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arrested, of people who appear to have known but little of the 
grand doctrines of modern geology. 
Their humble wants, as the measure of their operations, 
abundantly justified the neglect, on their part, of any elaborate 
systems of ventilation, even if the proximity to the surface 
had not exonerated them from the troublesome gases which 
endanger the operations of their ultimate successors. 
But, passing from these early adventurers, what do we next 
become acquainted with ? A bolder system of penetrating the 
seams, by means of shafts, and traversing the mineral stratum 
to greater or less distances, as occasion seemed to justify. 
This continued till, by degrees, the necessities of ventilation 
had ended in something like the scheme of Intake, Distribu- 
tion, and Upcast, which we find in very general operation at 
the present day. How was our friend Economy behaving all 
the while ? Did he invite poor Safety to his counsels, and 
with the vastly altered circumstances suggest a remodelling 
of the plan of operation ? No, he even grudged the expense 
of an additional shaft, as an Upcast for the special purposes 
of ventilation, and actually made "a shift" for the emergency, 
by tubbing (or to use perhaps a more polite expression) 
" bretticing-off" a portion of the existing one, and thus 
performing all the operations of drawing the coal, — taking- 
in air for ventilating the works, and discharging the air after 
doing so, within the area of one small aperture or shaft, 
which in all probability was in its dimensions scarcely adequate 
for any one of the purposes, separately, which we have just 
specified. 
Science beheld in sorrow the events as they occurred. But 
what wonder that she should fail to descend into the workings 
when she witnessed what was done on the surface ! 
A third era has dawned upon us ; and, notwithstanding the 
stupendous growth of the trade, the immense increase in the 
population employed in it, and must we not add of the dangers 
