EXPLOSIONS IN MINES.

Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 69, 24 March 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

EXPLOSIONS IN MINES.

The investigation of the cause of explosions in mines and of the means of preventing them have been favorite themes with professors of science and inventors, because the question is capable of being discussed on theoretical grounds, and there always seemed to be a possibility of devising some way of dealing with the problem in such a way as to render explosions impossible. Hundreds of safety lamps have been invented, and yet not one of them can be said to satisfy requirements. The old Davy and Stephenson lamps were successfully adopted and served their purpose well for a time, but they are no longer reliable. When they were first introduced there was very little ventilation and no considerable currents of air, so that the meshes of the wire-gauze could effectually isolate the flame till the lamp was extinguished. By the improvements in ventilation the mine is traversed by strong air-currents, aud these carry the flame through the wire-gauze iti such a way that the Davy is no better than a naked light. Improvements have been made on it, but it remains in an unsatisfactory state. " (Edipuß "of the Leader says that miners dislike all safety lamps, and their representative in Parliament, Mr. Burt, says that they are right. Sir Frederick Abel, who is well up in the subject, is lecturing upon it at the Society of Arts, but so far as he has gone he has dealt only with its difficulties. It was reasonably hoped that the electric light would be available as a safe illuminant of mines ; but the electriciaus themselves are not at all confident about it. Therein, I think, they are wrong. The incandescent lamps look as if they were very safe, and although not altogether be-

yond the reach of accident — (what is 1) — they meet all the requirements, except that of being carried about. Considering the length of time the subject has been under discussion the results are nothing to boast of. Mining accidents do not excite public sympathy uuless they are ou tin extensive scale, and yet the loss of life from the number of repetitions of the smaller class of accidents is much greater than tha loss from the greater catastrophes. In England the public attention is fixed upon the disasters caused by explosions, because their victims are usually reckoned by scores and hundreds, although the number of deaths caused by falls of earth or rock is very much greater. In 1884 there were 65"deaths from explosions, 482 from falls of roofs and sides, and 325 from other causes. Even in the most disastrous year, 1878, when the total number of deaths from all causes was 1413, only 586 were due to explosions. All mining accidents are preventible, and it is therefore a pity that efforts at improvement are not more general. If any class demands more attention than another, it is that which depends upon the proper timbering of the workings. The remark is applicable to every country where mining is carried on. The case is one, however, which cannot be disposed of in any wholesale manner. The best and only universally applicable preventives are the spread of information, and the proper distribution of individual responsibility, and the encouragement of enlightened co-operation. . Except in the way of imparting knowledge science can do little in the way of mitigating disaster, and there is here no scope for the ingenuity of the inventor.