THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

880

October 29, 191S.

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Coal Mines Inspection in 1914.

NORTHERN DIVISION.

Mr. J. R. R. Wilson, in his report upon the inspection
of coal mines in the Northern Division, states that at
the outbreak of war, Mr. Douglas Hay, junior inspector
of mines, who was an officer in the 3rd Northumbrian
(County of Durham Brigade) Royal Field Artillery
(T.F.), was called up for active service, so that his
services as an inspector of mines were not available for
the last five months of the year. Early in the present
year Mr. W. Goodin, sub-inspector of mines, patriotic-
ally joined the Forces as a private in the Yorkshire
Hussars. All the coal mines have been inspected under-
ground at least once, and most of them several times.
Jointly, the members of the staff in the Division paid
3,963 visits to mines, of which 3,285 were underground
inspections, and 1,446 inspections made at quarries.

Persons Employed.

The total number of persons employed in and about
the mines, under the Coal Mines Act, during the year,
as shown in the following table, was 248,251; these
figures, however, represent the numbers of persons
employed up to the end of July, before the coal mining
industry had been affected by the war; and they show
a slight increase on the figures for the year 1913. The
total number of persons employed at the end of the year
was 201,835, being a decrease of 46,416 persons for the
last five months.

Persons employed.

Minocs'	*	' Below

Countv	at Belo'\ Aboveground, and

work.ground- ‘----abo™

Males. Males.	gr0Und-

mates.

Cumberland..........	37... 8,801... 2,217... 404... 11,422

Durham ............ 281... 133,037... 32,658...	96...165,791

Northumberland _____ 135...	50,822 . 11,001...	33...	61,856

Westmorland .........	1...	6... 2...	— ...	8

Yorks, N.R...........	35...	7,312... 1,861...	1...	9,174

Total in 1914 ...... 489... 199,978...47,739... 534...248,251
Total in 1913 ...... 507... 198,292...48,206 .. 513.. 247,011

Output of Minerals.

The total output of minerals for the year wns
58,431,037 tons, as compared with 65,263,291 tons in
1913, or a decrease of 6,832,254 tons. There is no doubt
that, looking at the state of the mining industry gener-
ally during the first half of the year, had the same
conditions continued, the output for the year would have
been a record one. Notwithstanding the short time
worked at many of the mines, and the loss of output
sustained by the great depletion of labour, <the total
tonnage raised was only some 644,000 tons less than the
output of the year 1912. The County of Cumberland
alone is distinguished by an increase in output of coal.

County.	Coal.		Fireclay.		Ironstone.		Other minerals.		Total.	
Cumberland 	  Durham 	  Northumberland...  Westmorland 	  Yorkshire (North  Riding)	  Total, 1914	  Total, 1913		Tons.  2,360,510  37,549,204  12,471,999 854  1,911  52,384,478 58,675,687	Value.  £ 1,003,455 19,065,065 6,150,208 569  760  26,220,057 30,643,973	Tons.  34,201 245,510 123,336  440  403,487 572,602	Value. £ 7,884 30,238 14,544  44  52,710 71,539	Tons.  5,574,788  5,574,788  5,940,965	Value. £  1,322,588  1,322,588  1,504,254	Tons.  7,531 32,717 27,965  71  68,284 74,037	Value.  £ ■  694  6,950  8 3  10  7,747  7,203	Tons.  2,402,242 37,827,431 12,623,300 854  5,577,210  58,431,037 65,263,291	Value.  £ 1,012,033 19,101,453 6,165,645 569  1,323,402  27,603,102 32,226,969

Coal-Cutting by Machinery. — The number of coal-
cutting machines in use has again increased. The use
of conveyors at the coal face has also extended, the
figures now being 68 as against 58 at work during 1913.
The use of these appliances can be welcomed apart from
the question of economics, as they compel the faces
where they are at work to be kept straight, with the
result that the roof conditions are improved, and the
ventilation has less chance of being impeded.

jN umber	Statute tons of

driven by	coal cut by

Description.	Elec- tricity.	Com- pressed air.	tp-.	Com-  tricity. ^?rsed
Disc 		...	58 ..	61 ...	640,017... 561,086
Bar		...	33 .	..	15 ...	239,385... 181,868
Chain		...	63 .	8 ...	371,220... 77,085
Percussive 		2 .	.. 451 ...	5,811...1,462,753
Rotary heading		—	11 ...	—	... 35,087

Total.............

156 ... 546 ...1,256,433... 2,317,879

There were 92 mines using machines.

Accidents.

During the year notice was received by the inspector
of 879 accidents. Of these, 195 were fatal accidents,
causing the death of 199 persons, as compared with 207
accidents and 211 deaths during the preceding year.
The non-fatal accidents which caused injury to 727
persons numbered 684, as compared with 968 persons
by 903 accidents in 1913.

Table A gives a summary of fatal and non-fatal
accidents, classified according to place and cause.

The death rates from accidents per 1,000 persons
employed during the year were (a) below ground, 0’85;
(5) above ground, 0*58; and (c) below and above ground,
0’80. The figures for the preceding year were (a) 0*87;
(5) 0’78; and (c) 0’85. The figures, which are based
upon the numbers of persons employed at the end of
July, are very much the same as last year, excepting
that the death rate above ground is much less than it
has been for a few years.

Explosions of Firedamp or Coal Dust. — By far the
most serious explosion, which resulted in the death of

three persons and caused injury to a fourth, occurred
about 8 a.m. on Tuesday, August 4, 1914, in the Lick-
bank seam of the Clifton Colliery, near Workington.
Dust played no part in the explosion. The district had
been opened out by a longwall step face, there being 20
gateways—-14 yds. apart centre to centre—and the coal

Table A.

Place and cause.

Explosions of firedamp
or coal dust .......
Falls in mines .......
Shaft accidents .....
Miscellaneous under-
ground .............

Total underground...
On surface.........

Non-fatal All non-fatal
Fatal	accidents	accidents

acci-	reported	disabling for

dents.	to	more than

inspector.* 7 days.

co	co

cd ?	O fl	<D		CD
4s <x>	43 <D	03	43 <d	03 H
<3 "fl		fl Z		fl«r=>
		O>i-»	r ■ • ^“1	o fl
cS g	'S g		C8 g	03 ’H
	c3	<-s. O  o	57 ce	<D		
CO	P 02	PM		PM
3...	7... 9...	21..	9..	15
88...	88...222...	230..	.11,733..	.11,737
10...	10... 11...	26.	175..	. 194

66..	. 66...350... 356...23,210 . 23,220

167..171.. 592... 633 35,127...35,166

28..	. 28... 92... 94... 2,651... 2,655

Gross total in 1911 ... 195 .199...684... 727...37,781...37,821
Total in 1913 ________ 207.. 211 . 903... 968 ..46,270.. 46,451
* Includes (a) acciden s causing fracture of head or limb,
or dislocation of limb, or any other serious personal injury ;
(5) accidents caused by explosion of gas or dust, or any
explosive, or by electricity, or by overwinding, and causing
any personal injury whatever.

f Including those injured by accidents which proved fatal
to their companions.

_______________________________________________________________

was worked to the rise. The amount of air usually
ventilating the district was 5,000 cu. ft. per minute. At
the time of the accident only four men were under-
ground in this seam. These men were doing some shift
work, and attending to a pump driven by a three-phase
current motor at 500 volts. Three of the men were
officials, and the other was a pumpman. The last ordi-
nary shift of miners finished on Friday afternoon. No
one went into the face to make an inspection after
Friday; there was, therefore, a serious breach of section
64 (1) of the Coal Mines Act, 1911. On the Monday
night, the under-iyanager took upon himself, for the first
time, the responsibility of making the inspection where
the men were to work; and he admitted at the inquest
held upon the bodies of the deceased men, that he only
tested for gas in the pump house and at the bottom of

No. 3 gate, and, further, that he could not trust himself
to see anything, less than 2 per cent, of gas. On the
Saturday the fan was stopped from 6.30 a.m. till
6.30 p.m. During that time, no doubt, a great deal of
gas accumulated in the district. On Saturday also, the
pump motor gave trouble and the assistant electrician
went to repair it. He found that the pump would not
start, and the stator was leaking to earth. The water
was rising in the pump house. He put another motor
in, and on the Monday this also broke down, and he then
put in a new stator. This plant would be taken through
the door leading into the pump house, which was situated
between the intake and return airways. When this door
was open the air would be short-circuited, and practi-
cally no air would pass around the district. During the
week-end the pump appears to have given a great deal
of trouble, and there is little doubt that the separation
door was open the greater part of the time. The roof
of the pump house was about a yard above the top of
the door, so that it would be possible for gas to accumu-
late at the roof even if some air scaled through the door.
Everything in and around the pump house seemed to
indicate that the explosion originated inside that
chamber, and all the evidence pointed to the starter as
the actual point of ignition.

An explosion of firedamp occurred in the Low
Main seam at Cowpen “ Mill ” Colliery, Bly th, at
7.15 p.m. on July 5. The measures have an inclination
of 1 in 30 in a northerly direction, and, about one mile
from the “Mill” pit, a whin dyke runs across the
royalty, without vertical dislocation of the strata, from
north-west to south-east. This dyke has been proved to
be 7 yds. in thickness in the rolleyway, and the coal is
coked on both sides, usually for a distance of 7 yds.
This coked coal is locally termed cinder coal, and is not
extracted. The explosion occurred in the workings
adjoining the cinder coal, and on the in-bye side of the
whin dyke. The Low Main seam is worked on the
double stall system. The bords are driven from the
main headways 5 yds. in width and 100 yds. apart, and
stalls are set out from them 12 yds. in width and at
50 yds. centres. The pillars are worked back from both
sides of the stalls by bordways lifts 12 yds. wide, leaving

solid coal pillars also 12 yds. wide to support the bord
above. Stentons are driven through these pillars for
the purposes of ventilation, and an airway is main-
tained along the goaf edge. The officials made their
inspections with safety lamps, but open lights were used
by the workmen, with the exception of the leading or
charge stonemen, who claimed safety lamps in addition
to open lights. There were no signs of violence result-
ing from the explosion, and the compressed powder in a
canister on a tram was untouched. Prior to the explo-
sion, the ventilation of the flat had apparently been
neglected, and immediately afterwards brattice sheets
were fixed or repaired in order to course the air through
the working places. A feeder of firedamp was found to
be issuing from a cavity on the goaf edge, and near the
cinder coal. The feeder occurred at the highest point in
an area of goaf, some seven acres in extent, and this,
with probably the proximity of the cinder coal and whin
dyke, may be sufficient explanation for the considerable
volume of firedamp discharged. Before the explosion
occurred no unusual movements had been noticed in this
goaf area. Proper arrangements for the chargeman to
make the inspection before commencing work do not
appear to have been made. The workmen descended
with the chargeman, and the former travelled in-bye from
the meeting station on a road which had not been
examined, and before the report required by section
64 (3) could be recorded. The chargeman was evidently
unable to detect firedamp even when the air was in an
explosive state, and probably inspections had been made
by other officials under similar conditions. It was a
fortunate circumstance that the workings in this seam
were naturally damp, and that very little coal dust was
made in the mine.

On August 16 there was an explosion of firedamp in
the Newburgh Colliery, Northumberland, whereby two
men lost their lives. At this colliery the Duke seam,
which is 2 ft. 6 in. in thickness, has been won by means
of a level drift which cuts the seam about a quarter of
a mile from the shafts. The coal is worked to the rise,
and owing to the close proximity of the main haulage
road in the seam immediately above, it has been opened
out by means of a p^ir of narrow bords advancing from
the south, with coal pillars on either side. Prior to
August 4 the districts were ventilated by means of an
air current which was carried up the main or west bord
to the first pair of levels going east. On August 4, as
a holing had been made into the east district from the
back bord further in-bye at a point some 96 yds. from
the bord face, the air current was split. When the
separation doors were taken out there was nothing to
induce an air current to travel to the faces of the bords
and keep them clear of gas. Unfortunately, owing to
the w’ar, the pit worked only one day after August 4,
and on the night of August 16 a chargemen, after making
a partial examination of both longwall districts, prepared
to take two men to the stenton near the faces of the two
bords, for the purpose of ridding a small fall of roof.
The chargeman had a safety lamp, and he was followed
by one of the men with an open lamp. As soon as the
latter got away from the heading leading into the west
district an explosion took place, and both men were
killed; a third man who w’as some 15 yds. along the west
heading wras caught by the blast, but not seriously hurt.
The chargeman’s lamp was found near to him quite
undamaged. The pit is a very wet one, and the explo-
sion, although it manifested sufficient violence to blow
down a separation door some 20 yds. in-bye on the west
side headway, was, fortunately, confined to a small area
about the point of the ignition. The cause of the explo-
sion appears to be self-evident : after the ventilation was
changed, gas must have collected in the bords and was
ignited by an open lamp. The investigation also showed
that the chargeman was taking men into a part of the
mine which he had not previously examined, and before
he had made any report of the part of the mine which
he had examined. As evidence that the seam made gas,
only five days after this occurrence a workman ignited
some gas at the ripping edge in a gate road on the east
side district.

It is a lamentable fact that each of these three
explosions which caused loss of life was due to negligence
or incompetence on the part of responsible officials.

An explosion, happily unattended with fatal results,
occurred in the Hutton seam at Tudhoe Colliery,
Durham, on November 11. The coal is only 26 in.
thick; safety lamps were used, and the coal blasted by
compressed gunpowder fired by squibs. Gas is rarely
seen, and never in any quantity. About three hours
before the occurrence a shot had been fired close to the
fast side of a stall or jud 10 yds. wide on a longwall
face. This had only partly done its work; about half
of the hole was left on, only a wedge shaped piece of
coal at the front of the hole being blown out. A second
hole was bored 5 ft. distant from the hole which had
failed. It was bored to a depth of 3ft., and charged
with | lb. of gunpowder, and fired by the deputy. -The
explosion of the powder was accompanied by the
emission of a large volume of flame, which extended
in all directions from the shot hole, and burnt, more or
less severely, six men, the most distant of whom was
about 50 ft. away from the shot hole. The deputy
asserted that he could find no trace of gas before firing,
and within half-an-hour of the explosion, although burnt
himself, he returned with the under-manager, and no
trace of gas could then be found. There were no roof
breaks or cavities of any sort anywhere near the shot
which could have contained an accumulation of gas.
There may, however, have been a cavity formed in the
coal by the previous shot, and gas may have accumulated
in this during the interval between the firing of the
two shots. The workings are not appreciably dusty, in
fact the floor at the coal face is inclined to dampness,
although not wet. Considering the distance to which
the flame travelled, and the probability of gas not being
present in any quantity, dust must have played some
part in the occurrence.