[ 21 8 ] 
MEMORAN DU M. 
B EING engaged in /Middleton wood, the eftate 
of Brandling, Efq; near Leeds in York- 
'fhire, in diretfting the falling and barking of a 
large quantity of timber, bought of him in May i 758, 
I was witnefs of the following a - .dent. Some 
miners, being to renew their operations on the fhaft 
o'f a coaB pit, whidi, in a farmer year, had been 
funk to the depth of fixty yards, in order to get 
through a ftratum of ve y hard ftone, thought pro- 
per to drill holes, and fill them with gunpowder. 
They afterwards, from the top, threw down fire to 
blaft the ftone, which made a report little louder 
than that of a piftol ; but the blaze, fetting the foul 
air on fire, produced an eftedt truly fhocking. The 
whole wood was fihaken, the works at the mouth 
of the pit were all blown to pieces, and the explolion 
was fuch as cannot.be defcribed. The vacuum ,in 
the air was fo confiderable, that oak trees of a load or 
more each, at a great diftance from the pit’s mouth, 
that before flood upright, ftooped to war the pit 
, very much, and muft have fallen wholly down, had 
not the air been inftantly replaced. The bark-pullers, 
at a quarter of a mile from the pit, were fo alarmed 
by the (baking and explofion, that not one of them 
would have remained in the wood, had they at- 
tempted to blaft it again. 
N. B. The trees in the whole circuit ftooped to- 
wards the pit. 
The End of Volume LXIII. Part I. 
