2-979-588 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Lund Hill Colliery Explosion: Mouth of the Downcast Shaft, 1857. Preparations to recover bodies after mining disaster in Barnsley. 'The Illustration represents the entrance to the downcast shaft, after the mouth had been closed. The iron basket in which the miners made their descent is suspended immediately over it, and a jet of steam is being forced through a pipe connected with the boiler into the pit, for the purpose of extinguishing the fire. The brick tank in the foreground of the sketch was filled with charcoal, preparatory to making carbonic acid gas, for the same purpose; but these means being considered inadequate, the water from a neighbouring stream is now being turned into the pit. Some days will elapse before it can be pumped out and any of the bodies be recovered'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.