1813.] 



Accident at Felling Colliery » 



places deprived of the atmospheric current, and continue to 

 train their dreadful artillery, and grow strong in danger, till the 

 luaste-men, or ventilators of the mine, discover them, and wash 

 them off, or they ignite at the workmen's candles. Blasts 

 occurring in partial stagnations, as in the face of one or two 

 boards, though they generally scorch the persons in their 

 way, seldom kill them ; but when the air has proceeded lazily 

 for several days through a colliery, and an extensive magazine 

 of fire-damp is ignited in the wastes, then the whole mine is 

 instantly illuminated with the most brilliant lightning — the 

 expanded fluid drives before it a roaring v/hirlwind of flaming 

 air, which tears up every thing in its progress, scorching some 

 of the miners to a cinder, burying others under enormous heaps 

 of ruins shaken from the roof, and, thundering to the shafts, 

 wastes its volcanic fury in a discharge of thick clouds of coal 

 dust, stones, timber, and not unfrequently limbs of men and 

 horses. 



But this first, though apparently the most terrible, is not the 

 most destructive effect of these subterraneous thunderings. All 

 the stoppings and trap-doors of the mine being blown down by 

 the violence of the concussion, raid the atmospheric current 

 being for a short time entirely excluded from the workings, those 

 that survived the discharge of the fire-damp are instantly suttb- 

 cated by the after-damp^ which immediately fills up the vacuum 

 caused by the explosion. 



This after-damp is called choak-damp and surfeit by the 

 colliers, and is the carbonic acid gas of chemists. While the 

 mine is at work, it lies sluggishly upon its floor, and suffers the 

 atmospheric air, as a lighter fluid, to swim upon it : lire-damp 

 being the lighest of the three, floats upon the atmospheric air, 

 and therefore occupies a space, according to its present quantity, 

 nearest the roof of the mine. 



The coals from the boards on each side of the William 'Pit 

 were conveyed in strong wicker baskets called corves, to the 

 crane, on trams, a narrow frame-woik of wood moanted on 

 four low wheels : this work was done by barroivwen acd prttters^ 

 some of whom are men, and manage a tram singly, by t,oiog 

 behind it and pushing it forward 5 these are called hewing 



three days by any intelligent person. To attempt to describe that 

 method here would serve no purpose ; but it would give rne great 

 pleasure to explain it to any mine-masters or overseers who w?s!j to 

 prevent such disasters. I have not the least doubt that by a daily 

 experiment, which would not occupy more than a quarter of an 

 hour, all accidents from flre-damps might be effectually guarded 

 against. 



