ings, and eleven more dead bodies were found during the night, making sixty seven in all.
To the westward of the shaft, and along the two rolley-way headways leading to the north, marked O and N on the plan, there were marks of a heavy fire, and powerful explosion. The repairing and re-instating of the air stoppings was, in the meantime, carried on unremittingly.
Sunday, June 21. — In the course of the day nine more dead bodies were got out of the C Pit, but it was necessary to suspend operations (underground) until the water, which had been thrown down by the water-fall, was drawn out of the pit. The operations in the G Pit were also suspended for a few hours, to allow the people an opportunity of attending the funerals of their deceased friends and relatives, of which thirty seven took place this afternoon.
Monday, June 22. — During the course of last night access was gained down the G. Pit East Mothergait to the extent of about three hundred yards, where the body of Joseph Lawson, the deputy-overman, and seventeen others, young men and boys, were found at a on the plan[1]; those made the number of dead bodies got up to this evening, eighty-four. They were not burned, but had died of suffocation; the poor boys had stuffed their linen caps into their mouths to protect them as much as possible from breathing the after-damp. Joseph Lawson did not seem to have been much alarmed, as he had two or three Davy lamps in his hand, which he had collected to bring to the "Davy Cabin" as usual, and had also collected and taken all the little trapper-boys under his care. It was also discovered afterwards, that he had put all matters right in the E. division of the workings, of which he was in charge, as usual, before he left, which shewed that he had only found the shock of the explosion in a slight degree. This was the division in which we had hitherto believed the explosion to have happened, but we were now satisfied that no fire had been in this part, and were more at a loss than ever to conjecture where it could have
happened. The greatest strength of the fire seemed to have been in the
- ↑ Some of the young men had reached within one hundred and eighty yards of the bottom of the shaft, but the most of the little trappers were lying immediately before Lawson, as he had been directing them out before him.
