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statement on your invaluable safe lamps, inthe Whitehaven collieries belonging to theEarl of Lonsdale, since the first applicationof them in February last.

With us, the general use of the lamps inconsequence of the good state of our venti-lation is confined to leading workings, ortrial drifts; and in two of these, lately going-on in one of the pits unusually infected withfire-damp, and which previously were lightedby means of steel mills, we applied thelamps with great confidence and security.

In May last in these drifts an extraordi-nary discharge of fire-damp burst from thepavement of the mine, and the ventilationbeing at that time unavoidably obstructed,the atmosphere became so charged withfire-damp as to be nearly throughout an ex-plosive mixture. In this situation we de-rived the unspeakable benefit of light fromthe lamps, and, notwithstanding the explo-sive state of the mixture, with the most per-fect safety.

In several other places in the collieriesthe lamps are used with the same confi-dence : yet the discharge of fire-damp being

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