The drowning of a coal mine not seldom occurs from the irruption of water accumulated in old wastes or ancient workings occupying a higher level in the vicinity. The growing pressure of such a body of water upon the beds or barriers below becomes enormous; and then the water, testing every weak point of the body opposed to its escape, at length unexpectedly rushes into the space which it finds open before it. All the works below are completely filled, and the mines are for a time rendered useless, or, it may be, for ever abandoned. This was the cause, in 1815, of the celebrated accident at Heaton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in which ninety lives were lost. The water flowed from two adjoining old collieries which had been abandoned seventy years before. A barrier of six feet withstood a pressure of thirty fathoms of water. But an irruption was aided at last by a natural fissure of the rock, and the catastrophe followed before any adequate protection could be interposed.
About thirty years later a tremendous calamity of the like kind, after an outlay of 100,000l., totally ruined the Baghilt coal mines, in Wales. The water came from adjoining mines, which had been long abandoned.
If correct plans and descriptions of all the ancient workings had been preserved, these accidents, which happen frequently, might easily be prevented, as an exact knowledge of the localities would enable the owners to leave sufficiently strong barriers in parts where they are now often most inadequate. Such is the importance of accurate mining records that thousands of pounds would be freely given at this moment by many owners for a knowledge of old works of which no plan exists and which no memory can now recall. Fortunately, the legislature has now taken steps to introduce a system of registration such as has already existed long ago in Prussia, Austria, and Belgium, and which, at least, will answer the purpose of obtaining greater security for the future.
Sometimes an enormous fall of rain, descending on the neighbouring country, finds its way into the mines through fissures in the ground or by breaking through galleries, and causes irreparable mischief; sometimes even a whole river bursts into the works and ruins them for ever. Thus, in 1856, the South Tamar Consols, in Devonshire, was flooded by the giving way of the bed of the Tamar, under which the workings were carried.
Even the Sea has been known to take fatal vengeance for the undermining of her domain.
Workington Colliery extended to the distance of 1,500 yards under the Irish Channel, and the workings, being driven considerably to the rise, were brought at length within fifteen fathoms of the bottom of the sea. The pillars of coal which supported the overlying strata were hardly strong enough to support the roof, but the imprudence of a manager eager to produce a larger quantity of coal weakened even this insufficient support by working it partly away. Heavy falls of the roof, accompanied by discharges of salt water, gave repeated warnings of the impending catastrophe, which took place on July 30, 1837. So violent was the irruption that many persons at a distance of hundreds of yards observed the whirlpool commotion of the sea as it rushed into the gulf beneath. Some few workmen near the shaft had time to escape, but thirty-six men and boys and as many horses were destroyed by the waters, which in a few hours entirely filled the excavations, the extension of which had tasked the labour of years.
The heroic devotion of a miner has invested with a more than ordinary interest the inundation of the mine of Beaujonc, near Liège, which took place on February 28, 1812. One hundred and twenty-seven persons were in the pit when the waters burst in from some old workings. Thirty-five had time to make their escape through the shaft; twenty-two were drowned in their eagerness to reach it; the majority, severed from the upper world by an impassable gulf, remained behind. Hubert Goffin, the overman, could have ascended in the tub; but, though the father of six children, his sense of duty would not allow him to desert his post, and he resolved to save all his men or to perish with them. As the rising waters forced the prisoners to seek a higher level, the boys burst out weeping and the boldest began to despair; but Goffin revived their courage by reminding them that their friends without would make every effort to save them. As one day after another passed, the prisoners suffered all the horrors of hunger, which some of them endeavoured to appease by devouring the candles they had brought with them. Others went to the water in the hopes of finding the body of some drowned comrade. Two of the pitmen quarrelled, and were on the point of coming to blows. ‘Let them fight,’ said the others; ‘if one of them is killed we will eat him’—a declaration which at once put an end to the dispute. To satisfy their thirst they had nothing but the foul water of the pit. Some made vows to all the saints, others complained in their delirium that they had to wait for their meals. In the midst of these scenes of horror, Goffin alone retained his courage, and, exhorting, consoling, encouraging, and reproving on all sides, appeared as the guardian angel of his despairing comrades.
Meanwhile every effort was being made from without to bring them succour. Although as soon as the accident took place the pumps were incessantly at work, the water had risen to a height of 14 metres in the shaft on the following morning, and as it was still rising there was reason to fear that the captives, blocked up in a constantly narrowing space, would soon be suffocated. It was resolved to strike a gallery from the neighbouring pit of Mamouster to Beaujonc, a distance of 175 metres. Unfortunately, only two men could hew at a time, but such was the ardour with which the work was prosecuted that on the morning of March 4 a shout of triumph announced that the longed-for communication was effected, and that the prisoners were alive. Crawling through the narrow passage, they were wrapped up in woollen blankets and strengthened with soup and wine before being hoisted to the surface. Goffin and his son, a lad of twelve, were the last to leave the pit; as a brave sea captain, after some great catastrophe, never thinks of his own safety till he has satisfied himself of that of his men. With the exception of those who were drowned immediately after the accident took place, all were saved. The joy of some families, the despair of others, may be imagined when the final count was made. As a reward for Goffin’s admirable conduct, he was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour and received a pension of 600 francs. Nine years later he was killed by an explosion of fire-damp, and thus the hostile elements with which he had so long waged a successful war triumphed over him at last.
The sudden irruption of an immense body of water into a mine naturally causes a compression of the air in those galleries which are cut off from all communication with the shaft. This pressure, which may rise to three or four atmospheres—or, in other words, may be three or four times greater than that of the external air—not only produces symptoms of suffocation and cerebral congestion in the unfortunate miners who are exposed to it, but, forcing its way through fissures in the roof or violently rupturing it, sometimes produces the effect of an explosion of gunpowder, throwing the earth to a distance, and even overturning houses. One of the most interesting of the accidents of this kind on record occurred in 1833, in an extensive Scotch colliery, into which the waters of the river Garnock had broken through a cavity in its bed. As the stream poured into the mine the opening gradually enlarged, until at length the whole body of the river plunged into the excavations beneath. The river was affected by the tides, and this engulfment took place at low water; but as the tide rose the sea entered with prodigious force, until the whole workings, extending for many miles, were completely filled. No sooner, however, had this taken place, than the pressure of the water in the pits became so great that the confined air, which had been forced back into the high workings, burst through the surface of the earth in a thousand places, and many acres of ground were seen to bubble up like the boiling of a cauldron. Great quantities of sand and water were also thrown up, like showers of rain, during a period of five hours, and an extensive tract of land was laid waste.
Besides the danger of being crushed to death by a fall of rock, or immured in a living tomb by an obstruction of the shaft or an irruption of water, the miner has another, and often still more formidable, enemy to encounter in the noxious gases frequently evolved in coal-pits. Thus in all well-regulated mines the greatest attention is paid to ventilation, so that no part of the workings may be left without a proper supply of air. In ordinary cases the natural currents, which set in different directions through the shafts and galleries, may sufficiently purify the atmosphere; but in the coal mines which are peculiarly subject to the evolution of foul gases, artificial or mechanical means must be resorted to for driving away the hurtful vapours as quickly as they form. To establish a proper air current, the usual method is to keep a large fire continually burning at the bottom of one of the two shafts of the pit, or of one of the two compartments of the single shaft, and the difference of temperature thus caused between the column of air of the upcast shaft and the downcast becomes the motive power which impels or drags the air current in obedience to it.[[39]] Yet this meets but half the difficulty; for the air current, which naturally tends to the shortest passage, must be forced to do its duty in every corner of the pit, and not suffered to escape through the upcast shaft before it has performed the longest circuit. For this purpose a great number of mechanical contrivances are adopted, in the shape of ‘stoppings,’ of brick, or wood, or stone, all so placed as to divert