COLLIERY EXPLOSIONS AND THE WEATHER OF 1885. ANON. 249 
Mardy — contributed between them 302 deaths. It may, perhaps, be 
some small satisfaction to compare our own losses with those an- 
nounced from foreign coalfields during the same period. Of course 
we only hear of very important disasters, so that the 15 fatal explo- 
sions and 550 deaths telegraphed from the Continent and America will 
fall far short of the actual total. In the year 1884 the deaths at 
home were only 65, whereas abroad they amounted to at least 420. 
Looked at from any point of view these figures speak highly in favour 
of the general excellency of the management of our home mines. 
At intervals throughout the year warnings have been published 
calling the attention of miners to dangers to be appremended from 
changes of atmospheric pressure. These warnings, which have now 
been before the public for five years, are based mainly upon the dis- 
tribution of areas of high barometer readings, or anticyclones. An 
examination of the occurrence of explosions with the prevailing- 
atmospheric conditions during the past year again favours the results 
obtained from similar comparisons in previous years. Eleven out of 
the sixteen explosions were accompanied by a higher or rising baro- 
meter, while with the remaining five the mercury was low or falling. 
To the former may be added a serious outburst of gas at the Monk 
Bretton Colliery, from January 13th to 16tli, necessitating the with- 
drawal of the men from the workings for about three days. These 
facts indicate that if lives are to be saved, and the number of explo- 
sions still further reduced, all persons having anything to do with 
underground workings must sacrifice the very popular idea that a low 
or falling barometer is the only time when gas becomes dangerous and 
explosions are likely to occur. Let us consider some of the events 
of the past year, and then refer to elaborate series of observations 
specially made in connection with atmospheric changes and the 
appearance of gas in mines. 
On the morning of January 10th a very rapid fall of the baro- 
meter was advancing across the northern districts from the Atlantic, 
when a drawer at the Whitebrick CoUiery, near Blackburn, opened 
his lamp to give another workman a light, and the gas immediately 
fired. There were over eighty men in the workings, but only the three 
persons near the seat of the explosion were injured ; the workings 
