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Updated: May 27, 2025
In some places, where there is no fear of bad gas, and open lights can be used, the coal is blasted by gunpowder, as rock often is. This, however, cannot often be done; as the bad gas, called fire-damp, may come up any moment, and if set light to, go off like gunpowder or the gas from coal, and blow the chambers and everybody near to pieces.
Look how the gas is catching inside the lamps, the place is full of fire-damp." The men took up the lad, and turned to go to the bottom of the shaft. Jack looked a few yards down a cross-road, and then followed them. He was in the act of turning into the next road to glance at that also, when he felt a suck of air.
Or, is it perhaps the boy who signals to him from below to raise the cage? Is it the miner at the bottom of the shaft, who risks his life every instant, and who will some day be killed by fire-damp? Or is it the engineer, who would lose the layer of coal, and would cause the miners to dig on rock by a simple mistake in his calculations?
Jets and streams of the fire-damp now rose upward in the vaulted dome; and well did that fierce old man know that the consequence of what he had done would be to render explosive the whole atmosphere of the mine.
"How did it happen?" he said to the mine boss as he stepped from his wagon. "Where was it?" "Up in the north tier, sir. We don't know how it happened. Some one must 'a' gone in below, where the fire-damp was, with a naked lamp, an' touched it off; an' then, most like, it run along the roof to the chambers where the men was a-workin'. I can't account for it in no other way."
"We must attack the dyke," said Ford, raising his pick; "for at the other side of the break, at more or less depth, we shall assuredly find the vein, the existence of which I assert." "And was it on the surface of these rocks that you found out the fire-damp?" asked James Starr. "Just there, sir," returned Ford, "and I was able to light it only by bringing my lamp near to the cracks in the rock.
It was at one time considered right every night to provoke an explosion by lighting the fire-damp in order that the working stalls should be accessible next morning. The man who performed this dangerous operation wore a thick covering of wool or leather, his face was protected, and his head was covered by a hood like a monk's cowl.
If gas is not present, the distinction is easily seen by the flame keeping the same size, but burning with somewhat greater brightness, owing to the increased quality of oxygen forced upon it. I venture to claim for this method of detecting fire-damp among other advantages: 1.
There was a slight report; and a little red flame, rather blue at its outline, flickered over the rock like a Will-o'-the-Wisp. Harry leaped to the ground, and the old overman, unable to contain his joy, grasped the engineer's hands, exclaiming, "Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Mr. Starr. The fire-damp burns! the vein is there!" THE old overman's experiment had succeeded.
Thorough ventilation results in more greatly freeing a mine of the dangerous fire-damp, but the remedy brings about another disease, viz., the drying-up of all moisture. The dust is thus left in a dangerously inflammable condition, acting like a train of gunpowder, to be started, it may be, by the slightest breath of an explosion.
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