Allen, Grant, 1848-1899 / 2008-09-29 00:00:00
Still, even so,
several of the workmen had been suffocated, and one of the pitmen asked
Geordie in dismay whether nothing could be done to prevent such terrible
disasters in future. "The price of coal-mining now," he said, "is
pitmen's lives." Stephenson promised to think the matter over; and he
did think it over with good effect. The result of his thought was the
apparatus still affectionately known to the pitmen as "the Geordie
lamp." It is a lamp so constructed that the flame cannot pass out into
the air outside, and so cause explosions in the dangerous fire-damp
which is always liable to occur abundantly in the galleries of coal
mines. By this invention alone George Stephenson's name and memory might
have been kept green for ever; for his lamp has been the means of saving
thousands of lives from a sudden, a terrible, and a pitiful death. Most
accidents that now occur in mines are due to the neglect of ordinary
precautions, and to the perverse habit of carrying a naked lighted
candle in the hand (contrary to regulations) instead of a carefully
guarded safety lamp. Yet so culpably reckless of their own and other
men's lives are a large number of people everywhere, that in spite of
the most stringent and salutary rules, explosions from this cause (and,
therefore, easily avoidable) take place constantly to the present day,
though far less frequently than before the invention of the Geordie
lamp.
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