619 
The above confirms on a large and practical scale, the 
conclusion we have arrived at on the small scale, viz., that 
hitherto the Stephenson lamp is the one most to be relied 
upon, under all circumstances, and that some of the so-called 
safety lamps ought to be rejected as worthless, for there is 
the appearance of safety without the reality. 
OBSERVATIONS ON VENTILATION IN RELATION TO COLLIERY 
DISASTERS. BY RICHARD CARTER, C.E., BARNSLEY. 
Having on two previous occasions — the 16th July, 1857, 
and 1st ^November, 1860 respectively, brought the subject 
of Colliery Ventilation under notice of this Society, I can 
only plead its vast importance, not only to private enterprise, 
but also to the interests of the community generally, as my 
apology for reverting to it again on the present occasion. 
Ten years have elapsed since the first paper, which was 
immediately prompted by the dreadful explosion at Lundhill ; 
and although something has been done to ameliorate the 
frightful hazards attendant on ventilation in practice, the 
interval has not sufficed to produce anything like immunity 
from those desolating calamities, which seem periodically to 
spread their fatal and ruinous gloom, over this, and similar 
colliery districts of the country. Minor calamities have 
from time to time served to keep the subject alive in the 
public mind, but it was reserved for another repetition of 
disaster at the Oaks Colliery, within little more than a mile 
from where we are now assembled, to renew with appalling 
force and impressiveness, the dread relation, in which the 
subject of ventilation is still associated with the interests of 
humanity, as well as commercial and national wealth. The 
awful fatality which attended the Oaks explosion of the 
12th December last — surpassing in heart-rending sacrifice 
of life, all the events of its kind which have hitherto 
