NATURE 



481 



THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1893. 



COLLIERS AND COLLIERY EXPLOSIONS. 



Coal Pits and Pitmen. A Short History of the Coal 

 Trade , and the Legislation affecting it. By R. Nelson 

 Boyd, M.Inst.C.E. (London : Whittaker and Co.) 



AS the author remarks in his preface, his present 

 work is a re-cast of a book published for him in 

 1879 by W. H. Allen and Co., under the title of" Coal 

 Mines' Inspection." A casual examination of both books 

 shows that they are alike in their main features ; only, 

 the latter work has been extended so as to include some 

 of the events of later years. The subject is divided into 

 twelve chapters, to which are added four short appen- 

 dices and a good index. The text extends to 239 pages 

 8vo of good readable print, and there are a few good 

 illustrations of ancient mechanical arrangements, includ- 

 ing the steel mill. 



Mr. Boyd begins by giving a very short historical 

 account of the situation before Parliament began to inter- 

 fere in the relations between masters and men. He then 

 describes the circumstances which led to the appoint- 

 ment of successive Royal Commissions, charged to in- 

 quire into various matters relating to mines and miners, 

 and he sketches briefly the leading features of the re- 

 ports presented by these Commissions, together with the 

 chief points of interest contained in the legislative enact- 

 ments which were founded upon some of them. Our 

 author also pauses from time to time to recount in con- 

 siderable detail the events of more than passing interest, 

 such as explosions, inundations, and other accidents 

 which happened during the period with which he is deal- 

 ing ; and lastly, in his appendices, he gives the titles of the 

 Acts of Parliament affecting coal mines and miners, both 

 English and Scotch, a list of serious colliery explosions 

 previous to and since 1850^ and a table showing the pro- 

 duction of coal at different times, commencing in 1660, 

 and brought down to 1891. 



Among other more or less important provisions of the 

 Acts of Parliament our author gives prominence to : — 

 The exclusion of women from mines, the appointment of 

 Government inspectors, the limitations of the ages at 

 which boys can be employed, the restrictions under which 

 explosives may be used, the requirement that each mine 

 should have two distinct shafts, that each mine manager 

 must have a certificate similar to that of a sea captain, 

 that payment must be made by weight and not by 

 measure, the conditions under which safety lamps are 

 to be used, and the method of dealing with coal-dust 

 when it is present. 



He also reviews such questions as the payment of 

 royalties and wayleaves to landlords, the employers' 

 liability, the wasteful consumption of fuel, the duration 

 of the coal supplies, and old-age pensions to miners. 



Contrasting the present with the past he says : — "The 

 workmen of the present day have attained a distinct 

 social position, have representation in the House of 

 Commons, and trade unions, societies, and powerful 

 combinations," whereas formerly the Scotch colliers were 

 adscriptcE glebce, that is, were bought and sold with the 

 NO. 122 I, VOL. 47] 



land : an Act of the Scotch Parliament of 1660 prohibited 

 them from leaving their employment without a written 

 attestation from their masters under pain of punishment 

 in their bodies, and any person employing them was 

 ordered to return them within twenty-four hours or pay a 

 fine of one hundred pounds Scots. The colliers of 

 the North of England were little better, being hired by 

 the year under a system of binding or bonding ; those of 

 the Bristol coal-field were described by contemporary 

 writers as being as brutal and ignorant as savages. 

 Colliers lived apart from the rest of the community, were 

 looked down upon with contempt by their fellow-men, and 

 diverted themselves with bull-baiting, drinking, and 

 debauchery. 



The state of serfdom was removed by various Acts of 

 Parliament passed during the latter half of last century^ 

 apparently more with the object of increasing the numbers 

 of the colliers by drawing other classes of labourers into 

 the mines than from any specially humanitarian motives. 

 But at length a day dawned when higher principles began 

 to prevail. From 1842, when Lord Ashley's Act was 

 passed for the exclusion of women from the mines, on- 

 wards to 1887, one Act was passed after another, each 

 having the same object in view, namely, the amelioration 

 of the lot of the miner. 



The frequent occurrence of disastrous colliery explosions 

 and the great destruction of life and property which ac- 

 companied them, had done more than anything else to 

 draw the attention of the public to a consideration of 

 mining affairs, and had likewise been the principal in- 

 centive to the appointment of Royal Commissions and 

 to the passing of Acts of Parliament to regulate the 

 supervision and the working of mines. 



Notwithstanding all that had been done previously, more 

 lives were lost in explosions during the five years ending 

 1870 than during any preceding five years, the aggregate 

 number lost in fifteen explosions, each of which involved 

 the loss of ten lives and upwards, having amounted 

 to 923. 



The Coal Mines' Regulation Act of 1872 was drawn up 

 with great care by Mr. Bruce (now Lord Aberdare), the 

 Home Secretary. It embraced the experience of the 

 Inspectors of Mines, as well as the combined wisdom of 

 mine owners, engineers, managers of mines, and delegates 

 of the colliers. But, firedamp having been hitherto re- 

 garded as the sole cause of colliery explosions, the 

 stringent provisions of that Act were directed exclusively 

 towards the detection and removal of that element of 

 danger. 



In 1845 Messrs. Lyell and Faraday, who had examined 

 the scene of the Haswell colliery explosion, which they 

 attributed to large accumulations of firedamp in the empty 

 spaces (goaves) from which pillars had been removed, 

 remarked that firedamp had not been its only fuel, but 

 that doubtless the coal-dust which was raised and swept 

 along by the firedamp Jla me would be decomposed by the 

 heat of that flame, and would therefore add to the force 

 of the explosion. 



Between the years i860 and 1S75 several French 

 mining engineers were impressed with the idea that coal- 

 dust had played a part in certain explosions which took 

 place in France. Some experiments were made by a com- 

 mittee of the Socictt5 de I'lndustrie Mindrale, and by M. 



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