64 



A nniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



Tlie work of the Royal Commission on Accidents in Mines during 

 the past year has been of such great interest, both from a scientific 

 and from a practical point of view, that I venture to note at length 

 some notes upon it, furnished to me by our Fellow, Mr. Warington 

 Smyth, the Chairman. 



A preliminary report was presented before the end of the Session 

 1881, drawing attention, under the chief heads of the subject, to the 

 facts and opinions elicited, from the examination of a large number of 

 competent witnesses. 



Experimental inquiries, which will be the subject of a further 

 report, have been instituted for the purposes of testing the various 

 safety-lamps in use, as well as the numerous modifications recently 

 proposed, and of determining the effect of coal-dust in causing or 

 aggravating explosions. From time to time, also, experiments have 

 been made with a view to substitute, in the breaking down of coal, 

 some other means for the gunpowder- shots which have so often, by 

 their flame, caused the ignition of fire-damp. 



The presence of a powerful "blower" of natural gas at the 

 Garswood Hall Colliery, near Wigan, with the facilities offered by the 

 proprietors, induced the Commission to erect suitable apparatus for a 

 long series of these trials, and now that it appears desirable to com- 

 pare the results with what may be obtained, in another district, and 

 with a differently constituted fire-damp, the whole of the apparatus is. 

 in course of erection at a colliery in the Rhondda Valley, where a very 

 permanent "blower" offers similar advantages. 



In the course of the lamp experiments it came out very clearly, in 

 confirmation of statements before made, that the greatly augmented 

 ventilation in our larger modern collieries has put an end to the 

 fancied security of the simple Davy and Clanny lamps. Their use 

 in fact, unless they be protected by some farther contrivance, is 

 attended with the most imminent risk when the velocity of a current 

 liable to be rendered explosive, exceeds six feet a second. A high 

 degree of importance thus attaches to the comparative trials of lamps 

 in which the flame is sufficiently shielded against the impinging stream 

 of air, and those w hich have the property when immersed in an ex- 

 plosive mixture, of rapidly quenching both the flame of the wick 

 and of the burning fire-damp. 



The terrible disaster which occurred in September, 1880, at the 

 Seaham Colliery, drew more anxious attention than ever to the 

 question of the part played by coal-dust, and a special reference 

 having been made by the Secretary of State for the Home Depart- 

 ment to Professor Abel, C.B., the experiments at Garswood Hall 

 were largely extended. Some of the results were very remarkable ; 

 the proportion of fire-damp present with the air may be so small 

 as to elude detection by the ordinary test of the carefully watched 



