Coal and Coal-Mining

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1869. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... In order to test the different densities of the currents on opposite sides of a brattice, a door, or stopping, a manometer or water-gauge is employed. This, although it gives no criterion of the amount of ventilation, is very useful for comparisons, as giving a measure of the resistances, or of what is technically called the drag of the mine, and distinctly pointing out any unusual obstruction such as mav be caused by a fall of roof in the air-ways. The above brief sketch, although not pretending to go into the details of exceptional circumstances, may, I trust, be sufficient in a general way to set forth the principles and practice upon which the ventilation of our larger collieries has been brought into so high a position of effectiveness by the skill and perseverance of the leading coal-viewers. CHAPTER XVIII. COLLIERY ACCLDENTS AND THEIR PREVENTION. The melancholy fact that from 900 to 1,100 persons are every year killed in our British coal mines, forcibly attracts attention to the inquiry, what proportion of these numerous accidents are due to preventible causes, and how far a part of them are inseparable from the dangerous nature of the collier's occupation. When a catastrophe of unusual magnitude occurs, public feeling is aroused, newspaper articles are written, and parliamentary inquiries are set on foot; but the majority of the accidents are little noticed, except in the immediate vicinity, and they take place at points so remote and so widely distributed, as to show that the main difficulty in dealing with them rests in the necessity of keeping up an unceasing watchfulness among many thousands of men, workmen as well as managers. It has resulted chiefly from the excitement caused by the more destructive explosions, that several volumes have been publis...