Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
In another dipple-region, when I had re-ascended to a higher level, I nearly fainted before I could retire from the commencement of a region of after-damp, where there had been an explosion, the bodies lying all hairless, devastated, and grotesque. But I did not desist from searching every other quarter, no momentary work, for not till near six did I go up by the pumping-shaft rope-ladder.
This danger proceeds from fire-damp, as one unlucky stroke of the pick may bring forth a stream of carbureted hydrogen gas, inexplosive of itself, but if mixed with eight times its bulk of air, more dangerous than gunpowder, and which, if by chance it comes in contact with the flame of a candle, is sure to explode, and certain death is the result not always from the explosion itself, but from the after-damp or carbonic acid gas which follows it.
Others escape with scorched arms or legs, and singed hair, to tell the terrible tale to those who were more fortunately absent; to speak of their own sufferings when, after having escaped the worst effects of the explosion, they encountered the asphyxiating rush of the after-damp or choke-damp, which had been caused by the combustion of the fire-damp.
"We got a'most there," he gasped; "we could hear 'em a-groanin'; but the after-damp got so bad we " He reeled and fell, speechless and exhausted. The crowd had surged up, trying to hear what the man was saying. People were getting dangerously near to the mouth of the shaft.
The blast did not reach the shaft as in the former case; the unfortunate persons in the pit having been suffocated by the after-damp. More calamitous still were the explosions which took place in the neighbouring collieries; one of the worst being that of 1812, in the Felling Pit, near Gateshead, by which no fewer than 90 men and boys were suffocated or burnt to death.
"Has any one come out from there?" "Yes, Billy Williams. He was a-comin' out when it went off. We found him up in the headin', senseless. He ain't come to yet." "And the others?" "We've tried to git to 'em, sir, but the after-damp is awful, an' we couldn't stan' it; we had to come out." "How many men are up there?" "Five, as we count 'em; the rest are all out."
The horrible, sickening after-damp was tearing my heart up through my dry throat. My brain was bursting through my temples. Then a stroke, as though by a sledge hammer, and I knew nothing more. They found me at ten minutes past one Tuesday morning. At first they thought I was dead. Then they saw my head rise and fall while I weakly pounded on a rock with a stick that I had caught in my delirium."
He plungit through the belt o' after-damp ahead o' all o' them, an' draggit us back across it, mon by mon, an' did na fa' till he pullit the last one ayont it. Did ye ever hear the like? He's worth a thousan' o' us. I say ye mus' na let 'im dee!" Over at the breaker office there was silence. The doctor and his helpers were there with Robert Burnham, and the door was closed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking