ground similarly to an earthquake. They state that, knowing the Davy lamp is liable to fire an explosive mixture under certain circumstances, they cannot rest satisfied with their lives being secured by an imperfect instrument, easily deranged, and which at the moment of greatest danger brings on the mischief it is intended to prevent, and on the supposed safety of which has been based the modern practice of carrying foul underground workings to a most dangerous extent.

The petitioners, who assembled to the number of fifteen thousand, at their meeting, suggested that the only way of working the mines with security, would be by sinking two shafts at the "winning," and as the work extends making additional shafts. The mine would then be thoroughly ventilated, the coal more easily worked, and the petitioners secured from these terrible accidents.

Mining Casualties in the North of England.-The list we have given of the loss of life, chiefly by explosions in twelve cases alone, in the counties of Durham and Northumberland, by no means exhibits the entire number of deaths there from that cause.

The subjoined statistical table shows that they comprised in eighty years, between 1756 and 1836, the destruction of one thousand four hundred and twenty-seven miners. The cases of explosions, more than one hundred in number, were attended by the loss of one thousand three hundred and one lives, out of this complement of one thousand four hundred and twentyseven. A large extension to this catalogue might be made by the addition of the cases since 1836, in fact, amounting to many hundreds.

These tables can only be usefully compared with each other, and with the results of other mining districts, when we know the number of workmen actually employed at those times and places respectively. According to Mr. Buddle, the foregoing list of deaths does not comprise those which result from the ordinary casualties of life.*

The following statement has been published of six cases of fire-damp in the Jarrow colliery, on the Durham side of the Tyne, and the number of deaths they occasioned.

In 1817, 1st explosion,

6 killed.
2

1820, 2d

66

In twenty-eight years,

139

* M. Piot in Annales des Mines, Vol. I., 1842.

The attention of the government has been attracted to the formidable nature of these explosions, and in recent important cases, it has nominated commissions, consisting of gentlemen of science and experience, to such as in the cases of the Haswell and the Jarrow explosions, and have directed a searching investigation to be instituted into the causes which led to these catastrophes.

The quality of the deleterious gases of the Jarrow, the Hebburn and the Gateshead collieries was examined in 1846, by Mr. Thos. Graham, and the Mining Journal of June 16th contains an article by that gentleman, “on the composition of the fire damp of the Newcastle coal-field," and the result of his investigation. From this paper it appears that the gas of Killingworth colliery, near Jarrow, where the great explosion of 1845 took place, issues from a fissure in a stratum of sandstone, and has been kept uninterruptedly burning, as the means of lighting the horse road in the mine, for upwards of ten years, without any sensible diminution in its quantity. At the Gateshead colliery, also, the gas is collected as it issues, and is used for lighting the mine, while at the Hebburn colliery the gas ascends from a bore made down into the Bensham coal-seam, which is highly charged with gas, and has been the cause of many accidents.

We add to the table in the foregoing extract, a recent incomplete return of the numbers of miners that have perished in the Durham and Northumberland coal mines in the last 42 years.

This appalling account of loss of life in this class of working men has, it is said, led among other causes to the association of colliers in the north of England, called "the Union," which lately comprised 60,000 persons.

This association, it appears, has other objects besides those contemplated by the Belgian provident institutions, or the "caisses de secours" of the French mines. One object aimed at is the facility it affords for enabling large bodies of operatives to strike for rise of wages, &c., or to consolidate the interests of an important and numerous class in the community.

It is asserted that there is not a colliery in the kingdom in which the men are not daily and hourly exposed to similar fatal accidents as are recorded above, which cannot be wondered at, considering the bad ventilation, and the extent of the underground operations, where in some mines sixty or seventy miles of passages have been cut.

Dr. Barham has communicated an article on "the accidents and diseases of miners," more especially directed towards those of Cornwall. He institutes an interesting comparison between the number of deaths in the Cor-

nish mines of copper and tin, and those of the coal districts. The chances of violent deaths in the latter greatly preponderate.

Thus, there were in the Tyne and Wear district, in the 40 years from 1800 to 1840, 1480 deaths from accidents, out of a mining population of 21,000 persons, men and boys, of whom five eighths worked underground. Out of the 1480 deaths in the collieries, 1325 deaths, or nine-tenths of the whole, were caused by explosions or inundations-accidents to which Cornish mines are rarely subjected.

From official returns given by the Register-general, we are furnished with materials for comparing the mortality among miners with that in other classes of the community. By the census of 1841, the number of males, of twenty years and upwards, employed in the coal mines, as well as those of salt and the metals, was 124,667. Among these, the violent deaths registered in the year 1840 were 498. The only employment which was equally fatal was that of the navy and merchant service. The elative proportions, of deaths in an equal number, are as follows:

In the navy and merchant service,

In the mines,

In the agricultural population of England,

4006

3939

1221*

Frightful as is the foregoing statement of the mortality in the northern coal-field mines, we derive some consolation from perceiving that it falls very short of that in the Belgian coal-field. The results are interesting.

General Cases. In Belgium, out of 20,000 miners, the total number of deaths was 1710 in twenty years, prior to 1841, averaging 85.5 per annum, or thirty to every one thousand miners employed, annually.

In the Durham and Northumberland coal-field the total of deaths in the mines was 990 in the twenty-four years prior to 1846, averaging 41.28 annually, in 21,000 miners, or 19.65 to every 1000 annually.

To render the comparison more exact, we find that the number of deaths in Belgium, proportionate to 21,000 miners, (out of 28,000) is 64.12 per annum. The Durham and Northumberland coal-field, average of 24 years prior to 1846, 41.28 per annum. Do., average of 20 years prior to 1837, 34.60 per annum.

Thus the number of general cases of death, in a corresponding number of miners, is 55 per cent. greater in Belgium than in the English northern coal-field. When, however, we analyze the causes of these deaths, we observe that the proportions are reversed, and the fatal cases of fire-damp are far greater in the Newcastle than in the Belgian coal-field.

Explosions.-Belgium, 503 killed out of 28,000 miners, or 377 out of 21,000, average 18.85 per annum in 20 years.

Northern coal-field, out of 28,000 miners, or 866 out of 21,000, average 36.09 per annum in 24 years.

The mortality by fire-damp being greater in the English coal-field by 31 per cent. than in that of Belgium; or thus, annual deaths by explosions in the Belgian coal-mines, 0.89 out of every 1000 persons employed. In the Newcastle coal-field. 1.72 out of every 1000 persons employed.

Our data is somewhat too scanty to pursue these comparisons far. A statement of the number of miners killed, from various causes, in fifteen years in the basin of the Loire, in France, shows the deaths to be in the proportion of 1 in 100 persons employed. This ratio, if correct, is enormous. That of Belgium averages 1 in 327. The Newcastle coal-field, 1 in 508.

* Mining Journal, January 1, 1841.

Forest of Dean.-Royal Commission of Inquiry into mines.—In 1842, ample reports were made by the chief commissioner of the Gloucestershire mining district. He says that this woodland and mining region, although comprising an area of only 22,000 acres, is so much isolated in its character and local customs, that it presents a field of more than common interest. The employment of females in the mines and collieries is happily almost unknown in the forest. Boys, however, and those often of a very early age, are employed in considerable numbers, as the thinness of the seams of coal requires the labour of mere children, from their very limited height.

From the evidence adduced in the commissioners' report, it is proved in some of the forest mines, that the subterranean roadways or passages are so small, that even the youngest children cannot move along them without crawling on their hands and feet; in which unnatural and constrained position they drag the loaded carriages or hods after them. And yet, as it is impossible, by any outlay compatible with a profitable return, to render such coal mines fit for human beings to work in, they never will be placed in such a condition. Consequently, they never can be worked without inflicting great and irreparable injury on the health of children.

From the peril arising from the destructive influences of malaria and inflammable gases, these mines seem, in a great degree, happily free; and the accidents from explosions are of rare occurrence. The excellent attention given to the system of ventilation, adopted in the Forest collieries, in fact, affords a very general protection from the fatal effects also of carbonic acid gas, or choke-damp.

Staffordshire.-Five lives were lost by an explosion in the Yew-tree colliery, Sedgely, 23d March, 1847.

June 2nd, 1847, eight men and three horses were killed by an explosion of carburetted hydrogen, at Gerard's Bridge colliery, near St. Helen's. In the same month, by an explosion, in Croft Pit, near Whitehaven, four lives were lost. In the same month were nine persons killed by explosion at Kirkless Hall colliery, about two miles from Wigan; besides which there were eight or ten others who were not expected to recover, and about twelve others less seriously injured. Also in the same month, near Wigan, two persons killed, and at Felling colliery, near Gateshead, six miners killed by explosion of fire-damp.

Yorkshire coal-field, XX.-15 persons lost their lives by fire-damp, Nov., 1841, at Barnsley. At Huddersfield, three explosions in 1841. On the 5th of March, 1847, an explosion of carburetted hydrogen took place in the Great Ardsley main colliery, near Barnsley; 95 men were working in the pit at the time, 66 of whom were instantly killed, several died subsequently, and only 10 escaped unhurt.

At Beeston, near Leeds, 17th May, 1847, an explosion led to the death of nine miners.

Lancashire coal-field, XVIII.-Haydock colliery, near Newton.-On the 5th Nov., 1845, an explosion took place, whereby nine persons were killed, and ten others so dreadfully mutilated, as to be unable to survive, with the exception of one.

In the Moyston colliery, ten lives were lost and seven wounded by firedamp, in 1840, and six persons burned and five hurt in May, 1846.

An explosion from fire-damp in a colliery near Preston took place on the 24th of November, 1846, and on the same day another occurred at Coppell colliery, Standish. Twelve lives were sacrificed in these two cases.

In the same month, by an explosion at Chorley, eight persons were instantaneously killed.

R

SCOTLAND.

The ordinary casualties of mining occupations prevail here; but that arising from fire-damp does not appear to be so common.

Two explosions took place in 1845, in the Victoria colliery, near Nitshill, Glasgow, but without loss of life.

Ameliorations in the habits and condition of the mining population have taken place, within a few years. Amongst these, none, perhaps, is more important than the prevention of the employment of females in the coal mines, both of Scotland and in some English districts. At the time of the passing of Lord Ashley's Act, in 1842, there were no less than 2400 females in the coal pits of Scotland; seven hundred women in those around Wigan ; many in Staffordshire, &c.

SOUTH WALES.

It is ascertained that the loss of life by fire-damp is not less frequent, although on a smaller scale in this coal-field, than in the highly bituminous coal basins of the north of England. Those which occur are in great measure limited to the bituminous portion of the Welsh basin. One of the most important of these accidents was an explosion in the Duffryn colliery whereby 29 miners were killed, on the 2d August, 1845. Minor cases, of the death of from two to ten persons, are less rare, and scarcely a week passes without a case of explosion.

In January, 1844, twelve persons were killed by this cause, at Dinas colliery, and several accidents from the fire-damp took place in other collieries. Three miners were destroyed at Nantyglo, in July of that year. In 1845, a good many accidents occurred, by explosions: at Patricroft, at Swansea, at Mynydd Newydd colliery, four deaths. In May, 1846, a severe case of explosion at the Risca colliery, and in the following month, eight persons were burned at Homfray's colliery, Tredegar.

The employment of females in the mines is or was prevalent in South Wales, but it is hoped the degrading practice is diminished.*

Benefit societies, for the relief of sick and wounded miners, or for their families, are numerous throughout the mining regions, and are productive of considerable good.

CONDITION OF THE MINING POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

This has been the subject of investigation for some years, and annual reports have been made to government. Difficulties, abuses, and grievances, under which the working miners and their families suffered, have been diligently investigated and pointed out, and remedies have been suggested and acted upon. We cannot here enter into these details. It is evident that remarkable differences in the habits, morals, and comfort of the same classes existed in different mining regions of Great Britain. The causes of these discrepancies or contrasts have been traced to their sources, and placed before the public. The general social condition of this class of population, we have every reason to know, has been greatly ameliorated by means of these investigations.

Some colliery districts, it is well known, have always maintained a more moral, a more respectable and intelligent population, than others. We have no means of classifying these, even were it desirable to do so. Some have been more prominent than others, as we have shown in relation to the Dud

* Royal mining commission of inquiry into mines,