1813.] Accident at Felling Colliery, 361 



pit to the distance of a mile and a half. In the village of 

 Heworth, it caused a darkness like that of early twilight, and 

 covered the roads so thickly, that the footsteps of passengers 

 were strongly imprinted in it. The heads of both the shaft- 

 frames were blown off, their sides set on fire, and their pullies 

 shattered in pieces ; but the pullies of the John Pit gin, being 

 on a crane not within the influence of the blast, were fortunately 

 preserved. The coal dust, ejected from the William Pit into the 

 drift or horizontal parts of ibe tube^ was about three inches 

 thick, and soon burnt to a light cinder. Pieces of burning coal, 

 driven off the solid stratum of the mine, were also blown up 

 this shaft. 



As soon as the explosion was heard, the wives and children of 

 the workmen ran to the working-pit. Wildness and terror were 

 pictured in every countenance. The crowd from all sides soon 

 collected to the number of several hundreds, some crying out 

 for a husband, others for a parent, or a son, and all deeply 

 affected with an admixture of horror, anxiety, and grief. 



The machine being rendered useless by the eruption, the rope 

 of the gin was sent down the pit with all expedition. In the 

 absence of horses, a number of men, whom the wish to be 

 instrumental in rescuing their neighbours from their perilous 

 situation, seemed to supply with strength proportionate to the 

 urgency of the occasion, put their shoulders to the starts or shafts 

 of the gin, and wrought it with astonishing expedition. By 

 twelve o'clock, 32 persons, all that survived this dreadful cala- 

 mity, were brought to day-light. The dead bodies of two boys, 

 ^umbers I and 4,* who were miserably scorched and shattered, 

 were also brought up at this time : three boys, viz. numbers 2, 3, 

 and 5, out of the 32 who escaped alive, died within a few hours 

 after the accident. Only 29 persons were, therefore, left to re- 

 late what they observed of the appearances and effects of this 

 subterraneous thundering: 121 were in the mine when it hap- 

 pened, and 87 remained in the workings. One overman, tv/o 

 wastemen, two deputies, one headsman or putter (who had a 

 violent tooth-ache), and two masons, in d\\ eight persons, came 

 up at different intervals, a short time before the explosion. 



They who had their friends restored, hastened with them from 

 the dismal scene, and seemed for a while to suffer as much from 

 the excess of joy as they had lately done from grief; and they 

 who v»?ere yet held in doubt concerning the fate of their relations 

 and friends, filled the air with shrieks and bowlings ; went about 

 wringing their hands; and threw their bodies into the most 

 frantic and extravagant gestures. 



The persons who now remained in the mine, had all beei^ 



* fhe numbers refer to the situations of ths suHerers in tlse plate. 



