to do something it its bank and joined the flood water that was hemmed between two in black and white low hills just where the of the main line crossed when a good part of a rain fed river and a few acres of flood water make a dead set for a nine foot the may its finest but the water cannot all get out the manager upon one leg with excitement and his language was improper he had reason to swear because he knew that one inch of water on land meant a pressure of one hundred tons to the acre and here were about five feet of water forming behind the railway over the workings of twenty two you must understand that in a coal mine the coal nearest the surface is worked first from the central shaft that is to say the may clear out the stuff to within ten twenty or thirty feet of the surface and when all is worked out leave only a of earth by some few pillars of coal in a deep mine where they know that they have any amount of material at hand men prefer to get all their out at one at i shaft rather than make a number of little holes to tap the comparatively unimportant surface coal and the manager watched the flood the a nine foot but the water still formed and word was sent to clear the men out of twenty two the came up crammed and crammed again with the men nearest the pit eye as they call the place where you can see daylight from the bottom of the main shaft all away and away up the long black galleries the lamps were and dancing like so many fire flies and the men and the women waited for the rattling thundering to come down and fly up again but the out workings were very far off and the word could not be passed quickly though the heads of the and the assistant shouted and swore and and stumbled the manager kept one eye on the great troubled pool behind the and prayed that the would give way and let the water in black and white through in time with the other eye he watched the come up and saw the counting the roll of the with all his heart and soul he swore at the who controlled the iron drum that wound up the wire rope on which hung the in a little time there was a down draw in the water behind the � a all yellow and the water had smashed through the skin of the earth and was pouring into the old shallow workings of twenty two deep down below a rush of black water caught the last gang waiting for the cage and as they in the whirl was about their the cage reached the pit bank and the manager called the roll the were all safe except gang gang and gang eighteen men with perhaps ten basket women who loaded the coal into the little iron carriages that ran on the of the main galleries these were in the out work at twenty two three quarters of a mile away on the extreme fringe of the mine once more the cage went down but with only two englishmen in it and dropped into a roaring current that had almost touched the roof of some of the lower side galleries one of the wooden with which they had propped the old workings shot past on the current just missing the cage if we don t want our ribs knocked out we d better go said the manager we can t even save the company s the cage drew out of the water with a splash and a few minutes later it was reported that there were at least ten feet of water in the pit s eye now ten feet of water there meant that all other places in the mine were except such galleries as were more than ten feet above the level of the bottom of the shaft the deep workings would be full the main galleries would be full but in the high workings reached by from the main roads would be a certain amount of air cut in black and white off so to speak by the water and squeezed up by it the little science explain how water when you pour it down test the of twenty two was an illustration on a large scale � � � � � � � by the holy grove what has happened to the air it was a son thai of gang in no gallery and he was driving a six foot way through the coal then there was a rush from the other galleries and gang and gang stumbled up with their basket women water has come in the mine they said and there is no way of getting out i went down said � down the slope of my gallery and i felt the water there has been no water in the cutting in our time the women why cannot we go away be silent said long ago when my father was here water came to ten � no eleven � cutting and there was great trouble let us get away to where the air is better at twenty the three and the basket women left no gallery and went further up no at one turn of the road they could see the black water on the coal it had touched the roof of a gallery that they knew well � a gallery where they used to smoke their and conduct their seeing this they called aloud upon their gods and the who are thrice strove to recollect the name of the prophet they came to a great open square whence nearly all the coal had been extracted it was the end of the out 