at Wallsend Colliery, June, 1835. 369
rolley-ways, propping the roof, renewing the air stoppings which had been carried away, &c., until the 15th, when a consultation of viewers was held to advise as to the requisite steps to be taken to restore the colliery to a working state. — See Appendix, No. II. On the 10th, a passage had been effected from the C to the bottom of the A and B Pits, where nothing was found to have been disturbed by the explosion, but the current of air, i.e. the atmosphere was explosive in the Davy lamps.
The underground operations in re-instating the ventilation, &c., continued unremittingly night and day, and were so far advanced on the 17th, as to enable me to examine accurately the direction and effects of the explosion, and to ascertain distinctly where it had taken place. It had been conjectured, from the situation in which the body of Wm. Thompson was found on the night of the 20th of June, that the explosion had taken place at his naked light; and now, when the direction of the blast, from the place where his body was found, and its effects, could be distinctly traced, no doubt remained as to the fact.
William Thompson, with William Johnson, were employed in blasting
down the roof-stone in the west drift leading to the A Pit at H, to make sufficient height for a branch of rolley-way to be laid, and the stones which were blown down were stowed in the two north head-ways, I. The main current of the air-course, after ventilating the first and second north-west districts of the G Pit workings, passed up this west drift to the B Pit burning
furnace, being sufficiently pure for naked lights. Consequently, the people were not restrained from the use of candles in blowing down the roof-stone. In the headways, however, where the stones were stowed, and which were only ventilated by a split air from the main current out of the rolley-way drift, they were restricted to the use of the Davy Lamp alone.
The pipe drift, which carried off the adulterated current of air from the pillar workings to the east of the shaft, and the gas discharging from all the exhausted and unventilated districts on the south side of the east and west Mothergaits of the G Pit, to the B Pit dumb furnace, runs parallel to, and on the south side of the drift, in which those men were employed in blasting down the roof-stone, but was separated from it by a stenting (coal) wall of twelve yards in thickness, and the only communication through this stenting wall, was a pair of man doors in the stenting K, which were placed
