THE FIRE-DAMP'S FAMILY CIRCLE. 185 



effects to this cause. They are not without a reason for it, 

 which is not altogether irrational (if the 'matter of fact be 

 true) ; for they say that the steam which ariseth from their 

 bodies and their candles ascends into the highest parts of the 

 vault, and there condenseth ; and in time a kind of film grows 

 round about it, which at length corrupting, becomes pesti- 

 lential. Thus I have heard many of our underground philo- 

 sophers discourse.' 



We are next introduced to the fire-damp : The fourth, 

 which they also call a damp, although how properly I will 

 not now argue, is that vapour which being touched by their 

 candle presently takes fire, and giving a crack like a gun pro- 

 duceth the like effects, or rather those of lightning. A fellow 

 they called Dobby Leech is at this day a sad example of the 

 force of one of those blasts in Hasleberg Hills, having his 

 arms and legs broken, and his body strangely distorted.' 



Accidents arising from the ignition of fire-damp were very 

 common in the latter part of the seventeenth century, though, 

 as may be CL priori inferred from considering the smallness of 

 coal-mine workings in those times, the results were far less 

 serious than such as have characterised our own epoch. The 

 method commonly adopted for purifying a mine affected by 

 fire-damp would provoke smiles of incredulity amongst the 

 mining population of the present day. It was one which 

 belongs to the same class of preventive measures as artificial 

 inoculation for small-pox ; safety being sought in the choice 

 of time for attacking an enemy, instead of permitting him to 

 attack his victim unawares. 



The miners of the latter part of the seventeenth century 

 actually endeavoured to moderate the ravages of the enemy 

 by firing it ; sometimes by lowering a lighted candle attached 

 to the end of a rope ; and on other occasions, when that treat- 

 ment would not suffice, they adopted the bolder expedient of 

 sending a man of mark on all fours through the galleries, 

 bearing in his hand a lighted candle attached to the end of a 



