I was then working in the diagonal slope - there was a good current of air that day. There has always been good ventilation in the diagonal or new slope. I have not come across any gas in my stall of late. I found some gas there when we first started it. I've stuck a [hole] in the top with a little gas on it. I have never seen any since that time. My partner on the morning shift was John M [McKinnel?]. I have never been compelled to stop work other than on account of gas. The height of the roof or of the coal was about twenty feet and I was in about ten or eleven yards from the slope. I had not been working there long. Before that I was working ten or eleven yards above that place in the slope. I never found gas in this stall up the slope. I never saw gas there or did I hear that there was any. I do not remember whether there is much gas given off in the slope or not. Martell's stall gave off as much gas as any of them. There was quite a lot of coal dust down there and in my stall as well. It was also very dry down there and it was on the day of the explosion as dry as usual. I heard Mr Martell give his evidence. My experience with "blowing out shots" is the same as him. The height of the slope opposite to my shots was about ten feet. The lamping is done in the same manner throughout the whole of the mine. The floor of the slope is level of that with my stall but the roof of my stall is higher than that of the slope. [Top?] coal is left in on the roof of the slope below my stall. I have been down to the base of the diagonal [?] new slope but it is some time ago. I do not know the height of the face which is distant about eighty yards from my stall. It was about a week or two before the third of May that I was
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