310 Mr. Buddle on Mining Records. 



to bring this subject under the notice of the Society at this time, in conse- 

 quence of the completion of the building of the Museum, in which I sub- 

 mit that a division may be most appropriately set apart for the reception 

 of the description of documents and records already alluded to. In this I 

 do not contemplate the submitting of those documents to the unrestrained 

 inspection of the public, but that they should be under the care of the 

 committee for the time being ; and that it should be at the discretion of 

 the committee to permit inspections or copies to be taken. The committee 

 to be empowered to charge such compensation for inspections, or for copies 

 of plans and writings, as they may think reasonable and proper : the monies 

 so to be received to be applied in aid of the funds of the Society, the ulti- 

 mate object being public utility and benefit to the Institution. 



The information to be embraced in those records would probably be 

 most conveniently, for the sake of reference, placed under the following 

 heads : — 



1. The name of the proprietor of the surface and minerals. 



2. The locality and extent of the property. 



3. The number and description of the seams of coal and other minerals 

 which it contains. 



4. The thickness and quality of the several seams of coal ; which of them 

 have been worked ; to what extent they have been worked ; and why the 

 working of any of them has been discontinued or not commenced. 



5. The winning of the colliery. 



6. The system of working. 



7. The dip and rise of the colliery, and description of the several slip 

 dykes, &c. 



8. Accidents by explosion. 



9. What other accidents have happened in the colliery, with their causes. 



10. The system of ventilation practised. 



11. General observations. 



As an illustration of the plan here proposed for preserving colliery re- 

 cords, I beg to present the Society with an account of the celebrated 

 Wallsend Colliery, accompanied with a plan of the workings in the Tyne 

 High Main Seam, as they were left in April, 1831, together with a section 



