COAL. 



where, above them, the water is of suffi- 

 cient depth for ships of large burthen. 

 These are the deepest coal mines that 

 have hitherto been wrought, and per- 

 haps the miners have not in any other 

 part of the globe penetrated to so great a 

 depth below the surface of the sea ; the 

 very deep mines in Hungary, Peru, and 

 elsewhere, being situated in mountain- 

 ous countries, where the surface of the 

 earth is elevated to a great height above 

 the level of the ocean. There are here 

 three strata of coal, which lie at a consi- 

 derable distance one above another ; the 

 communication between each is preserv- 

 ed by pits. The vein is not always regu- 

 larly continued in the same inclined plane, 

 but js sometimes interrupted by hard 

 rocks, and in those places the earth seems 

 to have sunk downwards from the sur- 

 face, while the part adjoining hath retain- 

 ed its ancient situation. These breaks 

 the miners call dykes, and when they 

 meet with one of them, they first ob- 

 serve whether the direction of the strata 

 is higher or lower than in the part where 

 they have been working. If, to employ 

 their own terms, it is cast down, they 

 sink a pit to it with little trouble ; but 

 should it, on the contrary, be cast up to 

 any considerable height, they are fre- 

 quently obliged to carry a long level 

 through the rock, with much expense and 

 difficulty, till they again arrive at the vein 

 of coal. 



In these deep and extensive works, 

 the greatest care is requisite to keep 

 them continually ventilated with perpe- 

 tual currents of fresh air, to expel the 

 damps and other noxious exhalations, 

 and supply the miners with a sufficiency 

 of that vital fluid. In the deserted works, 

 large quantities of these damps are fre- 

 quently collected, and often remain for 

 a long time without doing any mischief: 

 but when, by some accident, they are set 

 on fire, they produce dreadful and de- 

 structive explosions, and burst out of the 

 pits with great impetuosity, like the,fiery 

 eruptions from burning mountains. The 

 coal in these mines hath several times 

 been set on fire by the fulminating damp, 

 and continued burning many months, until 

 large streams of water were conducted 

 into the mines, and suffered to fill those 

 parts where the coal was on fire. Several 

 collieries have been entirely destroyed by 

 such fires : of these there are instances 

 near Newcastle, and in other parts of Eng- 

 land, and in the shire of Fife in Scotland ; 

 in some of which places the fire has conti- 

 nued burning for ages. To prevent as 



much as possible the collieries from being 

 filled with these pernicious damps, it has 

 been found necessary to search for those 

 crevices in the coal whence they issue, and 

 then confine them within a narrow space, 

 from which they are afterwards conducted 

 through longtubes into the open air,where, 

 being set on fire, they consume in pei-pe- 

 tual flames, as they continually arise out of 

 the earth. The late Mr. Spedding, who 

 was the great engineer of those works, 

 having observedthatthefulminatingdamp 

 could only be kindled by flame, and was 

 not liable to be set on fire by red hot iron, 

 nor by the sparks produced by the colli- 

 sion of flint and steel, invented a machine,, 

 in which, while a steel wheel is turned 

 round with a very rapid motion, flints are 

 applied to it, and, by the abundance of 

 fiery sparks emitted, the miners are ena- 

 bled to carry on their work in places 

 where the flame of a lamp or candle would 

 occasion dreadful explosions. Without 

 some intervention of this sort, the work- 

 ing of these mines would long ago have 

 been impracticable, so greatly are they 

 annoyed by these inflammable damps. 

 Fewer mines, however, have been ruined 

 by fire than by inundations ; and here that 

 noble piece of mechanism the steam-en- 

 gine displays its beneficial effects. When 

 the four engines belonging to this colliery 

 are all at work, they discharge 1228 gal- 

 lons of water every minute at thirteen 

 strokes; and, after the same rate, 1,768,320 

 gallons every twenty-four hours. 



The road from the Whitehaven coal- 

 mines to the water side is mostly on a 

 gentle descent, and provided with an iron 

 railway : this, by removing much of the 

 friction, exceedingly facilitates the carri- 

 age of the coals to the shipping, which 

 are laid alongside of the quay to receive 

 them. When the waggons are loaded, 

 they run without any assistance on the 

 railway till they arrive at the quay, where 

 the bottom striking out, the waggon dis- 

 charges its contents into a large flue, or, 

 as the workmen term it, a hurry, through 

 which it rattles into the hold of the vessel 

 with a noise like thunder. A man is 

 placed in each waggon to guide it, who 

 checks its progress, if necessary, by 

 pressing down one of the wheels with a 

 piece of wood provided for the purpose. 

 When the waggons are unloaded, they are 

 carried round by a turn-frame, and drawn 

 back to the pits by a single horse along 

 another road. The coal trade is supposed 

 to maintain nearly 15,000 mariners, andto 

 employ about 2000 coal-heavers, who are 

 allowed a fixed sum on clearing each ship, 



