400 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677. 



17 yards distance from the first pit; after sinking 6 or 7 yards deep the fire- 

 damp began to appear as formerly, accompanying the workmen still as they 

 sunk, still using the same means as before, sometimes blowing it out with a 

 blast of their mouth, at other times with their candles, or letting it blaze with- 

 out interruption. But as they sunk down, and the damp got still more and more 

 strength, they found that the want of air perpendicularly from the day was the 

 great cause and encourager of this damp ; for the air that followed down into 

 this pit, came down at the first sunk pit, at the forementioned distance, after 

 it had been dispersed over all the old hollows and deads of the former work, that 

 were filled up with noisome vapors, thick smothering fogs, and in some places 

 with the smothering damp itself. Nevertheless they continued sinking to 15 

 yards deep, plying the w^ork night and day ; but on intermission for 48 hours 

 and more on account of Sundays, &c. the damp gaining great strength in the 

 interim, when the workmen went down they could see it flashing and shooting 

 from side to side like sword-blades across each other, that none durst venture to 

 go down into the pit. Upon this they took a pole, and bound candles several 

 times to the end of it, which they no sooner set over the eye of the pit than 

 the damp would fly up with a long sharp flame, and put out the candles, leaving 

 a foul smoke each time behind it. Finding that these things had little efi^ect, 

 they bound some candles to a hook hanging at the rope's end that was used up 

 and down in the pit ; when they had lowered down these a little way into the 

 shaft of the pit, the damp came up in a full body, blowing out the candles, dis- 

 persing itself about the eye of the pit, and burning the men and their clothes, 

 and throwing them down, making a noise like the roaring of a bull, but louder, 

 and leaving a smoke and very noisome smell behind it. Upon this discourage- 

 ment these men came up, and made no further trial : after this the water that 

 came from it, being drawn up at the other pit, was found to be blood-warm, if 

 not warmer, and the crevices of the rocks where the damp lodged, were all fire- 

 red about Candlemas day following. In this juncture there was a cessation of 

 work for three days, and then the steward, thinking to fetch a compass about 

 from the eye of the pit that came from the day, and to bring wind by a secure 

 way along with him, that if it burst again it might be done without danger of 

 men's lives, went down and took two men along with him, which served his 

 turti for this time. He was no sooner down but the rest of the workmen that 

 had wrought there, disdaining to be left behind in such a time of danger, hasted 

 down after them, and one of them, more indiscreet than the rest, went head- 

 long with his candle over the eye of the damp-pit, at which the damp immedi- 

 ately catched, and flew over all the hollows of the work, with a great wind and 

 a continual fire, and a prodigious roaring noise. The men at first appearance 



