the gas: they reported (according to the 'Newcastle Journal') dead men in every direction, most near the shaft; most seemed to have died placidly: "The exploring parties have seen little boys in the arms of their fathers, and brothers sleeping dead in the arms of brothers". The dead pony was untouched; its corn bins had been emptied and some of the dead had corn in their pockets. Although the rescuers had thought they had heard signalling from the trapped men as late as Saturday night, the last entry in the notebook of the back overman described a prayer meeting held at 1.45 on Friday afternoon. Recovery The task was now recovery of bodies, and, the check-viewer told the waiters at the pit-head, it was no good throwing away the lives of living men to obtain the bodies of dead men: further entries into the yard seam were suspended until the canvas bratticing was completed, and the shaft properly timbered and cleared further to allow the yard seam to be accessed directly, rather than via the furnace drift. The following day, the Journal reported ugly scenes at the pithead, with demands that the bodies be retrieved immediately; conversely, the workers in the shaft were becoming more reluctant to run the risk of the continuing rockfalls. On Friday, the rubbish in the shaft fell away to below the entrance to the yard seam, but rockfalls and releases of gas continued. By Saturday the works were complete and the sinkers and shaftmen withdrawn. The victims had been dead a week and so the bodies were "considerably swollen and disfigured" and the smell from them offensive. It had been intended to put them into coffins while they were still down the mine, and the medical profession thought it unwise to allow the coffins to lie in the victims' homes until burial. In the event, the corpses were raised to the pit head to be identified as far as possible by the tally-boy, sprinkled with chloride of lime, shrouded, and coffined. In the end, however, as each body was coffined it was either sent home or, if unidentified, chalked "unknown" and sent to the Primitive Methodist chapel for later identification. The Journal reporter described the consequent appearance of the village: All the blinds were drawn; but, looking in at the open doors, we saw coffins in every house. In most instances, they lay upon the