The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1906.

Evening Star, Issue 12867, 17 July 1906, Page 4

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1906.

The recent fire at the Molyneux Mine,

though happily without fatal The Atotwdra results,. brings home forcibly * iTtt ' to the outsider the dangers

I inseparably linked -with coal i mining. The law (as administered by the Mines Department) haa mtinimised these as much as possible, and the mine-owners, advised as they are by practical men. who > have themselves worked underground and i realise the need for ca.ro, are generally oon- . scientious in conforming to the regulations j kid down for their guidance. Yet, with j all that foresight and experience can do, serious accidents cannot entirely be guarded against, and the very men -who Worked so i nobly at Alexandra to rescue their en- ; tombed comrades can never tell from day to day when tliey themselves may be in like caee. Tamely, a well-known authority on coal mining, says: j Where naked lights are used, the ocj currence of fires may be expected sooner : or later, for there is generally plenty of inflammable material ready. They may ! arise from such causes as a light being 1 sot to a body of dry material in contact with the coal, such as Old props, canvas or deal brattic'mg, doors, etc, or sparks from an underground furnace, ot art explosion of fire-damp, ot a shot. A fre quent cause is spontaneous combustion. ■ • • It is doubtful whether pyrites leads to spontaneous combustion. It seems rather to arise ■'ion; the heating of porous coal which absorbs oxygen from the air and s&owly undergoes combustion. . . . When heaps of such porous coal are exposed to a moist atmosphere oxidaI tion occurs. . . . Small explosions j occur in all kinds of mines, wet or dry. j Safety lamps are not generally used in j lignite mines, as such mines are generally , free from inflammable gapes. However the fire at the Molyneux Mine may have been caused—it is full early yet for a discussion of this—tlie usual practice when a fire breaks out underground is to attempt to isolate it by means of a "stopping." A permanent stopping will consist of two curved walls—-the hollow sides togetherbuilt of lumps of dross, stones, or bricks, some fifteen, or twenty feet apart, the space between being filled with fine coal, dross, or any other waste material. A temporary stopping will be made of canvas (brattice cloth), nailed to a wooden framing. Such dams can never be really air-tight, and are themselves combustible, but something of i this sort is the best that three or four men ! can manage to effect working against time facing intense heat, and choking among l deleterious gases, with the materials likely i to be at their disposal. The purpose of this screen is, first, to prevent the progress of the fire by shutting off the air, without which combustion could not proceed; and, second, to 6tore away as much pure air as possible for the use of the entombed men until such time aa they may be rescued. Except in a gassy or very dusty pit, where flame may be rapidly propagated, the risk Of being Imrnt alive is comparatively small, as the men can usually make good a temporary refuge in some blind heading out of the main current of air, and hence awuy from the tmck of the fire as it slowly eats its way along. The coal exposed to the heat of the fire is to some extent distilled, various hydro-carbons being given off, very ' irritating to the throat and lungs, and quite incapable of supporting life. These* practically form the "smoke" of which-one reads. "Fire-damp" may be defined as smoke containing a notable proportion of : methane, a compound of carbon 3 parts, j hydrogen 1 part, by weight. Mixed with J air in certain proportions, this gas explodes ' w,ben ignited; outaide these proportions it simply burns. That this inflammable substance escapes unburnt is explained bv the fact that there is not at the seat of the fire for its combustion, and for the same reason the gaseous products of the j combustion that does take place—the I " after-damp," u choke-damp," or " blackdamp "—contain much of that deadly gas, the lower oxide of carbon (carbon mon"oxide, "white-damp," etc.). After-damp wiir also contain nitrogen, this being the part of the air remaining in the roads after Its oxygen has been absorbed. Most of the carbon that is burnt will ho converted into the higher oxide (carbon di-oxide, carbonic acid, etc.), and a considerable percentre of this may be present In the air of the drive without the miner experiencing serious discomfort, and still more before his life is in any danger. He may be ; rendered unconscious oven, remain in that condition for some time, and yet recover his senses and be himself again soon after being brought to bank. But even if so little a* 1-14 per cent, of the lower oxide is present feels its effeeta. With 1-10 per cent. a:iy prolonged stay will cause subsequent severe illnoes, though it is , hardly likely that death will supervene. A : few hours' work in an atmosphere with i per cent, will cause a serious and probably fatal illness. With the presence of increasing quantities of this gas the time required for saturation of the blood and the chances of subsequent recovery docrease, until, at. a percentage of 2.6 (the lowest'which will show as a "cap" on the flaino of a safety lamp), death would be almost instantaneous. Thus the rescuers have little warning of tho dangers into , which they are intruding until too l*te for ' retreat. " White-damp" merely saturates the haemoglobin (the purple part) of the blood—unlike arsenuretted hydrogen, which actually destroys it—and its oxidation to the higher oxide and subsequent elimination caw be effected; but it is a slow business and accompanied with great pain to j the subject. Even though the patient may be brought, alive to bank, he is by no means ojut of tha trood* a tonfc and

painful illness may bo followed finally by death. Carbon di-oxide, on tie other hand, has. much the same effect in the lungs as water would' have. In addition to the risk of gaseous poisoning or suffocation, and quite apart from the dangef of being involved in a suddon wave of flame, which will leave them charred and lifeless behind it, the entombed miners and their rescuers have other perils to fear. The in tense heat may cause tho ground to swell, or the fire may attack the timber supporting the walls and the roof of the galleries, and a fall may occur, shutting off all chance of succor. Again, the burning of the timber framing of the shaft may put the cage out of action and destroy tho alternative ladders. The very water sent down to extinguish the fire may cause swelling and closing of the roadways. Sometimes hope is abandoned above-ground —as at Courrieres recently—while those below may yet be saved. The chances of death—it may be swift and merciful, it may be lingering and soulwracking—in a burning ooal mine are thus very Considerable, Outsiders can never estimate at their true magnitude the dangers faced by all concerned, and the heroism of those gallant men who went down into a pit of fire knowing not in which of many forms Death might b* awaiting them. We honor the rescuers and felicitate the rescued.