C2 HISTOKY OF 



breathe freely; and yet in these, if a lighted candle be introduced, 

 the V immediately take fire, and the whole cavern at once becomes 

 one furnace of flame. In mines, therefore, subject to damps ol 

 this kind, they are obliged to have recourse to a very peculiar 



In some instances, fish, which, in the incipient stage of putrefaction, give 

 a strong piiosphoric light, had been tried to give light to the miner in very 

 dangerous cases ; and the light produced by the collision of flint and steel v\ as 

 universally employed when candles could not be used without producing an 

 explosion. The machine for producing tliis light is named a steel mill. Phi- 

 losophers proposed the various kinds of phosphorus, but these were alto, 

 gether insufficient for the purpose. When tried in the mines they only pro. 

 doced a most melancholy light, and rather tended to render " the darknes? 

 visible." In the meantime the mines were extended, and the melancholy ca- 

 tastrophes constant) y increased. At last an explosif)n and catastrophe took place 

 at Fel ling colliery, near Gateshead, in the county of Durham, about a mile and a 

 half distant from Newcastle, more dreadful and melancholy in their con.';e. 

 quence than any which had ever taken place in the collieries of Great Britaiiu 

 This colliery was working with great vigour and under a most regular system 

 both as to the mining operations and ventilation ; the latter was effected by . 

 a furnace and air-tube placed upon a rise-pit on elevated ground south from 

 the turnpike road leading to Sunderland. The depth of the winning was above 

 )00 fatlioms; twenty-five acres of coal had been excavated, and such was 

 the execution of work, that from one pit they were drawing at the rate of 

 1700 tons of coal weekly. Upon the 25th May, 1812, the night-shift was 

 relieved by the day-shift of miners at eleven o'clock forenoon, one hundred 

 and twenty-one persons were in the mine, and had taken their several places, 

 when at half past eleven o'clock the gas tired, and produced a most tremen. 

 dons explosion, which alarmed all the neighbouring villages. The subter. 

 raneous fire broke forth witli two heavy discharges from the dip-pit, and these 

 were instantly followed by one from the rise- pit. A slight trembling, as 

 from an earthquake, was felt for about half a mile around the colliery, and 

 the noise of the explosion, though dull, was Iieard at from three to four miles 

 distance. Immense quantities of dust and small coal accompanied these blasts, 

 and rose high into tlie air, in the form of an inverted cone. The heaviest 

 part of the ejected matter, such as corves, wood, and small coal, fell near the 

 pits, but the dust, borne away by a strong west wind, fell in a continued 

 shower to the distance of a mile and a half from the pit In the adjoining 

 village of Heworth it caused a darkness like that of early twilight, and cover, 

 ed the roads so thiclily, that the footsteps of passengers were imprinted in 

 it. The heads of both shaft-frames were blown off, their sides set on fire, 

 and their pulleys shattered in pieces. The coal dust ejected from the rise-pit 

 into the horizontal part of the ventilating tube was about three inches thick, 

 and soon burnt to a cinder; pieces of burning coal driven oti' the solid stra 

 turn of the mine were also blown up this shaft. Of the 121 persons in tlie 

 mine, at the time of the explosion, only 32 were drawn up the pit alive ; and 

 of the,e, three died within a few hoars after the accident. Thus were r.o 

 less than 92 persons killed in an instant by tliis desolating pestilence. 'Ihe 

 »-ene at the pit-mouth cannot be described. 



This fatal misfortune at Felling roused the minds of every one connect.'d \( ilh 



