Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1867-01-16
ULTIMATE EFFECTS OF ENGLISH
CoLLIERY EXPLOSIONS.

The question has been often asked,
whether there is no danger Of the coal
mines in England giving out? To this
the replies of biologists and surveyors
of mines have been numerous, and the
substance of them is that at the present
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 a part of the truth, for very
much ofthis coal is so deep in the earth
that it can only be worked at great cost.
The demand for and rate Of production
of coal are annually increasing, and the
results of this increase are now becom-
ing evident.
Over six hundred lives have been lost
in two mines, and in two days, in diff
ferent parts of England. One Of these
pits, in which three hundred persisted at
the first explosion, was about 900 feet
deep, and the gas was so powerful that
explosion after explosion has been tax
ing place since, and the proprietors have
resolved to food the mine, as the only
method of putting out the fire and rem
dering it safe to enter. This mine, it is
said, had galleries extending two miles
| from the main entrance, and the tem-
perature 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 discour-
age mining in England, and render the
miners more anxious to come to the
United States or to 60 to other countries
where coal has been discovered. Coal
is now found in Russia, and, in fact, all
| over the world.
The deepest shaft sunk in England is
said to have cost, including its engine,
half a 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
through the low and difficult passages,
with heavy burdens, at low wages, that
these mines are now made to pay four
to FIVE per cent. interest, and sometimes
less, upon the heavy capital employed.
There is too a depth beyond which
miners cannot 60 on account of the in
creasing heat. Eighty and e~ighty-four
degrees is the temperature at which it
is said the works in certain parts OF
some English mines are now carried on,
and at a higher temperature than this
men cannot labor steadily.
The liability to explosions, owing to
the escape of gas, will do more to bring
over to this country large bodies OF
| miners than all the other causes put to-
gether. 1t will probably u a regu-
lar stampede, if the miners have
enough money to pay their passages
The entire village of Barnsley, where
the Oaks Colliery was situated, has
been convulsed with grief and despair,
especially since the third explosion took
place, and the flames rushed up the
main shaft above the mouth Of the pit,
stopping further efforts to rescue the
unfortunate miners, and leaving many
Of the officers of the company and other
volunteers who had gone in to aid in the
rescue to certain destruction. York
shire and Staffordshire are thus both
thrown into commotion at the same time.
Coal mining in England has been over.
done; and there is little doubt that
much capital now invested in it will
seek new fields of labor.