Coal-mines.

A.—sa

(2.) Gunpowder or other explosive or inflammable substance Gunpowder and shall only be used in a mine as hereunder provided, that blftSfcit >gis to say, — (a.) It shall not be stored on the surface of or adjacent 5 to the mine unless in such magazine and in such quantities as may in writing be approved by the Minister: (6.) It shall not be stored in the mine in any quantity exceeding what would be required for use during one working-day for the purposes of the mine ; and, if stored 10 in the mine, it shall be kept in a drive or chamber separated by a door fixed across such drive at least thirty feet from any travelling-road : (c.) Detonators for blasting shall be kept stored on the surface of true ground in a covered box placed in a 15 separate magazine, apart from other explosives : (d.) Not more than one hundred .detonators for service shall be kept in any mine at one time, and these shall be kept in a covered box in the drive or chamber set apart for the purpose, and only taken out in such quantities as 20 required for immediate use ; detonators shall not, on any pretence whatsoever, be stored near any travelling-road, bored end, or working-face : (c.) No person shall enter with a naked light a powdermagazine or any excavation in a mine where powder or 25 other explosive or inflammable substance is stored : (f.) No iron or steel pricker shall be used in blasting in any mine, and no iron or steel tool shall be used in tamping or ramming, and no iron or steel pricker or tamp-ing-bar shall be taken into any mine. 30 The proprietors of the mine shall provide copper prickers : (g.) A charge which has missed fire may be drawn by a copper pricker, but shall not be visited until three hours have elapsed from the time of lighting the fuse of 35 such charge; but in no case shall an iron or steel drill be used for the purposes of drawing or drilling out such charge, nor shall any charge be drawn where nitroglycerine compounds or detonators have been used : (//.) No person under the age of eighteen years shall 40 be allowed to charge a hole with explosives or to fire any charge of explosives : (i.) No drill-hole shall be bored within a distance of one foot in any direction from the site of a previously unexploded charge of any nitro-glycerine compound, and 45 no drill-hole shall be bored in any remaining portion of a hole in which a charge of nitro-glycerine compound has been previously exploded : (J.) In all cases where the fumes arising from the explosion of any nitro-glycerine compound cannot be 50 effectively dispersed by ventilation or spray of water from the mine, such fumes shall be neutralised or rendered innocuous by the person in charge of the blasting opera--3

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