Mining Accidents and Their Prevention

SIR FREDERICK ABEL.

obtained appeared to the Author so important, in reference to the provision of an efficient blasting agent for use in coal-mines, which would not require any adjunct, or the adoption of any other than the ordinary method of charging holes, to ensure perfect safety, that he was taking steps to carry on searching experiments with it, the results of which he hoped ere long to communicate to the mining public.

The conflicting nature of the observations made in the course of the discussion, and in the correspondence, with regard to the merits of wedging, and of lime-cartridges, when employed as substitutes for gunpowder in coal-getting seemed to show that the important and really obvious fact was frequently lost sight of, that neither of the two systems was calculated to do the same character of work in different varieties of coal, and that neither the inventors of particular forms of wedges, nor the elaborators of the compressed lime-cartridge, maintained that the explosive agent could be replaced by either in working all descriptions of coal. The somewhat extreme views of Mr. Stokes with regard to inconveniences and supposed dangers, attending the use of lime-cartridges, were evidently not shared by Mr. A. R. Sawyer, whose observations on this subject, also based upon personal knowledge, had, on several important points, confirmed the conclusions arrived at by the late Royal Commission.

In answering the various questions raised in the course of the discussion, he had endeavored to deal separately with each important subject on which it appeared necessary for him to comment and reply, and in order to do this thoroughly he had included in those replies the consideration of some of the communications of correspondents. Mr. Forster Brown had supplied interesting information on some other matters included in the Paper. With regard to his remarks on the subject of goaves, they appeared after all to admit that extensive accumulations of gas might occur in these. Mr. Coxon's account of the experiments with dust, which he had witnessed at Neunkirchen, con

SIR FREDERICK ABEL.

firmed the statements made in the final report of the Royal Commission respecting the experiments of the Prussian Commission. With regard to his description of an explosion, which he ascribed purely to dust, the assumption that this was so was open to the objection that he assumed the absence of gas in the drift where the explosion occurred, simply upon the results furnished by inspection with a Davy lamp and a naked candle. This subject had, however, been thoroughly discussed in the Paper.

Mr. J. Ashworth was well known for the labor which he had devoted to effecting improvements in safety-lamps, and those described by him would doubtless, like that of Mr. Brainbridge, receive the attention of mine managers. Mr. Forster Brown was one of the few practical men who could already speak from somewhat considerable experience of the value of the electric light in mines, and it was satisfactory to find that he looked forward with confidence to the speedy provision of thoroughly efficient self-contained lamps. As regarded fixed lamps, he did not appear to comtemplate the future extension of their use beyond the main haulage roads, while Mr. Arthur Sopwith shared the view advanced by Mr. Sydney Walker, that the future would see the electric light applied to the face of the coal through the agency of main conductors, rather than by means of self-contained portable lamps. Mr. Sopwith made light of the ob jections which the Author had raised against the attachment of lamps, required at the working places, to main conductors by branch wires; but he did not suggest how these necessarily very light leads were to be protected from the liability to injury by falls of coal or stone and rough usage, to which Mr. Longden and Mr. Sennett had referred. The whole question of the application of the electric light underground had, however, only passed through the first stage of its development, and there was no doubt that prac tical electricians would, with proper encouragement from the owners of mines, and by wholesome competition with each other, achieve successes which were at present only foreshadowed. The importance of bringing the cost of

SIR FREDERICK ABEL.

electric lamps within such limits as to allow of their competing, from an economical point of view, with safety-lamps of the ordinary and improved types, if any such really extensive trial was to be made of the new system of illumination as could alone lead to its thoroughly successful development, gave force to the observations made by Mr. Story-Maskelyne, which he would venture to commend to the consideration of those who, at present, controlled the supply to the public of the only form of electric light which was susceptible of safe application in coal-mines.

In conclusion, the Author would only say that he cordially agreed with Sir Warington Smyth in the observations he had made, and which were in harmony with those of several other highly competent speakers, that the safe working of collieries must always be in a far greater degree dependent upon the experience, judgment, constant vigilance and care, of those entrusted with their management, and upon the intelligence and ceaseless watchfulness of the subordinate officials, than upon inspection by Government officials, however much it might be increased and elaborated.