closely associated 

 with the coal-trade of the north of England, 

 including Dr. Clanny himself in the number. 

 This society applied to Sir Humphry Davy for 

 scientific guidance in the matter, and the result of 



their application was that Sir Humphry Davy 

 came to Newcastle in 1815. In the north he met 

 Mr. Buddie, Dr. Clanny, and others interested 

 in the matter, and visited Hebburn Colliery, 

 where he obtained gas from which he made his 

 experiments. As is well known, these resulted 

 in the production of the Davy safety lamp, in 

 which the flame was protected by a cylinder of 

 wire gauze, and which is still used to-day in 

 very much the same form as that in which the 

 inventor left it. Stephenson had been working 

 at the same subject simultaneously at Killing- 

 worth Colliery, and although the claims to 

 priority of the two types were urged energeti- 

 cally at the time by their respective advocates, 

 the general opinion seems to be that the credit 

 belongs where it has been awarded by posterity, 

 namely, to Sir Humphry Davy. His safety lamp 

 received the unqualified approval of Mr. Buddie, 

 who had up to that time looked upon ventilation 

 as the only possible means of preventing colliery 

 explosions, and the first Davy lamps were used 

 at Hebburn Colliery in 1816. This invention 

 was considered to be sufficient reason for dis- 

 solving the Sunderland Society for the Prevention 

 of Accidents in Mines, although it by no means 

 realized the great expectations at one time formed 

 of it, and was far from putting an end to colliery 

 explosions, as is shown by the melancholy list of 

 these accidents in the nineteenth century ; it, 

 nevertheless, opened up a fresh era in coal- 

 mining, as it rendered working possible in many 

 places and under many conditions where it had 

 hitherto been impracticable, and especially allowed 

 the coal-miner to win very large portions of pil- 

 lars that would otherwise have had to be aban- 

 doned. 



In the meantime the proper ventilation of 

 collieries was also receiving attention, largely 

 through the exertions of Mr. Buddie. This 

 gentleman tried various devices from the year 

 1807 onwards with the object of doing away 

 with the furnace, amongst others trying a steam 

 jet at Hebburn Colliery, and soon afterwards a 

 large air pump with a piston 5 ft. square and 

 8 ft. stroke, capable of exhausting 5,000 to 6,000 

 cubic feet of air per minute. He did not, how- 

 ever, succeed in displacing furnaces, because the 

 devices which he invented, although perfectly 

 suitable for the purpose for which he intended them, 

 were soon found to be incapable of producing 

 the enormous ventilating currents which modern 

 methods of coal-mining demanded, and as such 

 currents could be produced by the aid of the 

 furnace, the latter maintained its place in spite 

 of its obvious disadvantages, until it in turn had 

 to give place to the centrifugal ventilator. 



Mr. Buddie contributed very considerably to 

 the improvement of coal-mining. In 1 8 10 he 

 devised a system of dividing a large mine into 

 separate districts or panels, and soon after this he 

 originated the system which he called compound 



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