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.
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