230 COALFIELDS AND COLLIERIES OF AUSTRALIA. 



ing local coal-mining. The force of the blast from the main- 

 tunnel wrecked the engine-house, which was situated right 

 in line with, and a few yards from, the mouth of the tunnel. 

 Fig. 148 shows the state of the surface after the explosion. 



A Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the 

 cause of the disaster. The centre of interest was the No. 1 

 Eight Main Level (the Eastern District of the mine). On 

 the right-hand eastern side of this road, between the third 

 and fifth Right Rope Roads, there was an area of 35 acres 

 from which the coal had been extracted, and where the roof 

 had been allow r ed to fall, forming a goaf; this was known as 

 "the 35-acre waste," or "the 4th Ris'ht Goaf.' : The last 

 portion of this area to be worked was that near the end of the 

 4th Right Rope Road, where, about a fortnight before the 

 disaster, the last pillars of coal were extracted, and the props 

 supporting the roof were withdrawn, with the object of let- 

 ting it fall. A week before the accident, there was a fall of 

 2 -Aft., but there still remained a space of more than 5ft. be- 

 tween the fallen mass and the roof above. So far as the 

 workings had penetrated in No. 1 Right District, the seam was 

 found to be rising towards the north, from a point near the 4th 

 Right. The coal in this mine was known to give off 

 firedamp. Mr. Ronald son, a former manager of Mt. Kembla 

 colliery, admitted in evidence, given in 1895, before the Royal 

 Commission on the Coal Mines Regulation Bill, that gas was 

 given off rarely. Mr. W. Rogers, the present manager, stated 

 in his evidence at the inquiry that he knew the seam gave oft' 

 gas. The Chief Inspector of Coal Mines had also detected up 

 to 1J per cent, with the hydrogen lamp, and several miners 

 gave evidence that gas had fired after a shot, and at their 

 flare lamps. There Js a certain amount of doubt as to whether 

 the gas noticed by the miners after a powder shot may not 

 have been largely carbon monoxide ; b it from other evidence, 

 and the fact that the members of the Commission themselves 

 found firedamp in several widely distant parts of the mine, 

 there is little doubt that from the opening of the mine to the 

 present day, it has been capable of producing enough firedamp 

 to warrant the assumption that, given favourable conditions 

 for accumulation, a dangerous collection might be found in 

 almost any part of the workings. 



Dr. Robertson, the consulting engineer to the Mount 

 Kembla Coal Company, did not think the evidences of force 

 he saw in the mine could be accounted for by the theory of a 

 gas explosion; it seemed to him that all the appearances could 

 be reconciled by the theory that a great wind-blast was forced 

 out by a fall in the 35-acre goaf at the end of the 4th Right, 

 and that the damage was done by percussion throughout the 

 mine without any explosion; in fact, according to him, there 



