Early English Coal Mining

Coal has been worked in England since tlie time of tho Normans; but it was only in the bpginning of the seventeentli century that explosiona iu collieries appear to liave been heard of. Even then'they weie soldom fatal. Ouo which occurred at Mostvn, on tlie Dee, 1676, and which killed a man and blow off the winding drum at the top of the p'.t, was apparnntlv so novel an event as to bo tlumglit worthy of duscription in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Koyal Sooiety.'1 This comparativo nfroquenèy of explosiona in the early workings is readily accounted for by tho mode in which coal was got at that t me. Tlie p'ts were verv shallow; indeed, at the beginning of the eightesnth contnry no pit had reachod a greater depth than sixty fathoms; coinmonly they were not more than 20 to 30 fathoms deep. To-day some of our pits are half a milc in depth; the Ashton Moss pit at Andunshaw, for example, is closo upon 450 fathoms doop. Morcover, the old workings did not exlend to any considerable distance from the shafts. In fact. In the early days of coal-getting Ihe minera were more hindered by water and choke damp thau by explosivo pis. Choke damp must, indeed, havo been a sore trouble, if we may judge from the oldfashioned method of bringing round asphyxiatcd colliers. Tho remedy, we are told, "was to dig a hole in tin' earth and la' them on their bellies with their mouths iu it; if that fail they tun them f uil of good ale; but if that fail they conclude them desperate."- Qood Words.