153 
shows that the immediate cause of the accident was a man 
(William Curtis) going into the gob, where he ought not, 
with a candle.* At the Oaks, the upper class of witnesses, 
skilful in coal working, after hearing the evidence as to the 
finding of the body of William Walton, came to a like con- 
clusion as to the cause of explosion there.f (See table.) But 
even before this they imputed it to a fall of roof in the south 
waste.J In either case the waste is concerned. From 
Oldbury and from Coppull I have not the reports of the 
evidence at the inquests ; my information and my tables are 
therefore less full and precise as to those two than the others. 
At Oldbury, however, the ‘‘old sides” were professedly walled 
olF, but two of the walls were “ uncapped;” “probably not 
produced by the accident,” says Mr. Warington Smyth.§ 
The old sides, or waste, therefore, most likely, were con- 
cerned. At Coppull, “ the roof is free from gas, and even 
after it has fallen down, and left large cavities above, is said 
not to harbour any other noxious gas than ‘ black damp.’ ”|| 
But if not given out by these cavities, it must collect in them. 
At Darley Mr. Tremenheere says, “ The colliery was worked 
on a plan by which, as the coal was got out, large cavities 
were left, only partially filled up by the breaking down of the 
roof ; and those cavities became so many magazines of explo- 
sive gas.” In at least four mines, then, the great reservoir of 
inflammable gas was the goaf, and in three others very 
probably so. At Oldham alone was the gas collected 
evidently in the working parts, or bays, of the mine. 
We need not wonder, then, seeing the special danger 
which attends the goaf, that Faraday and Lyall, at Has- 
well, directed their attention almost exclusively to some 
special means of ventilating it ; nor that in the instructions 
* Report, p. 38. 
t Joseph Littlewood, p. 63 ; B. Byram, Esq., p. 66 ; Mr. Utley, p. 66. 
1 B. Byram, Esq., p. 66. § Report, p. 47. || P. 47. 
