Our Coal Mines.

Otago Witness, Issue 1582, 18 March 1882, Page 12

Our Coal Mines.

A TRIP TO THE NORTH.

By Vagor

Spbingfield— Continued.

That "it is better for miners that there should be firedamp present in mines " may appear a startling statement to make, still it is a truthful one; and if the reader will deign to follow me I shall endeavour to prove it. In all coal-mines there are several gases found, the chief of which are firedamp an 1 blackdamp. Firedamp is called by the learned carburetted hydrogen gas, by miners simply fire, and by this name I shall term it; blackdamp, or as it is sometimes incorrectly called chokedamp, the chemist calls carbonic acid gas, the miner simply damp, and this term also I shall use. Fire in its pure state will not explode, but in that state cannot be breathed. If, however, atmospheric air be mixed with it in proportions of from five to 12 parts air to one of gas it will explode, but if the proportions are from seven to nine parts air to one of gas it has attained its maximum power, and on a light being applied (flame must .be used, no merely red-hot article having power to ignite it) it explodes with fearful force, scattering death and destruction all around. After more air than 12 parts to one is introduced, it ceases to be explosive, but is still very injurious to health, so that it must be driven out of the mine before all danger to life and health is removed. It is little more than half as heavy as common air, so ttiat it fills every little hole and crevice along the roof: but being so light, a current of air directed upon it easily removes it. Thus it will be easily seen that it only requires tho purity and strength of the air currents to be attended to to reduce the danger from explosions of fire to a very low minimum. Damp in its pure state is entirely incombustible, unfit for breathing, and kills at once every living orea* ture introduced into it, being in this respect more deadly than the fabled upas tree. It is fully half as heavy again as common air, and so lies along the floor, and if the ventilating current should not have a greater propelling force than the weight of the damp, it cannot be removed, settling down through the air like mud in water. # When the amount of air that makes fire an explosive mixture is admitted amongst damp the effect is that a light will burn dim |and sickly, and though a man may work in it for a tune —longer or shorter, according to the strength of his constitution and lungß— the danger, of course, becoming less as the air -current becomes Btronger ; but danger, as in the case of fire, is not removed till the current is strong enough to carry it away altogether. Thus, when the air-current is strong and pure there is no danger at all, and when damp is pure there ia not usually much danger to miners, because not being able to keep a light burning they are not asked to go into it ; but when there iB just sufficient auto allow of a light being carried, then it becomes very dangerous to miners, because mine owners and mine managers very seldom^ consider much about the health of the miners they employ, the object being to get the largest possible quantity of coal raised at the cheapest possible rate, and so wherever a light can be carried, and there is no fire to endanger the mine, the miner is required to go to work. He must not refuse to obey, else he must be prepared to travel; if fie does not care to lose his employment he must go to work wherever his employer orders him— even in a place with air so bad that it may be termed the halfway -house on the road to death. A few months' work in such an atmosphere is sure to leave a man ruined in health for the remainder of his life, and he will assuredly die many years before the natural term of life has been reached. It may be asked, why does anyone do such a foolish thing? and echo answers, "Why?" to those who do n«tlook below the surface. Of course those miners who are thoroughly alive to the danger refuse to work in a badly-aired place at any price ; but miners unfortunately are not all well enough informed to thoroughly know and feel the danger, and so many work on till compelled by weakness of body and lungs to desist. Others there are who, attracted by a little extra pay, will suffer it for a little, just as men will do and suffer almost anything in the hope of raking together a little of that bright metal most love so well, but which so few can get, or keep when they do get. Then there ia another perhaps the largest class — and those have wives and families, chains stronger far than any ever forged, to keep a man bound to a life of toil, slavery, and, finally, early death. Others will endure much rather than be continually moving, only to fiud, perhaps, the place they go to worse than that they left. But the great inducement of all that will lead men to sacrifice health and life is a little extra on the day's wage, and it often happens that it costs less — where ventilation has not been attended to from the first — to pay a little extra wages than to introduce an efficient system of ventilation. Thus it often happens that apitful of men may be being slowly poisoned to death, while there is not the slightest danger to the mine, and it may be, and is, reported as safe. But let there be a little fire found— it doesn t want much— and then there is a new ana, with but too many managers, the only inducements that will make them attend to the ventilation. There is the mine, a valuable property which an explosion would wreck; and so they, or most of thorn, make all haste to drive so unwelcome a guest from the mine. A powerful air-current is provided, the gas is driven out, and m driving it out the current is usually strong enough to carry the damp with it. Thus, I say, it is better thatalittlefirebe found inmines; it serves to spur the management, be it ever so good, to unceasing vigilance ; it keeps the air-current always purer aud Btronger than it otherwise would be, and ao keeps mines healthier, and allowi miners a chance to Attain to old ago,

I have always found such to be the case, and I have always preferred a mine where there was a little fire given off, assured that though there might be a little danger (and with good management it is but little) of being sent on a sudden journey to eternity, there was the certainty that I would not be poisoned by damp. And such has been the experience of every intelligent miner I have ever spoken to on the subject. No doubt it is af act, to be doplored, that there are hundreds of men annually sent to their death by explosions. They always happen so suddenly that people are shocked—horrified ; and the fact that so many lives are thus lost is deeply impressed on the memory, and the record of the slain is thus well kept. But who can tell of the thousands who yearly creop away into obscurity and die unnoticed, except by their own families and a few neighbours, their years far short of the alloted span? There are many things which tend to shorten a miner's life, but this pernicious, deadly damp is the chief. My own firm conviction is that where one life is lost outright by explosions of fire there are 20 at least whose lives are shortened 10 to 20 or more years by the slow, insidious workings of the poisonous damp— the miner's deadliest enemy, looking at it from a workman's point of view, and considering health before everything. Most coalowners make every effort to keen the air currents pure and strong when there is a little fire present. Still there are some, and the number |is not small even now, who/jbeing ignorant or careless, will make no special effort even then, or who are so intent on making a pile, as we call it, that they have no time to look after the health .and comfort of their men, and who, even when fire is present in large quantities, are content to go on in a haphazard sort of fashion, trusting to luck and the "safety-lamp" to avert an explosion. Sometimes they go on for years, but often only for a short period, till there is a disastrous explosion, the men are killed, and the pit is wrecked. True, money will repair the damage, a deal more though than what would have prevented it ; but no amount of sackcloth and ashes will bring back the innocent victims of greed and criminal carelessness.

Right here, as the Yankees say, it may be well to say a few words about the safetylamp. There is a widely-spread # idea that everything is safe as regards explosions of fire in mines, when safety-lamps are used, that there is little danger if everyone in a mine only uses that safeguard. Not so, however, the danger only begins when the necessity for using them arises. If anyone will take the trouble to think a moment, this will be seen. Everybody knows that in nearly every case where an explosion has occurred every man in the mine used a safety-lamp, consequently they are not an efficient preventive. The real, true use of the safety-lamp to the miner is much the same as the light* house to the sailor, to point out dranger so that it may be avoided, or better, removed. The numerous explosions tell us that a safetylamp is not always safe — nor to be depended upon in all cases. The fact is that under certain circumstances the safety-lamp is but little safer than a naked light. As, for instance, were a large body of fire to surround a man carrying a safety-lamp, so that he had any considerable distance to go ere he reached pure air, it is very nearly certain there would be an explosion before he got out, unless, of course, he happened to know what to do under the circumstances, or knowing, retained consciousness long enough to do it. What would occur in suoh a case is something like this: the tube of .wire gftuze surrounding the flame of the lamp*wick would fill with gas, and in an instant there would be a slight explosion, which might or might not extinguish the flame ; if it did, all would pro* bably bo well, if not, the gauze would very soon become red-hot, and in that state the slightest shake would cause the flame to pass through it ; were the lamp left a few momenta longer the gauze would grow so hot that tha flame would pass through it of its own accord. Of course I am speaking of a well-made safetylamp ; were it defective in the smallest par< ticular as regards the gauze, it would not delay an explosion a second. Even Wherd the lamp -wick was lowered, the gas has been know to burn till the gauze was red' hot. If the lamp were in the hands of an ignorant person he would doubtless seek to extinguish the blaze by trying to blow it out. Such a course would at once cause an explosion by blowing the flame through the gauze and igniting the gas outside it. The proper way to do in such a case would be first draw down the wick with the pricker, then wrap the lamp in a coat or anything to extinguish the gas should it still burn; then down on hands and knees and get to pnre air as fast as possible. Before all this were done, should the gas be strong, the person surrounded would very likely be insensible, but should he retain his senses that is the proper course to pursue. Should he become insensible ! before the lump was extinguished an explosion would only be a matter of time. Such a thing seldom happens, but it is possible, and proves that a safety-lamp will not always prevent explosions. Then, should even one strand of wire get broken, the ! lamp is aB unless as a _ naked light, ! and there are innumerable little accidents I which will produce the same effect— such as a little piece of coal or stone falling upon it ; the point of a pick may touch it, and displace a wire or two ; it may receive a sudden jerk while full of fire, and that would send the flame through the gauze at once ; or it may be swung about in the hands of an ignorant person, and the same thing would happen; or a moderately strong current of air will drive the flame through even the very best safety lamp made; but of course that is not a danger to be areatly dreaded, since a strong current of air is just the thing wanted to make the use of the safety-lamp unnecessary, except where the coal is of a very dry, dusty nature, for it has been proved beyond all dispute that there may be a serious explosion and scarcely any fire present, only this very fine dust, which is very nearly as explosive as fire itself. At any rate, if there be a small quantity of fire to start it, then the explosion is sure to be very disastrous. Of course, this only applies to mines that are very dry and dusty. Now, I don't mean to disparage the use of the safety -lamp, not at all, because it is a very useful instrument, in fact the most useful servant science has given to the miner to combat the gases met with in mines. Without it, his work, in many cases, could not be carried on ; but it must be used as a servant, it must not be allowed to become master ; it must not be implicitly trusted, for by that trust many hundreds of valuable lives have been lost.

(To be continued )

A hotel in the exact shape of an elephant has boen built at Atlantic City, U.S. The idea, of course, is to draw excursionists by means of the novelty. The structure is 86 feet long and 05 feet high. Stairways inside tho legs lead up to a big restaurant and other rooms in the body, while on the back is a car forming a good place of outlook. The exterior is painted and sanded so as to resemble an elephant's skin, except for the window^ lh^ coat was W.OQOdol,