REPORT OF THE SOUTH SHIELDS COMMITTEE ON ACCIDENTS IN COAL.IdINES.

UPON the explosion at the St. Hilda pit, in June 1839, with a fearful loss of life, a Committee of gentlemen connected with South Shields was appointed to investigate the causes of accidents in the Northern coal-mines. The result of their three-years' labours is contained in the folio before us ; and it reflects much credit on the patience, industry, and judgment of the Committee. Facts have been collected with great care; conflicting opinions have been listened to, tested, and judged with fairness and acumen ; reports of Parliament at home and of Commissioners abroad upon questions connected with the points at issue have been sifted ; correspondence has been carried on with some of the most dis- tinguished scientific men of the day ; and the Committee have made observations and experiments in the mines themselves. The pith of the matter thus acquired has been lucidly arranged and clearly presented; the spirit which deduces the recommendations seeming to hit a happy medium between impracticable theory and too narrow practice. The Report opens with a discussion as to the probable exhaus- tion of coal in the British mines : which the Committee, looking at the waste in extraction, and the coal which cannot be extracted at a profit, seem to think approaches a closer term than the most gloomy-calculating geologists estimate—from three hundred and Sixty to four hundred years; or, which is the same in its results, that the cost of British coal will be so much enhanced that foreign coal will be cheaper.

"When the expense of working British coal-mines leaves no remuneration to the capital and labour employed when brought into competition with the mines of other countries, then will they be as effectually lost to Britain for PurPoses of ascendancy, and their produce as exports, as if no longer in physi- Cal existence; and her superiority in the mechanic arts and manufactures, eceteris paribus, it may well be feared, will be superseded. The more extensive and easily accessible coal-fields, both bituminous and anthracite. of the United States of America, which are to the westward of the Allegheny Moan- taina, 1,500 miles long and 600 broad; and the fine anthracite combined with bituminous coal of Pennsylvania, running on the east of these mountains as far as Lake Ontario, afford supplies of the finest coal, that time would almost seem incapable of exhausting. They are at present only deterred from com- ing into competition by the want of abundant capital and cheap labour. • • *

i It s not the want of coal, but of capital and of labour, that allows the more cheaply-wrought British mineral to seal up the American mines. It is within the range of possibility to reverse it.

"The North parts offrance and Belgium are rich in fine coal; and the latter is geologically connected with Germany by a chain of carboniferous rocks. Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia have also abundance of coal. In France, the department of Aveyron is said to be able, if properly developed, to supply all France. At St. Etienne, the heart of the French mining district, coal can be extracted as low as in Wales; and the expense of it throughout France is im- puted to the absence of easy lines of carriage and communication, which enable English coal to be sold on the French coasts at a profit ; but which again is met by the competition of the coal of Belgium, that even at Marseilles can appear in the same market with success. A prejudice in favour of wood fuel, and an insufficient national demand, have prevented the French coal-fields from develop- ing their great resources. Russia, Syria, the East Indies, China, Australia, and many other parts of the world, abound with this valuable mineral, and stand ready, when favourable circumstances may present themselves, to reduce, at the least, this important source of our national wealth, and add to their power of production in the arts and manufactures. " Unceasing exertion, and the adoption of every scientific improvement adapted for the extraction and economizing of her mineral wealth, can alone enable Britain to continue at the head of the competition of the world."

With the exception of this disquisition, the labours of the Com- mittee are closely directed to the object for which they were ap- pointed—the investigation of the causes of accidents in coal-mines, with a view to devise some means for their remedy : and those means resolve themselves into direct and indirect. Among the indirect methods, may be mentioned authoritative regulations, a Government inspection, suggestions for the scientific education of mining-officers, and a public registry of the plans and sections of all mines, to prevent the danger that frequently accrues through ignorance of former workings. The direct means chiefly involve an examination of the various safety-lamps, an improved ventilation of mines, the regular use of scientific instruments, and the non-em- ployment of very young children, some of the most fatal accidents having arisen from their neglect. In 1826, thirty-four persons were killed at a blow in Jarrow pit, through a child eight years old, who had left a " trap-door " open, by which ventilation was interrupted and the gas accumulated and exploded : in April 1841, thirty per- sons were killed in Willington pit, through a boy nine years old, who had left his door open to go and play with another little boy : in the August of the same year, nine persons were killed in Thornely pit, through the same cause. In objecting, however, to early labour in the mines, the Committee strenuously contend for twelve years as the extreme of limitation. If initiation were de- layed beyond that age, there might be great difficulty in getting pitmen at all, from the discomfort of the employment, which re- quires early training to be endured.

"At the age above specified, a workman's son has had ample time, with his own future exertions, to acquire such education as his situation will permit or his parents can afford. To continue even to support his boys up to that period, with increasing expenses, is as much as may well be expected ; and if prevented going to their father's employment, partially to relieve him from the charge, they will, with his approval, seek another where the restriction does not apply. And if pitmen's sons turn their backs upon the mines, it will be almost impossible to induce the grown-up children of other sections of the community to attempt so irksome an employment, or even their parents to sanction it with their popular terror of its nature and its danger. The in- stances are very rare exceptions in which a boy not originally connected with the mines ventures upon such an undertaking. Besides, after the age of twelve, habits are beginning to be formed and tastes acquired, much more in accordance with the ordinary employments on the surface; and it is probable that then even a pitman's son may have grown into a repugnance to exchange the light of day and the companionship of his fellows, which most other trades afford, for the solitary darkness of the mine and its confined and severe labour."

Of the various topics investigated by the Committee, the most important and interesting are safety-lamps and ventilation ; both referring to the means of rendering innocuous the mortiferous gases constantly generated in the Northern mines from the coal itself. Of these gases the most fatal are technically called fire- damp and choke-damp. The choke-damp is the carbonic acid gas of chemistry; killing by its action on the lungs, or rather by preventing the exercise of their function • and its presence

indicated ndicated to the miner by the dimness of his light. This danger can usually be avoided by common care, unless the gas has been generated by a previous explosion, barring egress altogether, or only permitting it through the tainted atmosphere. Fire-damp is therefore the great danger of the miner, and the one to which the investigations of the Committee are most fully directed. The most general form in which thefire-damp appears is that of light carburetted hydrogen`gas ; which, when the atmosphere be- comes sufficiently charged, explodes with the force of gunpowder on the application of flame. In consequence of a visit Sir HUM- PHREY DAVY made to the North in 1815, he undertook a series of experiments that ended in the invention of his "safety-lamp"; whose principle may be stated thus. Minute metallic apertures are impermeable to flame, and fine wire-gauze is the best mode of applying them. A light imprisoned in a wire-gauze lamp is per- fectly unexplosive though surrounded by light carburetted hydro- gen; but this security only exists as a certainty so long as the atmosphere is at rest and the wire cool. In an atmosphere moving with a degree of velocity whose minimum has not been accurately noted, but which velocity is often exceeded in mines, the flame may be driven through the gauze, and an explosion take place. There is a still further danger. Olefiant gas is sometimes combined with the

light carburetted hydrogen ; and this can be exploded without flame, merely by the presence of iron at a red heat. Against this con-

tingency DAVY professed to make no provision, though he suspected the existence of olefiant in fire-damp; but it is only lately that its presence was detected by Professor BISCHOF of Bonn. The other danger DAVY was aware of; for he demonstrated it by experiment,

and suggested the use of double lamps or a shield to the lamp op- posite the current of air. The Committee seem to doubt this fact ;

but their own statements prove its correctness. It may be true that DAVY, in the ardour of triumph, overrated the power of his lamp, and did not dwell with sufficient prominence on those risks which only experience could develop. But it is also possible that he was not properly understood. A philosophic expositor exhibits the results of his inquiry with some reference to their nature— the general principle more broadly than the exceptions : the practical man seizes upon that point where his profit lies, and reads, if he reads at all, by his own lights and his own wishes. It is not, however, clear that they always give themselves the trouble to read. According to a quotation in the volume before us, one gentleman never heard that DAVY had made it known that his lamp was liable to explosion under particular circumstances. "I have been very much among mines," said he to a Parliamentary Committee, "and I never heard it, until Mr. Buddle stated it in this room." The proper place, one would think, to search for Davr's principles, would be in his own writings, and not among miners. These circumstances, however—the presence of a gas explosive at a heat generated on the lamp, and the possibility of passing the flame of the lamp through its protecting gauze—have induced various humane and ingenious persons to endeavour to improve upon the principle of "the Davy," or to discover a new one. To some eight or nine of the best of these lamps a detailed examination is given by the Committee ; and it is curious to see how mere theoretical ingenuity shrivels under the test of criticism. It is not that these lamps do not display great ability—they are all more or less ingenious—they all, too, more or less answer the object of their contrivers as matter of experiment or display : but they break down in practice ; they cannot be worked with. Some are too heavy, and the people would not carry them ; others, in seeking to avoid the weak point of " the Davy," introduce a point of still greater risk ; some clog the lamp, or obscure the light ; some are too delicate for use ; their perception is so sensitive that they are extinguished by a small amount of the deadly gas, and from this very delicacy are liable to be put out with every movement of the workman. There is so much nicety of discernment and so much matter for useful suggestion to all improvers in these remarks, that we will quote one of the Committee's criticisms.

THE PARLIAMENTARY LAMP.

The Committee were surprised to find, notwithstanding the strong recom- mendation of the lamp of Upton and Roberts by the Parliamentary Com- mittee in 1835, that not a single mine of the North, five years afterwards, had

adopted it. • • • Whenever the Committee have tried this lamp in the fiery mines of the North, its delicacy was such, that before the Davy lamp was much affected it usually exploded itself out : and this occurred to other lamps as well as that sent by Mr. Upton. It was impossible to fill it with flame : an indication and warning, it perpetually hinted danger. In a goaf of St. Hilda pit, it is stated in the minutes of the Committee, that when tried, "for an instant the flame burnt blue, extendiug up the interior nearly two inches, and then wii Ii a slight explosion extinguished itself": this was repeated, and it almost instantly invariably did the same. In an experi- ment with lamps in Moultwearmouth pit, (the deepest in England,) "it extinguished itself even at a walking-pace in the hand: the glass and light were smoky and dim." At Wallsend it was tried with other lamps in a feeder of gas, and "could scarcely be brought into operation from its facility of extinction."

It is this very delicacy of operation which renders it with practical miners so objectionable for their daily employment in the mine. It obstructs instead of facilitating their object. A sudden dropping of the hand with a lamp puts out the light ; the slightest increase of foul air bedims the glass, and then the flame gradually dies or explodes out. The horizontal gauze placed below the level of the oil-wick receives from the trimming or an accidental spark little vesi- cles of oil, which clog and impede the flow of air : the light then soon becomes smoky and dull; and in this case eventually dies out, or the lamp must be brought to a free part of the mine to be cleaned and rearranged. The Committee have frequently seen it blown out by a current of air in the gallery ; and it invariably required the nicest care to keep it burning for a few hours in the different parts and states of the mines. Even a breath through the bottom perforations would at once extinguish it. To ordinary workmen this difficulty is insurmountable. It would be impos- sible even to compel its adoption in the Northern mines : the result on their produce would be seriously injurious. In the hands of careful men of science it is a perfect lamp for occasional experiments. Secure from any contingency that may arise, its glass may be accidentally broken and it resolves itself into a Davy lamp; nothing but a crushing blow will lay bare any chance of danger. But in the hands of the mere miner, intent upon his labour, and irritated from its imperfect and uncertain light, there is every probability that the most hazardous expedients would be bad recourse to, and that it would become more dangerous than a common gauze-lamp in his ill-judged attempts to increase or continue his light for his necessary operations.

The conclusions come to by the Committee respecting lamps are, that none can be implicitly trusted to ; and that, "from some er- roneous conviction, or other less defensible cause, this mode of securing safety in mines has been beyond all reasonable bounds relied on, while the far more important and safe system of venti- lation has been comparatively neglected."

This subject of ventilation is considered even more elaborately than that of safety-lamps ; accompanied with severe remarks on the state of the Northern mines in general, where, to save the expense of additional shafts, one comparatively small pit-mouth, besides serving all purposes of ascent and descent, has to supply fresh air, and to carry off the foul generated by the gases of the mine, the lights of the miners, and the breath and effluvia of workmen and horses. In one colliery, from seventy to seventy-five miles of passages are

ventilated by a single pit 13f feet in diameter. A second, with more extensive subterraneous workings, some of them extending beneath the Tyne into another county, has a pit of only 14 feet diameter. In a third case, the air was always so impure, that, "-within a few yards of the bottom of the downeasts, there is a lamp-room, beyond which no one is allowed to pass with a naked light," or indeed without a Davy-lamp, and where it was impossible to measure the rate of ventilation in the usual way, as the experiment would at any time blow up the mine. And from the facts before them the Committee deduce this general warning-

" It is matter of surprise that these lamentable occurrences, instead of being occasional, are not incessant and overwhelming. Living thus always on the verge of destruction, it has excited among the officers and men of mines a con- tinual watchfulness anti knowledge of dangerous symptoms, that alone enable them to proceed with any degree of safety in such a situation ; but in which, on the smallest error, or a contingency unforseen or incapable of being pre- vented—as a boy asleep or at play, a heated lamp, a broken wire, a sudden eruption of gas, or a change in the wind and pressure of the atmosphere—the bounds of safety can no longer be preserved ; but, tremblingly alive to their danger, as at 11 alisend, they are plunged unresisting victims into the abyss. " The fault is in the system, not in the officers and men. The Committee have seen the most incessant care and watchfulness among them in almost every instance ; such as the loss of life (their own among the number) and serious destruction of property may be supposed always to induce. But the Committee are perfectly convinced that with such a small force of ventilation as can be obtained by the present plan, and as in the North is commonly pur- sued, which the instance just detailed demonstrates, no human foresight or skill in its application can obviate these explosions. While this imperfect ventilation is allowed to continue, the mining-districts and the public must prepare themselves for the continual recurrence of these dreadful calamities."

Into the curious and rather recondite principle of ventilating mines, or into the plan recommended by the Committee, we can- not here enter, much less touch upon the various other topics which are discussed in the Report. But we may recommend the volume, albeit in the old-fashioned form of folio, to all who take any interest in the subject, whether practical or speculative.