Years since there were four fire-engines belonging to the Whitehaven colliery, which when all at work, discharged from it about twelve hundred and twenty-eight gallons of water every minute, at thirteen strokes; and at the same rate, one million, seven hundred and sixty-eight thousand, three hundred and twenty gallons, upward of seven thousand tuns, every twenty-four hours. By these engines nearly twice the above-mentioned quantity of water might be discharged from mines not more than sixty or seventy fathoms deep, which depth is rarely exceeded in the Newcastle collieries, or in any other English collieries, with the exception of the above. Coal pits have sometimes taken fire by accident, and have continued to burn for a considerable length of time. About the year 1648, a coal mine at Benwell, a village near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was accidentally kindled by a candle: at first the fire was so feeble, that a reward of half a crown, which was asked by a person who offered to extinguish it, was refused. It gradually increased, however, and had continued burning for thirty years, when the account was drawn up and published in the Philosophical Transactions: it was not finally extinguished until all the fuel was consumed. Examples of a similar kind have happened in Scotland and in Germany. But of all the recorded accidents relative to coal mines, that of Felling colliery, near Sunderland, a concise narrative of which here follows, was the most disastrous. Felling is a manor about a mile and a half east of Gateshead. It contains several strata of coal, the uppermost of which were extensively wrought in the beginning of the last century. The stratum called the high-main, was begun in 1779, and continued to be wrought till the nineteenth of January, 1811, when it was entirely excavated. The present colliery was in the seam called the low-main. It commenced in October, 1810, and was at full work in May, 1812. This mine was considered by the workmen as a model of perfection in the purity of its air, and orderly arrangements; its inclined plane was saving the daily expense of at least thirteen horses; the concern wore the features of the greatest possible prosperity, and no accident, except a trifling explosion of fire-damp, slightly burning two or three workmen, had occurred. Two _shifts_, or sets of men, were constantly employed, except on Sundays. Twenty-five acres of coal had been excavated. The first shift entered the mine at four o’clock, A. M., and were relieved at their working-posts by the next at eleven o’clock in the morning. The establishment employed under ground, consisted of about one hundred and twenty-eight persons, who, from the eleventh to the twenty-fifth of May, 1812, wrought six hundred and twenty-four scores of coal, equal to thirteen hundred Newcastle, or twenty-four hundred and fifty-five London chaldrons.