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ADDRESS. 39 
employment of those explosive agents in the presence of fire-damp mixtures 
without risk of accident, and the practical verification of this conclusion 
has led to the effective use of such mixtures as safe blasting-agents in coal. 
Those who have been content to labour long and arduously with the 
objects steadily in view of advancing our knowledge of the causes of 
mine-accidents and of developing resources and measures for removing 
or combating those causes, can cherish the conviction that recent legis- 
lation in connection with coal-mines, based upon the results of those 
labours, has been already productive of decided benefits to the miner, 
even although it has fallen short of what might reasonably have been 
hoped for as an outcome of the very definite results and conclusions 
arrived at by the late Royal Commission on Accidents in Mines (in the 
recent much-lamented death of whose universally respected chairman, my 
late esteemed friend and colleague, Sir Warington Smyth, the scientific 
world has sustained the loss of an ardent worker, and the miner, of an 
invaluable friend). 
The fearful dangers arising from the accumulation of inflammable dust 
in coal-mines, and the equality of mine-dust with fire-damp in its direful 
power of propagating explosions, which may sometimes even be, in the first 
instance, established chiefly or entirely through its agency, have now been 
long recognised as beyond dispute; andit is satisfactory to know that permis- 
sion to fire shots in mine-workings which are dry and dusty has, by recent 
legislation, been made conditional upon the previous laying of the dust 
by effective watering. In some mining districts, moreover, the purely 
voluntary practice has been extensively adopted, by mine-owners, of 
periodically watering the main roads in dry and dusty mines, or of 
frequently discharging water-spray into the air in such roads, which must 
tend greatly to reduce the possible magnitude of the disastrous results 
of a fire-damp- or dust-explosion in any part of the mine-workings. 
The encouragement given to the application of the combined resources 
of ingenuity, mechanical skill, and knowledge of scientific principles, 
through the elaborate, but thoroughly practical, comparative trials to 
which almost every variety of safety-lamp has, during the last few 
years, been submitted by competent and conscientious experimenters, 
has resulted in the provision of lamps to the hand of the miner which 
combine the essential qualities of safety, under the most exceptionally 
severe conditions, with good illuminating power, simplicity of construc- 
tion, lightness, and moderate cost. Very important progress has also 
been made, since the first appointment of the late Accidents in Mines 
Commission, towards the provision of thoroughly serviceable and safe 
portable electric lamps for use in mines. Of those which have already 
been in the hands of the miners, several have fairly fulfilled his require- 
ments as regards size, weight, and good illuminating power of sufficient 
duration; but much still remains to be accomplished with respect to 
durability, simplicity, thorough portability, and cost, before the self- 
