Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/119

62 hold weight if there should be any; and at about a mile and three-quarters from the bottom of the Old Pit we found the roof had fallen in for a considerable distance, and then that a great fall had come from the roof, and the whole heading was stopped.

The air-pipes which had been laid up this heading were choked by the fall of the dirt, so that the air was bad, and lights would not burn, and we had to return from our exploration, walking something like a mile in the dark before we could obtain fresh lights.

I at once made arrangements to send men up to secure those parts, where the fall had taken place, with timber. Before it was possible for them to carry lights, it was necessary to punch holes in the air-pipe at short intervals to obtain a supply of air.

It was nearly an hour’s work for men to go up, pushing trollies with timber, from the shaft to where the fall had taken place. I therefore arranged for a few men to go in, taking timber with them and food, so that they might remain at the end of the heading for the whole shift of ten hours.

The men who had been working for six years for the Great Western Railway Company before the contract was let to me had always felt a grudge against me, probably because they had had easier times under the old régime. Under the Company they had to work nominally eight-hour shifts, going to work at six in the morning, firing a round of shots in the face of the heading, loading up the material