Of one hundred and twenty-eight persons in the mine at the time of the explosion, only thirty-two were brought to daylight: twenty-nine survived the fatal combustion; the rest were destroyed. Nor from the time of the explosion till the eighth of July, could any person descend. But after many unsuccessful attempts to explore the burning mine, it was reclosed, to prevent the atmospheric air from entering it: this being done, no attempt was afterward made to explore it, till the morning of the last-mentioned day; from which time to the nineteenth of September, the heart-rending scene of mothers and widows examining the putrid bodies of their sons and husbands, for marks by which to identify them, was almost daily renewed; but very few of them were known by any personal mark; they were too much mangled and scorched to retain any of their features. Their clothes, tobacco-boxes, shoes, &c., were, therefore, the only indexes by which they could be recognized.
At the crane twenty-one bodies lay in ghastly confusion: some like mummies, scorched as dry as if they were baked. One wanted its head, another an arm. The scene was truly frightful. The power of fire was visible upon them all; but its effects were extremely variable: while some were almost torn to pieces, there were others who appeared as if they had sunk down overpowered with sleep. The ventilation concluded on Saturday the nineteenth of September, when the ninety-first body was dug from under a heap of stones. At six o’clock in the morning the pit was visited by candle-light, which had not been used in it for the space of one hundred and seventeen days; and at eleven o’clock in the morning the tube furnace was lighted. From this time the colliery has been regularly at work; but the ninety-second body has never yet been found. All these persons, except four, who were buried in single graves, were interred in Heworth chapel-yard, in a trench, side by side, two coffins deep, with a partition of brick and lime between every four coffins.
Having thus glanced at some of the coal mines of Great Britain, we now pass to some of those of the United States. In these coal is found in four different forms: first, the genuine anthracite, or glance coal, as near Worcester, Mass., and Newport, R. I.; second, coal destitute of bitumen, commonly called anthracite, but which is more properly anasphaltic, which is found at Pottsville, Mauch Chunk, Lackawanna, Wilkesbarre, &c.; third, bituminous coal, usually found in the slate rock, as at Tioga, Lycoming, etc.; and fourth, the lignite coal, found along the south shore of the bay of South Amboy, New Jersey. From the state of Alabama to Pictou, Nova Scotia, the coal beds can be followed in a north-east direction, for fifteen hundred miles; and from Richmond, in Virginia, to Rock River, in Illinois, they are continually crossed at right angles, for about eight hundred miles. At Richmond, the coal is bituminous; on the Alleghany belt, it is anthracite. Geologists think that the anthracite was lifted out of its horizontal position when the great Alleghany belt was upheaved, and that its non-bituminous quality is owing to the influence of the intense heat that accompanied its upheaval.
Taylor, in his book on coal, estimates the area of bituminous coal in the United States, east of the Mississippi river, at one hundred and twenty-four thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five square miles, and west of the Mississippi, at eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-seven square miles; British North America, eighteen thousand square miles bituminous. More than one-third of the area of Pennsylvania, is more or less marked by coal formations; one-third of Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia, one-fifth of Indiana, and three-fourths of Illinois, are occupied by carboniferous strata. Western Pennsylvania abounds in bituminous coal, and it is found also in several counties of New York. By the census of 1839-40, we find that the quantity of bituminous coal produced that year in the United States, was twenty-seven million, six hundred and three thousand, one hundred and ninety-one bushels, employing about four thousand men, and a capital of some two million dollars; and that about four million dollars of capital were invested in raising anthracite coal, of which some nine hundred thousand tuns (of about twenty-eight bushels each) were produced by the labors of about three thousand men. Most of this was from Pennsylvania.
In 1819, the anthracite coal trade had no existence; in 1820, this kind of coal was first used as fuel, and just three hundred and sixty-five tuns were sent to market; in 1845, the amount was two million tuns; in 1850, about three million, five hundred thousand tuns, and the present year (1854) the amount will probably be between six and seven million tuns. The demand and supply so steadily and rapidly increase that it is impossible to estimate the vast extent the business of coal mining is yet to attain.
Glancing for a moment at other countries, we find that Belgium, in 1845, had two hundred and twelve mines, employing thirty-eight thousand miners and five hundred steam-engines, and producing five million tuns; France, four hundred and forty-nine mines, employing thirty thousand miners, and producing five million tuns; Prussia, in 1840, seven hundred and fifty-two mines, employing twenty-four thousand miners, and raising three million, five hundred thousand tuns; and that Great Britain, in 1846, produced thirty-five million tuns, valued at forty-five million dollars at the mines. Austria and Spain, also, have excellent mines, though less productive. And as a late and interesting discovery, it may be added, that the recent Arctic expedition sent out from England, found coal in those northern regions, on the island of Disco, outcropping near the shore. They also, in another locality not far off, discovered some curious specimens of petrified trees, and near them extensive quarries of anthracite coal, of good quality. There appeared to be no limit to the quantity that might be thrown into a boat with ease, and in the space of three hours they conveyed not less than twelve tuns to the steamer, three-quarters of a mile distant. It proved, on trial, to be of good quality, the combustion was perfect, and the coal as economical as the Welsh.
We will conclude the subject of coal mines, with the statement of a recent tourist, as to some of the wonders of the Cornish mines in England, as he saw them in 1854. He says: “Some of the mines are truly grand undertakings. The’the largest of the Cornish group, employ upward of three thousand persons. One of the engines pumps water from a direct depth of sixteen hundred feet, the weight of the pumping apparatus alone being upward of five hundred tuns; the pumping-rod is one thousand, seven hundred and forty feet long, and it raises about two million gallons of water in a week, from a depth equal to five times the hight of St. Paul’s. These are, indeed, wonders to marvel at! The consolidated and united mines, both belonging to one company, are stated to have used the following vast quantities of materials in a year: coals, fifteen thousand, two hundred and seventy tuns; candles, one hundred and thirty-two thousand, one hundred and forty-four pounds; gunpowder, eighty-two thousand pounds; leather, for straps, &c., thirteen thousand, four hundred and ninety-three pounds; pick and shovel handles, sixteen thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight dozens. Sir Charles Lemon has estimated, that in the whole of the Cornish mines, thirteen thousand pounds’ worth of gunpowder is used annually; that the timber employed in the underground works, equals the growth of one hundred and forty square miles of Norwegian forest; and that thirty-seven million tuns of water are raised annually from the mines.”
SALT MINES.
Hence with diffusive salt old Ocean steeps,
His emerald shallows, and his sapphire deeps.