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extreme point of the estate to be worked ; and the inutility 
of such a course would be the more apparent when it was 
remembered that many of the estates worked in the neigh- 
bourhood of Barnsley were — not 120 acres, as laid down in 
Mr. Brakenridge's plan — but 1,000 and 1,500 acres. Now, 
if they started at the engine-pit and pushed their working 
to the up-cast before they fairly began to get the coal, they 
would be very expeditious to complete that preliminary work 
in two years and a half. Now, that was precisely the most 
dangerous period of a mine, because of the difficulty of 
expelling the foul air, before they had got their straight work 
for ventilation completed. He thought, too, that Mr. 
Brakenridge had begun at the wrong end ; because what was 
really wanted was, a means of ventilation which should put an 
end, as far as possible, to these constantly-recurring explo- 
sions in existing collieries. Instead of doing that, Mr. 
Brakenridge had confined himself to what he conceived 
would be the best and safest means of laying out and working 
a new mine. The first and great question was, how to put 
existing collieries in a state of safety with respect to gas ? 
and when they had succeeded in that, — when they had 
succeeded in expelling the gas as fast as it arose, and replacing 
it with pure air, — all danger in coal mining would be over, even 
were the West Riding one vast goaf. The sixteen yard 
bank pillars proposed to be left by Mr. Brakenridge, would, 
before they were worked under that gentleman's system, be 
ground to powder and buried ; and, instead of getting an 
improved quality of coal by the wide workings, all experience 
went to prove that they would get 20 per cent, less market- 
able coal from wide than from narrow workings. With 
regard to the safety of the miners in case of an explosion, in 
a mine worked on Mr. Brakenridge's principle, it was known 
that the concussion was always towards the place where the 
pure air entered the mine, and not towards the up-cast. 
