I 



B60 Accident at Felling Colliery. [May, 



putters or headsmen: the others are two to a tram, and are 

 called headsmen and foals, the former of whom pull before at a 

 rope they call a soam, and the latter push behind with their 

 shoulders: boys about 15 or 16 years old are employed in this 

 department of the colliery. The crane, at the time of the 

 accident, stood 1 1 pillars up the crane-board : it had been 

 removed from the several pillars which have their uppermost 

 corner canted o^, and a period fixed in the vacancy. The use 

 of the crane is to lift the loaden corves off the trams, upon 

 waggons which differ little from the trams, except in their being 

 larger and stronger. From the crane, about four waggons, each 

 carrying two corves and chained together, were taken to the 

 bottom of the crane-board near number 86, by the machine, 

 called an inclined plane, which draws up the empty waggons by 

 the weight of the loaded ones: the person who regulates this 

 naaehine is called a hrake-man. From the bottom of the 

 in.clined plane, the coals were conveyed on the same waggons to 

 the John Pit. 



This mine was considered by the workmen a model of perfec- 

 tion in the purity of its air, and orderly arrangements — its 

 Inclined plane was saving the daily expense of at least 13 horses 

 ^the concern wore the features of the greatest possible pros- 

 perity, and no accident, except a trifling explosion of fire-damp, 

 slightly burning two or three 'workmen, had occurred. Two 

 shifts or sets of men were constantly employed, except on 

 Sundays. Twenty-five acres of coal had been excavated. The 

 first shift entered the mine at four o'clock A. M. and were re- 

 lieved at their working posts by the next at 11 o'clock in the 

 Hiorning. The establishment it employed under-ground, as will 

 foe seen in the succeeding narrative, consisted of about 128 

 persons, who, in the fortnight from the 11th to the 25th of 

 May, 181 2, wrought 624 scores of coal, equal to 1300 New- 

 icasiie chaldrons, or 2455 London chaldrons. 



About half past eleven o'clock on the morning of the 25th 

 May, 1812, tlie neighbouring villages were alarmed by a tre- 

 mendous explosion in this colliery. The subterraneous fire broke 

 forth with two heavy discharges from the Jolih Pit, which were, 

 almost instantaneously, followed by one from the William Pit, 

 ii slight trembling, as from an earthquake, w^as felt for about 

 half a mile around the workings; and the noise of the explo- 

 sion, though dull^ was heard to three or four miles distance, 

 and much resembled an unsteady fire of infantry. Immense 

 quantities of dust and small coal accompanied these blasts, and 

 rose high into the air, in the form of an inverted cone. The 

 heaviest part of the ejected matter, such as corves, pieces of 

 wood, and small coal, fell near the pits; but the dust, borne 

 '^way by a strong west wind, fell m a continued shower from the 



