180 The Ventilation of Coal Mines. [April, 



his work, and rectify errors in English names, such as that of 

 Brande, which he spells Brandes, for he must know that the 

 brotherhood between the scientific circles of France and Ed gland is 

 becoming more and more intimate every year, and increased 

 accuracy is required in the record of their respective labours. 



It is to promote the closer union of the scientific men on either 

 side of the Channel that we have chosen M. Figuier as the subject 

 of this memoir. We might, it is true, have selected Frenchmen 

 more deeply versed in some particular branch of science, and better 

 known in our own scientific sphere ; but we think that the account 

 we have given of the useful and varied labours of M. Figuier, the 

 favour with which his treatises have been received in England, and 

 the influence they are likely to exercise upon his own vivacious and 

 somewhat volatile countrymen, sufficiently justify our choice in this 

 respect, and we hope to receive many more works from the pen of 

 the same zealous and accomplished author. 



V. THE VENTILATION OF COAL MINES. 



By Robert Hunt, F.R.S., Keeper of the Mining Records. 



The terrific explosion of fire-damp in the Oaks colliery near 

 Barnsley, by which more men were killed than were ever sacrificed 

 in any mine in the world at one time, and the scarcely less sad 

 calamity at the Talk-o'-th'-Hill colliery in North Staffordshire, have 

 forcibly drawn attention to the modes employed for the extraction 

 of coal from the inclosing rocks. The results of the inquiries 

 instituted have served to prove that, in the colliery where the 

 greater number of lives were lost, all the arrangements were such as 

 would be produced under the most satisfactory management ; whilst 

 in the other there were evidences of neglect arising from the lax 

 system of discipline which prevailed. Therefore, in re-examining 

 the question of ventilation — which appears necessary, since we 

 desire to remove some of the numerous errors which prevail — we 

 may keep before us with advantage these Yorkshire and Stafford- 

 shire collieries as representing respectively a good and an imperfect 

 system of coal-mining. 



The Inspector's reports, which have been published regularly for 

 ten years, inform us that about 1,000 men are killed annually in 

 this country, in raising our coal from its bed. This has been long 

 known, but, excepting by those who are directly brought in contact 

 with the coal-mining population, it has passed unheeded. It is only 

 when a great catastrophe occurs — and scores, or it may be hundreds, 

 of men are killed — that public attention is aroused, and directed to 



