Canaries were iconically used in coal mines to detect the presence of carbon monoxide. The bird’s rapid breathing rate, small size, and high metabolism, compared to the miners, led birds in dangerous mines to succumb before the miners, thereby giving the miners time to take action.
The idea of using canaries is credited to John Scott Haldane, known to some as “the father of oxygen therapy.” His research on carbon monoxide led him to recommend using the birds. He suggested using a sentinel species: an animal more sensitive to the colorless, odorless carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases than humans. If the animal became ill or died, that would give miners a warning to evacuate the contaminated mine.
What made carbon monoxide so dangerous to miners, who were enclosed within the confines of a mine, was its lethal effect that was undetectable by the human senses of sight and smell.
Consuming carbon monoxide was done by simply breathing – a needed respiratory function of life.
It could be said that when the canary’s chirping ceased, the danger was increased – the silence was a loud warning!
Amos 8:11-12
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.”
In today’s dangerous climate of rampant sin, chaos, and hardness of human hearts, someone needs to listen and see if the sound of gospel preaching is still being heard! Has anyone checked on the canary?
–jlg–