196 THE FIKE-DAMPS FAMILY CIKCLE. 



bruised between his teeth, a certain shell-fish when lo, the 

 Tyrian dye I A pretty notion, that the great Sir Isaac should 

 have been led to speculate concerning gravitation by the fall 

 of an apple. We begin by admiring the prettiness of a sug- 

 gested discovery, and end by disbelieving it ; nay, we often 

 err by running to the opposite extreme; saying ' credat 

 Judceus* to the tale of many accidental suggestions, for no 

 better reason than because the tale is pretty in its way. 



Assuredly one of the most uncongenial domains in the 

 world for harbouring poetic conceits is a parliamentary blue- 

 book. Now a blue-book is my authority for a description 

 of the accident which first suggested the illumination of coal- 

 mines by reflected light. 



After the danger of steel-mills was so lamentably demon- 

 strated in the Wallsend pit, the miners were driven to great 

 straits for want of light. Most of us have seen the pale 

 phosphorescent shining of decomposed fish. The mere ghost 

 of a light it is ; scarcely brilliant enough to make darkness 

 visible, far less to work by. Nevertheless, the Wallsend 

 mechanics were glad of it, and were repairing an engine 

 at the bottom of the shaft by means of it, when a friend 

 came to the rescue in the following manner. 



It happened, as a carpenter was mending the shear- 

 legs' (a portion of machinery outside the pit, and imme- 

 diately over the mouth of the shaft), that, turning a bright 

 new hand-saw, which he was using, in the proper angular 

 direction, a ray of sunlight was darted down the shaft. 



The friendly ray alarmed not a little those who were 

 working at the bottom of the shaft. Sudden flashes of light 

 were not uncommon in that mine ; but they were the indi- 

 cators, if not the heralds, of death. The workmen thought 

 another explosion must have happened. Trembling, they 

 awaited the thunder of the death-blast, which in a few seconds 

 might blow them up the shaft as from the mouth of a cannon. 

 The death-blast did not come. 



