Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/218

206 sake of looking to the safety of the roof that the miner has a naked light when he ought not to have one. But we think that there is little doubt that such is often the case. And we mention this only as one of those countless occasions, known only to those who have had subterranean experience, in which the desire for more light than that afforded by the ordinary safety-lamp may become uncontrollable. Our argument is, that some strong instinct of human nature must be at work in order to lead the miner to affront the known danger of explosion from the use of naked lights so frequently as we have but too much evidence that he is in the habit of doing. And we think that there is enough to account for this in the instinctive desire for light, and more especially in the maddening effect of obscurity when accuracy of vision is required.

If we have thus rightly judged, the first effect of the remark should be to remove a very heavy load of obloquy under which our colliers as a body have hitherto labored. More than that, the more any public writer has been acquainted with the chemistry of the coal mine, the louder has usually been his condemnation of the recklessness of the miner. No doubt, from the chemist's point of view, there is but too much reason for this. Avoid naked light and avoid blasting, and you avoid explosion. This logic is undeniable. But the chemistry of the mine is not the matter which most directly presses upon the miner. The mechanic, the physiologist, the optician, each has to be consulted. Grim fact shows that the chemical danger is, and always has been, affronted. The need of light explains why this has been the case. What, then, is the outcome of the whole inquiry?

It is this: The miner requires light. It is now half a century since science has done much to aid him in this respect. It was in or about the year 1815 that Sir Humphry Davy and George Stephenson entered on their honorable rivalry as to the safety-lamp. Foreign engineers have provided, in the lamps used in the deep Belgian mines, a sort of compound of the "Geordie" and the "Davy," under the name of the Mueseler lamp. MM. Liaute and Denoyel have invented an electric lamp, perfect as a scientific toy, but too cumbersome and liable to derangement for the rough usage of the miner. What is required is a lamp which shall at the same time give abundant light and afford perfect protection. It must not be cumbersome; it must not be heavy; it must not be costly. Miners have been known to dash in pieces the Upton and Roberts safety-lamp, merely from the irritation caused by its weight. If the miner can be provided with a lamp which, with the safety and the convenience of the "Davy," can give the light of eight or ten candles, can throw that light where it is wanted, and can do that at a moderate cost, the saving of life in our coal mines will be very great. For, by such an appliance, not only may the mortality caused by explosions be prevented, but that due to falls of roof, if not to other causes, may be most materially diminished.