DURHAM AND NORTHUMBERLAND.

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CHAPTER III.

Inflammable Air of Mines.—Analysis of Coals.

—Soils intervening with Coal Strata , 85c.

What makes the working of the Tyne andWear collieries more dangerous than those ofany other district is the great quantities of gaswhich unites or generates in their formation,and becomes liberated in the working. It gene-rally confines itself to the roof of a mine, orotherwise forces into the fissures or breaks of thesuperincumbent strata; so that by this means,unless some agency is used to dislodge andforce it into the atmospheric current (whichcannot be done in the presence of lighted can-dles), the inflammable air becomes rapidlyaccumulated.

The discovery of this inflammable qualityin coal gas is not of very ancient date, as theredoes not appear any decisive account of it be-fore 1739, when Dr. Clayton described itsinflammability in a paper to the Royal Society,wherein he mentions the produce upon analysis