34 History of the English Landed Interest. 



" The Coal Pits made use of to get up this Treasure are 

 all Square, commonly 7 or 8 foot in diameter, and timbered 

 from top to bottom, some 30, some 40, more or less, but few 

 above 50 fadoms deep. A great depth for Workmen to go and 

 rake a Livelyhood, And yet here is a Legion of such Men, 

 bred and born to it, that spend most of their Life in this Land 

 of Darkness, in continual Danger (besides that of the Rope) 

 of being crushed below by a Thrust, sometimes in Danger of 

 Water, and some places of Fire. The Way to go down these 

 Pits and to come up is by the help of a Rope, one end whereof 

 being made into a Loop, the Workman gets a Leg and Knee into 

 it, as far as the very Hip. Thus hugging the Rope with one 

 Arm, his Life wrapt up with it, down he goes, while the Rope 

 turns about an Engine made for that purpose. If the Rope 

 fails, as sometimes it does through carelessness, there's an end 

 of the Man and of the Conveyance. By a Thrust is meant the 

 fall of some Earth, or great Stones, whereby 'tis the ill fate 

 of some to be crushed ; as it is of others to be drowned by a 

 sudden Irruption of Waters from an old Waste, or otherwise. 



" But some Pits at Sunderland in the Bishopric of Durham 

 are subject besides to Fire-damps. So they call an Inflamma- 

 tion of the Air in those subterraneous Parts, which being more 

 than ordinary affected with sulphurous matter, are sometimes 

 apt to catch fire, and then all go's to wrack. It breaks out 

 like a Thunderbolt, carries all away with it higher than the 

 Pits Mouth, and that with a dismal noise, as it were with a 

 Crack of Thunder. In this Case one might compare the in- 

 flamed Sulphur to Grunpowder, the Coal pit to a great Grun, 

 and what it brings up with it to Bullets, it comes up with such 

 a force. But when this happens the Workmen foresee it, by 

 their Candles burning blue and blazing more than ordinary. 

 Whereupon they lay themselves flat upon the Ground and let 

 the Meteor work it self above it." ^ 



This graphic description of the dangers of seventeenth 

 century coal -mining illustrates better than anything else 

 the improvement in life-protecting appliances which later 

 science has introduced. Though the pits, when compared 



* The, New State of England, hy G. M., pp. 164, 165 : 1691. 



