320 Mr. Buddle on Mining Records. 



reduced the diameter to 5 feet 11 inches within the timber, yet it served the 

 purpose of an engine and coal pit.* Considerable feeders of water were 

 met with in sinking those pits, although none of any material magnitude 

 occurred below the 70 fathoms or three-quarter coal. 



The principal part of those feeders was stopped back by tubbing and 

 wedging, yet when the sinking of the pits was completed there was as 

 much water to be drawn as employed two pumping engines, each delivering 

 a 12-inch bore, to the surface, although no water worth mentioning was 

 met with in the seam. 



The colliery was carried on for some time by those two pits, but great 

 inconvenience, and many interruptions and serious accidents occurred from 

 the inadequate power of the pumping engines, as whenever they were 

 stopped, even for ordinary repairs, the water rose in the workings below 

 and impeded or suspended the ventilation, which occasioned many serious 

 explosions of inflammable air, with which, on its first opening, the colliery 

 abounded. 



These interruptions and accidents pointed out the necessity of having 

 more pits, and about the year 1786 the sinking of the C or Wallsend Pit, 

 and the D or West Pit commenced (Plate XV.). Nothing remarkable oc- 

 curred in the sinking of those pits except a very large feeder of water which was 

 met with at the depth of about 30 fathoms from the surface, in the C Pit. 



This feeder issued from a soft Cash (Metal Stone) parting in the Grind- 

 stone Post ; the parting was 30 inches wide on one side of the shaft, and 

 not more than 5 or 6 inches on the other side. It required a 21-inch and 

 a 14-inch bore, going fourteen 6-feet strokes per minute, to draw the water, 

 so that the feeder must have been about 1,700 gallons per minute. 



Fortunately the stone immediately below the parting afforded an excel- 

 lent bottom for a wedging crib, and the water was effectually stopped by 

 a solid wedging of crib upon crib. The cribs were of oak, 9 inches in the 

 bed, with ^-inch fir sheeting between, and have stood perfectly firm to this 

 day, notwithstanding the creeping of the Main Coal Pillars below, which 

 shook the village of Wallsend adjoining severely. 



* This Quick-sand was secured by a cast-iron tub, in 1792, by my father, which was, 

 as far as I know, die first introduction of cast-iron tubbing. 



