Mr. Buddle's Account of the Explosion injarraw Colliery. 193 



through the stenting D a, by the current of fresh air, into the back 

 headways, along which it was carried by the returning current of air to 

 the upcast shaft. The air stopping had been blown out of this stenting 

 by the explosion. At the point D, they found William Brown, the 

 craneman, who had escaped from the crane g, lying in a state of insen- 

 sibility — he was severely burnt. 



It was now evident, that every one who might have escaped death, 

 from the immediate effects of the explosion in the workings, on the in- 

 bie side of the horizontal stone-drift, must inevitably be suffocated, un- 

 less the current of fresh air could be immediately forced through that 

 drift to relieve them. Not a moment was lost ; the whole of the men 

 who had escaped from the west division of the workings, with Messrs. 

 Forster, Coxon, and Johnson, set to work with the utmost energy to 

 collect the necessary materials, and to put up a temporary stopping in 

 the place of that which had been demolished in the stenting D, a, a. 

 In the mean time, the overman and many of the workmen from the 

 Slake district had arrived to the assistance of Mr. Forster's party. It 

 was highly to the credit of those people, that on feeling the shock, and 

 ascertaining that the explosion had not happened in their own district — 

 they flew to the shaft to ascertain where it had happened, and then 

 joined Mr. Forster and his party without delay. 



The desired effect was produced by closing the temporary stopping 

 in the stenting, and the smoke and after-damp was so much attenuated 

 as to enable some of the strongest individuals to push forward to the 

 crane at g ; but on arriving there, the smoke and after-damp were so 

 strong, and the heat was so great, that the party were obliged to retreat 

 immediately. And it was but too evident that none of the people who 

 had been employed in the workings to the eastward of the crane g, 

 could then be living. On their way, the party found, at the point E, 

 John Dixon, a trapper, and Thomas Doxford, a putter, two boys in 

 a very exhausted state, Dixon being slightly burnt. He was at the 

 trap-door h, when the explosion happened, the door was shattered in 

 pieces, one of which had got entangled in his garter, and he had 

 crawled over all the wreck, dragging this fragment of the door with 



