at Wallsend Colliery, June, 1835. 347
nity, and the more clearly their nature is understood, the less reason will be found to impute blame to those whose lot it is to have the direction and superintendence of collieries, which are subject to such dreadful catastrophes, and which imposes upon them such serious responsibility.
All the collieries in this district, which are worked below the sea level,[1]
are subject to an evolvement of carburetted hydrogen gas, to a greater or less extent. Such mines must, therefore, be subject to explosion, in spite of the means which have yet been devised for its prevention. For, although those means may be considered as giving security under certain conditions, still, like every thing else, of human invention, and of human application, they are fallible. Consequently, the utmost stretch of the Colliery Viewer's art and vigilance, only amounts to an approximation towards safety. It is, however, exceedingly difficult to define precisely, what import or value we are to attach to our ideas of safety, even in many of the ordinary occurrences of life. As in all cases involving risk of any kind, the idea of safety can only be taken in a qualified sense.
If we mount our horse, take a journey in a gig or coach, or set out on a voyage in a steamer, we consider ourselves, in the common acceptation of the word — safe. Yet, in all those cases, fatal accidents frequently happen. It is not necessary that I should multiply examples, but thus it is with our fiery collieries. We presume they are safe, when we have carried all the means which we possess for effecting that object into full operation, and we can only hope they may be efficacious, but cannot guard against incidental and unforeseen causes of danger over which we have no controul.
This was the case at Wall's End Colliery, as will afterwards appear, and it is the case with not only that, but with every other colliery in the neighbourhood. They are all safe in the qualified sense already stated, but are all subject to risk from causes for which human ingenuity has not yet been able to point out an effectual remedy.
Ventilation is the only means with which we are yet acquainted for clearing our coal mines from the constant influx of inflammable air to which they are subject. Sir HUMPHRY DAVY, and other chemists, have
- ↑ Generally speaking, carburetted hydrogen seldom appears in large quantities, in the seams of coal lying above the level of the sea in this country.
