The final struggle—1880. joint in the valve door-piece of No. 1. On the 26th another stoppage was necessary with this pump for ten hours to repair a joint which had blown in the H-piece, but the pumping was continued steadily with fair results. On the 19th we had opened the door partially to take more water from the works, and on the 20th the water stood at 54 feet from the surface of the ground in both the pits. For the next seven days the pumping continued without incident, the lowest point to which we were able to reduce the water being 128 feet from the surface in the Iron Pit and 126 feet from the surface through the rest of the workings.
It being then evident that the power we had at command was barely more than sufficient to ‘hold’ the water, I decided to fix two additional 15-inch pumps in the Old Pit, and to add an 11-inch pump to the 41-inch beam-engine; and at the same time I decided partially to close the door in the tubbing and to hold it by a wedge which could be withdrawn at any time, so that if anything further went wrong with the pumps in the Iron Pit we could close the door by withdrawing the wedge, and so make whatever repairs were necessary.
In order to fix the door in the iron tubbing in the way in which I wished to do it, it was necessary to let the water again rise to a level in both pits, so that on the 28th October, after these arrangements were made, the water was only 65 feet from the