1813.] 



Accident at Felling Colliery » 



363 



their bodies in various directions^ in the manner that the waves 

 heave and toss a buoy at sea. As soon as the atmospheric cur- 

 rent returned down the shaft, they were drawn to hank. 



This expedient of lying down and sufi'ering the fury of the 

 blast to roll over them, is mentioned in the life of Lord Keeper 

 North, under the year 1676*. It is most efficacious where the 

 mine is wet, for atmospheric air always accompanies running 

 water; but the warning of a blast being usually sudden, it 

 requires a degree of experience and coolness, not commonly 

 united, to exercise any precaution against it. The miner 

 knowing its irresistible power, instantly sees the inefficacy of 

 every attempt to escape, and, like a physician attacked by some 

 incurable complaint, and, conscious that his art is unequal to its 

 cure, makes no struggle to save his life. 



As each of the party came up, he was surrounded by a group 

 of anxious inquirers. All their reports were equally hopeless ; 

 and the second explosion so strongly corroborated their account 

 of the impure state of the mine, that their assertions for the 

 present seemed to be credited. - But this impression was only 

 momentary. On recollection, they remembered that persons 

 had survived similar accidents, and w4ien the mine was opened, 

 been found alive. Three had been shut up during 40 days in a 

 pit near Byker, and all that period had subsisted on candles and 

 horse beans. Persons, too, were not wanting to infect the 

 minds of the relatives of the sufferers with disbelief in the 

 accounts of the persons who had explored the mine. It was 

 suggested to them, that want of courage, or bribery, might be 

 inducements to magnify the danger, and represent the impossi- 

 bility of reaching the bodies of the unfortunate men. By this 

 species of wicked industry, the grief of the neighbourhood 

 began to assume an irritable and gloomy aspect. I'he proposi- 

 tion to exclude the atmospheric air from the mine, in order to 

 extinguish the fire, was therefore received with the cries of 

 " Murder,'' and with determinations of opposing the proceeding. 



Many of the widows continued about the mouth of the John 

 Pit during the whole of Monday night, with the hope of hearing 

 the voice of a husband or a son calling for assistance. 



On Tuesday the 26th of May, the natural propension of the 

 human mind to be gratified with spectacles of horror was strongly 

 exemplified. An immense crowd of colliers from various parts, 

 but especially from the banks of the river Wear, assembled 

 round the pits, and were profuse in reproaches on the persons 

 concerned in the mine, for want of exertion to recover the 

 men. Every one had some example to relate of successful 

 -attempts in cases of this kind, — all were large in tlieir profes- 

 sions of readiness to give assistance ; but none v/ere found to 

 enter the inflammable jaws of the mine. Their reasonings and 



