COAL, 
the earth. But the mines near Whitehaven 
■will affor(J the best idea of these wonderful 
places. We learn that these coal mines are 
perhaps the most extraordinary of any in 
the known world. The principal enti’ance 
for men and horses is by an opening at the 
bottom of a hill, through a long passage 
hewn in the rock, which, by a steep descent 
leads down to the lowest vein of coal. The 
greatest part of this descent is through spa- 
cious galleries, which continually inter- 
sect each Other; all the coal being cut 
away, except large pillars, which, in deep 
parts of the mine are three yards high, and 
twelve square at the base. The mines are 
sunk to the deptli of a hundred and thirty 
fathoms, and are extended under the sea to 
places where, above them, the water is of 
sufficient depth for ships of large burthen. 
These are the deepest coal mines that have 
hitherto been wrought, and perhaps the 
miners have not in ,any other part of the 
globe penetrated to so great a depth below 
the surface, of the sea; the very deep mines 
in Hungary, Peru, and elsewhere, being 
situated in mountainous countries, where 
the surface of the earth is elevated to a 
great height above the level of the ocean. 
There are here three strata of coal, which 
lie at a considerable distance, one above 
another ; the communication between each 
is preserved by pits. The vein is not always 
regularly continued in the same inclined 
plane, but is sometimes interrupted by 
hard rocks, and in those places the earth 
seems to have sunk downwards from the 
surface, while the part adjoining hath re- 
tained its ancient situation. These breaks 
the miners call dykes, and when tltey meet 
with one of them, they first observe whe- 
ther the direction of the strata is higher or 
lower than in the part where they have 
been working. If, to employ their own 
terms, it is cast down, tliey sink a pit to it 
with little trouble; but should it, on the 
contrary, be cast up to any considerable 
height, they are frequently obliged to carry 
a long level through the rock witli much ex- 
pense and difficulty, till they again ai'rive 
at the vein of coal. 
In these deep and extensive works, the 
greatest care is requisite to keep them con- 
tinually ventilated with perpetual cm-rents 
of fresli air, to expel the damps , and other 
noxious exhalations, and supply the miners 
with a sufficiency of that vital fluid. In 
the deserted works, large quantities of 
these damps are frequently collected, and 
pften remain for a long time without doing 
any mischief ; but when, by some accident, 
they are set on fire, they produce dreadful 
and destructive explosions, and burst out 
of the pits with great impetuosity, like the 
fiery eruptions from burning mountains. 
The coal in these mines hath several times 
been set on fire by the fulminating damp, 
and continued burning many months until 
large streams of water were conducted 
into the mines, and suffered to fill those 
parts where the coal was on fire. Several 
collieries have been entirely destroyed by 
such fires ; of these there ai'e instances 
near Newcastle, and in other parts of Eng.^ 
land, and in the shire of Fife in Scotland ; 
in some of which places the fire has conti- 
nued burning for ages. To prevent as 
much as possible the collieries from bemg 
filled with these pernicious damps, it has 
been found necessary to search for those 
crevices.in tire coal whence they issue, and 
then confine them within a narrow space, 
from which they are afterwards conducted 
through long tubes into the open air, where, 
being set an fire, they consume in perpe- 
tual flames, as they continually arise out of 
the earth. The late Mr. Spedding, who 
was the great engineer of those works, 
having observed that the fulminating damp 
could only be kindled by flame, and was 
not liable to be set on fire by red hot iron, 
nor by the sparks, produced by the colli- 
sion of flint and steel, invented a machine, 
in which, while a steel wheel is turned 
round with a very rapid motion, flints are 
applied to it, and by the abundance of 
fiery sparks emitted, the miners are enabled 
to carry on their work in places where the 
flame of a lamp or candle would occasion 
dreadful explosions. Without some inven- 
tion of this sort, the working of these 
mines would long ago have been impracti- 
cable, so greatly arc tliey annoyed by these 
inflammable damps. Fewer mines, how- 
ever, have been ruined by fire than by 
inundations ; and here that noble piece of 
mechanism the steam-engine displays its 
beneficial effects. When the four engines 
belonging to this colliery are all at work, 
they discharge 1228 gallons of water eveiy 
minute at thirteen strokes; and, after the 
same rate, 1,768,320 gallons every twenty- 
four hours. 
The road from the Whitehaven coal-mines 
to the water side is mostly on a gentle des- 
cent, and provided with an iron railway: 
this, by removing much of the friction, ex- 
ceedingly facilitates the carriage of the coals 
to the shipping, which are laid alongside 
