Page 67 - Joe Nugent, Inspector of Mines, Ret'd

ISSUE : Issue 70

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1996/6/1

cloth. It's sort of a bag all covered with tar, and they hang them up as a curtain. They use them as a curtain to divide an air intake or an air return or to direct air to a place. But that's all conducive on the ventilating pressure that's coming into the area. Putting all that stuff up meant noth? ing at all unless there was air coming up to the places. And they were using a lot of that brattice cloth. Some of the miners claimed that they could not get this brat? tice cloth to direct the air to the (coal) faces.... So it was a division of air. It provided a division of air for all the min? ers. . .brattice cloth. It was never very well used, it was never very good, but it was the best they had at the time. When they go in to start mining in a new place right away the air would be best at that time, usually the best. But as they would progress into the coal faces taking out the coal, they had to carry the air in..., and very often they over-extended its probability of getting there. And so what would happen, they'd die. The miners would take a bit of dust out of their pants or something, trickle it down, and the dust would fall right completely down. There was no air to move even the finest dust. The dust itself was one of the most dangerous things they had, coal dust. Even the fine dust that would gather around the cracks and around the rims, and on the floor and on the ceilings, and would dry out. That was also highly explosive. So if they did get into a mess, if they did (get) into a system where something ig? nited, like a small amount of gas, it would envelope into a huge fireball. Now this is the fireball that he described to me. He said af? ter the pres? sure that the explosion caused, he still had his lamp, it had not gone out then, but he looked back in? to the road where he was coming and he saw this huge fireball. It came down, he said he could see the fire, just a ball. Just like the sun. (He said) it came out part way and it went back in again. When methane gas explodes in the mine, when it is ignited--or when it explodes anywhere--methane gas, or any of the ethane gases are highly dependent on oxygen in order to carry out its distance. So the thing about it that an explosion The monument in New Waterford erected to the memory of 65 men and boys who died in the 1917 explosion. The statue at the top is John D. MacKay, the shotfire. County Line Pub & Eatery FEATURING "" Nightly Entertainment * ** Daily Homemade Specials Open 11 AM to 2 AlVI • 7 Days a Week! 581 Grand Lake Road * "Where the Great Ceilidhs I Happen!" | Between PetroCan and Robin's Donuts CAPE BRETON BRACE LTD. 66 Cornwallis Street, Sydney, NS • 539-5100 • CO-OP' Custom Orthotics VUIKSB and a Complete Line of Custom Braces Up-to-Date Stock of Stylish Shoes A Complete Line of ORTHOPEDIC SHOES for Men, Women and Children (??CANES 'WALKERS ?? CRUTCHES) CO-OP SERVICE STATION Kerosene Available Exhaust Repairs Complete Brake Service Motor Vehicle Inspection Minor Repairs Lube • Oil • Greases Top Quality ...at Low, Gasoline... 562-2315 'ow Prices 503 PRINCE ST. • SYDNEY, N. S. 67

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