Reports of the Inspectors of Mines of the anthracite coal regions of ...

68 Reports of the Inspectors of Mines. [No. 10,
a canvas door placed on a counter gangway, marked C, about seventy-
feet lower down on the pitch, to force the air up into this place, being con-
ducted up and along said short piece of gangway, a distance, altogether, of
about two hundred feet, by a wooden brattice. The boy Tredinnick was
attending to the canvas door above mentioned, and had no other duty to
attend to. After that the connection above referred to had been effected,
the air would take a shorter route than heretofore by passing through the
new connection but at this ;
time the passage had not been broken through
in full size, hence only a part of the current could go through said open-
ing. If that the canvas door before referred to should have been neg-
lected, from an erroneous idea that the new connection had been made,
and that it would allow sufficient air to pass througli independent of the
action or position of the said canvas door, then the result could be ac-
counted for. One of the laborers stated to me that he did not think that
the canvas door had been kept closed as carefully, after that the connec-
tion referred to had been made, as it had prior to that time. I also learned
that the boy had been assisting the miner Gibbons to carry the large
wooden box, in which they kept powder, oil, &c., up from his canvas
door to a point in the gangway of Gibbons, and subsequently went back
and got some spikes used to fasten the T iron rails for track with, and
this time he entered the place by going in in rear of the wooden brattice
and passed around the inside end of the same, and when he reached the
point whei*e he left Gibbon, he stated " that the bosses were at the face of
the gangway," and he immediately ran towards his canvas door location.
The bosses referred to by the boy were Messrs. John T. Griffith, general
foreman of all the company's mines, Lewis S. Jones, mining boss at the
Empire mine, (the adjoining colliery,) and Richard Roderick, mine boss
in this colliery.
About this time those officers passed onwai-d by the miner Gibbons,
and were in the following order: Near Mr. Gibbons was Roderick, and a
few yards in advance of him was Jones, and a few yards still further
ahead was Mr. Griffiths, being near the head of the cross-hole, marlied C,
about sixty (60) or seventy (70) feet from the canvas doors, when an ex-
plosion of gas took place, whereb}^ the three bosses and the boy Tredin-
nick were severely burned, and three laborers working for the miner Gib-
bons, in the face, one hundred and forty feet from where Griffiths was,
were slightly burned on their faces and hands. The miner Gibbons was
scarcely touched b}^ it, only having had his nose and tlie back of one hand
slightly singed. As before stated, the boy received fatal injuries, while
Griffiths was very seriously burned on head, neck, face, and hands, his
condition being critical. Jones was also burned on head, neck, face, and
hands severely—one hand very much so. His health otherwise failing him,
he was very seriously ill for some time. Roderick was more fortunate,
his case being light in comparison to the other three aforementioned.
Those officers, as others there and then working, had naked lamps ; but