446 Accident at Felli?tg Colliery, [June^ 



of July, was diverted, and thrown up the head- ways from the 

 plane-board. Number 86 perished by the first explosion 5 for as 

 H. Anderson escaped he felt his body under his feet ; but having 

 a living boy in his arms he was unable to bring him out. He 

 was employed in driving a waggon from the south crane at 

 number 88. His horse, which was lying near him^ had been 

 turned round and thrown upon its back, by the force of the 

 blast: its skin, when first visited, was as hard as leather, and, 

 like the bodies of all the men, covered with a white mould : it 

 was dragged whole to the shaft, and sent to bank in a net. After 

 the atmospheric air acted a short time upon it, its skin and flesh 

 soon lost their solidity, and became putrid. 



August the 1st. The men, who had been working in the two 

 boards north of number 87, made their escape up the wall 

 which he was found, to the crane-board, and thence down the 

 head-ways. They called on him as they passed his board, but 

 he made no answer. As he had been late up the night before 

 he is supposed to have been asleep when the accident happened. 

 He was not at the place in which he was found when the men 

 alluded to passed it : it therefore appears that he had made a 

 struggle to escape after it was too late to be successful. A day 

 or two before his death he told some of his friends that he had a 

 strong presage upon his mind that he had only a very short time 

 to live : but who has not many times predicted his death before 

 it arrived ? 



Number 88, discovered on the 3d of August, had the charge 

 of a trap-door io the wall, in which 87 was found. Nature had 

 left something deficient in his brain, which caused an employ- 

 ment to be assigned him in which little memory and contrivance 

 were required. He was found close to the crane, under a very 

 heavy fall. 



All the trap-doors and stoppings in this part of the mine were 

 standing when the workmen escaped. The lamp at the crane 

 was still burning. They found no falls in their way out, nor 

 saw any injury done by the first explosion. But when it came to 

 be explored at this time, the stoppings and trap-doors were 

 blown <lown, the roof fallen, and as great marks of destruction 

 as in any other part of the mine. It is therefore probable that 

 the atmospheric current passing each way, along the double 

 head-ways, intercepted the progress of the first explosion, and 

 prevented its igniting the fire-daoip here. But the choak-damp, 

 pressing up the head- ways to occupy the space of the atmospheric 

 air, threw a train of fire-damp from hence into some part of the 

 mine where the coal was burning, and this little magazine was 

 blov/n up. Perhaps this^^iay serve to explain the cause of the 

 second explosion. 



