The College of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
On Saturday evening, at the invitation of professor Merivale, a meeting of the old students of the mining classes was held in the Chemical Theatre for the purpose of hearing a lecture on firedamp, illustrated by a large number of experiments. After a few words of welcome and an explanation of the arrangements of the session – which include a course of lectures for students preparing for the certificated managers’ examination, to be held on Saturday afternoons – the professor pointed out that a lecturer should not only make statements by practical experiment and also explain the reasons. The old students present would also agree that he had made a great many assertions, and he trusted that he had – in most cases at least – succeeded in explaining the why and the wherefore; but he had often been debarred from showing that his assertions were really true. This was so because most of his lectures had been delivered at a distance from Newcastle, and it was impossible to carry about the necessary apparatus. He proposed then upon this occasion to confine himself to proving some of his assertions made and explained in former lectures, by the aid of a large number of practical illustrations that Mr. Shaw had kindly assisted him in preparing. The lecturer then proceeded to show that in order to obtain an explosion of firedamp two things were necessary – first, the gas must be mixed with a definite quantity of air; second, the mixture must be raised to a very considerable temperature. These facts were proved by several experiments, of which one with a hydrogen siphon appeared to give the greatest pleasure. That the presence of a small quantity of stythe will decrease the chances of explosion was shown, and the low temperature of ignition of coaldust was illustrated. Forbes’ Liveing’s, and Chatellier’s firedamp indicators were exhibited and their action explained. The professor next considered some of the methods of dealing with firedamp, and amongst them the primitive, but now long ago exploded, system of firing the gas. This was illustrated by a diagram, and the fact that the fireman would or would not be burned, according to whether he fired the gas at the head or the tail end, was proved by glass models of drifts, filled with explosive mixtures and fired by electricity. Some of the latest forms of safety lamps were shown, and the lecturer advised would-be inventors to turn their attention more to the contrivance of a lamp that, without being less safe in a current of gas than some of the better lamps now before the public, should give a very much increased light, especially overhead. They must remember that for each man killed by explosive gas, two nearly were killed by falls of stone, and this he believed to be due, he believed to be due, at any rate to some extent, to the bad light now given by the safety lamps now in use. A very small Swan electric lamp was then exhibited, and the advantages of such a method of lighting fiery mines was explained. Unfortunately no cheap effective battery has yet been invented. An exhibition of a model of the Haswell coal-getter, and an experiment with a lime cartridge concluded a very interesting meeting.
From The Colliery Guardian, October 10, 1884, page 572.