C—l 3.

8

call up other men to assist. According to his own account he called four men, and spent nearly an hour in doing so, and it was 4.20 a.m. before he reached the seat of the fire in the mine. When he arrived he found several men there, who had been summoned and had come in. These men were waiting for the water to come through the pipes and hose, but no water came, because the men sent to turn on the tap could not reach it on account of the smoke and foul air. A man named Somerville then attempted to turn this tap, and after he had been gone twenty minutes, Lloyd and Dixon went to look for him. Lloyd says he went up the heading, where his light was extinguished by black-damp, and then he withdrew the men to the opencast. Lysaght and Somerville had found their way to the opencast, and were a good deal affected by smoke and noxious gases At 5.30 a.m., finding that the water could not be turned on, Lloyd told Dixon to take the men in and cut the air off, and the men went in accordingly, and it was then that the framework was put up across the heading. Lloyd himself left the mine at this time in company with Carson. While Lloyd was out of the mine Dixon sent two men, Lysaght and Brazier, for brattice-cloth. They found Lloyd and told him the men inside wanted some beer, so Lloyd himself went for the beer, while Lysaght and Brazier got the brattice. The beer was taken in by Welsh and Carson, Lloyd staying behind to give instructions. Then Lloyd went again into the mine, and Dixon told him the men had cut the air off the fire except at " Carson's jig," where they had put a framework, and that the fresh men could put up the brattice in about ten minutes. Lloyd had 30 ft. of brattice cut off, and told Carson and Welsh to go down and put it up. Lloyd says he followed them down the dip, and that on the way he went through" " the resin-seam door," and found plenty of fresh air there (the position of this door is given on plan--"D 2 "). He was coming back up the dip when he met Dtmcan (a deputy), and he says he told him that Welsh and Carson had gone up the heading, and that if they found the smoke too thick, they were to go through the resin-seam door, where there was plenty of fresh air, and to come out through the back workings. This statement of Lloyd's is unsupported by other evidence. The man to whom he says he spoke is dead, and we think it would be rather extraordinary if the air behind the resin-seam door was much better than in the dip. The point loses importance when it is considered that the men who died were overcome before they could get to this alleged place of safety. Lloyd returned to the other men at the engine-station, and was much exhausted, he says, by his exertions. His light had been extinguished by black-damp, and he had almost succumbed to its effects. The two men, Carson and Welsh, were sent to put up this brattice-cloth across the heading without any precaution being taken as to their safety, and in contravention of the provisions of the statute, which enacts that whenever dangerous conditions exist, every workman shall be withdrawn from the mine or such part thereof as is found to be dangercnis, and only after a competent person has examined the mine with a locked safety-lamp, and has reported on the conditions of the mine, may any workmen be readmitted. Welsh, Carson, and Duncan died in Carson's heading from the effects of the gases they encountered there. Lloyd and the rest of the men waited for them to return. They waited thirty-nine minutes. It was 7.40 a.m. when the men went down the dip; it was 8.19 when it occurred to those waiting that they had been gone too long. The work they were told to do was estimated to take from five to ten minutes. Then a miner named Jardine went down the dip with Frame (underviewer). Ev3ry one used naked lights. Jardine found Duncan near the entrance to Carson's heading, alive, but unconscious, and breathing heavily, and frothing at the mouth. He partially lifted him, and carried him some distance, Frame leading the way with the lights. Jardine felt his strength going, and called to Frame " For God's sake go and tell them to start the fan." Frame went to do this, and no adverse criticism should, we think, be made on his action in so doing. Jardine himself says he thinks Frame did right in going. Jardine struggled bravely on, and at last he put Duncan on the floor, took off his own waistcoat, put it round Duncan's face, and almost immediately fell himself unconscious. No one up to this point seems to have thought of the fan as a means of clearing the air. Frame got back