The investigation of mine air : an account by several authors of the nature, significance, and practical methods of measurement of the impurities met with in the air of collieries and metalliferous mines / edited by Clement le Neve Foster and J.S. Haldane.

  • Foster, Clement le Neve, Sir, 1841-1904.
Date:
1905
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The investigation of mine air : an account by several authors of the nature, significance, and practical methods of measurement of the impurities met with in the air of collieries and metalliferous mines / edited by Clement le Neve Foster and J.S. Haldane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    position is not considerably above the natural temperature of the strata. 1 Effects of Air-impurities on Men. The gaseous impurities present in the air of a mine may afiect men, either in virtue of the diminution which they cause in the percentage of oxygen present, or because some gas which is in Itself positively injurious is present. An analysis of the air will often give very useful information as to the presence or absence of gaseous impurities in injurious amount. Work underground ought to be, and in collieries and ironstone mines in this country iisually is, extremely healthy ; but cases often occur in which the men in a mine, or part of a mine, are found to be suffering in health. Rightly or wrongly, the gaseous impurities in the air are usually blamed; but for want of definite information as to their nature and effects, the real cause, whatever it may be, remains uncertain. ' Deficiency of Oxygen.—The effects of deficiency of oxygen in the air have been found both by laboratory experiments and by experience in mines, mountain-climbing, balloon ascents, etc., to be the same whether the percentage of oxygen, or its pressure, is diminished. Thus the effects produced on a miner by simple deficiency in the percentage of oxygen in the air are the same as those produced by the great diminution in atmospheric pressure at high altitudes. In mines at high altitudes these effects will be combined; but, as a general rule, in mines the increased depth, and consequent increased pressure, compensates to a greater or less extent for diminished percentage of oxygen. As will be explained below, there is another physiological cause which increases the supply of oxygen to the lungs of a miner; and, as a matter of fact, the supply is nearly always more abundant underground than above ground, even though the air is considerably vitiated. It is a matter of common observation that a diminution of even as much as a fourth or more in atmospheric pressure, as is the case, for instance, at various health resorts in mountainous districts, produces no discomfort at all; and similarly a diminution of a fourth in the oxygen percentage of the air in a mine near sea-level—i.e. a diminution from 20*93 per cent, to about 15 per cent.—is by itself practically ^ For investigations on the factors determining air-temperatures in mines, see Haldane and Meachem, Tram. Inst, of Mining Engineers, vol. xn., 1899 ; also lieporl by Haldane, Martin, and Thomas to the Eome Secretary on the Health of Cornish Miners, Parliamentary Paper [Cd. 2091], 1904, Appendix 3.