INDUSTRIES 



duced into West Cumberland. In that year 

 a Guibal fan, 36 ft. diameter by 12 ft. wide, 

 was erected for the Earl of Lonsdale, at Duke 

 Pit, Whitehaven. This ventilator is still at 

 work. It is driven by two duplicate hori- 

 zontal engines working alternately. Each 

 engine has a cylinder, 30 in. diameter by 

 30 in. stroke, and works direct on to the fan 

 shaft, at 60 revolutions per minute. The 

 quantity of air produced is 70,000 c. ft. per 

 minute with 2^ in. of water gauge. 



Since then Guibal fans of various sizes 

 have been erected at other collieries in Cum- 

 berland. 



At Watergate Pit, Flimby, there is a 

 Waddle fan (erected in 1880) at work. It 

 is 30 ft. diameter by 2 ft. wide. It is driven 

 by a single engine with a cylinder 24 in. 

 diameter by 4 ft. stroke at the rate of 60 

 revolutions per minute, and produces about 

 40,000 c. ft. of air per minute with a water 

 gauge of i^ in. The air is received at the 

 centre on one side of the fan, and is expelled 

 at the periphery. 



The most recently erected fan in West 

 Cumberland is at William Pit, Whitehaven, 

 and was made for the Whitehaven Colliery 

 Company in 1899, and is styled 'Walker's 

 Indestructible Fan.' It is 22 ft. diameter 

 by 7 ft. wide. It is driven by an engine 

 with a single cylinder, 36 in. diameter by 

 42 in. stroke. The driving pulley on the 

 crank shaft is 18 ft. diameter by 2 ft. i\ in. 

 wide, grooved for ten if in. cotton ropes ; 

 the pulley on the fan shaft is 7 ft. diameter, 

 2 ft. 1\ in. wide, and similarly grooved. 

 With the fan running at 120 revolutions per 

 minute, 120,000 c. ft. of air are produced 

 with a water gauge of 6 in. 



Perhaps in no other coalfield was the 

 danger of working with naked lights in coal 

 mines sooner or more thoroughly appreciated 

 than in this county. In the earliest White- 

 haven Colliery pay-sheets there are frequent 

 entries relating to ' burnt ' men. 



Probably about 1730, Mr. Carlisle Sped- 

 ding, Sir James Lowther's colliery viewer, 

 invented the famous steel mill for the pro- 

 duction of a light by which miners could 

 work with some degree of safety in an atmo- 

 sphere where, by reason of its being so highly 

 charged with firedamp, the use of candles 

 was dangerous. In an account of the fire- 

 damp at Saltom Pit, Whitehaven, 1 which Sir 

 James Lowther contributed to the Royal 

 Society in 1733, allusion is made to the use of 

 flints and steel for the purpose of affording a 

 light to miners in places abounding with fire- 

 damp. 



1 Philosophical Transactions (1733), vol. xxxviii. 



The use of the steel mill, which began in 

 the Whitehaven pits, extended to other coal- 

 fields. About 1760 it was introduced into 

 the collieries on the Tyne and Wear, and was 

 used there, in dangerous places, up to 1813. 



The steel mill was a small steel disc made 

 to revolve rapidly by means of a cogwheel 

 and pinion, against a piece of flint, the stream 

 of sparks thereby emitted affording a glimmer- 

 ing light which enabled the collier to perform 

 his task. 



Steel mills were only used in workings 

 where a dangerous quantity of gas was given 

 off, candles being generally used by miners 

 until the invention of the miner's safety-lamp 

 by Sir Humphrey Davy superseded both them 

 and the steel mill which had been proved to 

 be quite unsafe. 



The improved system of ventilating mines, 

 known as ' coursing the air,' was invented 

 about 1760 by Mr. James Spedding, son of 

 Mr. Carlisle Spedding. ' Coursing the air ' 

 consisted of threading the current of air up 

 certain workings and down others until it 

 ventilated the whole waste. That system, 

 which involved numerous doors and the air 

 travelling round the workings long distances 

 in one current, was superseded by the ' split 

 air ' system, carried out first at Wallsend 

 Colliery in 1810 by Mr. Buddie. 



Soon after its invention, Sir Humphrey 

 Davy's safety lamp was tried and adopted at 

 Whitehaven Colliery. ' On the 28th of 

 March, 1816, the safety lamp of Sir H. Davy 

 was put to the severest test possible in the 

 workings of William Pit, Whitehaven, the 

 most dangerous in the kingdom.' 3 As in the 

 case of the steel mill, the use of the safety 

 lamp was not made compulsory in all parts 

 of the mine, and candles were still used where 

 little or no gas was to be seen. It was also 

 a common practice to use the lamps with the 

 tops off unless too much gas was present. 



When so much was left to the discretion 

 of the officials and the work-people in that 

 respect, it was not surprising that explosions 

 did not cease with the advent of the safety 

 lamp, and that it soon became necessary to 

 adopt stringent regulations to enforce the ex- 

 clusive use of locked safety lamps beyond 

 stations fixed by the management. 



After the introduction of the Davy lamp 

 other forms of safety lamps, particularly the 

 Stephenson and Clanny, were also used ; but 

 since the issue of the report of the Royal 

 Commission on Accidents in Mines in 1886, 

 and the passing of the Coal Mines Regulation 

 Act, 1887, the use of those three types of 



3 Newcastle Courant, April 13, 1816. 



357 



