"Could fire-damp issue from the bowels of the earth if coal was not there to produce it?"

"No, certainly not!" replied the engineer. "No coal, no fire-damp. No effects without a cause."

"Just as no smoke without fire."

"And have you recognized the presence of light carburetted hydrogen?"

"An old miner could not be deceived," answered Ford. "I have met with our old enemy, the fire-damp!"


"But suppose it was another gas," said Starr. "Firedamp is almost without smell, and colorless. It only really betrays its presence by an explosion."

"Mr. Starr," said Simon Ford, "will you let me tell you what I have done? Harry had once or twice observed something remarkable in his excursions to the west end of the mine. Fire, which suddenly went out, sometimes appeared along the face of the rock or on the embankment of the further galleries. How those flames were lighted, I could not and cannot say. But they were evidently owing to the presence of fire-damp, and to me fire-damp means a vein of coal."