Abstract
QUI s'excuse s'accuse will occur to the minds of many who have followed the details of the disastrous explosion which took place at Woodend or Bedford Colliery on Friday last. We read in the Times of the 16th inst.:—“The Four-foot or Crombonke Mine is a very dusty one, and it is considered that at the Woodend pit the dust has increased the extent of the damage.” “But to water the mine, as suggested by the Commission, would here be a very difficult operation, because the floor of the mine consists of a species of fire-clay which, as it absorbs the water, causes a lifting of the ground, and so prevents mining operations being conducted.” Inasmuch, however, as the floor of perhaps ninety-nine out of every hundred mines consists of the same kind of material, the same argument against watering would hold equally good in most cases, and, if it is allowed to pass, this recommendation of the Commissioners is likely to come to nothing. It has been pointed out more than once in NATURE that the amount of water required to lay the dust is very small—far less than would be necessary to materially affect the floor of a mine in the manner suggested, and it would perhaps be wiser to try the effect in the first place and judge by results rather than to meet the proposition with a simple non possumus. We speak thus plainly here, because many of the witnesses who gave evidence before the Commissioners brought forward the very same argument with the same degree of plausibility, and we have reason to believe without having put the matter to a practical test. Many of those who now water regularly, for the express purpose of laying the dust on floors consisting of fire-clay, admit that the water produces no appreciable difference when properly and carefully distributed.
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G., W. The Woodend Colliery Explosion . Nature 34, 365 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034365a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034365a0