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Updated: May 27, 2025
Stephenson’s experiments on fire-damp, and his labours in connexion with the invention of the safety-lamp, occupied but a small portion of his time, which was necessarily devoted for the most part to the ordinary business of the colliery.
No one made any protest, but neither did any one protest when the Superintendent led the way to a section of the mine where there was no gas that they might see a sight which he assured them was without doubt wonderful. They were glad that they had been assured that there was no fire-damp here, for their leader lifted his lamp close to the roof.
The space between each prop in the underground galleries might be marked as a miner's grave; and who can tell what each of these graves has cost, in tears, in privations, in unspeakable wretchedness to the family who depended on the scanty wage of the worker cut off in his prime by fire-damp, rock-fall, or flood?
The man-engines which have been described are dangerous for novices, for should a person stop at the wrong time, he may be hurled to the bottom, or crushed at the return stroke. One of the most frequent accidents to which miners are exposed arises from an outbreak of fire-damp. To avoid this, various safety-lamps have been invented. The most celebrated is that known as Sir Humphrey Davy's lamp.
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.
In our day multitudes of people fall victims to all kinds of dreadful disasters, explosions of boilers, explosions of fire-damp, of everything that can explode, for the agents of destruction seem to be in a state of unnatural excitement as well as human beings. Never before, perhaps, have inanimate things seemed so much in accordance with the spirit of the times.
The air must be all right because of the matches, silly, and there are look out there are steps down. 'I'm sure there are snakes, or dens of lions, or something. Do let's go back, and come some other time, with candles, and bellows for the fire-damp. 'Let me get in front of you, then, said the stern voice of Robert, from behind.
The first part of the sentence I agree with entirely. Those so-called flames are lit only by the hand of the Infinite. And the Infinite is always mysterious, Sir Nigel. But as to whether they have any bearing upon the disappearances of those two men is a horse of another colour. We'll look into that later on. In coal-mines marsh gas is considered highly dangerous, and the miners call it fire-damp.
Some were of opinion that coal-dust and air alone were of an explosive nature, whilst others thought that alone they were not, but that the addition of a small quantity of fire-damp rendered the mixture explosive. An important conclusion was come to, that, with the combustion of coal-dust alone, there was little or no concussion, and that the flame was not of an explosive character.
In former days, before the invention of the safety-lamp, Simon had known this fierce man, whose business it was to go daily, at the risk of his life, to produce partial explosions of fire-damp in the passages.
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