A Light in the Darkness
A Light in the Darkness:
The Miner’s Lamp
The thick and dense darkness of a coalmine requires a miner to use a source that illuminates his work place deep within the earth. Light within a mine is not a luxury or a comfort, but rather a necessity. Miners need to see both the roof and the ground where they are working, to protect themselves from dangerous cave-ins. In addition to safety, the better the illumination, the more productive the miner. The coroner’s inquest found that the cause of the Frontier Mine Number One disaster that occurred 14 August 1923 was the fire boss relighting his lamp (Corner’s Inquest).
Early in the mining industry, the necessity for light within the mine was neither safe nor easy. Originally, coal miners used a candle with an exposed flame. However, an open flame and methane gas, or firedamp as it is called, was the cause of many catastrophic explosions leading to the first safety lamps. According to the Internet site of Mining Artifacts:
The
flame safety lamp was of the work by Dr. William Clanny, George Stephenson and
Sir Humphrey Davy. In 1816, Sir Humphrey
Davy is credited with the true invention of the flame safety lamp. Davy’s idea was to isolate the flame from the
flammable gas by means of wire gauze surrounding the flame. Davy demonstrated that burning gases, on
passing through the wire mesh is broken up into streamlets, which are so cooled
by contact with the metal of the mesh, that the flame is extinguished. The greatest safety could be obtained by a
standard mesh formed by 28 steel wires per inch making 784 openings per square
inch.
After the
development and use of the wire gauze, glass covers were used to shield the
flame from mine gases. Thus, lighting improvements were made, but no lamp was
safe if used in a poorly ventilated mine.
Electric mine lamps were first used in
England and then in the United States around 1889. Even Thomas Edison worked on a rechargeable storage battery cap lamp. The first electric mine lamps were heavy, expensive and the glow lasted
less than a full shift. The Coroner’s
Inquest regarding the Frontier No. 1 mine accident discusses the types of
miner’s lamps that were used in the Frontier mine in 1923:
Question
(Mr. Quealy): Mr. Coroner, I would like to ask the witness
a question in order that the Jury may know what kind of lamps were used in that
mine.
Answer
(Coroner): Certainly.
Answer
(Mr. Oakley): Safety lamps.
Mr.
Quealy: What kind of safety lamps?
Answer
(Mr. Oakley): Wolf (sic) Safety lamps.
Mr.
Quealy: What other lamps?
Answer
(Mr. Oakley): Electric cap lamps.
Mr.
Quealy: Yes. Wolf (sic) safety lamps and electric
cap lamps?
Answer
(Mr. Oakley): Yes, sir. (Corner’s Inquest)
The coroner’s inquest was conducted on 17 August 1923, just three days after the Frontier mine explosion.
In 1923 there were certain procedures that took place in case of mine accident. In his book, “Forgotten Frontier, a History of Wyoming Coal Mining”, Dudley Gardner, explains the investigation into mine accidents:
By
law the county coroner had to investigate the death of miners, but coroners’
inquests commonly fixed blame of the miner; and the coal mine inspectors’
reports all too often reported that deaths in the mines were not the fault of
the coal company. Changes were slow in
coming, especially in the coal mines of the nineteenth century. Until the coal companies were forced to
accept the responsibility of mine safety, conditions underground would not
improve dramatically.
During the
Frontier Number One Mine inquest, it is interesting to note that in addition to
the coroner, Mr. E. W. Holmes, asking questions, Mr. P. J. Quealy, owner of
Kemmerer Coal Company, also asked questions.
Some of these questions were directed at Kemmerer Coal Company employees
with an obvious conflict of interest between the mining company, the miners,
and the investigation. The official
findings from the coroner’s inquest state:
The
explosion was caused by gas in No. 7 room 30 Entry, same being ignited by fire
boss when relighting his safety lamp, all victims of the explosion thereby
meeting death (Corner’s Inquest page 91).
Mr. George W. Brown, Mr. William McAllister, and Mr. Joseph Bird, Sr., the jurors, signed the inquest (Corner’s Inquest page 91). Apparently, the safety lamp did not have a functional lock and the fire boss was able to unlock and open it while he was in the mine, this according to the inquest.
It was common knowledge that the Frontier mine had pockets of gas. In an interview, Orko (James) Niemi stated, “My dad says that Frontier mine’s going to blow up. I think everybody that worked there said it was going to blow up someday” (Porsche 7). In an interview in August 2002, Paul Canoso stated, “The Frontier Mine No. 1 was known for it’s numerous gas pockets. It had allot of gas and it was common knowledge. In fact, the local miners call it a ‘hot mine’ because it had high incidents of gas” (Canoso 1). However, the best example and plea came from James Roberts (no relation to the Hugh Roberts family), the older brother of the fire boss Thomas Roberts (no relation to the Hugh Roberts family). In the Kemmerer Republican, dated 24 August 1923, James Roberts stated:
I
would like to state to readers of The Republican that I belong to a coal mining
family, having worked in the mines for 23 years. My father, who is 70 years old, and brothers
are miners. My father started his coal
mining career at the age of 10 years in England, and has followed it for 60
years. The hardest part of this disaster
is to him, and mother, for these poor old people to hear that they have a son,
their youngest, whom the state of Wyoming has qualified to act as fire boss,
that he caused 99 to go to eternity. It
must be borne in mind that it was not a section of the mine that was the scene
of the explosion, but another fire boss had reported that region clear of gas
90 minutes before 99 men lost their lives (5).
Mr. Roberts’s
article continues:
We
know that the gas in the mine was lighted, but a pick point on a niggerhead
would cause a spark, or a hobnailed boot on a rail, and various other things
could be blamed, but to throw the blame on one departed hero is in my belief
inhuman. . .
Since
the inquest we have discovered a tobacco can full of matches in the place where
the explosion occurred.
In
conclusion, I repeat again my sympathy goes forth to all relatives and friends. (
Other details
were brought up in the inquest. First,
the morning of the explosion the gas inspector, John Sager Jr. wrote in the
mine report book: “Tuesday. Between five and seven A.M. I examined all of
the working places on twenty-nine and thirty entries and I find them all clear
of gas. John Sager Jr.” (7). In addition, there was some concern that the
fire boss, Thomas Roberts was busy dealing with something in the mine, because
his breakfast in his meal bucket had not been disturbed (Corner’s Inquest 9),
and no one knew why Thomas Roberts was in the thirty entry at the time of the
explosion. During the inquest Mr.
McAllister speculates, “There must have been something to draw his or attract
his attention up there” (9). Another Juror,
Mr. Brown, further questions Mr. McAllister about Mr. Roberts being the thirty
entry:
Question
(Mr. Brown): There must have been some reason for this
firer being called up in the room here by the digger, where he was found, or he
might have found something himself.
Answer
(Mr. McAllister): Well, I can’t explain that. I don’t know why he was there.
Question
(Mr. Brown): There must have been something wrong?
Answer
(Mr. McAllister): It is peculiar that he should be there
that early in the morning, unless he went up there to repair brattice (10).
The morning before the accident number the number thirty entry was reported to have gas caused by a cap rock fall that knocked the brattice cloth down.
Mr. Patterson, State Mine Inspector for five months before the accident, reported that he had planned to visit the mine the day of the accident. Mr. Patterson went on to report that his last visit at the mine he did not take air measurements because his anemometer was being repaired (70). There were concerns about the volume of air not being the full amount. Mr. Patterson and Mr. Quealy had corresponded about he matter, but the inquest did not go any further into the subject.
Because of mine explosions, miner’s lamps had become safer, but anytime there is a flame and possible firedamp, there is danger. The official cause of the Frontier Mine No. 1 explosion is that the fire boss was relighting his lamp in the mine. The lamp in question was a broken safety lamp that could have been repaired. One hundred and thirty-six men went into the mine that day, with only the illumination of their miner’s lamps to show them the way. Ninety-nine men lost their lives, and when they were brought out of the mine, some of their miner’s lamps were still burning. What an eerie scene, lifeless bodies, with glowing lamps.
Sources Cited:
Barrett, Dr. Glen. Kemmerer, Wyoming The Founding of an Independent Coal Town 1897-1902. Kemmerer: Quealy Services, Incorporated, 1975.
Coroner's Inquest, dated 17 August 1923.
Gardner, A. Dudley and Verla R. Flores. Forgotten Frontier A History of Wyoming Coal Mining. Boulder: Westview Press.
Comments
Post a Comment