Page:Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1838 Vol.2.djvu/400

354 Mr. Huddle's Narrative of the Explosion backed out of the goaf in the G Pit, east district, marked B on the plan, on the preceding day, which fired in the Davys, but the overmen withdrew the men for about three-quarters of an hour, and all was right again. Mr. Atkinson had made a careful examination of the place that morning, the 18th, and went upon the fall at the tail of the goaf, immediately behind where the men were working, as far as he could go for the falling of the roof, but did not see the least appearance of gas. He reported further that he had travelled up the gas-pipe drift from those goaves, in the current of air, passing from them all the way from where the men were working, to the out-let man-doors, C, at about eighty yards west of the shaft, and did not find any appearance of inflammable air in all that distance.

I considered this as favourable a report as I could possibly expect, and set off for Seaham Harbour to inspect the works there. I arrived at Seaham between 3 and 4 o'clock, and remained there till after 5, and on my way to Pensher met the post-boy at Warden Law, who informed me that a messenger had come for me from Wall's End, where the G Pit had blasted that none of the men or boys had got to bank when he left, and that no account had been obtained of the extent of the mischief done, but it was apprehended that many lives were lost.

I immediately hurried off with Mr. Geo. Hunter, who accompanied me, to render all the assistance he could. On our way we met Mr. M'Intyre, the surgeon, coming from the colliery, who informed us that none of the men or boys had been got out of either the C or G Pits, that the two furnace keepers, at the A and B Pits, were the only persons who had, with great difficulty, escaped, and he apprehended that all the rest, about one hundred in number, were lost. Mr. M'Intyre added, that seven or eight men, who had gone down the A Pit, for the purpose of putting out the furnaces after the explosion, had very nearly been suffocated by the afterdamp.

On arriving at the colliery it is impossible for me to describe the scene of woe which presented itself. No loud lamentations were heard, but the deep expression of silent grief in the women, and the patient suffering of mental agony in the men was most penetrating. As yet the lingering hope of the possibility of saving life was entertained, and the men belonging to