Smyrna times., 1866-12-26
About English Coal Mines.

The question has been often asked, Whether
there is no danger of the coal mines in England
giving out? To this the replies of geologists
aud surveyors of mines have been numerous,
and the substance of them is that at the pre-
sent rate of working there is coal enough in
Great Britain to last for two hundred years
and this is probably true But it is only part
of the truth, for very much of this coal is so
deep in the earth that it can only be worked at
great cost. The demand for and rate of pro-
duction of coal are annually increasing, and
the results of this increase are now becoming
evident.
Over six hundred lives have been lost in two
mines, and in TWO days, in different parts of
England. One Of these pits, in which three
hundred perished at the first explosion, was
| about 900 feet deep, and the gas was so pow
erful that explosion after explosion had been
| taking place since, and the proprietOrs have
| resolved to food the mine, as the only method
of putting out the fire and rendering it safe to
enter. This mine, it is said, had galleries ex-
tending two miles from the main entrance, and
the temperature at which the miners worked
was between seventy and eighty degrees. All
this is nothing to what is often the case but it
will tend greatly to discourage mining in Eng
land, and render the miners more anxious to
come to the United States or to 60 to other
is now found in Russia, and, in fact, all over
the world.
The deepest shaft sunk in England is said tC
have cost, including its engine, half million
of dollars in gold before any coal was drawn
up. Half that sum has often been expended
on shafts that have been sunk 1900 feet, and
it is only by employing large numbers OF boys
who become deformed in crawling the low anC
difficult passages with heavy burdens, at low
wages, that these mines now are made to pay
four or five per cent. interest, and sometimes
! less, upon the heavy capital employed. Their,
is too depth beyond which miners cannot gC
on account of the increasing heat. Eighty anC
9 eighty-four degrees is the temperature at which
it is said the works in certain parts OF SOM
! English mines are now carried on, and at
higher temperature than this men cannot labo
steadily.
The liability to explosions, owing to the es
! cape of gas, will do more to bring over to thi
| country large bodies of miners than all the 9th
; er causes put together. 1t will probably caus
! regular stampede, if the miners have enoug
Il Il money to pay their passages The entire vii
. lage of Barnsley, where the Oaks Colliery wa
= situated has been cOnvulsed with griefa and des
pair, especially since the third explosion too
place, and the flames rushed up the main sha
. above the mouth of the pit, stopping efforts
e rescue the unfortunate miners, and leavin
many of the officers of the company and otht
,, volunteers who had gone in to aid in the re
. cue to certain destruction. Yorkshire an
e Staffordshire are thus both thrown into con
s motion at the same time. Coal mining in En-
y land has been overdone; and there is lit
{, doubt that much capital now invested in it vi
ie seek new fields of labor. Our coal and ire
:" mines will thus, from natural causes, dra
I, both laborers and capitalists from Europe.
!; The former, when here often become the Ia
* ter. There are mines now owned in the int
$ rior of this State by men who worked in the
~ years ago, and there are banks whose pre-
VI VI dents formerly were coal miners Philadelph
- Ledger.