FIRE-DAMP AND FIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 802, 13 April 1867, Page 7

FIRE-DAMP AND FIRE.

If we could only in these days be persuaded to believe that success would certainly attend the employment of a multitude of counsellors, we might hope for the proximate solution of' many problems which are at present sources of perplexity Aud when gratuitous advice is showered upon us by a crowd of ready persons, all of them free, in happy ignorance of the conditions ef the case, to propound schemes, safeguards, or remedies, at their own sweet will, it really becomes needful to clear the ground more or less of what is absolutely wrong or absurd, if we would save ourselves from losing sight of the real nature of the questions at issue. Could we but place reliance on what we have been lately reading in vigorous " leaders," suggestive anonymous letters, and plausible communications from men of eminence in some other walk, we might believe that it is a very simple matter to avoid for the future any risk of accidents by explosions in collieries. But, again, if so easily led, we should still be placed in a dilemma by the opposite lines of treatment suggested, and by the incongruities which would make themselves manifest to any man of common sense looking a little closely into the subject. Some of these articles are no doubt made up under the inevitable necessity of writing in a taking manner upon any topic whatever which for the moment excites and interests the public. Others are prompted by an innocent philanthropy, which induces the authors to fancy they may possibly do some good in the midst of the general haze which they presume to surround the question ; and another group of epistles emanates from those uneasy spirits who must Deeds be "to the fore" when the public eye is opened, and can bear to lose no opportunity of seeing their names, or at lea9t their ipsixsima oerba, in print. The occasion is a serious one, or not a little entertainment might be derived from the review of some of the nostrums so glibly and trustfully offered for acceptance ; but we think we shall to some extent clear away the cobwebs if we invite attention to a few of the chief featmes in these sad catastrophes in general, and in the late unparalleled disaster at Barnsley more particularly.

Fire-damp, it must be remembered, is observable in the depths of our mines under several aspects. It exudes from the pores and crevices of all the exposed portions of the coal-seams, and in greatest abundance where these are freshly laid open. It accumulates in the higher parts of excavations, and in the ruinous irregular hollows left by old workings. It breaks out as a stream or " blower " of gas from some part of the seam in work, especially when near "troubles." And lastly, it escapes, and sometimes in vast quantities, from the broken strata either above or below the coal-bed, when the ground heaves, rendd, or falls, on the removal of a large area of supports. Some collieries are subject more to one, others more to another, of these perils, and the means of prevention of accident vary with the conditions. If the enemy makes his appearance equably and constantly, an abundant ventilation is the method by which he is to be combated ; and the introduction of safetylamps would, in such a case, only act as a premium on carelessness or indifference in the maintaining of a sufficient current of air to dilute and sweep away the gas. Everybody knows, by reference to common lighting- gas, which is near akin to firedamp, that although it is frightfully dangerous if allowed to collect in a closed room, you may with perfect impunity light even a large jet of it so long as you are in the midst of plenty of atmospheric air. And hence it need excite no surprise that coals known to be " fiery," or gas-yielding, are often wrought by the light of naked candles ; whilst the occasional exhibition of lighting up a little blower, in a good air way, will not be condemned as a tampering with late. But when there are goaves, or old workings,

$ situate tlflif'tne 1 gas 'stores itself there,' like gunpowder im a magazine, and when, as generally happens, these receptacles—often many acres in extent— are> not penetrable by man, but can only be examined along the edge, then the former safeguard, ventilation, still indispensable as it is, will no longer ensure safety. Then it is that safety-lamps mu«*r fee in general use,, or at all events that no other means of 1 lighting can properly be employed within a certain distance around thes?" threatening foci of danger, or between them and the final exit into the open air of the gases which issue from them. There may be, therefore, fiery ' collieries which, if provided with good ventilation, may be lighted in part by candles, but in special districts only by safetylamps ; and the great difference between this and the former case will be, that whereas in both cases Safety will depend to a great extent on the skill and care of tbe manager, it may in the second instance be at any moment set at nought by a breach of discipline or want . of caution on the part of the workmen. To nothing else appears to have been due the terrible explosion which occurred in this very Oaks Colliery, at Barnsley, in 1847, when 73 lives were lost in consequence of one man eoing with an open light, against orders,into one of the old "breake."

But more and more must reliance be placed on strict attention to rules, and on individual prudence, when the fire-damp is apt to burst out in targe volumes, either from the mass of the unwrought coal, or from the fractures of a falling roof or the fissures of a heaving floor. The ventilation that might have been ample to meet ordinary contingencies may on a sudden be so overpowered that the whole of the air throughout the workings, from the point of outburst away to the far-distant exit, will be rendered explosive, and safety can alone be hoped for by guarding the travelling stream from coming anywhere in contact with a fire or unprotected light. For days, for months, for years, such a colliery may present all the appearances of security, and yet, at some unlucky juncture, either a collapse in the old workings, or a sudden diminution of the pressure of the atmosphere, as shown by a fall in the barometric column, will set free into the travelling roads and working places a cloud of deadly gas, sufficient, if it find but a single flaw in the discipline, or only a single wire burnt through in a safety lamp, to kill every living beinaj in the pit. And this is one of the great disadvantages under which that magnificent Barnsley bed of coal is worked. It is not sufficient that, a3 was actually the case at the Oak a , a powerful ventilation, in the shape of a current of 140,000 cubic feet per minute, was kept blowing through it like a gale of wind, tested and recorded day by day ; there must in these cases be no access of the air to flame. Accordingly, the whole of tbe men, drivers and hauliers, as well as coal hewers, were provided with the Slephenson lamp, in which a glase, added to the wire-gauze of the Davy lamp, appears to offer a double security. Moreover, rules as to their use were framed by the managers, and approved by the Government Inspector ; the lamps had always to be locked when taken towards the inner workings, to bs kept hanging vertically during work, and returned afterwards for thorouzh examination to the lamp- office. And, as lar as supervision could go, it would seem that these precautionary measures were in general fully carried out ; but, as in all things human, so in a code of discipline set up to preserve men's lives, a weak point occurs, and that is simply the impossibility of getting all men to be equally cool, intelligent, and cautious. The rules about safety-lamps may be of the best, and yet, if but a few men choose to take down false keys for unlocking their lamps, or lucifer-matches to strike a light for a pipe, the door is at once opened to accident, and away go, not only the well- proved kinds of lamp already in use, but all the numerous theoretical schemes for lighting by electricity, &c. Moreover, where the ventilating current is subject thus to be fouled or rendered explosive, it is obvious that there must be no contact between it and the great fiery furnace which is employed night and day in nothing else than creating the strong draught at the upcast shaft. This, too, was carefully arranged, and some 10,000 or 12,000 feet of air every minute, fresh from the surface, were led down solely to feed the fire ; the return, or vitiated air, being made to pass into the shaft at such a distance from the flames as should leave no chance of its igniting. With this final precaution, then, it would appear as if, so far as measures could go, all had been done to meet the possibility of danger. The work was under the responsible direction of a viewer of the highes--. ability and experience, and was superintended constantly by men qualified to carry out his plans of ventilation and of arrangement of the works; yet here, as years ago at the Wallsend Colliery, under. Buddie, the chief of Jtforth country viewers, all the skill lavished in per-

fecfting 'the means of security, has beea baffled, and years .of- success Jtyave -endfd in an appalling calamity, inborn' instances,, the, very completeness of the arrangements^ • as admitting of the employment of a great number of men, has been to some extent ' a cause of the magnitude of the' die* ' aster. • " Itis sufficiently lamentable that, although we are po-sessed of reasonably trustworthy vafcty-lampa ) although we can discover' tbe presence of fire-damp when onlyiabout three per cent of the carburctted hydrogen floats in the air, and although the better collieries are ventilated with a thorough 1 storm of wind, explosions will still recur: But it is still more melancholy to observe that, among the victims of such an accident, upwards of half are generally uninjured by the actual blast, but are slain by the gradual march of the fatal afcer-damp which is created by the flash. Often enough they have had time to run for hundreds of yardß before they, have been overtaken or met by their fell" destroyer, and they might therefore have been resued had they sooner reached a downcast shaft, or a drift in which fresh air was coursing. It appears not unlikely that in this respect improvements might often be made. A greater length of secure ' run might begiveD to the air, to which men: might shape their course, feeling- the ~Bhock ' of an explosion ; and the distances which • the air has to travel may often be shortened " with advantage, so- as to increase the total • quantity of air in circulation, and to* divide more completely one district of a colliery from another. But' it ' is not always that we can reckon' on the success of such expedients. ■ The awful violence of a blast which dashes tbe strong trucks of coal all into a heap must also blow down doors, stoppings, and all the contrivances for ensuring the flow of air in a certain direction ; and the recovery of the poor fellows, maimed or senseless, or perhaps anxiously waiting in remote gloom, can only keep pace with the temporary expedients for restoring tbe ventilation. But if, by dread mischance, the flame of the explosion should e et fire to the coal, as it did atLundhill, and has now done at the Oaks, the consequences are indeed fearful. The gas will a»ain accumulate and spread through tbe workings, till it touchea the fire, and again blazes out with its fierce flash and heavy detonation. To such a second explosion, on Thursday the 13th of December, the precursor of numerous others, fell victims those brave men who were toilinar amid well-known peril to save any that nr'ght still livearaons the victims of the day before. In the face of tbe awful loss of life which has now been incurred, it becomes more than ever important to probe the matter to the bottom, to search out the hidden cause, and to erect it into a beacon to warn us from at least one source of danger. It is true that coal-getting is, at the best, a very perilous vocation ; nevertheless, although we may set down some of the late news^ paper prescriptions for perfect immunity from accidents as worse than childish, something may be hoped for by diligently seeking out the flaws of our present methods, and thus gathering from past calamities the means of future safety.

A Lord in Trouble. — An instance of the perfect equality of persons in the eye of the law has just been famished in the Court of Qaeen's Bench. In August, 1856, Lord Ernest Vane Tempest, lately a cornet in the 4th Light Dragoon Guards, met in St. James's street a former comrade with a woman named Spencer, and assaulted him, calling him at the same time by opprobrious names, Proceedings wers taken in the matter, but Lord Ernest left England, and went to America, where, with a short interval its France, he has since remained. Returning to England, has surrendered at the Court of Queen's Bench, and ao purged himself of the outlawry incurred by his contempt of the court's mandamus to appear. He apologised through his Counsel to the court, and pleaded guilty to the assault, alleging he had left England not to avoid punishment, but in consequence of pecuniary difficulties. Mr Justice Blackburn, in passing sentence, said he would not fine defendant, as a pecuniary mulct would be a trifling penalty to him, and he was consequently committed for three months to prison as a first' class misdemenant.

A Tynfcside tradesmen recently called his creditors together. When they had duly assembled, he opened the proceedings with prayer, and then went on to inform them that owing to sundry losses and crosses he found he could only pay 10s in the pound. It transpired, however, when his accounts were investigated, that he was able to pay 25s in the pound, and he was ordered to pay the accounts in full in three instalments. A day or two later, he actually went round to several of his chief creditors and offered them payment at once, if they would allow him a good diecount for ready money.