Mr. Bubble's Account of the Explosion in Jarroiso Colliery. 205 



either myself or any person else who heard them had ever experienced. 

 And it is by no means improbable that the forcing out of the block of 

 coal in the face of the fore drift, when the accident happened, may 

 be attributed to an eruption of a similar nature, but of much greater 

 magnitude. 



In driving the second west drifts F, G, H, I, Plate XVIII., a power- 

 ful eruption of inflammable air occurred in December, and a similar one 

 in January. Both these eruptions forced off a mass of Coal from the face 

 of the fore drift, and discharged a large bag of foulness precisely similar, 

 but of less magnitude, to that which occasioned the accident on the Sd of 

 August. Both these eruptions occurred at small hitches in the seam, ac- 

 companied by linings of danty or disintegrated Coal, from which it is to 

 be presumed that the law of this part of the mine is to discharge its 

 gas from those reservoirs or fissures of disintegrated Coal ; as very little 

 gas is discharged from the pores of the good Coal. It would seem as if 

 those fissures of disintegrated Coal formed runners, channels, or out- 

 lets for the gas which has been evolved from the adjoining mass of Coal. 



The east drifts have only been extended a few yards beyond the 

 hitch where the accident happened, as it has not yet been necessary to 

 pursue them further. 



February 1, 1831. 



