1^1 3.j Accident at Felling Colliery^ 



the tube drift of this shaft : this drift had long 

 been closed^ but the additional stopping was 

 added, for greater security against the fire 

 damp escaping. 



Preparations now began to be made for 

 re-opening the mine. For this purpose a 

 brattice or partition of thin deals, began to be 

 put down the William Pit; of which and its 

 furnace-tube and whim-gin, the annexed figure 

 is a section. The black line down the shaft 

 represents the brattice, which, in this case, was 

 made to assist the workmen in raising the clay 

 thrown down the shaft on the 27th and 29th of 

 May. 



About this time many idle tales were circu- 

 lated through the country concerning several 

 of the men finding their way to the shafts, and being recoveredo 

 Their number was circumstantially told— how they subsisted on 

 candles, oats, and beans — ^how they heard the persons, who 

 visited the mine on the day of the accident, and the Wednesday 

 following, but were too feeble to speak sufficiently loud to make 

 themselves heard. Some conjurer, too, it was said, had set his 

 spells and divinations to work, and penetrated the whole secrets 

 of the mine. He had discovered one famishing group receiving 

 drops of water from the roof of the mine— another eating their 

 shoes and clothes, and other such pictures of misery. These 

 inventions were carefully related to the widows, and answered 

 the purpose of every day harrowing up their sorrows afresh. 

 Indeed, it seemed the chief employment of some to m.ake a 

 kind of insane sport of their own and their neighbours' calamity. 



On the i9th of June, it was discovered that the water oozing 

 out of the tubbing of the William Pit, had risen to the height 

 of 24 feet upon the clay. On the 3d of July, this being all 

 overcome, the brattice finished, and a great part of the clay 

 drawn up, the sinkers began to bore a crow-hole at O, out of 

 the shaft into the north drift. On the next day, the stoppings 

 in the tube drift of the John Pit were taken down, and the bore- 

 hole finished, through which the air passed briskly into the mine> 

 and ascended by the John Pit tube. 



Some experiments made on the fire-damp, by collecting it in 

 bladders in the John Pit tube, before the bore-hole was opened, 

 proved that it would not ignite previous to its mixture with 

 atmospheric air. This shaft became an up-cast at three in the 

 afternoon of the 5th of July ; at seven on the same day, the 

 iire-damp exploded on its being exposed to the flame of a candle. 

 ¥mm the 6th to the Sth^ it continued in the same state j and 



