THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1886 EXPLOSIONS IN COAL-MINES Explosions in Coal-Mines. By W. N. and J. B. Atkinson, H.M. Inspectors of Mines. (London: Longmans, 1886.) each fatal explosion, but then, on the other hand, there are far more men employed in pits now than formerly. The diminished number of explosions is probably due, in the first instance, to the more general employment of safety-lamps, and, during late years, to the restrictions which have been placed upon the use of explosives. The increase in the average number of deaths to each explosion is doubtless owing to the gradual deepening of EVERYBODY in the least degree conversant with the pits and to differences in the mode of origin and years. matters connected with coal-mining will at once admit that our knowledge of the remote causes of colliery explosions has increased enormously during the last few Whether, however, the practical application of this knowledge has kept pace with the rate of increase in the knowledge itself is another matter. Since 1851, when the first Mines Inspection Act was in force, the number of fatal explosions in collieries has steadily diminished, but the annual loss of life from these catastrophes is as great as ever. During the ten years ending 1860 there were 820 fatal explosions, resulting in 2441 deaths, or an average of 2.98 deaths per fatal explosion; during this decade there was an average of 3000 persons employed in and about the mines for every fatal explosion, and 1008 persons for each resulting death. During the ten years ending 1870 the number of fatal explosions fell to 565; the deaths were 2267, or an average of 401 per fatal explosion; and the ratio of persons employed to each fatal explosion was 5650, and hence to each resulting death 1408. During the ten years ending 1880 the number of fatal explosions was 424; the resulting deaths were 2686, or an average of 6'33 per fatal explosion; the ratio of persons employed to each fatal explosion was 11,372, and to each resulting death 1795. During the five years ending 1885 we have had 146 fatal explosions, with a loss of 906 persons, or an average of 6'20 deaths from each explosion; the ratio of persons employed to each fatal explosion was 17,503, and to each resulting death 2820. These figures are in the highest degree significant, but they are not capable of telling everything. They do not, for example, bring out the fact that the actual violence of colliery explosions when they do occur is nowadays greater than formerly. This may seem to be indicated by the increase in the average number of deaths from VOL. XXXV.-No. 888 character of the explosion. Thirty years ago the pits as a rule were comparatively shallow and damp. Such a sinking as that of the Ashton Moss pit at Audenshaw, which is upwards of half a mile deep, was unknown. Explosions in these damp shallow pits were usually caused by the ignition of gas, most frequently by naked lights; they were very local in their action, and the loss of life was small. Nowadays an explosion in a deep and dry mine not unfrequently penetrates throughout the whole pit; it is often extremely violent, and the number of deaths, mainly from after-damp, is correspondingly great. There can be very little doubt that such explosions are, in the main, caused by dust. The fact that fire-damp is not the only explosive agent which may be present in coal-mines is now generally recognised. It is, however, a moot point with many practical men whether coal-dust alone, in the entire absence of gas, can bring about an explosion of any magnitude. It is generally conceded that a very small amount of gas, an amount, indeed, too small to be recognised by the elongation of the flame of a safety-lamp, or the formation of a cap," is sufficient in the presence of coal-dust to form a dangerously explosive atmosphere, but colliery managers and many mining engineers have, apparently, been slow to believe that dust itself may, under certain conditions, effect an explosion quite as violent in its character as the most formidable gas explosion of which we have any record. The Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into accidents in mines reported that in their opinion it was well established that even when the air is quite free from fire-damp, an exceptionally inflammable coal-dust, in a very finelydivided and dry condition, and existing in abundance in the immediate vicinity of a blown-out shot, may when B raised by the shot be ignited so readily and carry on the flame so rapidly that it may produce explosive effects of a similar character to those caused by a gas explosion. The flame as it rushes along, if fed by freshly raised dust, may extend under these circumstances to very considerable distances, with results resembling, in their disastrous nature, those of explosions originating with, and mainly due to, fire-damp. This conclusion is very greatly strengthened by the evidence which the Messrs. Atkinson have brought together in the book before us. Their work indeed constitutes the most formidable indictment against coal-dust as a cause of colliery explosions which has yet been drawn up. In their capacity of Inspectors they have investigated with the most patient care the circumstances connected with what we may call six typical explosions. These were- All the explosions with the exception of that at Whitehaven were in the county of Durham. It would be quite impossible in the space at our disposal to follow the successive steps in the minute analysis to which the authors have subjected each of these explosions. We should require, moreover, many of the numerous plans of the colliery workings with which the book is illustrated were we to attempt such a task. All that can now be done is to point out the characteristic features of the several explosions, and to indicate the general conclusions which the authors draw from the consideration of the various circumstances connected with them. We are conscious that in some respects this method of treating their work hardly does justice to the authors. It fails to convey any idea of the thoroughly scientific manner in which the Messrs. Atkinson's investigations have been conducted; of the minute and painstaking mode of their observation; or of the care and skill with which their deductions have been made. The authors, even in the earlier pages of the book, make their position in regard to the question of Gas versus Dust perfectly clear, but not even the most prejudiced opponent of the dust hypothesis can complain of the manner in which the evidence is presented. The Durham explosions presented many features in common. In the first place no accumulations of gas were known to exist in quantity sufficient to cause the widespread destruction which happened, nor were such accumulations considered possible. In all these explosions the downcast shafts were more or less damaged. At Trimdon Grange, Tudhoe, West Stanley, and Usworth the explosions did not cross the downcast shafts; these were wet, and the roadways near them were damp. At Seaham the shaft was dry, and the explosion crossed it and extended far beyond it. In all cases the violence and flame of the explosions were confined to roads on which there was much coal-dust. The explosions were most violent in the intake and haulage roads, or between the downcast shafts and lamp-stations, i.e. in places where practically no gas was to be expected, and where naked lights were in constant use. The path of the explosion was in all cases that of the fresh air traversing the pit: in no case did it extend by means of the return air-way The return air-ways carry off the gases evolved in the pit, but are practically free from dust. In certain of the intake air-ways at Seaham and Usworth no coals were led, and they were consequently comparatively free from coal-dust no traces of the explosions were observed in these roads. The explosions were in many cases arrested where the haulage roads were wet. In no instance did the explosion ascend or descend vertically through staples or shafts communicating with other planes of workings. If the explosions were due to gas, their extension would not be influenced by the direction of a communicating passage; on the other hand, very little coal-dust collects in vertical passages. In almost every case of an explosion which could with certainty be attributed to fire-damp, there is evidence that men have been alarmed and have attempted to escape from the workings before the actual occurrence of the disaster in all the five Durham explosions there was no indication that any movements had taken place amongst the men suggestive of alarm; their bodies were found in the places where their work required them to be, close to their tools and lamps. At Seaham, Tudhoe, West Stanley, and Usworth the explosions were simultaneous with the firing of shots in stone; in these cases the explosions occurred when the pits were occupied by stonemen and repairers and at the only time when the operations of the mines allowed the firing of shots. At Seaham, Tudhoe, and Usworth the shots were fired on a main intake air-road and at points where currents of air of between 20,000 and 30,000 cubic feet per minute were passing. At West Stanley the shot was fired, in stone, at a working place by a naked flame, and the air in the vicinity would probably contain a small quantity of fire-damp, but not sufficient in amount to show its presence in the safety-lamp or by itself to be explosive. In the other cases it is almost impossible to conceive that the air could contain any sensible quantity of gas. At Seaham it would be necessary to assume that the gas came down the shaft, or that there were three separate and simultaneous outbursts of it on the three main roads diverging from the shaft. At Tudhoe, where the air came direct from the surface by two shafts, it would be necessary to assume two separate and simultaneous outbursts. At Usworth the air had passed no working place, and could hardly have contained even a trace of fire-damp. West Stanley no appreciable quantity of gas could be present in the main intakes, although a small quantity might be contained in the air near the place where the shot was fired. At There remains the Trimdon Grange explosion, which, was unconnected with shot-firing. There was distinct evidence that it originated with the ignition of gas at the light of a boy engaged at a pump in connection with some drowned workings from which gas was found to issue and that it extended with great force to parts of the pit more than a mile distant from its origin along the main intake air-ways. Now all the circumstances connected with the Durham disasters make it almost certain that the main agent in the propagation of the explosion was dust, and in three out of the five cases it was dust alone. In four out of the five cases the immediate cause was shot-firing, but in no instance was the shot blown out. It is not at all necessary that the shot should be blown out to cause the ignition of the dust-cloud which the concussion raises in a dusty road. Properly fired shots show flame even when they dislodge the stone or coal; and the flame is often considerable if there has been an overcharge of powder, or if small coal or earth mixed with coal-dust has been used, as frequently happens, in the tamping. At Seaham, Tudhoe, West Stanley, and Usworth the flame of the shot ignited the dry inflammable dust dislodged from the roof or raised from the floor by the concussion of air | which followed, and the explosion was propagated by fresh dust-clouds raised in the manner described by the Royal Commissioners. At Trimdon Grange an explosion of fire-damp operated in the same way: the violent movement of air resulting from the ignition of fire-damp and air raised a cloud of coal-dust into which the flame from the fire-damp passed, and the ignition of the coal-dust propagated itself as in the other cases, and, as in these, continued so long as it was fed by fresh fuel. This rapid ignition of dust containing upwards of 80 per cent. of carbon would result in the formation of large quantities | of carbonic acid, and possibly even of the more poisonous carbonic oxide: when it is considered that it is impossible to live in air containing even 33 per cent. of carbonic acid, the deadly character of the after-damp so formed is readily conceivable. THE HE first edition of "Primitive Marriage" appeared in 1865, and the book was already extremely rare when, in 1876, it was reprinted as the first part of the "Studies in Ancient History." The reprint also soon became scarce, and while the influence of the author has been steadily growing, and almost all students of early society have come to attach great importance to his speculations, his principal writings have for some years been almost inaccessible. This new edition therefore supplies a real want, and it is doubly welcome for the sparing, but judicious, notes and appendixes which the editor, Mr. D. McLennan, has attached to his brother's book. "Primitive Marriage" broke ground in a new field of research, and, as the point of view was wholly novel, the collection, sifting, and marshalling of the evidence on which the argument was based was entirely pioneer's work. At the close of his life, McLennan was in possession of a much larger material; he had pursued his argument in new directions and to further conclusions, and on one or two points he had come to change his views. But new research had only confirmed the main lines of the argument sketched with so firm a hand in his original essay; and read with the caveats which his brother has introduced at one or two points-chiefly as regards the interpretation of the Levirate, and the prevalence of Agnation-the present reprint may be taken as generally representing, so far as it goes, the author's final conclusions on the subjects discussed. I say so far as it goes, for in many directions his conclusions had been added to and his views developed. The editor promises us a second volume, to consist for the most part of writings hitherto unpublished, which will throw a good deal of light on these new developments; meanwhile he has restricted himself in the notes "to certain matters on which the author had announced a change of view, and to cerThe moral of all this is obvious. It can scarcely be tain others where circumstances had made an additional gainsaid that some of the most disastrous explosions of statement imperative." Of the additional statements, the the last thirty years are primarily to be attributed to the most important is contained in two long notes appended practice of firing gunpowder in dusty mines. That under to the essay on Morgan's "classificatory system" of recertain circumstances gunpowder can be used with safety lationships, in which it is clearly made out that Morgan's is allowed. But the Royal Commissioners have issued a theory rests on misconception of the facts, and that the warning in no uncertain terms. They have convinced supposed classificatory system of relationship is not a themselves that the abolition of the use of powder in dry system of relationship at all, but a system of terms of and dusty mines will not generally involve any formidable ceremonial or friendly address, used in conversation even inconvenience, inasmuch as the work which is accom- between persons who are not related to one another in plished by its employment both in coal and in stone can any way. This comes out so clearly in the cases about now be performed with equal efficiency, and at very little which we are best informed, that it is very questionable In striking contrast to the Durham explosions was that at Whitehaven. This was in a wet pit; the coal being worked was wet, and all the surroundings were damp, and free from dust. The cause of the explosion was gas, which was known to be in the pit, and frequently present in large quantities. Although it is probable that some 30,000 cubic feet of an inflammable mixture of air and fire-damp were ignited, the explosion was confined to a limited area of the workings, which extend to nearly three miles from the shafts. Seven men were within the district of the explosion, of whom three escaped. The survivors stated that all the men were alarmed by the appearance of gas immediately before the explosion, and hurried away. In the act of retreating the gas ignited at a lamp which was afterwards proved to have been defective and to allow of the passage of the flame. This the authors say was the most considerable explosion of fire-damp and air that they are acquainted with. They have personally investigated during the last twelve years almost all the explosions occurring in the North of England, and they cannot point to a case where there was direct evidence of so large a quantity of fire-damp and air exploding. From his plan of reprinting the book as it stood, with no more annotation than was absolutely necessary, the editor has departed only in one point. The appendix containing "additional examples of the form of capture" has been re-cast and enlarged upon the basis of a paper of J. F. McLennan published in the Argosy in 1866, but with additions from other and more accurate sources. The reasons for adopting this course are obvious: the new matter in this appendix could not conveniently have been reserved for the promised second volume, and the facts are so arranged and explained as to confirm the author's argument, and effectually dispose of the notion that the form of capture in marriage is to be explained by maidenly bashfulness. custom. whether the facts so laboriously collected by Mr. Morgan society where marriage by capture was an established can be used to throw light on the early history of the We are also promised (p. 63) an essay on the family. marriage law of the Australian Kamiraloi, one of those highly complex problems in which McLennan's powers of analysis ought to appear at their best. From notes on pp. 109 and 228 it appears that part at least of McLennan's hitherto uncollected essays in the Fortnightly Review, including the papers on Totemism, or "On the Worship of Plants and Animals" (1869-70), will also be republished. It is to be hoped that in these reprints the editor will allow himself, in one direction, greater freedom of annotation than in the present volume. The Totem papers are in some respects the least finished of McLennan's writings, the evidence of totemism in the nations of ancient civilisation being much too largely drawn from second-hand sources. This gives an appearance of weakness to the whole structure of the argument, which has been very prejudicial to the influence of a most original and striking investigation. In point of fact a few of the detailed pieces of evidence ought to be abandoned altogether, but enough remains to leave the substance of the argument unaffected, and this ought to be clearly brought out by notes, referring to original authorities of unquestioned reputation, or giving up statements that cannot be authenticated. Even in the present volume one misses some notes of this kind. The polyandria of the Athenians (p. 235) rests on better evidence than the | story which Augustine cites from Varro (Clearchus ap. Athen. xiii. p. 556 d.). Again, the note at p. 47, in which an attempt is made to prove the existence of the form of capture among the Hebrews from the phrase to take a wife," ought rather to have been withdrawn than again built upon by the editor at p. 181; and what is said of the marriages of the Persians at p. 219 sq. requires careful revision. W. ROBERTSON SMITH It will be seen from this brief account that, sparing as the editor's additions are, they make the new edition of the "Studies" well worthy of the attention of those who already possess the book in its older form. And to the not small class of students of early society who know McLennan's work only at second hand or by one hasty perusal, it may not be unprofitable to say that this is emphatically a book of which a general knowledge is not sufficient, inasmuch as some of the most important and interesting points are precisely those which are almost sure to be missed on a first reading. For this, perhaps, McLennan himself is partly responsible, for in giving to "Primitive Marriage" the subordinate title "an inquiry into the origin of the form of capture in marriage ceremonies," he seems to fix attention on what is only the starting-point of a far-reaching research. In print and in conversation one often meets with the notion that the doctrines of marriage by capture and kinship through women only are mere archæological curiosa, and that for the study of later law and custom it is quite indifferent whether these things are true, or whether, on the contrary, mankind started from the first with male kinship. But the importance of McLennan's researches lies largely in the demonstration that the structure of society under a system of kinship in the male line which has been preceded by kinship through women cannot be the same as would be reached by a race which has had male kinship from the first. Other writers have taught a doctrine of the priority of kinship through women, but no one except McLennan has accurately developed the consequences of the doctrine, and shown how it solves a problem which, though ignored by most writers, is of the highest importance, namely, the origin of gentes within a nation. Like all really original thinkers, McLennan has for one of his chief merits that he recognised the existence of difficult problems in matters which ordinary people pass over without seeing any difficulty at all. And therefore precisely those passages in his writings which on a hasty reading seem needlessly laboured and proper to be skipped are found upon re-perusal to be particularly useful and stimulating. A word may be said in conclusion on what is promised for the second volume. It is satisfactory to know (p. 75) that it will include a short essay on the origin of exogamy. And from a note at p. 176 it may be inferred that in this essay the origin of exogamy will be sought in a state of 66 BRITISH HYMENOMYCETES British Fungi, Hymenomycetes. By Rev. John Stevenson. With Illustrations. Vol. II. Cortinarius-Dacrymyces. Pp. 336. 8vo. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1886.) WE E are glad to welcome this second volume so speedily after the first, although we fear that expedition has been secured by some sacrifice of efficiency. It is a misfortune when the reader is impressed at once with the feeling that a volume has been hurried out to meet certain exigencies. That feeling is by no means absent in scanning these pages. As soon as p. 165 is reached, and there is no longer Fries's "Monographia" to fall back upon, descriptions give place to diagnoses, notwithstanding the remarks in the preface, which would seem to regard diagnoses with something of contempt. From p. 166 to the end the student must be content with the diagnoses from Fries's "Hymenomycetes Europæi,” although there might have been collected together valuable notes from Fries's "Systema,” Observationes," and "Elenchus." Nevertheless some advantage has been taken of the few descriptions published in the letterpress to Fries's "Icones." It is of considerable importance to students that a work which professes to include all British species, up to date, should satisfy all reasonable expectations. The first |