577 
sympathies of the public ; and if to dissipate this ignorance, 
is at once to promote their physical as well as moral safety, 
surely no object more worthy can elicit the beneficence and 
support of every humane and sympathising heart. 
ON THE MIXED USE OF DAVY LAMPS AND NAKED LIGHTS 
IN COAL MINES. BY E. W. BINNEY, ESQ., F.R.S., F.G.S. 
The mixed use of Davy lamps and naked lights in coal 
mines is a subject well worthy of the attention of a body like 
the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society. By the 
term mixed use, it is not only intended to apply to Davy 
lamps and candles, but to include lamps with the gauze so 
secured as a workman may open it either with his fingers or 
the use of a knife, an old nail, or such like instrument. 
It is not necessary here to deprecate the use of lamps as a 
substitute for thorough and efficient ventilation. The illus- 
trious inventor of the lamp never intended that it should be so 
used, and no coal proprietor who at all considers his own pro- 
perty or values the lives of his workmen would ever think of so 
using it. The first point to be attended to in a mine that gives 
out light carburetted hydrogen gas is to remove it as soon as 
possible by good ventilation. When this has been done, the 
lamp should be employed as a precaution against any stop- 
page in the ventilation by falls of roof or derangement of air- 
courses, or by the sudden liberation of gas from the roof or 
other part of the mine. 
Lamps are frequently used on the opening of a seam of 
coal, in driving fast places, and where pillars are being robbed 
or worked back, whilst naked lights are in use over the 
greater part of the mine. This is the dangerous admixture 
that it is desirable should be openly condemned. The most 
experienced miner or best scientific man shall not be able to 
Y Y 
