Chapter 6 - Page 2

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