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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
The recent deplorable explosions in the Barnsley and North Staffordshire Coal Fields have again called attention to the coincidence of such terrible accidents with a sudden fall of the barometer, by which they are so frequently preceded, suggesting the idea that they may be to some extent connected as cause and effect, and perhaps the following facts may induce a belief that there is truth in the supposition.
Some years since (in 1848) my attention was called to a well at Whittingham, on a farm then and now occupied by Mr. John France, about four miles N. W. of Preston, in Lancashire, celebrated in the district as “the blowing well.” This well was sunk for the purpose of supplying the farm buildings with water, but after going down about eighty feet in vain, the work was abandoned, and the well was covered with a large flagstone, with a hole through it for the chain used in placing it on the well.
This Communication was sent to the Editor on the 10th of January. From the evidence since given at the Inquest on the Barnsley accident, it appears that the coalowners provided a barometer and ordered extra firing in the upcast shaft when the glass fell rapidly, so that it seems the effect of rapid atmospheric changes was known, and, to some extent at least, provided for; but we still think Mr. Rofe's note deserving publication, as collateral evidence of the atmospheric action alluded to.—Edit.
1 This Communication was sent to the Editor on the 10th of January. From the evidence since given at the Inquest on the Barnsley accident, it appears that the coalowners provided a barometer and ordered extra firing in the upcast shaft when the glass fell rapidly, so that it seems the effect of rapid atmospheric changes was known, and, to some extent at least, provided for; but we still think Mr. Rofe's note deserving publication, as collateral evidence of the atmospheric action alluded to.—Edit.
