SIMON FORD'S EXPERIMENT
THE old clock in the cottage struck one as James Starr and his two companions went out. A dim light penetrated through the ventilating shaft into the glade. Harry's lamp was not necessary here, but it would very soon be of use, for the old overman was about to conduct the engineer to the very end of the Dochart pit.
After following the principal gallery for a distance of two miles, the three explorers--for, as will be seen, this was a regular exploration-- arrived at the entrance of a narrow tunnel. It was like a nave, the roof of which rested on woodwork, covered with white moss.
It followed very nearly the line traced by the course of the river Forth, fifteen hundred feet above.
"So we are going to the end of the last vein?" said James Starr.
"Ay! You know the mine well still."
"Well, Simon," returned the engineer, "it will be difficult to go further than that, if I don't mistake."
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Starr. That was where our picks tore out the last bit of coal in the seam. I remember it as if it were yesterday.
I myself gave that last blow, and it re-echoed in my heart more dismally than on the rock. Only sandstone and schist were round us after that, and when the truck rolled towards the shaft, I followed, with my heart as full as though it were a funeral.
It seemed to me that the soul of the mine was going with it."
The gravity with which the old man uttered these words impressed the engineer, who was not far from sharing his sentiments.
They were those of the sailor who leaves his disabled vessel-- of the proprietor who sees the house of his ancestors pulled down.
He pressed Ford's hand; but now the latter seized that of the engineer, and, wringing it:
"That day we were all of us mistaken," he exclaimed. "No! The old mine was not dead. It was not a corpse that the miners abandoned; and I dare to assert, Mr. Starr, that its heart beats still."
"Speak, Ford! Have you discovered a new vein?" cried the engineer, unable to contain himself. "I know you have! Your letter could mean nothing else."
"Mr. Starr," said Simon Ford, "I did not wish to tell any man but yourself."
"And you did quite right, Ford. But tell me how, by what signs, are you sure?"
"Listen, sir!" resumed Simon. "It is not a seam that I have found."
"What is it, then?"
"Only positive proof that such a seam exists."
"And the proof?"
"Could fire-damp issue from the bowels of the earth if coal was not there to produce it?"
"No, certainly not!" replied the engineer. "No coal, no fire-damp.
No effects without a cause."
"Just as no smoke without fire."
"And have you recognized the presence of light carburetted hydrogen?"
"An old miner could not be deceived," answered Ford. "I have met with our old enemy, the fire-damp!"
"But suppose it was another gas," said Starr. "Firedamp is almost without smell, and colorless. It only really betrays its presence by an explosion."
"Mr. Starr," said Simon Ford, "will you let me tell you what I have done? Harry had once or twice observed something remarkable in his excursions to the west end of the mine.
Fire, which suddenly went out, sometimes appeared along the face of the rock or on the embankment of the further galleries.
How those flames were lighted, I could not and cannot say.
But they were evidently owing to the presence of fire-damp, and to me fire-damp means a vein of coal."
"Did not these fires cause any explosion?" asked the engineer quickly.
"Yes, little partial explosions," replied Ford, "such as I used to cause myself when I wished to ascertain the presence of fire-damp. Do you remember how formerly it was the custom to try to prevent explosions before our good genius, Humphry Davy, invented his safety-lamp?"
"Yes," replied James Starr. "You mean what the 'monk,' as the men called him, used to do. But I have never seen him in the exercise of his duty."
"Indeed, Mr. Starr, you are too young, in spite of your five-and-fifty years, to have seen that. But I, ten years older, often saw the last 'monk' working in the mine.
He was called so because he wore a long robe like a monk.
His proper name was the 'fireman.' At that time there was no other means of destroying the bad gas but by dispersing it in little explosions, before its buoyancy had collected it in too great quantities in the heights of the galleries.
The monk, as we called him, with his face masked, his head muffled up, all his body tightly wrapped in a thick felt cloak, crawled along the ground. He could breathe down there, when the air was pure; and with his right hand he waved above his head a blazing torch.
When the firedamp had accumulated in the air, so as to form a detonating mixture, the explosion occurred without being fatal, and, by often renewing this operation, catastrophes were prevented.
Sometimes the 'monk' was injured or killed in his work, then another took his place. This was done in all mines until the Davy lamp was universally adopted. But I knew the plan, and by its means I discovered the presence of firedamp and consequently that of a new seam of coal in the Dochart pit."
All that the old overman had related of the so-called "monk" or "fireman" was perfectly true. The air in the galleries of mines was formerly always purified in the way described.
Fire-damp, marsh-gas, or carburetted hydrogen, is colorless, almost scentless; it burns with a blue flame, and makes respiration impossible. The miner could not live in a place filled with this injurious gas, any more than one could live in a gasometer full of common gas. Moreover, fire-damp, as well as the latter, a mixture of inflammable gases, forms a detonating mixture as soon as the air unites with it in a proportion of eight, and perhaps even five to the hundred.
When this mixture is lighted by any cause, there is an explosion, almost always followed by a frightful catastrophe.
