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By Root 988 0

at the mouth of the shaft, pitmen would have had almost nothing to see by. They used their candles sparingly, since methane gas—known as firedamp and present in many mines—could be ignited by an open flame. Still, they needed some illumination, both to extract coal and to check on their surroundings in order to spot structural weaknesses in the shafts, so they risked candlelight after an overman checked the workings for gas. First, the overman lit a trimmed and clean candle on the floor and placed his palm in front of it so that he saw only the spire of the flame. Then he raised the candle slowly toward the ceiling of the mine, where firedamp—lighter than air—collected. If it was present, the tip of the flame would turn blue. "This spire increases in size and receives a deeper tinge of blue, as it rises through an increased proportion of inflammable gas, till it reaches the firing point," explained an account of the time. "But the experienced collier knows accurately enough all the varieties of shew (as it is called) upon the candle, and it is very rarely fired upon, excepting in cases of sudden discharges of inflammable gas."

In the best circumstances, when the overman found firedamp, he left the mine and then—so as to make it safer for work—ignited the gas by lowering a lighted candle or coal-filled iron basket down the shaft. But if he detected firedamp far inside the workings, he had no choice but to send down a man to ignite it: "Clad from head to foot in rags soaked in water, [the man] would crawl along the underground way holding in front of him a long pole at the end of which was a lighted candle. When the explosion occurred he would fling himself, face downward, on the floor, and so, with good fortune, he might escape the flame which shot along the roof above him." The man was sometimes called a penitent.

In spite of such efforts, miners thought of explosions, and the human injuries and deaths that accompanied them, as inevitable. The history of the mines is also the history of the dead, the burned, and the injured. As one account attests, "Everything in the way of the blast was thrown out at the mouth to the estimated height of 200 yards in the air. Most of the pitmen, having just in time discovered the danger, were drawn up, and escaped unhurt; but some boys, and one man, who were left behind, lost their lives." Another account tells of four men who

were about three hundred yards from the shaft, when the foul air took fire. In a moment it tore the wall from end to end; and burning on till it came to the shaft, it then burst and went off like a large cannon. The men instantly fell on their faces, or they would have been burned to death in a few moments. One of them, who once knew the love of God (Andrew English), began crying aloud for mercy; but in a very short time his breath was stopped. The other three crept on their hands and knees, till two got to the shaft and were drawn up; but one of them died in a few minutes. John M'Combe was drawn up next, burned from head to foot but rejoicing and praising God. They then went down for Andrew; whom they found senseless: the very circumstance which saved his life. For losing his senses, he lay flat on the ground, and the greatest part of the fire went over him.

Miners and mine owners were always looking for alternatives to candles. Although miners' candles were exceedingly small—up to sixty to the pound, for it was believed a small candle might prevent the ignition of firedamp—everything thought of as a substitute for them provided less light than even those slim solitary tapers. It's almost inconceivable now to imagine how slight and shifting was the illumination miners worked by so far below the earth's surface. One device, a flint mill, required boys to accompany the miners down the shafts. Each boy worked a mill, which might be strapped to his leg or hung from his neck. It was made of a steel disk set in a small steel frame and a handle attached to a spur wheel, which turned the disk. The boy held a piece of flint against the disk as he rotated it so as to produce