CHAP. VI.] ACCIDENTS IN MINES. 175 CHAPTER VI. (6 EXPLOSIONS of fire-damp were unusually frequent in the coalmines of Northumberland and Durham about the time when George Stephenson was engaged in the construction of his first locomotives. These explosions were often attended with fearful loss of life and dreadful suffering to the work-people. Killingworth Colliery was not free from such deplorable calamities; and during the time that Stephenson was employed as brakesman at the West Moor, several "blasts" took place in the pit, by which many workmen were scorched and killed, and the owners of the colliery sustained heavy losses. One of the most serious of these accidents occurred in 1806, not long after he had been appointed brakesman, by which ten persons were killed. Stephenson was near the pit mouth at the time, and the circumstances connected with the explosion made a deep impression on his mind, as appears from the graphic account which he gave of it to the Committee of the House of Commons on accidents in mines, some thirty years after the event. "The pit," said he, “had just ceased drawing coals, and nearly all the men had got out. It was some time in the afternoon, a little after midday. There were five men that went down the pit; four of them for the purpose of preparing a place for the furnace. The fifth was a person who went down to set them to work. I sent this man down myself, and he had just got to the bottom of the shaft about two or three minutes when the explosion took place. I had left the mouth of the pit, and had gone about fifty or sixty yards away, when I heard a tremendous noise, looked round, and saw the discharge come out of the pit like the discharge of a cannon. It continued to blow, I think, for a quarter of an hour, discharging every thing that had come into the current. Wood came up, stones came up, and trusses of hay that went up into the air like balloons. Those trusses had been sent down during the day, and I think they had in some measure injured the ventilation of the mine. The ground all round the top of the pit was in a trembling state. I went as near as I durst go; every thing appeared cracking and rending about me. Part of the brattice, which was very strong, was blown away at the bottom of the pits. Very large pumps were lifted from their places, so that the engine could not work. The pit was divided into four by partitions; it was a large pit, fourteen feet in diameter, and partitions were put down at right angles, which made four compartments. The explosion took place in one of those four quarters, but it broke through into all the others at the bottom, and the brattice or partitions were set on fire at the first explosion. this "Nobody durst go near the shafts for some time, for fear of another explosion taking place. At last we considered it necessary to run the rope backward and forward, and give the miners, if there were any at the bottom of the shaft, an opportunity of catching the rope as it came to the bottom. Several men were safely got up in way; one man, who had got hold of the rope, was being drawn up, when a farther explosion took place while he was still in the shaft, and the increased current which came about him projected him as it were up the shaft; yet he was landed without injury: it was a singular case. ... The pit continued to blast every two or three hours for about two days. It appears that the coal had taken fire, and as soon as the carbureted hydrogen gas. collected in suffi cient quantity to reach the part where it was burning, it ignited again; but none of the explosions were equal to the first, on account of many parts of the mine having become filled with azotic gas, or the after-damp of the mine. All the ditches in the countryside were stopped to get water to pour into the pit. We had fireengines brought from Newcastle, and the water was poured in till it came above the fire, and then it was extinguished. The loss to the owners of the colliery by this accident must have been about £20,000." Another explosion took place in the same pit in 1809, by which twelve persons lost their lives. The blast did not reach the shaft as in the former case, the unfortunate, persons in the pit having been suffocated by the after-damp. More calamitous still were the explosions which took place in the neighboring collieries, one of the worst being that of 1812, in the Felling Pit near Gateshead, a mine belonging to Mr. Brandling, by which no fewer than nine* Evidence given by George Stephenson before the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines, 26th June, 1835. CHAP. VI.] DANGERS OF THE COAL-MINES. 177 ty men and boys were suffocated or burnt to death; and a similar It was natural that Stephenson should devote his attention to the causes of these deplorable accidents, and to the means by which they might, if possible, be prevented. His daily occupation led him to think much and deeply on the subject. As enginewright of a colliery so extensive as that of Killingworth, where there were nearly 160 miles of gallery excavation, in which he personally superintended the working of inclined planes, along which the coals were sent to the pit entrance, he was necessarily very often under ground, and brought face to face with the dangers of fire-damp. From fissures in the roofs of the galleries carbureted hydrogen gas was constantly flowing; and in some of the more dangerous places it might be heard escaping from the crevices of the coal with a hissing noise. Ventilation, firing, and all conceivable modes of drawing out the foul air had been tried, while the more dangerous parts of the galleries were built up. Still the danger could not be wholly prevented. The miners must necessarily guide their steps through the extensive underground ways with lighted lamps or candles, the naked flame of which, coming in contact with the inflammable air, daily exposed them and their fellow-workers in the pit to the risk of death in one of its most dreadful forms. M One day in the year 1814, a workman hurried into Stephenson's cottage with the startling information that the deepest main of the colliery was on fire! He immediately hastened to the pithead, about a hundred yards off, whither the women and children of the colliery were running, with wildness and terror depicted in every face. In a commanding voice, Stephenson ordered the engine-man to lower him down the shaft in the corve. There was danger, it might be death, before him, but he must go. He was soon at the bottom, and in the midst of the men, who were paralyzed at the danger which threatened the lives of all in the pit. Leaping from the corve on its touching the ground, he called out, "Are there six men among you who have the courage to follow me? If so, come, and we will put the fire out." The Killingworth pitmen had the most perfect confidence in their engine-wright, and they readily volunteered to follow him. Silence succeeded the frantic tumult of the previous minute, and the men set to work with a will. In every mine, bricks, mortar, and tools enough are at hand, and by Stephenson's direction the materials were forthwith carried to the required spot, where, in a very short time, a wall was raised at the entrance to the main, he himself taking the most active part in the work. The atmospheric air was by this means excluded, the fire was extinguished, most of the people in the pit were saved from death, and the mine was preserved. This anecdote of George Stephenson was related to the writer, near the pit-mouth, by one of the men, Kit Heppel, who had been present, and helped to build up the brick wall by which the fire was stayed, though several of the workmen were suffocated. Heppel relates that, when down the pit some days after, seeking out the dead bodies, the cause of the accident was the subject of some conversation between himself and Stephenson, and Heppel then asked him, "Can nothing be done to prevent such awful occurrences?" Stephenson replied that he thought something might be done. "Then," said Heppel," the sooner you begin the better, for the price of coal-mining now is pitmen's lives." Fifty years since, many of the best pits were so full of the inflammable gas given forth by the coal that they could not be worked without the greatest danger, and for this reason some were altogether abandoned. The rudest possible means were THE PROBLEM OF A SAFETY-LAMP. 179 CHAP. VI.] adopted of producing light sufficient to enable the pitmen to work by. The phosphorescence of decayed fish-skins was tried; but this, though safe, was very inefficient. The most common method employed was what was called a steel mill, the notched wheel of which, being made to revolve against a flint, struck a succession of sparks, which scarcely served to do more than make the darkness visible. A boy carried the apparatus, working the wheel; and by the imperfect light thus given forth the miner plied his dangerous trade. Candles were only used in those parts of the pit where gas was not abundant. Under this rude system not more than one third of the coal could be worked, while two thirds were left. What the workmen, not less than the coal-owners, eagerly desired was a lamp that should give forth sufficient light, without communicating flame to the inflammable gas which accumulated in certain parts of the pit. Something had already been done toward the invention of such a lamp by Dr. Clanny, of Sunderland, who, in 1813, contrived an apparatus to which he gave air from the mine through water, by means of bellows. This lamp went out of itself in inflammable gas. It was found, however, too unwieldy to be used by the miners for the purposes of their work, and did not come into general use. A committee of gentlemen interested in coal-mining was formed to investigate the causes of the explosions, and to devise, if possible, some means of preventing them. At the invitation of that committee, Sir Humphry Davy, then in the full zenith of his reputation, was requested to turn his attention to the subject. He accordingly visited the collieries near Newcastle on the 24th of August, 1815, and at the close of that year, on the 9th of November, 1815, he read before the Royal Society of London his celebrated paper "On the Firedamp of Coal Mines, and on Methods of Lighting the Mine so as to prevent its Explosion.' But a humbler though not less diligent and original thinker had been at work before him, and had already practically solved the problem of the Safety-lamp. Stephenson was, of course, well aware of the desire which prevailed in the colliery districts for the invention of a lamp which should give light enough for the miners to work by without exploding the fire-damp, and the painful incidents above described only served to quicken his eagerness to master the difficulty. |