West Virginia mine explosion

The old mining term for explosive gases in coal mines is "firedamp". It seems illogical - I mean, a damp fire? - until you realize that it comes from the German word "dampf" for vapors. There are other "damps" in mining terminology - "afterdamp", for instance, refers to the poisonous gas carbon monoxide, which tends to build up in mines after an explosion. But firedamp explicitly refers to a gas mixture rich in the flammable gas methane, which - as the recent disaster in West Virginia's Upper Branch Mine reminds us - burns like a devil's torch. Twenty-five miners were killed outright in the…

Almost 200 years ago, methane gas ignited in a coal mine in England, setting off an explosion that killed 92 miners. These were not miners as we think of them today - in the pre-child-labor-law world almost half were children, as young as eight years old. So that one can make an argument - regarding last Thursday's methane gas explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, that killed 25 adult miners and left another four so far missing - that we've made some progress in protecting children from mine disasters. Our track record in protecting adults is less impressive - that is they…