The ideas about the enormous practical importance of systematically organizing rescue operations in the fight against firedamp, expressed by Ivan Avgustovich nine years earlier, and his proposal on this matter are now universally recognized. However, in 1899, when the article in question was written, Ivan Avgustovich was one of the very few pioneers whose noble efforts and initiative our mines owe for the fact that rescue operations have since emerged from the "infantile" state they were in back in 1899, when the article under review was written.