railway also have sidings and connections with the 

 Esquimau & Nanaimo Railway for freight and 

 other uses when required. 



A description of the central pit, called the No. I 

 shaft, on Esplanade, will afford a fair idea of what 

 the rest are like. 



A VISIT TO THE WORKS. 



Taking the reader on an imaginary visit to the 

 works, and having obtained from the genial manager, 

 Mr. William McGregor, full leave to view I first seek 

 the pit and there find, not one, but two shafts, as by 

 law required. No. I circular in form, eighteen feet 

 in diameter is bricked where needed for safety by 

 huge wedge-shaped blocks. The No. 2 shaft is all 

 alike, but two feet less in diameter, is sunk about 200 

 feet to the north of the No. I, and sealed air-tight; 

 it communicates with the ventilating fan by an un- 

 derground passage through which the fan exhausts 

 the noxious powder smoke, foul air and gases from 

 the mine. Above the air shaft is placed, all ready 

 for an emergency, a pit head frame with pulley, and 

 at hand a winding engine with drum, and cable 

 wound so that by removing part of the pit cover this 

 means of rescue could be put in action in ten minutes 

 and raise all men from the mine in case the other pit 

 be blocked. A visit to the engine room of the fan 

 house reveals the ponderous machine ever in motion, 

 whirling round the enormous wheel thirty-six feet in 

 diameter and twelve feet wide, that, with its air- 

 sweeps, constitutes the fan, which, at forty revolu- 

 tions, causes a current of air to circulate through the 

 twenty miles of roads, ways and working places in 

 the depths below of a volume of 150,000 cubic feet 

 per minute. The wheel (fan) is encased in a special 

 chamber (which looks like an odd addition to the 

 engine room) and the impure air is forced up a con- 

 ductor, where its heat causes it to ascend to heights 

 above. This monster ventilating apparatus, known 

 as the Guibal Fan, is an achievement of modern me- 



