REESE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. j Deceived APR 24 1893 Accessions. TVo.S"' 25^ .* ; . COAL MINING. COAL MINING DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. BY THOMAS H. WALTON, MINING ENKIXEKR. ILLUSTRATED BY TWENTY- FOUR LARGE AND ELABORATE PLATES AFTER ACTUAL WORKINGS AND APPARATUS, AND SEVERAL WOOD ENGRAVINGS. PHILADELPHIA: HENRY CAREY BAIRD & CO., INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS, AND IMPORTERS, 810 WALNUT STREET. LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STRKET. 1885. COPYRIUHT BY THOMAS II. WALTON, 1884. '7 COLUNS, J'KISTEK. \ TO MY ESTEEMED FRIEND, J. WARREN COULSTON, ESQ., OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAB, THIS VOLUME IS y flfdiratrd. Jl PREFACE. THE Almighty in His great bounty has provided for all our wants in endless abundance and variety. In some parts of the Tropics, when the rainy seasons come to moisten the ground which has been baked by the heat of the sun, you can see the vegetation thrust out of it by a powerful influence. The transformation which takes place is truly magical. Within a few weeks, the ground that was bare supports masses of vegetable matter so high and so rank as to forbid one's passage through them. Year succeeds year and each contributes its layer of vegetation, which is generously supplied with carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and traces of other important ingredients which combine to form those wonderful products of nature. But, alas! after the rains cease to moisten the earth, the sun shines both- through the thirsty atmosphere and abstracts the moisture from the vegetation which lias been so generously nourished by it. In a short time only a portion of the whole remains ; the bulk of the ingredients passes back into the winds again, and is carried by them to other parts of the globe perhaps to make component parts in the construction of other vegetable or animal organisms. But all the species of the vegetable kingdom are not so frail in nature. Where the ground is liberally supplied with moisture from subterranean sources, the huge trunks of trees spread their branches into the air, and those branches carry their foliage so compactly as to defy the rays of the sun, and forbid its stealing the moisture from the ground which is nourishing the roots. In this case the vegetable accumulations augment, and continue to do so year after year as long as they live. A step farther on a geological step, which is in all cases a long stride we find the vegetable masses dead and buried deeply in the earth, imbedded in their hard rocky graves ! Such in fact are our coal seams. These vegetable preservations of the past are handed down to us in the shape of fuel ; and after we use them as such, the bulk of the ingredients which have been held prisoners for ages, is again set at liberty and takes its place in the air ready for a new commjsnce- ment. After so much pains have been taken in the formation of these coal seams, it is wantonness to waste their contents by bad mining operations. The object of this work is to point out the present modes of taking out the coal contained in coal seams, as practised in England and the United States. ( vii ) Vlll PREFACE. To extract coal from scams lying on low inclinations has been very successfully practised in the older mining countries. In some of the provinces of France, where the coal seams incline upwards of 70, and which are comparatively thick, much difficulty was formerly experienced in attempts made to mine out the coal entirely. Galleries driven into the coal seams horizontally, with pillars of certain widths left between them, resulted in much of the coal being lost, after it was detached from the pillars. It was then often buried by the rocks which caved in near the ends of these pillars. This occasioned a change to the present system of working by remblais, which seems to be a plan well adapted to the taking out of the coal of highly inclined coal seams. Ventilation of coal mines is treated in the following pages only in the most practical manner. To comprehend the fine points connected with mine ventilation on an extensive scale, an accurate knowledge of pneumatics with much practical experience is absolutely necessary. Absurdities connected with this important subject have floated into the works of very eminent writers, and it will not be an easy task to eradicate them. The chief difficulties in the way of practical ventilation of mines seem to consist in the maintenance of the air-passages of sufficient size free from obstructions, and in the resistance met with by air-currents moving with high velocities. Trusting that the succeeding pages will be found of use to the student of coal mining and to the operators of coal mines and the owners of coal lands, and that they may be of interest to the general reader as well, the author passes them over to the public with a consciousness of having thus done something towards performing his duty towards his fellow man. PHILADELPHIA, December 15, 1S84. CONTENTS. SECTION I. GENERAL INFORMATION CONCERNING COAL MINES AND COAL MINERS, WITH DESCRIPTION OF LONG WALL AS WORKED IN HORIZONTAL SEAMS OF COAL IN ENGLAND AND IN FRANCE. CHAPTER I. EXPLOSION AT SPRING WELL COLLIERY. MEANS TO BE USED AS SAFEGUARDS AGAINST ACCIDENTS. PAGE Personal Recollections of an Explosion at Springwell Colliery ....... 9 Improvements introduced at Coal Mines as a Safeguard against Accidents ; Practical details . 12 CHAPTER II. COAL-DUST AND COAL-GAS IN THE AIR FORMING A DANGEROUS MIXTURE. Large quantities of gas developed in Coal Mining ; What an explosive atmosphere may be com- posed of; Coal-dust finely pulverized disseminated through the air, a dangerous constituent; Mode of working thick beds of Anthracite which lie on a high inclination ... 14 CHAPTER III. MARSH GAS, AN EXPERIMENT. THE EFFECT OF A BRATTICE IN AN OPENING SCHUTE. Marsh Gas identical with the Carburetted Hydrogen of a Coal Mine ; Incidents connected with an experiment with this Gas ............ 17 How Marsh Gas may be obtained for experimental purposes ; An incident illustrating prejudices among Miners; A Colliery near Ashland, Pa. ... ..... 10 Fan Boys and their Work ; Dispensing with Fan Boys in getting rid of Gas .... 20 The use of a piece of Canvas and a Brattice in Ventilation ....... 21 CHAPTER IV. IMPROVEMENTS OF MINING IN THE SOUTHERN AND WELSH MINES. COAL MINING ENGINEERS. HETTON COLLIERY. Mining in the Lancashire District, England ; Improvements introduced from the North . . 24 System of Organization of Labor at the Helton Collieries in the North of England ... 25 Effects of the introduction of this System into Lancashire and Wales ..... 26 Details of this System as adopted in Lancashire ......... 27 Principles which should govern a System of Ventilation ; Necessity of recognizing a relation between the amount of Coal Mined and the amount of Air required in Ventilation . -i 28 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. THICK COAL SEAMS WORKING OUT COAL IN FRANCE BY REMBLA1S IN ENGLAND BY LONG WALL. SECTION II. AN EXAMPLE OF MINING OUT COAL BY WHAT IS TERMED THE BOARD AND PILLAR SYSTEM. CHAPTER VI. SHAFT THROUGH ENGLISH COAL MEASURES WINDING IN SHAFT ENGINE PLANE HORSE ROADS. PAGE Board and Pillar System as practised in the Hutton Seam in the New Castle, England, Coal Field; Description of the Vein and the Works . . . . . . . . 33 CHAPTER VII. DISTRICT AND PANEL WORKINGS BOARDS AND ENDS OF COAI WORKING LEVELS DISTRICT DETAILS. Description of a Plate illustrating an Overman's Tracing; Description of a Plate illustrating Plan of Board and Pillar Whole Coal Workings . . . . . . . . 36 The Board and Pillar or Board and Wall System, one of the most popular methods of Mining; Origin of these Terms and their relation to the Cleavage of the coal ; Descriptive details of this System . . . ..'.'. . . . '. . . ... 37 The Air-crossing and the General System of Ventilation of Coal Mines by Splitting the main current of Air, as illustrated by a Drawing . . . . . . '. . .39 The Regulator in Ventilation, with a Description of its Mode of Operation t . . . 40 On ascertaining the quantity of Gas in the Air and the Tests used for that purpose : Names of the places in the District as illustrated in the Plan of Board and Pillar Whole Coal Workings 41 CHAPTER VIII. A DEPUTY'S EXPERIENCE DETAILS IN WORKING AND VENTILATING A DISTRICT. The Deputy ; An interview with him ; His views on the subject of Ventilation . . . 42 Anemometer; Practical methods of estimating the condition of the Air-current in a Mine . 43 The use of the Water Gauge ............. 45 CHAPTER IX. THE PUTTER. The Putter and his Duties 47 The Blackboard, showing the Miners' places, the number of Wagons of Coal to be cut in each place, and the Work of the Putters . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Accidents to the Putters . ..-.-.. .... . . . . . . 49 Drawing the Cavils in order to determine the Stations of the Putters . . . . . 50 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER X. THE HEWER AND HIS WORK. GR The Coal Miner Nicking his Jud . ... . . . . . . . . .54 The Headways ............... 55 The requirements demanded of the Miner in the New Castle Coal Field ; The work of the Deputy in that Coal Field . . . . . .56 CHAPTER XI. THE OVERMAN SELF-ACTING INCLINE PLANE. The Overman, the responsibility of his Position and his Duties ; The Master-waste Man and the Master Shifter and their Duties ; An interview with the Overman ..... 58 The Incline Bank ............... 61 CHAPTER XII. " BROKEN COAL" WORKED. The various methods of taking out Pillars of Coal ; The Miner's first step ; The Trapper and his Duties ; Air-doors ; The Regulator and Air-crossing as a Substitute for Air-doors . . 63 Working the " Whole Coal" ; The Tramway used in Durham and Northumberland ... 64 Blackboard showing the number of Tubs to each Jud and the Sheaths or Ranks of Putters . 65 Explanations by the Overman concerning the working off of the Juds, including the dimensions of the Pillars of a District, the time required to work off a Jud, the yield of Coal from a District working off the Broken Coal and the Crush of the Roof . . .66 The Drawing out of the Props . . . ._-.-.. . . . . . . 67 Fall of the Roof; The Deputies employed in a District ........ 68 The Wagon-way man ; Skelping the Coal ; The use of the Safety Lamp ; The yield of Gas ; Keeping the Air safe from admixtures of Dust ; Effect of Gas from an upper or lower Coal Seam forcing its way into the Goaf of a working Mine . . . . .._... 69 CHAPTER XIII. DETAILS OF BROKEN WORKINGS. Method of working out the Pillars, when the Dip is great ; Dangers of Explosions in following up the workings in the Whole Coal by workings in the "Broken" ..... 71 Effect of a Goaf behind us, advancing and extending itself; The Long Wall System of Mining Coal -......, 72 CHAPTER XIV. REMARKS AND COMPARISONS. Chief merit of the Plan of working shown in which the " Broken" District is worked simultane- ously with a whole District which it follows at what is judged a safe distance ; Difficulty of Ventilating a Goaf ; Creeping down of the Roof . . . ' ~. '. . ". .73 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE Respective advantages, under different circumstances, of the Board and Pillar and the Long Wall Systems of Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . *- . 74 Mining in America; Advantages of taking out Pillars by working back in the direction of the Levels beginning at the Dip, or with those Levels driven on the lowest part of the boundary 75 Splitting the Pillars ; Condition in which the Pillars and Excavations surrounding them are generally found ; Metal Ridge or Rig ; Tunnelling through the Metal Rigs ; Source of trouble and expense of these Rigs, and manner of working through them .... 76 Closing up of the Board-rooms in working forward toward the boundary of the Mines . . 77 CHAPTER XV. RE-WORKING OF OLD MINES, " METAL RIGS," AND OLD COAL PILLARS. The mode of opening work through old Board-rooms closed up by Ridges, lifted from the Bottom Slate ; Practical details ............. 78 Driving Headways in the Whole Coal ........... 79 Modification of Board and Pillar System still in general use in Lancashire, England ... 80 CHAPTER XVI. GENERAL REMARKS. The Overman's Cabin ; Familiar chat with the Overman concerning the Men and the Mines of the Newcastle Coal Fields ; Foundation of Railways here laid ; Some of the older Mining appliances ............... 81 Misfortunes of the past from a want of knowledge of Gases in the Mines . ...-. . 82 Terrible Explosions in the past history of Mining ; Little knowledge of the means of Ventilation ; Improvements of Spedding and Buddie in Ventilation ....... 83 Advances in Mining at the present time ; The Putter and his work . . . . 84 The " Calling Course" . . . ., .85 The duties of the Caller i-' . . .. ' . . -. . . 86 The Spare Hoisting Shaft ". . . .87 The interior of a Board-room, manner of Branching of the Road into it, and Mode of Propping up a Slate or Shaly Roof . . . .;_..'.. . . . . . . .88 SECTION III. HOW COAL IS TAKEN FROM THE HIGHLY INCLINING COAL VEINS OF THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER XVII. TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MINES. Description of an extensive Coal Mine and its surroundings, in Schuylkill County, Pa. . . 89 View in the Gap or Ravine Cutting through a mountain in this locality ; Interviews with Mine Bosses in an attempt to find employment .......... 90 Gangway Timbers illustrated '. ... 91 CONTENTS. Xlll CHAPTER XVIII. COAL FORMATIONS DEPOSITS UPHEAVALS. PAGE The nature of Coal Strata examined . . 98 Characteristics of Coal Veins in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania ...... 99 CHAPTER XIX. MINING OF COAL MINERS' TOOLS STARTING THE SCHUTES DRILLING AND BLASTING. The Miner's Outfit ; The Mouth of the Drift; The Water Course in a Mine; Lagging and Loose Packing ; A Timbered and Lagged Gangway ......... 102 A Plan of the Coal Mines as they are worked in the Thick Coal Seams of the United States ; Mines in the United States leased by the Ton and not by the Acre, as in other countries ; Disadvantages of this System; Immense destruction and waste of Coal .... 103 A Schute and the manner of Driving it ; The manner of connecting together the main Gangway and the Breast-way, and other details of Mining ........ 104 The " Starter" at work ; The Battery and the Battery Collar 105 A Schute shown " blocked up" at the Battery ; The Travelling Road in a Mine ; " Starting" a Battery ; Description of a set of tools used to Mine Coal in the Breasts of the highly inclined Coal Beds of Pennsylvania ; The Drill ; The Needle 106 The Scraper; The mode of inserting the charge of powder in Blasting Coal .... 107 The Squib 108 The style of Pick used in the Anthracite Coal region ; The steel Sledge and the steel Wedge ; Drilling 109 The Loader and the Driver and the Boss Loader 110 CHAPTER XX. DRIVING .A BREAST COST OF COAL MANWAY AND HEADING BLOWING DOWN TOP COAL. An Air-door ; Mode of Timbering the Manways and Breast-rooms, and of connecting them together, by means of Headways driven through the Pillars, with other details . . .113 Breast in the Mammoth Vein illustrated . . . . . . . . . . .115 CHAPTER XXI. VENTILATION DRAINAGE OF WATER-LEVEL GANGWAY IN BOTTOM ROCK. Ventilation details ; The pressure of the Atmosphere . . . . . . . .120 Practical discussions .............. 121 Every Block of Coal broken from a working place liberates a certain amount of Gas . . .122 How a fiery Colliery was cured of its fiery character . ........ 123 The Comparative merits of placing the Gutters for Drainage of Mines in the Coal and in the Bottom Rock discussed and illustrated .......... 128 Driving the whole Gangway into the Bottom Rock and its advantages illustrated . . . 130 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXII. EXAMINATION OF BREASTS MEASURING OF WORK PARLEYS WITH THE MINERS. PAGE Systematic Ventilation ; Formation of the Stoppings of the Headings ..... 134 Details of Ventilation ; Tracing out the Air-current . . . ... . . . 135 Conversations with the Miners . . . . . . ... . . . . 136 CHAPTER XXIII. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, WITH A COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF MINING. The systems of " Long Wall" and " Board" and " Pillar" Mining described and compared . 142 The men and boys who work the Mines, and the credit which is due to them . . . . 144 Ventilation, and its relation to the amount of Coal Mined in a given time ; Practical details of Mining . . . . . . . . . . . : . . . . , 145 Mines having u Dip of about 45 ; Mining in Pennsylvania ; Loss of Coal in the system of Mining 14G SECTION IV. TlIE VENTILATING FAN UNDERGROUND FIRES ELLEN WOOD COLLIERY, MAHANOY COAL BASIN, PENNA. CHAPTER XXIV. THE VENTILATING FAN HOW IT SHOULD BE CONSTRUCTED AND ARRANGED PRINCIPLES OF ITS ACTION DESCRIBED. CHAPTER XXV. UNDERGROUND FIRES AND METHODS OF EXTINGUISHING THEM. ' \ CHAPTER XXVI. A DESCRIPTION OF THE COAL VEINS WORKED AT ELLENWOOD COLLIERY, SITUATED IN THE SOUTH- EASTERN BRANCH OF THE MAHANOY COAL BASIN, GIVEN TO SHOW THE GREAT NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE ANTHRACITE COAL FIELDS. INDEX . . 171 LIST OF PLATES. I. Overman's Tracing, showing a plan of working by Board and Pillar, and Ventilating by Splits, and especially adapted for working out the Coal of Seams whose inclina- tion is low, and whose thickness docs not exceed six feet. (Frontispiece) . . 36 II. Plan of Board and Pillar Whole Coal Workings, Dipping. Scale 260 feet one inch . 36 III. Ventilation of Coal Mines by splitting the main current of Air; Details which show the relative arrangement of the main Drifts, Stoppings, Regulators, and Crossings . 39 IV. Our Deputy Overman . . . . . . . . . . . .45 V. The Putter . . .47 VI. The Coal Miner " Nicking" his Jud and the Pony Putter 54 VII. The Miner's first step as the Trapper, with the Air-doors 63 VIII. The Miner's second step the Driver; With the Pit horse and his gears, as used in the Mines of Northumberland and Durham. England ....... 64 IX. The Overman . - 58 X. Mode of working the Broken by splitting the Pillars and duplicating the Juds . . 63 XI. Sketch showing the mode of Propping a Jud in broken workings .... 67 XII. Sketch showing the method of .working the Juds off the end of a Pillar, and the mode of Propping up the Roof . . . 67 XIII. Mode of working Juds off the Pillars to the rise when the Dip is considerable and less than 12 . . . 71 XIV. An example in which the "Broken" District is worked simultaneously with a "Whole" District, which is followed at what is judged a safe distance . ... . .72 XV. Working Coal by crossing the Metal Ridges of the old Board-rooms Isometrical Section and Plan ........ x . ... 76 XVI. Sketches of Appliances used in the early transportation of Coal underground, with Ventilating Furnace, etc. ..... ...... 81 XVII. Interior of a Board-room or Chamber showing mode of Propping and the manner of Branching off the Road into it, and the mode of Propping a Slate or Shaly Roof . 88 XVIII. View in the Gap or Ravine cutting through a mountain, with a Drift, the "Trip," etc. 90 XIX. Entrance to Gangway; View showing how a set of Gangway Timbers are made, how put up and Lagged, and the man who Digs the place for them . . . .01 XX. Isometrical view showing general plan of Breast-rooms and Pillars, etc. . . . 103 XXI. Sketch showing Starter's Battery, and Loading Platform, etc. ..... 104 XXII. The Starter .105 XXIII. Sketch showing how Man ways are built against the Pillars inside the Breast-rooms; How the Manway door is set and position of Monkey Gangway ; How the Manway through the Stump is connected with the Manway in the Breast-rooms, and the style of Battery used in Breast-rooms, having two Schutes ; and other details as per description . . . . . . ... . . . . . .113 XXIV. Section of a Breast of Coal in the Mammoth Vein, together with Breast-room, Exca- vation, Crossheading through Pillar. Starter's Battery, running Schute, Platform, Break Stick, Schute Timbers and Wagon in position to be loaded . . . .115 (xv) THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. SECTION I. GENERAL INFORMATION CONCERNING COAL MINES AND COAL MINERS, WITH DESCRIPTION OF LONG WALL AS WORKED IN HORIZONTAL SEAMS OF COAL IN ENGLAND AND IN FRANCE. CHAPTER I. EXPLOSION AT SPRINGWELL COLLIERY ; MEANS TO BE USED AS SAFEGUARDS AGAINST ACCIDENT. IT is a painful sight to witness the effects of an explosion at a coal mine. While a child in small garments and of few years, I formed a tiny unimportant personage of a large and excited crowd which had collected at the mouth of the Springwell coal shaft. The Springwell Colliery belongs to the Liddle family, one of whose members, the late Lord Ravensworth, is often quoted in an honorable and laudable connection with George Stephenson, the Railway Engineer. Above the shaft was a cloud of black dust or of smoke, whose thick unfolding volumes were spreading throughout the atmosphere to cast their dark gloomy shadows over the locality ; and this ominous cloud had just been vomited violently out of the coal shaft ! What apparition more than this was necessary to cause that mining village in full view to become promptly deserted ? A minute before the rays of bright sunlight had been flowing to the earth uninterruptedly ; but the change came suddenly, and the contrast of the past and present was unnatural. No one remained in the village who possessed the power of locomotion. In the grief-stricken crowd at the mouth of the shaft were a few men, many women and children including babes clasped frantically in the arms of their mothers who were among the first to reach the fatal spot. Many were the wails and sad 10 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. were the exclamations they made ! In the painful picture there was no background of consolation ; and he would be a clever artist who could trace it truthfully with his pencil. It was needless to tell them what had taken place. Their instincts told them that not a soul could live in the mine a hundred fathoms below while the shaft was brimming over with stythe a term applied to after damp. In the depths below were the sons of that venerable couple whose days of usefulness had been ended by the ripeness of old age. There were the husbands of those wives and the fathers of those children and the brothers of those younger women. And there, too, the bonnie bairn of the poor and lonely widow ! The alarming cry of " Springwell pit 's fired" spread over the surrounding country like a telegraphic wave, and this brought great throngs of people from the other villages in the district. A child of four years could hardly understand much of what was transpiring; everything seemed to be of such a mysterious nature and so completely above his comprehension, as to bewilder him. The viewers came in their white flannel shirts and blue flannel clothes and drove the crowd back from the mouth of the shaft ; and the banksmen got the pit ropes into their places, and, hooking up curves, called to the engine men to chase the ropes. So the curves and ropes were made to tra- verse the shaft in obedience to this order for the purpose of agitating the air in the mine and cause it to circulate and render it fit for respiration. No one could de- scend before this was done. Then a body of searchers stepped into one of the curves and clung to the few links of chain which were coupled to the flat hemp rope. When lowered beneath the " saddle boards" into the dark shaft, they were accom- panied by the prayers of the crowd as the rope was paid slowly out of the slots in the engine house side ; and crawling silently over the huge pit pulleys, glided slowly and steadily down the shaft, lowering its living freight to search for those dead bodies which were shrouded in the sulphurous atmosphere of the mine. But much had to be done before the air could be made to circulate so as to drive the black damp in advance of the current, and days seemed to pass over before the crowd of watchers at the shaft's mouth seemed to abate. By this time many a parcel had been drawn from the depths below and landed on the saddle boards, the coverings EXPLOSION AT SPRINGWELL COLLIERY. 11 i removed, and the contents, often burnt to a crisp, scrutinized and identified by some token, such as a portion of unconsumed clothing, or by some mark on a part of the body which had been screened from the action of the fire by the thick flannel cloth- ing generally worn by the English miners. As for the exposed parts of the body, the face and hands particularly, they hardly bore a trace of human resemblance. But for all this, that widowed wife and childless mother knew the remains of her offspring as soon as he was brought to "bank" in the arms of a pitman. No power could separate her from the form of her poor bairn until the strength of her frail body succumbed to the superior force of her grief, and then she was borne off in the same direction as her poor boy. This is what memory brings to me of a scene which happened between forty and fifty years ago, the closing features of which were the funerals which bore away the dead miners to their last resting-places. After the strange faces assisting at the funerals had vanished from the village, and a strange inexplicable influence was beginning to exert itself which affected young and old alike, and brought every one under its restraints, the dead bodies of the horses, cooked and charred, were drawn from the shaft and hauled away out of sight. This seemed to form the last of the picture, and it went away from my sight like a dissolving view; which, however, the mind can recall as it was then understood by a child, and as it has been re- membered through his mature years, and it can be seen still as it appeared then, but modified by the shades that experience throws among its figures. Brought up in a district where the recurrence of such accidents has been by far too frequent, I must confess to having yielded much to the impressions they have produced, which, in great measure, have influenced the course of a subsequent mental training. Much of the spirit those teachings have promoted will be reflected in the following pages, in spite of any effort I may use to curb and subdue it. Therefore, if my sympathies are shown to be largely with those, man and master alike, whose lot it is to earn their daily bread within the dark, dusty recesses of the mine, where Death sows his seeds broadcast, and reaps his harvest with a bloody sickle, the reader will please to consider in as kind a manner as possible those expressions and exclamations which have their origin more in the heart than in the head. 12 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. Since the occurrence of the Springwell "misfortune" alluded to above, very great have been the improvements introduced at coal mines, to be used as safeguards against accidents. In all well-regulated mines the officers know how important it is to attend to such rules and regulations as are those which follow. Keep in advance all dead work, and where gas is very abundant, and the slips and crevices frequent, bore ahead holes not less than four inches in diameter, and twelve feet in length. By an examination of these bore holes daily, an idea of the quantity of gas contained in the coal may be formed, and sudden outbursts, to a certain extent, avoided. The gas will drain off through such bore-holes very rapidly, but with much greater regularity than if such bodies of gas were let out by the sudden removal of large quantities of coal, as in the case of blasting. Divide the ventilating current as often as it is necessary to do so to keep the air in certain places sweet and respirable. Let the amount of coal cut in any particular district regulate the amount of air sent to it, more than the extent of such district. Thus, if you mine a hundred tons of coal in a run daily, send in the air to this run or breast in sufficient quantity to dilute the gas given off by the mining and breaking up of those hundred tons of coal. Let the air passing from such part of a mine get into a return air course in the most direct manner possible, by passing it direct to an upper level; or, if this is not practicable, pass it into a return air course, such as a monkey gangway, by carrying it over a main air course by means of an AIR CROSSING. Examine the abandoned excavations, and note the state of the air within them. In old places you will find the air and the gas it contains so thoroughly incorporated the one with the other, as to form a dangerous mixture if the percentage of gas is over three at one time, and is greater than this at another. The gas in such places, when neglected, has done much mischief by strengthening so uniformly and so gradually in the air as to escape detection until an explosion of a gigantic order has been the ultimate result, which a little intelligent attention, and a small increase in the ventilating current would have warded off. If you have spacious air ways, and these you must have in order to obtain good and sufficient ventilation, use regulating doors to govern the "splits," and lock them securely at each setting. Regulating doors should be at a point in the return where the air of its district is making its final exit before it joins with the main out-going current. EXPLOSION AT SPRINGWELL COLLIERY. 13 Use as few air doors as possible, and none at all in the main intake air courses which wagons have to traverse. Take great pains with the air stoppings, and build them so well and bind them so securely that the force of an explosion will not carry them away. Air crossings are better driven in the solid strata. When this is impracticable, they must be built in the most substantial manner. The arch is the usual form ; but if they are not strongly bound and secured by cribbing, or by strong iron hoops, they are liable to be blown up by the force of an explosion acting under the archway. Air courses should be as straight and direct as possible, and as capacious as they can be made. Officers of mines should practise the art of discovering the presence of gas in the air and learn to judge of its proportions by the manner in which it burns over the flame of a candle. Two per cent, of carburetted hydrogen in the air can easily be detected by the flame of a closely-snuffed candle, or by the flame of an oil lamp being reduced to burn brightly at its minimum, which may be done by the clearing of the top of the wick and the pulling of it down so that its top will be even with the level of the tube. By the use of a flame of hydrogen, on account of its great heat, the gas in the air may be burnt and its flame seen if its proportions in the air are as low as one-half of one per cent. By burning this flame in pure air and then in a mixture of air and gas, the difference, which is marked, can very easily be distinguished. If the ventilating force be acquired by any mechanical appliance, this should be duplicated, so that in case of an accident to one the other could be promptly used in its place. All mines should be so well inspected daily, by its own staff of officers, as to render the inspection of them by any government officer unnecessary. The safety lamps, hoisting ropes, timbering, and all other appliances should have their due share of attention ; but defects in these appliances are to be seen by the naked eye and may be detected by any ordinary person ; it is different with the air which so often floats the angel of Death into the presence of the unsuspecting miner, who goes to his doom, in many instances, sheerly because of his ignorance concerning the nature of this enemy. 14 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. CHAPTER II. COAL-DUST AND COAL-GAS IN THE AIR FORMING A DANGEROUS MIXTURE. WE are told that the explosions of coal mines cannot be avoided. Sudden outbursts of gas break away through the coal and fill the galleries and excavations in their vicinities with gas, just in the same manner that the bursting of a steam boiler would fill the air in its immediate locality with steam. Large portions of coal are thrown out at the same time. Certainly no ventilating current howsoever large could overpower the large quantities of gas given out at such times ; hence the necessity of driving all opening places well in advance of the others. Such outbursts of gas taking place in any locality where a large number of men are at work, enhance the danger of explosion. An explosive atmosphere may be composed of various ingredients ; but in coal mines, coal-dust and coal-gas form the active combustibles. Coal-dust, so finely pulverized disseminated through the air as to be almost imperceptible, forms a dangerous constituent and one which does not receive the attention it merits. It is a more unmanageable ingredient than the coal-gas itself. A swift current of air traversing a mining passage not having its sides moistened by artificial or natural means, gathers up the dust on its route and bears it through the working places. In the thick beds of anthracite which lie on a high inclination and are worked by breasts, resembling a series of inverted quarries, large bodies of dust are formed by the coal as it works its way down to the gangway. But it is where the coal grinds itself down through the STARTER'S BATTERY that the great clouds of dust are met with in the air. At every rush of coal you see volumes of dust burst out of the battery and fill the passages with their opaque masses. Then, again, down at the gangway, where the coal is running into the wagon, you cannot see the flame inside of the loader's lamp ten paces away from him. Nay, I question whether there are not times when the loader himself cannot see the light of the lamp he holds in his hand. COAL-DUST AND COAL-GAS IN THE AIR. 15 A man way is a passage formed on the side of an excavation by a series of props being laid against it. The props are each secured, head and foot, in holes, one being cut in the rib about five feet above the bottom slate, the other in the bottom slate, about two and a half feet from the rib. At a distance apart of about five feet, they are laid against the rib so as to be as nearly as possible parallel to each other, and they are set at such an angle as to lie in the same plane. Planks nailed on the outside and spanning the distances between them form a space underneath, large enough for a man to crawl through. By being advanced with the breast and kept a few feet in arrear, it forms the travelling road of the miner ; and it forms the air- course for the ventilation one manway being on each side of the breast room. On the outside of the planking a portion of the mined coal of the working breast is stored until the breast is worked up to its limits ; and this coal forms the gob of the coal mine. It contains elements of danger in the shape of gas, coal-dust, and occa- sionally the resulting gases of spontaneous combustion, among which that fatal gas, carbonic oxide, takes its place, with that other poisonous element, sulphurous acid ; these uniting with others to form the WHITE DAMP so fatal to the physical constitution of the miner. It is through this gob that the miner's travelling way is built, and it is through this that the air goes which ventilates his breast. If he have a large quantity of air through so small a passage as this, the current must travel at -a rapid and conse- quently at a dangerous rate. The area of such a passage cannot exceed six feet, and when the miner gets inside of it or stows his materials and timber there, it becomes nearly choked. Allowing it to be the clear six feet, to get a few thousand feet of air in circulation per minute will require a rapid current and necessitate the employment of a powerful ventilator. Three thousand cubic feet per minute forced through so small a passage will require a velocity of current equal to eight and one-third feet per second. This is a dangerous rate, inasmuch as it will force an ignited body of inflammable gas through the gauze of a safety lamp and cause an explosion in the air on the outside of it. A current of air driven through the man- ways at this rate picks up pieces of coal as large as peas and pelts them into the eyes of the miner as he dresses up his ribs to extend his travelling way. At many places lie must wear goggles to mitigate the punishment which the showers of coal- 16 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. dust inflict. But what of his lungs 1 The strong men who work a few years in such showers of dust become weak, and their faces blanch from the continuous absorption of the coal-dust into their systems. A consequence is that you put your miner working in such mixtures under the sod twenty years prematurely. Saying this, we are putting the many other liabilities to which he is subjected entirely to one side. Those other dangers, which are evident to his senses, he may watch at will and guard against at discretion ; but these, which are so subtile in their nature as to be far above his comprehension, or which do not receive a due share of his attention, are the ones to be held up in front of his mind's eye ; and it is much the purpose of this work to hold up danger posts somewhat like those our deputies sometimes set at the end of the " fiery boards" to point out those dangers which are not so well and so generally understood. MARSH GAS AN EXPERIMENT. 17 CHAPTER III. MARSH GAS, AN EXPERIMENT. THE EFFECT OF A BRATTICE IN AN OPENING SCHUTE. IN studying the qualities of matter, after completing our elementary course, we read to the greatest advantage from Nature's book. In other words, we get the substances themselves and examine for ourselves and thus become more thoroughly acquainted with the nature of them. The gases are the most delicate of all the ponderable substances to handle. They are the least manifested to our outward senses, and we must constantly advance on them well armed with the delicate instruments that science and art have placed in our hands. The coal mining engi- neers of Europe have been for a long time united in their researches after the nature of gases and in inventing means and appliances to be used in mining as safe- guards. We have learned much from those researches. Mining casualties are attended not only by loss of life, but by great pecuniary loss as well. Consequently, it is much to the interest of a colliery proprietor to have established at his colliery all such systems as may enhance the safety of his mine. To show in what light miners regard gas, the relation of a couple of instances will not be out of place. All who have studied elementary chemistry know something of the marsh gas. It is identical with the carburetted hydrogen of the coal mine. As we are not writing for chemists, there is no need to give a list of its chemical constituents. To know that to consume the gas as it comes from the marsh or fresh and unmixed from the pores of coal, there must be eight cubic feet of air to each cubic foot of the gas, is enough. To dilute the mixture so as to render it incombustible requires at least sixteen cubic feet of air to each cubic foot of the gas. To experiment with such delicate things you require a rather complete laboratory, and if you need any one to assist you, he should have some idea of what is going on in his presence. Speaking in the second person, with the kind reader's permission, will do just as well to relate those incidents above referred to, which are real iu every particular. 3 18 THE ART OK MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. You have a laboratory in a particular mining town which need not be named. Temporary as it is, it answers your purposes admirably. People do not know what you are about; and they say many things and draw many inferences, and these are always wide of the truth. People are not all charitable, and some do not know whether you are smuggling whiskey or coining false money. It does not matter how open you keep your doors or how well you entertain and amuse your neighbors by allowing them to read all your periodicals and by giving them all the honest information they ask for; you are not relieved from suspicion. On your table stands a large jar of the marsh gas just now spoken of. To hold the gas securely, the jar is inverted and its mouth is immersed in water. This prevents contact with the air and preserves the gas from endosmotic action or diffusion. Patrick Cummings steps in. Pat has been a very worthy and honest acquaintance for some time past, and you and he have become quite familiar. His attention is fixed on the jar of gas. " What the d is in the jar, shure V asks Pat. As full of mischief as Pat is of curiosity, you answer in a riddle which Pat does not care to solve. " That thing in the bottle is our common enemy ; the gentleman whose name you have just mentioned, or one of his imps at least." Pat's attention is none the less fixed by this careless answer, as his face expands into an incredulous smile. A wicked idea strikes you as you ask Patrick if he would like to see the gen- tleman in question. There is no answer, but there is that expression in his eye which questions your ability. You accept it as a challenge and carry out your idea at you do not know what is to be the cost. You take a match from the safe and strike a light, and raising the jar hold the flame of the match to the mouth of it. That portion of gas in contact with the air ignites. Being pure, the gas in the jar cannot explode for lack of air. You turn the jar right side up, and then the gas, being so much lighter than air, rushes upwards, and a body of air, equal in volume to the escaping gas, descends into the jar to displace it and force it out. There is a slight struggle between the air and the gas, and then a volume of flame shoots up to the ceiling, carrying away with it the neck of the jar. MARSH GAS AN EXPERIMENT. 19 Patrick is so much taken by surprise, that in his excitement he invokes the aid of holy and sacred powers, in the middle of which you cannot refrain from profane and boisterous laughter. You lose your jar, your gas, and your reputation at one foul blow 'of your own striking. Patrick tells his tale, and he does not forget to comment on a point which adds nothing to your credit. That there is some mysterious connection between yourself and his satanic majesty, Patrick firmly believes ; and he does not hesitate to impress this idea on the minds of many other persons who believe him. Marsh gas in sufficient quantities for experimental purposes may be obtained in any place where vegetable matter is decomposing in a stagnant pool of water. All we need to do to get it is to provide a jar with a wide neck. Fill the jar with water, and while the mouth remains under the surface invert it. Then raise the jar, taking care to keep its mouth only below the surface of the water. Directly under the jar stir the mud in the pool with a stick, and secure the bubbles of gas as they rise through the water. The gas entering the neck of the jar will rise up and take a place over the water, which it will displace. As soon as the water is all out of the jar the latter is full of proto-carburetted hydrogen, and is sufficiently pure for ordinary experimental purposes. In carrying the gas away from the pool of water a saucer should be placed imder it. A portion of water in the saucer will prevent the air from coming into contact with the gas. To describe the nature of the existing prejudices among miners and their bosses, we will relate the following incident. There is a colliery within a short radius of Ashland mining its coal from the Mammoth vein. The dip of the coal seam is over 50. Like many other seams of the Mahanoy basin, it is divided by numerous breaks. These divisions often run through the rocky strata, and have had their surfaces in contact ground smooth by their movement under great pressure. These form spaces into which the coal-gas has lodged itself, and as the coal is worked out, the gas in those spaces pours into the excavations in large volumes. In the old abandoned places you have been robbing the pillars and have been 20 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. earning high wages to the envy and disgust of the other miners. These have been wishing to have you placed in some work driven in the solid coal and thus placed on an equal footing with themselves. The time arrives when there are no more pillars to be robbed, and you find out the inside boss, who is not at all a friend of yours in his heart on account of your being on the most intimate terms with the "operator." You, as an ordinary employe, are entitled to the first breast to be opened, and as the gangway has been driven well in advance of the last open breast, there is plenty of room to start off the schutes and manways necessary to open out a new breast of coal. The following statement will show the common mode of giving a contract to a working miner. You apply for the working and opening of the new breast just alluded to, and the boss tells you that no fan boys are to be obtained ; and until he gets some of these necessary assistants, you must wait an indefinite length of time before you can begin the work. Fan boys were needed to turn the hand fans used to blow a current of air through square wooden boxes into the schutes and manways as these were driven up the incline, because the gas, being so much lighter than air, tends to settle in the spaces formed above the levels through which the currents of air pass. You do not like the idea of losing your time for so trivial a cause, so you say to the boss in a tone which is entirely too frank for your own interests when a bargain is to be made, and you see your opponent taking a mean advantage of you, as he evidently was in this case, by making an attempt to get rid of you " Supposing that I can obtain fan boys, will you allow me the regular rate of wages you pay to them I" This proposal could not be objected to, and the boss did not object to it. But you make another which takes matters a step further; you propose to drive the fans yourself. This staggers the boss, and he hardly thinks you in earnest. You add another condition, to close the bargain, which is the only sharp thing you ever did in your life " In the event of dispensing with the fan boys, will you then allow me the amount of their wages V you ask. MARSH GAS AN EXPERIMENT. 21 \ " Yes," says the boss, adding an expression which need not here be repeated, and thinking you to have lost your senses. He could not see how the gas was to be driven out if there were no fans to be used. This settled, you find a butty and you start off the schute while your butty starts 06 the manway. After the first day's work you have a large space opened in each of the places. So the next morning you simply hang a piece of canvas across the gangway at the foot of each excavation. This has the effect of turning enough air into the elevated spaces to keep them clean. You work on, and as you advance the places, you join a brattice to the canvas ; and this brattice carries the air into the face of each, and you have no trouble to keep them safe by the ventila- tion you thus obtain ; and you find it to give you less labor than the fixing of air boxes would require. So your two dollars per day the fan boys' wages come to you as a perquisite. What was thought of the arrangement by the miners and the fire boss, who lost his job of brushing out the gas every morning by it, the following will show. You go to the mines late one morning, about nine o'clock in fact. When you arrive at the schutes you find the men collected there bent on having a row with you. The men are mostly Welsh, but a few Irish are among them. You receive a volley of abuse to begin with, and the fire boss joins the crowd against you, and you feel that you are getting into a scrape. The miners who work piece-work in the same manner as yourself complain that your places have not been examined, and they will not work until they are. Then you turn to the fire boss and ask why the places have not been examined. " Because, you see," says he, " you be working the gas out by contract, man dear !" and he places a space between every word of his sentence, and holds his safety lamp in your face to witness the effect his words meant to ridicule you have on your temper. Now you are not the coolest man in the world, and between anger and disgust you can hardly contain yourself. For the sake of half a minute's work the fire boss has allowed a dozen men to remain idle for two full hours ; and they are nursing a bitter wrath against you, whom he wished to hold up as the one responsible. You know that the fire boss is thought to be very sage, and is in a responsible position. 22 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. But you know also that there is a tolerable current of air passing, and that a large portion of it is travelling past the brattice and into the face of each of your excava- tions, and that there can exist in them no dangerous accumulations of gas. With this conviction you place your naked lamp on your hat ; and before any one of that excited crowd can know what you are about, you spring on to the platform of the opening schute. No one attempts to hinder you ; but being convinced that your places would be as full of gas as have been all other schutes after standing undis- turbed over night, they scramble to their feet and vie with each other to get as far away from the spot as possible before the explosion that is to be takes place. You crawl to the face of the schute and examine every nook in it ; but you find no gas. The air circulates quietly past the brattice, and where such is the case, except very large quantities of gas are blowing out of the coal, no dangerous accumulations can take place. You sit quietly down on the loose coals near the face, and your chagrin gives place to uncontrollable mirth. The footsteps of the crowd racing outwards so as to almost break their necks have scarcely ceased to sound in your ears, when it occurs to you, as the funniest part of the farce, that your butty and the fire boss have also disappeared and you remain all alone in your glory. " Could all crowds be dispersed in this manner there would never be any riots and little need of policemen," you cannot help thinking. But a step comes creepingly along the gangway, a light appears at the platform, and you discern a broad face turned up towards you. After a few seconds of con- templation you hear a rough voice call out, not to you, but to some of the others away out on the gangway. " Bhoys, come here ! By the powers, the gas is charmed !" and one creeps in after another, and the monJcey men, the gangway men, the cross-hole men, and the schute men, starting other schutes in an inside opening breast, all of whom have been kept idle by their distrust of your brattice, now slink into their work as if they were ashamed of themselves. So you finish the schute and man ways and headings without the aid of fan boys, and receive a bonus of fifty dollars for your services, and besides save the fire boss the trouble of brushing out the gas of a morning, which is a barbarous custom, MARSH GAS AN EXPERIMENT. 23 and has cost many a life by sending the gas ready mixed on to some distant light, there to be exploded. You would fancy that bratticing would have become the custom at this colliery from that moment, but it did not ; why it is hard to guess. But in a short time after this you urge Joseph Brown, then the inside boss at the Tunnel Colliery, Ashland, to try it in the same manner, and it works so well as to acquire a reputation which takes it into all the fiery mines in the coal region. But the brattice has been used in Europe since the time of Spedding's application of underground ventilation, nearly two centuries ago. 24 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. CHAPTER IV. IMPROVEMENTS OF MIXING IN THE SOUTHERN AND WELSH MINES. COAL MINING ENGINEERS. HETTON COLLIERY. IN the Lancashire district, the upper seams of coal gave out but little explosive gas, and the mines there were worked on a small scale. Many hoisting shafts were used at a colliery even in the present century, and the ventilation was not very perfect. You would see one engine in the centre of a group of shafts used to wind the coal from all of them. There was a system of drums and counter-shafts connected to the main shaft of the engine ; and some of them were set at right angles to the main. The work had neither system nor centralization in it, and the yield of no particular mine had approached to one-half of that of the average collieries of the North. After the sinking of some of the shafts through the rocks to a lower series of veins, a great deal of gas was encountered in the Rushy Park and Little Delph coal seams now extensively worked at the collieries near St. Helens and Wigan. Those seams yield a coal of excellent quality, and they vary in thickness from three to five feet. But the men who had been employed as managers in the upper seams made but little progress in these below ; and in spite of the means devised, the out-put of the collieries was limited. Matters of business brought Mr. John Wales, well known as a mining engineer of the North, and Mr. Wilson, a wire-rope manufacturer of Haydock, Lancashire, together, and those were met at the house of Mr. Wilson by an opulent colliery owner having an extensive colliery near St. Helens. The conversation flowed natu- rally into the subject of coal mining. Mr. Johnson was the colliery owner, and he expressed astonishment at Mr. Wales's account of the Hetton collieries, whose admirable system of working and ventilating had been perfected under the joint efforts of himself and Nicholas Wood the latter well known by his work on rail- ways. Mr. Wood had been an apprentice of Mr. John Buddie, and also was the founder of the Northern Institute of Mining Engineers. IMPROVEMENTS OF MINING IN THE SOUTHERN AND WELSH MINES. 25 Mr. Wales paid a visit of inspection to the mines of Mr. Johnson, and he saw that no change could be effected until a complete change was made in the officials. The manager was on a par with the managers of our anthracite mines, a clerk and civil engineer, without a knowledge of mining in its details. The actual manage- ment of the mine was left to a man brought up in the mines, one of those self-made men we are constantly meeting with in all kinds of public works. They want none of yo\ir book learning your geometry, and the language you use to comprehend it by, algebra ; your technical science may go to the deuce for them ; they do not require such nonsense stuffed into their stubborn heads. To get along with such men in a dangerous mine would simply.be an impossibility. Mr. Wales, knowing this, invited Mr. Johnson to pay him a visit at the Hetton Collieries, to which invi- tation Mr. Johnson promptly responded. At Hetton Mr. Johnson was astonished at the gigantic nature of the works, not so apparent on the surface as they were made manifest to him under ground, and at the plans in the office and at the explanations made by Mr. Wales and his staff of assistants and apprentices. But for these explanations Mr. Johnson would have thought that there were a number of unnecessary men used in the executive force. First, there was Mr. Wales in charge of the collieries as head viewer. Then there was his assistant as general under viewer. Then Mr. Moore, the head mechanical engineer, in charge of the railways, engines, and repair shops, which had the magnitude of the repair shops of many railways. In the mine Mr. Johnson found the coal of the rise to be lowered by self-acting planes, and that of the dip hauled out by engines winding it up the engine planes, and along the levels by horses drawing long trains of excellently constructed tubs or small wagons. He met the overman, whose great responsibilities were explained to him ; and in fact he saw that no such system could ever be accomplished in mines except where the same division of trained labor was resorted to. The systems of working out the coal did not impress him with so much force as did the manner of applying the forces. The ventilation of the mine, although an eye-witness, he could hardly conceive to be so great as it was represented by the 4 26 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. scientific instruments he saw applied to weigh and to measure it. It was not so easy for him to believe that there were over seven tons (190,000 cubic feet) of air taken into the mine in the short space of each minute, and that this was main- tained during the year in and the year out. That it was split up into a number of underground currents and sent into as many different districts without the aid of a door in the main roads, but through the aid of the regulator instead, showed him how admirable was the system of working and ventilation adopted at this colliery ; such perfection being attained not in a day, but in a century, beginning under Mr. Buddie's direction, occupying the lifetime of Nicholas Wood, and now carried out through the careful superintendence of Mr. Wales. But the example of mining at Hetton was not in the north an exception as much as the rule ; there were the large collieries of Ryhope, Pemberton, Thornly, and Haswell in the immediate neighborhood, and many others in the same coal field, the excellence of whose regu- lations was quite up to the standard of those practised at the Hetton Collieries. From that day Mr. Johnson set his mind on the object of remodelling his collieries. Mr. W r ales engaged, at Mr. Johnson's request, a northern mining engineer to take charge of his Lancashire collieries, and the engineer in turn provided himself with a staff of assistants. In a few years the improvements were so marked and the produce of the mines so much augmented, that other colliery owners in the district followed the example set by Mr. Johnson ; and now in the Lancashire coal district there are many large collieries rivalling in extent and production the mines in the north of England. But Lancashire was not the only district in the United Kingdom that received benefit from a change in system. Wales imported some of the northern engineers ; and these brought along their assistants, and established themselves and their systems to the discomfiture of the Welsh bosses in the Welsh mines ; and within the last twenty-five years the mining engineer almost unheard-of in those mines before that time has planted a branch of his mining institute, and, unlike the old boss, his predecessor, who kept all his paltry secrets connected with his craft to himself, disseminates that knowledge which is so much required by the miner, and which science teaches in the most liberal manner. The time may not be far distant when our bosses, who seem to be very much made up of those old-school bosses of IMPROVEMENTS OF MINING IN THE SOUTHERN AND WELSH MINES. 27 Europe, will be uprooted through the same agency and scattered in the same manner ; I mean by the EDUCATED ENGINEER, let him be of what origin he may. Being employed as one of a corps of assistants, I had an opportunity of witness- ing the effect of the changes made at one of the Lancashire collieries. The mode of working out the coal as it had been practised we found to be admirably adapted to the district ; and our books on mining call this the Lancashire Panel System. Mr. Hedley has written a valuable practical treatise on coal mining, in which he mentions it. In the ventilation of the mine we found the greatest defects. The machinery for hoisting, admirably adapted to its work, we found to be in its main points of AMERICAN origin and quite the equal, if not the superior in some respects, of its brother of the north made by the best of engine builders. I allude to the Stevens type of cam motion engine as used on our American rivers. But the mine was divided into districts at once, and into each district a fresh current of air was sent to ventilate it. Deputies were employed to look after the working places and the proper ventilation of those districts ; to timber the places, lay the track, keep up the brattice, and look after the work generally. Instead of throwing any more responsibility on the coal-cutter, he was relieved of that which he had ; and his work was reduced to that of cutting coal only. He did not find any fault with an arrangement which relieved him of a burden and lessened his labor; he had no timber to hunt, and no rails to look after, no putter to pay. He lost no time on account of gaseous accumulations, and was not in a constant dread of his life. But he could not carry matches, nor light his pipe through the meshes of his safety lamp ; and this was an arrangement he did not like, but to which he had to submit as a provision of general safety. In working back the pillars he was not allowed to leave stumps in the goaf to deflect pressure on the ends of the pillars as he cut them out. The coal was not to be crushed out by pressure and ground into dust ; it was to be mined in lump in the best known manner ; and the deputy was never so far away from the miners as not to see this provision properly carried into effect. On the whole, it was by the new arrange- ment of old plans more than by the introduction of new ones, and by the concerted action of the executive force that the increased safety of the mine was accomplished and (he production tripled in a short space of time. 28 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. I was almost two years under majority at the time and considered at first in the light of an apprentice, but the requirements to be met in the organization of the mine were of such a nature and the executive force so limited, that a greater respon- sibility was put into my line of duties, and I thus became, at an early age, an acting assistant engineer. The working out of the new arrangements imparted many useful lessons. In some of our books on coal mining the ventilation is proportioned to the area of the mine ; that is, a certain quantity of air per acre of mine to be traversed is allowed. This may answer well enough where a large area of mine is standing on pillars, but it cannot apply to working faces from which varying quantities of coal are mined daily. We found in our practice that as we increased the production of coal in any particular district it became imperative to increase the ventilating current in a corresponding manner, and that it was necessary to remember that the miner picks out gas as well as coal with every blow he strikes. Although there was much gas in the mine we never made use of the safety lamp in any but the broken workings. Great attention was given to the state of the returning air currents, and the proportion of gas was never allowed to exceed a certain amount in them, and this amount being but two per cent, was so far from the point which forms an explosive and dangerous mixture as to cause no apprehension on the part of the executive force of the mine. The variations of gaseous discharges are so great that no rule can be made by which to work the currents in the different districts. The quantities of gas given off alone can determine this, and to determine the amount of gas given off in a coal mine or in any one of its districts requires the skill and judgment of an expert. THICK COAL SEAMS REMBLAIS AND LONG WALL. 29 CHAPTER V. THICK COAL SEAMS WORKING OUT COAL IN FRANCE BY REMBLAIS- IN ENGLAND BY LONG WALL. THERE is a rule among mining engineers which sets the yield of a coal seam at one thousand tons for each foot in thickness per acre, ample allowance being made for waste. At this rate the yield must be immense when the vein is upwards of thirty feet in thickness ; and in many instances you find coal seams whose thick- nesses are between twenty and thirty feet, and these are the thickness of some operated in Pennsylvania. In Staffordshire. England, the coal seams of other districts have run into one thick seam ; that is, the slates dividing them in other localities have in their cen- tering in this locality gradually become so thin that the whole series of coal seams may be worked as one thick vein. Our own Mammoth coal is composed of several smaller seams, any one of which could be worked apart in a profitable manner were it to be found in a separate state. Sometimes this vein contains six benches, each having some particular characteristics. In France there are coal veins of great thickness, and these dip at high degrees of inclination. After many experiments and much experience in actual mining, the French engineers have at last adopted that mode of working which they distinguish by the name of remblais. By its use they not only mine out the whole of the seam, but they are enabled to stow the refuse behind the working faces, and to preserve the surface intact at a less outlay than by any of the other methods they have used. This is accomplished by working over the seam, beginning at its out-crop horizon- tally and by packing the space behind the working faces with rubbish and stones, most of which are sent down from the surface, the balance being formed of the refuse of the mine. The working face then extends from the bottom to the top slates, and the floor is formed of the coal underneath. Props are set to secure what is overhead until the remblais has been laid, when all the timbers that can be taken safely, are 30 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. drawn out. It is by setting props closely together that the dratoing of timber can be performed with any degree of safety. The packing is done in the same man- ner as the building of the pillars in long wall; but the spaces are packed with greater care to make it as unyielding as possible when subjected to the great pressure ; and instead of being limited in width as the gateway pillars of long wall are, they extend all over the excavation and fill it up entirely, excepting only the timbered roadways used to convey the coal to the surface. Then each succeeding lift has for its roof the remblais that has been built on the floor of its predecessor, and if attention is paid to the laying of the undermost layers, little trouble is encountered in the working of the lower faces ; because on the large flat stones laid on the bottom, the matter above is so squeezed by pressure as to form an excellent roof, easily kept in position by a liberal use of props and planks and broad cap- pieces ; and as the height is limited to two metres about six feet six inches the process of timbering is easily managed by two men working together. The greatest care must be taken at the extremities of the excavation, and the packing must be well rammed in to insure lateral support. Face after face is thus worked off as the work progresses downward into the coal vein, the light gas draining upwards as soon as liberated, and is carried off by ventilation before any accumulation can take place. Before this method was adopted the veins were divided off" by a series of level galleries, each of which served to get out the pillar of coal lying above it. But it was found that the loss by falls of roof was so great as to cause this system to be abandoned and that of remblais to be instituted in its place. In the thick coal of Staffordshire, work by long wall has been successfully instituted. The coal is mined in long wall in a seam less than six feet by opening a face of several hundred feet in length. This is driven forward and the roof is kept up in the chamber formed by close propping. After the face has been advanced a certain distance and the weight of the roof begins to settle on the props, they are drawn out by the whole corps of deputies. It is not so much an object to save the timber in this instance as to get down the roof. As soon as the roof falls, roads are cut through the rocks, and pillars on each side are built up to that layer of top which has not fallen. These are approached by openings in the pillar of coal opposite to THICK COAL SEAMS REMBLAIS AND LONG WALL. 31 the working face, termed gateways, which are equidistant from each other, and the cuts through the fallen rocks open up a communication with the coal face and form a continuation of the gateway. After these gateways have been opened, the work of advancing the wall face begins at once, and cast iron props are substituted for the wooden ones. During the night a set of picked men go in and prepare the wall faces for the hewers and coal fillers of the succeeding day. These men build portions of the pillar up to the roof at each side of every gateway. They draw out the metal props the most remote from the coal face and reset them in a row parallel and close up to it. While drawing these props, if there is danger from a fall to be apprehended, a light chain is fastened to the props as they are knocked out, or in case of the roof creeping rapidly down, as it sometimes does, picked out by the digging away of the crushed stone on the head of the prop. The drawing is done by one man, while his mate attends to the jerking out of the props as soon as they are liberated. But these men know at what point the roof will break off when it falls, which it seldom does so suddenly as to jam them or maim them, although there are times when the roof falls over the props in spite of all their efforts to save them. But even then those props are not lost, because they are searched for by digging and are hauled out when any of them are found by the use of a lever and chains. But it is in the gateways between the pillars where the gateway men often receive injuries of both a serious and a fatal nature. As the roof crushes down it squeezes the pillars down to about one-fourth of their original height. In order to make height for the small wagons and ponies to and pass, a certain portion of the roof of the gateway must be cut away every night ; ufter the walls have been prepared ready for the miners to work at on the following day, the gateway men employ the balance of what time they may have on hand before quitting time, in enlarging and securing these gateways. At some of the collieries the pillars are waxed to prevent fresh air from entering the grooves and thus promote spontaneous combustion, which, under great pressure, has in many mines set in and accomplished much mischief. The wax wall, or sealed wall, is formed by incorporating tough clay with the pillars as they are being built on the 32 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. sides of the gateway. The clay becomes so thoroughly compressed as effectually to exclude the air of the ventilating current passing through the gateway. As this mode of mining centralizes itself in a particular locality, from which several hundreds of tons may be mined daily, as many as fifty to one hundred thousand cubic feet of air per minute are required to keep the wall faces free from dangerous admixtures of explosive gas. The roof comes down generally, after the first fall, in immense slabs which lie flat on the floor of the coal seam, and the main breaks occur in lines nearly parallel with the wall face, which is always driven on the end of the cleavage in order to make the best WALL'S END or lump coal. When the coal is mined in the Staffordshire thick seam by long wall, the top seam or bench is taken off first, and the roof being let down in large pieces, forms the roof of the other benches as they are successively worked off one after the other, until finally the roof and floor are brought together face to face, the operations in each bench being so nearly the same as to render further description unnecessary. SECTION II. AN EXAMPLE OF MINING OUT COAL BY WHAT IS TERMED THE BOARD AND PILLAR SYSTEM. CHAPTER VI. SHAFT THROUGH ENGLISH COAL MEASURES WINDING IN SHAFT ENGINE PLANE HORSE ROADS. LET us descend into the gaseous coal seam called locally the Hutton Seam. This seam of coal is one of the lowest worked in the Newcastle coal field. It is sometimes two and a half feet in thickness and at others four and a half. In this part of the seam it is about three feet six inches. We shall herewith describe one method of working this seam that known by the name of BOARD and PILLAR. The measures incline very slightly, the dip being four degrees to the east. The shaft is sunk vertically through the measures, which lie so evenly and are so compact that their upper layers of strata form, in many places, the bottom of a reservoir to retain the water and quicksand which lie at the bottom of the surface earths. In sinking a shaft through these surface earths, much difficulty is often encountered on account of the activity of these immense beds or pools of quicksand so thoroughly impregnated with water. As we descend the shaft we pass through a cylinder of cast-iron, well strengthened by ribs, and put up in segments and sections to suit the size of the shaft and the thickness of the quicksand bed. The lower part of this cylinder is well jointed to the solid stratum which supports the saturated quicksands. We descend through the sandstones (samples of which you see in some of the principal buildings in Newcastle-on-Tyne), and then the slates and rocks and coal seams ; those seams of coal termed workable being the Five Quarter, the Main coal, the Maudlin, the Low-main, and the Hutton Seam. The Harvey and other seams are further below. At the bottom we find the " onsetter" putting the full tubs into the cages, which have double decks and double tracks on each deck. The cages, therefore, carry four tubs small wagons which hold about 34 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. ten hundred weight of coal each, and the facilities for hoisting and changing the wagons are such as to allow four full wagons to be landed every minute during working hours. Before starting away from the bottom, we shall wait till the descending cage lands on the scaffolding below the platform, and watch the onsetter bump out the empty wagons descending by striking them with the full ones he puts in their places. Of course you see that two wagons go into the cage at the same time, and that the onsetter manages one of them while his assistant, a fellow as strong and as muscular as himself, manages the other. When the cage strikes, two stout boys stationed on an opposite side loosen the catches holding the empty wagons in the cage just in time to allow the empty wagons to be driven out by the blow they receive from the full ones. Then the catches, which have held the empty wagons, spring up and secure the loaded ones in their proper position for ascending the shaft with safety. The operation has been performed with an expertness astonishing to those who do not habitually witness such operations ; but quickly as it has been done no time was to spare, for the catches have hardly struck the wagons, before the lower platform of the cage is raised an inch or two above the platform and is dropped back on the Jceeps, which bring the tracks of the cage even with the plane of the platform on which other loaded wagons are ready to enter the cage in the same manner as their predecessors have done. Then, without as much as a signal, the cage starts off with its freight to the surface, where in thirty seconds it is landed on the keeps at banJc, where an operation the reverse of what we have just seen is performed. While the banksmen are " banking out" and dumping the wagons into the screens, and the onsetters are getting wagons placed in readiness for the descending cage (for we desire it to be understood generally that while one cage is ascending on one side of the shaft with loaded wagons another cage is descending on the other with the empty ones) we shall look around us before we go further into the mine. We examine to ascertain the cause of a humming noise we hear a short distance off. We find it to proceed from a system of sheaves and rollers and pulleys which guide a wire rope on to the drum of a large winding engine. The engine is worked by compressed air, and its duty is to draw trains of forty wagons at a time up an inclined plane at the rate of fifteen miles per hour, more or less, as the demand on SHAFT THROUGH ENGLISH COAL MEASURES. 35 the services of the engine requires. In a minute the train arrives and is landed in the full track of a siding, and the rope is unhitched automatically. By its momen- tum the train runs into a by-track, having a slight grade towards the platform of the shaft, and there it comes to rest. From this track the onsetter receives his supplies of loaded wagons. In the mean time the rope of the winding engine has been hitched to a train of empty cars, the drum of the engine has been thrown out of gear, and by gravity the train is descending the inclined plane (engine bank) of the mine ; the motion being regulated by a brake attached to the drum of the winding engine. We find this inclined plane or engine bank to be over one-third of a mile in length, and still advancing towards the boundary " on the dip" of the mine property. At the bottom of the engine plane a siding is made sufficiently long to collect into engine sets, the wagons brought out of the districts by the horses and the larger ponies. The height of the engine plane is but four feet, and the height in the siding and horse roads is not less than five feet six inches. This latter amount of height is made by cutting up the bottom rock. In order to get a horse into the levels, he is tripped over on to a truck and lashed securely on his side, when he is run as a passenger down the engine plane, and released at the bottom of it, where there is height for him to stand up. He is then set to work in the levels to draw the coal out from the districts, and his home is in stalls cut in the coal strata near the foot of the engine plane. The mine ponies, some of which are so small as to be able to work in a height of three feet, have their stables near the bottom of the shaft, and they scamper oif to them after their work is finished, running pell mell through the low passage of the engine plane, their drivers following in a stooping position. 36 THE ART OF COAL MINING DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. CHAPTER VII. DISTRICT AND PANEL WORKINGS BOARDS AND ENDS OF COAL WORKING LEVELS- DISTRICT DETAILS.* IN the mine we have several districts formed by main drifts dividing the coal up into as many panels. Each panel is worked independently; that is, it has its own set of hands, and is ventilated by an independent current of air. * Plate I. is an overman's tracing, and it shows how simply the excavated parts of a mine may be represented by mere lines. Such tracings are the working plans, and you will often find them in the overman's pocket or in his cabin. When they become obliterated or worn out from constant use, they are easily replaced. The arrows show the direction of the ventilation. The doors, the stoppings, and the regulators are also represented. The use of the tracing is more for the mine than the office. Sections of mines are often thus shown. Plate II. is more descriptive; and, although it shows all its excavations to be advancing and to be on the dip side, it very nearly resembles Plate I. in its details. It shows the manner of ventilation. It does not show any connection with the rise side workings. In a deep mine worked on this plan, the shafts are always carefully located in regard to several things. If the shafts are nearer to the boundaries on one side of the property than on another, it is often because that as soon as those boundaries are reached the broken can be commenced, and a larger yield of coal obtained, if such is desirable. The air stoppings, shown by broad lines drawn across the ends of the places through which no air must escape, show how the air inwardly bound is confined within its proper channels. The air crossings, whose use is to pass the foul air returning from the workings over the main passages which are conducting the fresh air inwardly, are shown in their proper positions near the entrances of each district. It is difficult to conceive how air could be split extensively in any mine without such a contrivance as the air crossing. The main crossing, throwing all the air coming from the south side of the main roads, is generally situated near the shafts and at a point where all the air coming from the rise and dip unites and passes over the main road to the upcast air shaft. When pillars are left of great width in the broken, the work is begun by splitting the pillars. If the dip is moderate, a double turn is laid at the end of the pillar to be operated on, and juds are turned off to the right and left. The work of taking out pillars is thus concentrated, and all the coal mined is transported through the splitting drift within the pillar. To understand how this is done, we would refer to the Plates X. to XIV. inclusive. Plate XI. shows to the left the edges of the strata above the coal seam, from which the roof of the juds, already worked, have broken and fallen. You see the props under the roof with their cap pieces intervening. Plate XII. represents the two juds and the two branches of tramway running into them. By removing a portion of the roof, we see how thickly the props are set to keep the roof up until the juds are completely worked off. ELATE 11 PJarL of BoardL tmei PfTLar W7toZe coaZ Jtippintf. gGO fteet One Jn&i. Whole is of ticrriL used, to vuUcn i/i cua2-Tjtjibrvfeen-~by SnoJten is a ter?n app&ecL to -(he operation vf' -tYorTttnff out DISTRICT AND PANEL WORKINGS. 37 The plan of working adopted is known by the name of board and pillar, or board and wall, one of the most popular methods of mining we know of, and one which the working miners always prefer. It has its advantages, and in new coal fields where skilled miners are not abundant it is always adopted, although in England it is fast giving place to long wall. The cleavage of the coal runs in parallel lines almost with the magnetic north, and its facings are so regular and so well defined, that the flat pieces they form, when split up, are so like boards of wood that the term board has been used in connection with them. Hence, any mining excavation driven across the facings is said to be going boardwise, while those driven at right angles to them and on the end of the cleavage, are going endwise or headwise. The terms have been corrupted by use, and we hear the terms botirdicays, headicays, and endicays to take their places in the mine. In blocking out pillars, however, particular attention is, or should be, paid to the lines of cleavage ; two sides of a pillar are parallel to the main facings of cleavage, while the other two are parallel to each other, and most frequently at right angles to the facings of cleavage. The dip being from the west to the east, the line of cleavage north and south indicates that to block out the pillars, excavations are driven level endwise, which are intersected at certain distances by others driven up or down the incline of the seam and across the facings. The distances apart of these excavations form the limits and boundaries of the pillars. For fuller information we refer to the descriptive plans illustrating board and pillar workings. Plates I. and II. are ideal plans of board and pillar workings made here for the purpose of illustration. We have the hoisting shaft in line with the main wagon road drift. The up-cast air shaft and the pump shaft are connected with the air courses and water levels in the manner shown. All the working places excepting two panels to the south in the overman's tracing are shown to be advancing, and the mine is shown as one mainly being opened. After the shafts have been sunk, the main drifts have been struck off and advanced, as shown by Plate II.. to the dip. Other drifts have also been driven to the rise in a corresponding manner. We have not shown the rise workings in this plan. Then a great advantage in using this mode of working coal mines is gained 38 THE ART OF COAL MINING DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. by the facility with which a large number of working places may be opened within a short time after the shafts have been sunk. By working mines according to our ideal plan of the dip side workings alone, we could employ one hundred miners in the " whole" coal, and these should mine from four to five hundred tons of coal per day. Also a panel or two of broken coal could be worked to double the out-put. If the same number of places were opened on the rise and the same number of men were to be employed in them, the out-put would be about eight or ten hundred tons of coal per day from the " whole" workings ; and the product would be always on the increase until the required amount of business was done. Our plan shows the boards to be driven to the east. This would not be a good practice to follow if the inclination were more than one in ten ; because the greater portion of the coal would be mined from boards driven down the dip, from which the coal would require to be drawn up the incline. Yet the Shetland pony gets along very well in hauling coal from places having a dip of 1 in 8. To avoid this, it would be necessary to push the horse roads forward and start the boards off these and drive them to the rise, using brattice to ventilate the working face of each. After this general reference to the Plates I. and II., let us go on our way through the mine and note down what we see and hear. We have said that at the bottom of the engine plane is a long siding which is used to collect the wagons to form the " set" for the engine. It is not at the bottom of the plane alone that a siding is provided in a mine that is more extensively opened, but in each of the horse drifts leading to the districts we find one provided for a similar purpose, and by means of switches the empty " set" of the engine plane may be exchanged for the loaded ones collected in the different levels. As the districts in the " whole" are similarly worked, a visit to one of them, to give a minute description of it, will serve our purpose and be a description of the rest also. Starting from the siding in the engine bank, we turn to the horse road leading to the south, and although it takes us to a newly opened district, we can well understand by a reference to it, the plan of working the whole coal by the once popular board and pillar system. And we have here a very small number of work- ing places, only eight, counting those marked at A and B in Plate II. which properly belong to the district west of it, but from which the coal mined in them may be DISTRICT AND PANEL WORKINGS. 39 taken to the horse road by the holing near the face of the headways in which the air door is placed. After the main headway D has been connected to A by B, a permanent stopping is built in the place of the air door which is transferred to the newly holed board B. But we have got so far ahead by entering the district thus, that we have forgotten to point out the air crossing near the main drift. Here we simply find ourselves under a common brick arch well cemented and made air-tight at the point where it joins the wall sides of the drifts at each end of the arch. Plates II. and III. show the form of air crossing used in the English mines.* In this country a crossing may very readily be constructed of timber in a more substantial manner than when of brick. However we are under this crossing, and we see that an air current is entering the horse road and passing through under the arch. If we trace this current of air we find it to pass into the face of the horse road, and by means of brattice and the innermost holing, it is carried into the faces of JE, F, G, H, and I, and then it passes, after ventilating four more boards and one head- way, as shown over the top of the arch or air crossing. This is the air crossing which takes such a prominent part in the ventilation of coal mines. As we pass along the herse road we see the drifts stopped off from each other at all points of intersection of the boards with the horse roads by the air stoppings, whose positions are indicated, as samples of all the other stoppings, by the lines drawn across the passages. The stoppings on the west side of the road keep the two currents of air, ventilating these two adjacent districts, apart from each other, and these currents may be traced to their destinations in the return by the arrows pointing out the direction of the currents. The stoppings to the east of the horse road serve to force the current of this district into the innermost holing, which is left open to allow it to pass into the working places of the district. It is well understood by those versed in practical mining, that when the headways D and E are sufficiently advanced, thev are connected bv another cross-hole similar to that now J J 4 seen to be open through which the current is passing, and through which the largest portion of the current would pass in the event of a new holing ahead, were * Plate III. shows, on a large scale, the road connections to the main tracks, and how the ventilation is effected by means of the air crossing. In some cases air crossings are made of boiler plate, and in others the arches are packed on the outside to prevent them from being blown up. 40 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. a stopping not built in it to force the air forward to the newly opened connecting passage. After leaving the working places of the district, the current passes a REGULATOR, which may be of any contrivance (a door for instance) that will allow the contraction or enlargement of the passage to be effected in the most simple manner. A door set up like a butterfly throttle-valve would answer well as a regulator. We are now treating the air current as we would a fellow-passenger who accompanies us on a journey and with whom we wish to exchange our attentions ; and we cannot say anything in this place scientifically of the intricate subject of ventilation. We may thus become acquainted with the mode of working the air currents in mines without the aid of that algebraical formula, against which some people are so strongly prejudiced. Before going further, we must say a word of the Regulator. It is a throttle- valve by which the air of the district in which it is placed is regulated, and it may be opened or closed to cause an increase or a decrease in the quantity of air flowing to the district in which it is placed. But when an increase is effected it may be observed that this increase is obtained at the expense of the other districts, taking for granted that no corresponding increase of the main current descending the downcast shaft is effected at the same time. However, this is often a necessary step to be taken when it is found that the gas generating in some district is on the increase, and more than it is in another; hence the necessity for the use of the Regulator, which is an institution that has grown into mine ventilation almost entirely within the present century. And of its uses few people, even those who profess to understand the subject of mine ventilation, seem to have more than a superficial idea. " The Regulator in ventilation," says one who knows, " can be only understood appreciatively by one who obtains a close practical acquaintance with it. A violin can be better understood by its player than by a mere musical theorist. It is thus with the Regulator in ventilation. It is best understood by those who operate it. Well, here we have the Regulator placed at the points indicated on Plates I. and II., and when we find too much gas in the current at those points, we use our judgment and open the regulator to allow the passage of more air ; and on our next visit if the gas is DISTRICT AND PANEL WORKINGS. 41 not diluted to a safe degree we open it a little more; and so on until we are satisfied with the result." How we ascertain what is the quantity of gas in the air we would like well to tell our readers ; but much practice in this is required to become an expert (and none but experts on so important a point should be allowed to apply so delicate a test), because it is most accurately done by the naked flame of a candle, or a safety lamp with the top unscrewed. But such tests may safely be made by almost every deputy overman who is brought up in the Newcastle coal field. He acquires the necessary skill by his everyday practice and from the lessons he receives from his elders and superiors. After we call your attention to the names of the places in the district, we may chat with the deputy in charge of it and take down some of the information he gives us. The places D and E, Plate II., are the main headways of the district, and they are driven in pairs. N, just starting off from one of the exploring drifts 0, is a heading or wall which is to intersect successively the boards 7, H, G, and F, and those others intervening also which have been set off and are driven from the main headways. The intersections are made for the purposes of blocking out pillars and for ventilation ; and where the gas is abundant the intersections are more frequently made, and the pillars are consequently of a correspondingly less area, which is not always a feature to be desired, as it exposes the sides of the pillars to the action of the air and reduces their strength in the event of a squeeze or crush, whose action is locally known by the name of creep. We are again in at the district siding in which the wagons from the miners are collected in sets. The wagons are brought out by hand-putters in this case, and they carry ten hundred weight each. There are only two putters at this district, and we will see how the deputy places their work. 42 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. CHAPTER VIII. A DEPUTY'S EXPERIENCE DETAILS IN WORKING AND VENTILATING A DISTRICT. THE deputy of the district is a muscular fellow with an intelligent countenance. He has a habit of addressing every one in a suit of blue flannels as master, and blue flannels are the clothes one wears in the entire coal field of Newcastle-on-Tyne if his position is above that of deputy. The deputy's suit is of stiff white flannel invari- ably. His cap is of strong leather, and in shape not unlike that of a horse jockey. " How are you getting on, lads V we ask. " Oh, I 'm nicely, maister, thank ye ! and, considering that we are just opening out work, we are doing finely." " How much coal are you sending out ?" " Twelve score a day, more and less," he answers. " How many working places produce this amount of coal, which, if I am right, is one hundred and twenty tons a day?" " I have eight working places three headways and five boards all in the whole coal in which sixteen men work, following each other in two shifts ; that is, eight men come in at 3 o'clock A. M., and the other eight follow at 10 A. M." " You are in the foreshift. What time in the morning do you arrive V "About 2.30 A. M. I have time to get around the places before the miners come in." " Do you find any accumulation of gas of a morning "?" " Never a stagnant accumulation ; but always gas in admixture with the air. The gas in the air varies much, and requires close watching." " What are the reasons for this variation 1" "Sometimes a fall of the barometer, denoting a reduction of atmospheric pressure, is the cause, and at others a change in the condition of the coal seam. If the coal gets a little soft or faulty in any place, the yield of gas increases in that place. It may be that two or more of the places strike such coal in the same day ; then the indi- A DEPUTY'S EXPERIENCE. 43 cations are very marked, and the Regulator must be resorted to and shifted in a degree to correspond to the increase of air required to keep the district safe, and the gas sufficiently diluted." " How do you know that, while you are shifting the Regulator in such an event to get more air into this district, you are not reducing the quantity in the other districts to so great an extent as to render them dangerous ?" " I can easily ascertain this by making an examination of the currents coming through the Regulators from the other districts. But in the case of a sudden outburst of gas, which is of rare occurrence, except when we plunge suddenly into faulty coal, we have plenty of time to consult with the deputies of the other districts and with the overman before we need shift the Regulator at all. By a daily report, we are enabled to compare notes, and we obtain, by doing so, a good idea of the condition of those other districts. We may know, if we like, what amount of gas is given off in each district, as well as what amount of air is in circulation in it. By averaging the percentage of gas in the various air currents, by summing them up, we may find out the total amount of gas given off in any coal mine where the ventilation of it has been reduced to a regular system." " You know at all times what the total amount of air in circulation is in the whole mine V " We have a tell-tale anemometer, near the main intake, which gives the strength and velocity of the air current. We know the area of the passage at this point, and at a glance each morning, as we pass, we are advised of any serious variation in the amount of air in circulation. The variations are very slight indeed at this mine, which is ventilated by the new fan of forty-eight feet in diameter." " How do you measure the air in your own district ? Is it by one of those revolving and recording anemometers 1" " No, thank you, maister" (our deputy smiles sarcastically) ; " those instruments are for apprentices and other inexperienced people who want to find out the amount of air in circulation, for some purpose which is not exactly practical. But when we want to know at all times and in any place the condition of our air current, we must have some readier method of getting the information than that afforded by one of those delicate anemometers. We want to have a method of determining such an 44 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. important point at a glance. An engineer will glance at his steam gauge at those times when the working of his engines slacks off. If his steam is all right, his engine is at fault, and demands his attention. If a serious reduction in the velocity of an air current were to take place, there are some men who declare they can feel that such a thing has occurred. It is a sensation which grows on a man, whose chief daily duties are very much concentrated in the care of an air current, if we may apply such a term. I have heard a marine engineer, in charge of an ocean steamer, say that he could tell to a pound per inch what pressure were in his boilers if he had a small leak in his steam connections, or if he could hear the water or steam escape at the opening of the boiler-gauge cocks. I think it is the same with myself and mates in regard to an air current to whose action we are daily exposed, and whose motions we are constantly watching, in order to detect any accidental variations of it. I fancy it is a sensation which gives us a notice to try the air when we seem to have half forgotten this important part of our duty. I have on two or three occasions advanced from a point where the full current of air was working to another where the current was slack, and have not gone more than a few steps even with a preoccupation of mind and when in a hurry to get after some other business before I have detected the fact of something being amiss. On one occasion of this kind, on examination I found the cause to be from an injured stopping, on another an injured brattice. Of course the leaks in each were very considerable, and the gas had accumulated in certain places sufficiently to render the air in them explosive." " Then you object to the use of the revolving anemometer, and trust much to your sensations and experience V "Not altogether; good instruments may be used where very nice measurements are required. But then at least two instruments should be used, the one to correct the imperfections of the other ; and, in case of their disagreement, a third instrument should be used. It is very likely that, for everyday use, our old reliable tell-tale anemometer will keep its old place at some prominent corner where its action can be seen by all passers concerned in the safety of the coal mine. You see this one, which I keep stationed here, gives me all the informa- tion I require of the ingoing current of air. (See Plate IV.) Its vibrations PLAT'S I SlllIHIIHa!! f^Epj w*~'**i '.' -* . 2 : v^ " " - ^ &.J.44 i I i w A DEPUTY'S EXPERIENCE. 45 are produced by the motion of the engine trains and sets of wagons moving in remote parts of the mine ; but there is a point at which it inclines always to be stationary when not influenced by the partial blocking up of the passages by the wagons and by an accidental blockade caused in the main roads intercepting the air currents, either through falls of roof or blockades formed through a train of wagons getting off the track. At such times, which are denoted by the irregular motions and varying positions of the tell-tale, the closest attention is required in those districts where we have copious discharges of gas; and at such dangerous interruptions of the current this simple tell-tale gives due notice, being attached to an alarm which jingles off and demands immediate attention. The figure in Plate IV. shows this simple form of anemometer."* " Supposing a reduction of the air current were to be indicated here at the present time, how would you know whether the cause was by a blocking up of the air courses inside of us or outside of us V " Some people can tell by the whistling of air through a small leak in an air stopping. In case of a blockage occurring inside of any particular stopping, the whistling of the air through the leak is augmented. We soon get used to the music of any particular leak, and by a proper attention to it we may be advised of the locality of any serious blockade in the air course. This fact has led to the use of the water-gauge, which is a bent glass tube, having a contracted passage at the bend to prevent oscillation. When this instrument is applied to a stopping so that one of its tubes is fitted to a pipe passing to the opposite side of the stopping, * Plate IV. The deputy, of whom much mention lias necessarily been made in the text. Our sketch shows him as he comes out to the station each morning after he has left the men at work and paid attention to some of the most dangerous and other places requiring his services. He now comes out with his homey tram, which he is to throw off ihe track out of the road until it is further needed. He will place the lads' work and wait until he sees them start. This they do at once and with a race as soon as they come in and strip and have their work read off to them after their cavils have been drawn. We present the deputy with his vest and overshirt on, which he wears in spite of the heat and dust which cause him to perspire so much. But then the vest, which contains two capacious pockets, is an indispensable article of clothing, and is as necessary to our deputy as the tools he carries, inasmuch as those strong pockets are crammed with the "plate" nails he uses or leaves in the miners' places, samples of which you see in the bottom of the horney tram ! The deputies are picked from the best men of a colliery. They are good workmen in all cases. In some cases they become students of the art of mining, and from their ranks are furnished very generally the chief overmen. 46 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. the water rises in f one of the legs. The difference in level marks the resistance encountered by' the air current while travelling in from a point on the outside of the ~stopping_to the workings, and then returning to the point on the opposite side of the air stopping at which the instrument is applied. A variation in this gauge shows very often the way to an air blockade." PLAIT: THE PUTTER. 47 CHAPTER IX. THE PUTTER. " BUT you have other duties of an important nature to attend to besides those in which the ventilation of the mine is concerned V " Certainly ; we have the roof of the roads to attend to and examine, and props to set at the face of the boards, and the road to lay after the mining faces, and the tracks to keep in good repair to keep these wild putters in their proper senses." "Ah ! I see you have a whole list of information to give me ! Let us classify it, please, and begin first with this interesting feature, the putter, who, in spite of his light cotton cap, his sleeveless body shirt and little breeches, strong shoes, hoggers and shoe clouts, is in a lather of sweat ; he cannot be passed by with merely a passing notice." (For sketch of putter see Plate V.) " Oh, yes, maister," sighs the deputy, " these lads are very trying at times with their unreasonable demands on my time and attention. But their task is a severe one, and they have good, willing hearts, rendering their services in the most generous manner. We can forgive them all their saucy reproaches and mischievous tricks. Their muscles are being hardened for the work of the hewer of coal, which is even more severe than the work they now perform, which is fast becoming the work of the little Shetland pony, who with his driver is at the best only equal to one of these muscular half-naked lads. I had a lad, maister, lost at an explosion of gas at the Haswell Colliery, and I cannot see my putters here without thinking of the putter I have lost myself. He was a promising lad! The ' Call for the deputy; there 's a plate loose,' only stimulates me to perform a simple, but not an unim- portant part of my duty. It is certainly aggravating to a putter when his wagon runs off the way at a bad joint or a loose plate. It requires a pair of good strong arms to lift one of these tubs carrying ten hundred weight each on to the road again. Yes, I '11 tell you of the putter, maister. " After I have set the men to their work, and have given attention to the 48 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. most dangerous places of a morning, the lads come in clamoring for the work to be placed, and the cavils to be drawn. Here I have only two putters ; but I shall speak of them as we have them in a large district, where there are half a dozen of them. You see this blackboard on which we put the miners' name in initials, or numbers in a vertical column, in the order of their remoteness from the district. We put opposite to each miner's name the number of wagons we allow to be mined in his place per day. Thirty-two for the boards, and twenty-four for the walls. These numbers form a column of figures which we sum up and divide by the number of putters we have. Here we have four walls and five boards, and the sum reaches 256. This, divided by 2, gives our two putters a day's work of six score and four each, which to get out, keeps them almost constantly on their legs. Now, as some of the places are much nearer than others, we place the putters' work in the following table. It will be seen that the third column gives the first putter all the work mined in the two nearest places, with eight in the third Miners' places in the Number of wagons of First putter's Second putter's order as they are coal to be cut in work. work, remote from the each place, district siding. II 32 32 2 C 24 24 3D 24 8 1C 4 B 24 .. 24 5 E 24 .. 24 6 A 32 .. 32 7 G 32 .. 32 8 H 32 32 9 F 32 32 2)256 128 nearest place. It shows, also, that he gets all the work of the two farthest off boards. Thus, he brings the coal from the nearest and farthest off miners to the extent of one-half of his work in each case. The second putter takes the coal of the other places which are closer together, and are neither the farthest away, nor the nighest at hand. In this manner the work may be fairly placed, if there were THE PUTTER. 49 a dozen of putters in the district. The letters have reference to those of Plate II., and they represent the places constituting the district. " Have you trouble occasionally by ' using' this tabulated form of ' placing' or of arranging the work of a district 1" " Little with the older boys, who read off their work as soon as it is placed, and as soon as they remember what are the amounts of tubs they get at the different places, they start off at once with their wagons, the first putter taking the first empty wagon in to some of his men. At this district they are allowed spare wagons, technically called ' led tubs,' which each putter runs into his men as quickly as he can, taking only one at a time. When these ' led tubs' are all taken into the faces of the work- ing places, the daily routine of work begins. Each lad takes his empty wagon into the turn-off, at the end of the board or wall he goes to, and brings out the spare wagon which the miner has filled. A strong putter, well skilled in the handling of his tnbs, will come out of the board with a run, and on coming around the curve of the turn-off, whose radius is (for this gauge of twenty-one inches) for the short curve only three feet, he grasps the empty wagon with one hand, and pulls it back to the points ; and often, without stopping his full tub, will start the empty one into the board with a run, singing out for the hewer to ' catch her,' while he runs after his loaded tub, still in motion, and starts off with all his might along the headway's course, wheeling around the curve and through the stenton, and from the stenton into the mother-gate, or main headway's course ; and through this into the district siding, joining up against the train collecting into a horse's set. He then takes the first empty wagon in the empty track of the siding, and puts his tally or token on a staple driven in one of the corners inside ; and he starts off again to put another tub. To avoid collision with another putter coming out he ' calls' at every few steps, and runs as fast as he can, to get into a turn-off, or to his destination, before he meets any one to bother him." " But have you never any serious accidents from collision I The lads seem to run off in reckless haste." " We seldom have anything worse than a stunning blow. A lad may be run- ning l in by' in a heedless, half sleepy manner, with his empty tub, when he is surprised and wakened up by another lad running out with a full one. Of course, 7 50 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. the tubs join, and it is the empty one that rebounds ; and if the lad going in with the empty tub be not on guard, and have not his arms rigidly set against his tub, then his head is bumped, and almost driven in between the shoulders. You see the barrow-way (a term we apply to the track laid on the bottom slate, before it is cut up for a horse road) is made just high enough for the tub to clear the roof, with a few inches to spare ; and the tub being only three feet in height, causes the putter to run in a stooping position, with his body nearly parallel with the roof of the coal seam ; for this reason, his head is in a bad place, in the event of collision. But the neck feels the force of the blow, and suffers the most from it." " Putters are not often injured, I have noticed. How do you account for the fact?" " I cannot tell. I think, however, that their occupation awakens them to a sense of danger for which they are almost constantly on the watch. They take heed generally as they go in by, that they do not come in contact with those coming out. They have an eye to every place end they pass, out of which a putter with a full tub might pop on them at any minute. Wagons of putters very often get jammed together, but seldom unawares of the putter, if he have a quick ear ; and I do not think any one with a slow ear would answer the purpose of a putter at all. He could not escape having his neck broken. But there are no deaf putters, and there are no lame or unsound putters. These could not do the work, which you see is of the most severe kind we have in the coal pit. They must be sound in wind and limb. Woe be to him who is not, and takes up the craft. Very often when boys are scarce, some of those tramps coming along, seeking employment, are tried ; but not one in ten ever succeeds or stays. They get on the barrow-way with an empty tub, and they seldom ever reach their destination before they get faint-hearted, and give up putting as a bad job. They meet with the putters coming out, and are glad to get into a roll off, or a siding out of the way of the practised putter, and his jeers." " The putters do not go to the same places, and get coal of the same miners every day, without changing their routes, or ranks, or sheaths ?" " Every morning we put in cavils, which decide the slieath of each putter. Putting in cavils is often done in this simple manner : We take as many plate nails THE PUTTER. 51 as there are putters at a station. We mark numbers on each of the broad heads of the nails, and then put the whole in the cap of one of the lads, and shake them up. Then each of the putters draws a nail from the cap, and the sheath of each is determined by the number on the head of his nail. In the table we have shown for example, there are but two sheaths, or sheaths first and second. First sheath takes the work set in the first column. The second, the work in the remaining column. But with more putters and hewers, this method of placing the work is simply extended. This is the method adopted in the entire Coal Field of Durham and Northumberland." "There are various ways of drawing the cavils, and when there is supposed to be a preference in the sheaths which can only be slight in any case, there are several ingenious ways of cheating adopted among the lads, in order to get it. For instance, in case of the nails being used, some of the innocents will slyly get the nail, with the number of the rank he covets marked on it, and with his candle heat it slightly on the head, or point, or otherwise, and then he endeavors to be of the first to draw ; when, of course, he takes out the heated nail." " You see by the plan that some of the places are very much nearer to the station than others. This is the cause of another kind of trickery among the putters, few of whom are entirely honest in regard to it. For instance, it so happens that the putters of the first and second sheaths get each a certain number of wagons in some of the near places. There are no means of telling how many each putter actually gets, except the miner takes the trouble of keeping an account in his mind, which he seldom does in a near place, because he is almost certain to get all the wagons he needs, even when work goes slowly with the sets. The consequence is that each putter will get as many as he can in those near places, and watch eagerly the filling of the near coals. The miner in the second near place has often his work divided between the two putters of the first and second sheath, and these will seldom if ever pass the place to go farther if the spare tub is filled in this place. The miner is pestered beyond the limits of his patience by the cry of ' Is she full, hinny V Of course these putters dispute about the number they get in such near places, each one declaring that the amount is less than what he has actually received. It is the 52 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. reverse of this when a place ' far off' is concerned. This is one of the chief causes of dispute. But if a hewer in a ' far off' place does not get his coal brought out and does not get his share (shift) with the other men, the putter must, by an established rule, pay for the deficiency, if it has been on account of his neglect. But the rule is not always strictly enforced, which depends on the generosity of the miner who has suffered a loss by such negligence. A few threats on the part of the miner terminate the business, when all he receives for his pains are the saucy, careless retorts of the regardless boys, who have been the cause of his wrong a'nd justly the subjects of his wrath." " In case of jumping the track with a full tub, how do these boys proceed to put it on the road, considering them to be so heavy? Ten hundred weight, I see, is the weight they carry." " Well, you see the wheels are ten inches high, and they are placed so near to each other that a weight of 200 pounds put on either end of a loaded wagon will overbalance it. Now, these boys, after a little practice, can lift this weight where the ground is level, or nearly so. If the tub is on the main headways, he always gets a lift from the putter or putters he blocks in or out. If no putters go the same route, he manages to get his tub on the track, if not by a direct heave, by the aid of a loose plate which he uses as a lever. In such cases, however, he does not spare the deputy ; he rates him with all the vehemence of his pitmatic eloquence, and hard passionate words escape from his organs of speech. We forgive them, when we remember that we were putters ourselves, and that the severe strain required on the muscular system by lifting till one sees stars and scintillations, so excites the mind that a poor fellow hardly knows what he does say, when hindered by jumping a rail. We know that in a few minutes the crying and swearing and passionate exclamations are all forgotten after the plate has been replaced and secured. But a great deal of difference exists among the boys regarding their skilful methods of handling a full tub. Some remember every bad joint, or uneven place in the barrow-way after they have passed over it a few times, and running at the top of their speed, a twist to one side or another will enable one putter to pass over a piece of bad road successfully for a whole day, while another putter will not pass over with a single tub without tumbling off the track ; and we hear more noise THE PUTTER. 53 made by the crying and swearing of these than we do from those who use patience and reason to aid them in their physical endeavors. But they all get aggravated at the fact of getting off the track. The deputy, as I have said already, is not spared when a loose plate is the cause. But our best policy is to humor the boys, and pacify them in the best manner we can ; it is the only way to get the work along smoothly." 54 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. CHAPTER X. THE HEWER AND HIS WORK. WE now pass into the barrow-way, and go into the pair of drifts called the leading or main headways. These are the places D and E, Plate II. The barrow-way is laid on the floor of the seam, or in a narrow cut of a few inches in depth, to allow the tubs to pass, with a few inches to spare, above them. We find the hewer drilling in the face of the main headway's course. His " jud" is curved (undermined), and the side is nicked, to allow the blast to topple over the coal with greater facility. The chief requisites of a good miner are the ability to deal accurately a sharp blow, and to direct each blow of the pick with such judgment as to cause each stroke of the pick to remove as much of the coal as possible. It is evident that, if a miner takes too much of a hold with the point of his pick, the portion will not yield ; therefore, a couple of more blows may be required to effect the object. Those blows being the miner's capital stock, if wasted, will be equal to a certain waste of time and labor, and will represent a certain loss which should be avoided. The greatest portion of his skill may be said to consist in the handling of his picks. By constant practice, he soon may become an expert in the use of them. Then, in such coal a little judgment is required in the management of the blasts. Our Plate VI.* shows the miner at work, nicking his jud, preparing it for the * THE HEWER OR COAL MINER. In Plate VI. we find the hewer cutting a niche in his already undermined face of his board-room. He terms the operation nicking his jud. A pick is a tool despised by a number of fine-fingered people, but it is as useful as it is primitive. Without we had those to use picks, it would be of no avail to use the pen. We have presumed that the mine in which our miner works is well ventilated. We have not shown the brattice, usually put into a board-room, to throw the air into the face. This would interrupt the view. But usually, a brattice of thin boards or canvas is nailed to a row of props set close to the rail of the tramway. The brattice projects into the headway's course so as to catch a portion of the air coming into that passage, and it is deflected into the board-room in sufficient quantity to carry off the gas generated there as fast as it escapes from the pores of the coal, as it is literally being dug out by the miner's pick. Therefore, our miner is working by the naked THE HEWER AND HIS WORK. 55 blast. The mining or curving is shown to have been effected in the excavated part of the face, near the floor of the seam. Another view, Plate XVII., shows the board room with its timber and its tracks. The headways go in the direction of the cleavage, and the coal coming from them forms the wall's-end we read of in the lists of the London coal markets. They are driven from eight to twelve feet wide, and, generally, are pushed forward faster than other places. In our Plate II. we have shown three pairs of main headways to be in progress on each side of the main drifts or mother gates. In actual mining, the headways are driven in pairs apart from each other at various distances, seldom exceeding two light of a candle, which you see sticking on the wall side to his right. He takes advantage of the shade to keep his cutting straight ; that is, he does not work behind the shade. As soon as the cut is worked back as far as the mining is excavated, a hole is drilled in the opposite corner, and a proper supply of powder furnished as a charge to blast down the " jud." Of tools, the miner has a heavy " breaking-in pick" of four or five pounds, a couple of medium-sized picks of about three pounds, and a backsider of about two pounds. Then he has a nicking pick or two, hammer and wedge, set of drills, and a shovel. His mine furniture consists in the stool (" cratket") on which he sits. To be an expert pick man is to be an expert miner. Some blows must be given with much force ; then, by the use of his eyes and judgment, the neat little blows are given to cut off the pieces, to square up the facings where heavier blows are used, to break through them ; thus an attentive miner uses more of his judgment, and less of his strength than one who is careless and indifferent, and who hurries and wastes his blows to not one-half so much advantage. The good hewer pays attention to every blow he strikes. A board-room is given to two men, mates, who, as a general rule, share their earnings. One of them goes to work at 2 A. M., when he is wakened up at the first catting course. He will arrive at the face of his board about 3 A. M. At 9 A. M. his mate will relieve him ; when, in most cases, he will have his jud taken off, and nearly all filled up ; and, in some cases, will have commenced the second jud to forward the work of his mate (marrow). This is the custom in the board-rooms of the whole workings. In the narrow headways three juds, of three feet each, are generally taken off by the two mates. In the broken juds, where no blasting is necessary, or could be allowed, on account of the danger from their proximity to the " goaves," the mates work together. But each jud has four men ; and, in special cases, where coal is in danger of being lost, six men are allotted to a jud ; that is, three men work together in each shift ; as the day is divided into two shifts, the fore shift and back shift men as they are termed. In the broken juds the coal is much easier mined than in the whole, on account of the crush which is acting on the ends of the pillars being worked out. This makes it possible for two men, during a shift of six hours, to send out fifteen tons of coal from such a seam as the Hutton Seam, whose thickness, we have seen, varies from three to four feet. At this rate, the two shifts of four men each, usually working the double juds, send out from a pillar as many as sixty tons of coal per day. To mine and transport this amount of coal, keeps the shovels as well as the picks constantly in use. A full tub is no sooner away from the face than another empty one is set in by the wiry muscular putter. 56 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. hundred yards, and they lay out the mine in panels, in which the boards are worked. The rate of dip very often determines the distance that the pairs of headways should be apart from each other ; the more rapid the dip, the less the distance between the levels or headings, because of the greater difficulty of putting the coals on a high rate of inclination. The miner's work in the boards is very nearly performed in the same manner as it is in the headways ; but the width of the boards may be driven four to six feet wider, and on this account the yard price usually paid in walls is omitted. But the coal works easier when operated directly across its face, and in some cases it is only paid for accordingly. The miner in the Newcastle Coal Field is not required to set timber under the roof of his own place, nor lay the barrow-way as he progresses. The deputy does this ; and you find the deputy begin to take in props and rails every morning as soon as the men (who come in at about 3 A. M., very often within ten minutes of each other) have been allowed to go to their places. For the purpose of trans- porting rails and sleepers and props, the deputy possesses a vehicle termed a " horny tram," which you will see unloaded in the sketch of our deputy overman, Plate IV. While the putters are at work, it is not so easy a job to take in the props, etc., which are stored at the station. The haste of the putter, who is paid by the score, will not always guarantee the safety of the deputy and the " horny tram," should they happen to meet him when at a full speed run out of a headway's course or mother gate board, where the barrow-way is in good order, and the grade easy. During the day the deputy sets the props near the faces of the working places, and advances the tram roads, as those places progress. So you see the deputy is not an idler, but he performs as much manual labor as any man in the mines. He sets the air doors in the barrow-way, and keeps the air up to the working faces by putting up the brattice and temporary air-stoppings. He takes the rails out of the old places after they have "holed" into others, and draws out the props of the boards after the rails have been taken out. The drawing out of the timber is done as over-work, and paid for by the score, or at the rate of twelve cents for twenty props. But the hours of the deputy are not long, if they are busy ones. At ten o'clock A. M. he is relieved by the back shift deputy, who, from that moment, takes the cares and responsibilities of the district upon his shoulders, and he remains at THE HEWER AND HIS WORK. 57 at his post till all hands have left at quitting time, about five o'clock. He then sees that all air doors are shut, and that the air currents are working satisfactorily. The miners also work in two shifts, and the fore-shift miners are relieved at the same time that the fore-shift deputy is ; but the putters and drivers and onsetters and road men, together with the men on the surface, work twelve hours per day. Of course, the labor of these men is not so excessive as is that of the miner, excepting in some cases the labor of the putter, which to perform rapidly requires great physical force and endurance. We have followed on through the daily routine practised in a district working the " whole" coal at the dip of a mining property, the boards being driven to the dip, whence the light gases drain off naturally. We shall now go from the shaft up a self-acting incline, and examine the work as it progresses in the broken coal. But there are some attendants whom we have passed unnoticed on our way, who deserve a passing word at least. The boys who couple the tubs at the top and bottom of the engine plane and give the signals to start the engine sets have responsibilities quite important for their ages; boys about fourteen to sixteen performing these services. Then there is the door-keeper as shown in Plate VII., and that little horse-driver of twelve or fourteen, with his horse of about sixteen hands, who is not to be jeered at, as his picture in the plate will tell you. He works off the engine, sets and takes ten to twenty wagons at a time, and acknowledges as supe- riors only the " wagon-way-man" and the overman, an officer we shall accompany just now through the broken workings. But the wagon-way-man is responsible for the good keeping of the horse ruads, and for the road in the engine plane, together with the rollers on which the wire-rope, working the engine sets up and down the plane, runs. The wagon-way-man is usually one of the handiest men in the mine. He must be an expert worker and have good judgment, and pay strict attention to his roads. 58 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. CHAPTER XI. THE OVERMAN SELF-ACTING INCLINED PLANE. THE overman is an important personage, filling a very responsible position. This officer we find, after he has been in his cabin and stripped off his superfluous clothing. He is in his drawers, and a sleeved vest of blue flannel. You see the breast of his white flannel shirt, his clean blue stockings, and strong shoes. His leather cap and " yard wand" belong to his mining outfit. (See Plate IX.)* * THE OVERMAN (Plate IX.) Among the executive officers of the coal mine are two, mention of whom has not been made in the text, and we must not omit them here. We refer to the Master Wasteman, and the Master Shifter. The one has charge of a few men who keep the air courses open, and who make stated excursions through them. It is remarkable that all master wastemen are more or less stout. One would suppose that he was purposely selected for the special duty of getting through the air- ways ; for a corporation like his going through an air-course, is a guarantee that a large area of said passage is free, at least as much of it as will correspond to our wasteman's ample proportions. The overman has generally passed all the grades, except in some cases that of master wasteman, of whom we cannot say any- thing here except that he is stout, and that the duty assigned to him is the care of the return air-courses. Consequently, he is always out of sight until time to quit, and time for dinner takes him home, as he is always a man of the " second," or " boys' calling course." A master shifter the overman has often been; but it is not absolutely necessary that he should have been such to fit him for the post of overman. Another officer, too, who belongs to the underground department of a colliery, is the master sinker, who very often follows this profession as a steady occupation through life. Our overman may have been a master sinker, who is generally considered a very clever fellow, and who, after the sinking of a new shaft or " winning," is often retained in charge of the coal mining, especially in new coal fields. But very generally our overman has come up from the trapper ; and the office preceding that of overman is very generally that of back-overman, whose duties are so similar to those of a superior deputy overman, and who approaches so nearly the chief overman, as not to require a special sketch or description. The duty of the overman is to attend to the workings, and arrange the men at their work. He consults, at least once a day, with the underviewer, to whom all contemplated changes are reported and explained. He receives the reports of the deputies of each district every day, and never fails to see and interview them, when all important points are discussed. In this way, all parts of the mine are brought constantly before our overman. In some special cases he has studied the higher branches of science, and become an expert scholar and VIEWER or MINING ENGINEER, and here we shall leave him at the top of an important prof ession, and we shall enter his parlor or comfortable sitting-room, and hear what he has to say to one of our American fraternity on a tour professional. You are ushered into the presence of an intelligent gentleman, of distinguished ability. He suggests a glass of wine which he 'XT 3IYTZ THE OVERMAN. 59 The man before us is fifty at least. He has " kept" a door and a switch, and been a " way cleaner" before he was twelve years of age. Then he was a driver, a helper- declares is an old custom, becoming obsolete. You decline the civility with respect and many thanks. But you take a cigar, when it is offered. Your friend takes his long clay pipe and stuffs it with the best of Virginia's produce, and he enjoys his pipe, while the wine stands untouched between you. " You have come from Germany," says he, " and you must have visited the mines of West- phalia, Belgium, and France. It is the best school for study," he continues, without allowing you time to answer the question he has asked. " We English are in the main too conceited to travel with a purpose. But we are changing for the better, in regard to this matter. We are beginning to seek practical knowledge in the Continental districts. We have become so accustomed to supply the world with mining engineers that we may have been jealous of our neighbors. Into France, Germany, and everywhere else, we have sent trained miningmen, except, perhaps, toAmerica ; we may say we have sent our pupils to all parts of the world. Some have gone to America on speculation, but have returned dis- satisfied. They find the ' miner boss" and ordinary surveyor installed in the places they are trained to fill. We have no right to find fault with an arrangement which for the present time seems to give satisfaction. At present, judging from accounts, it is hard to say whether the miner boss or superin- tendent, or the surveyor or the master machinist, or outside boss will become the mining engineer of America. This is your own affair. Isaac Lowthian Bell, one of the members of our Institute, has iron interests in the southwest of your country. He has written his report, and spoken much of his visits to your coal regions. You have fine natural resources ; mines almost vomiting their riches into your very laps. Your gold and silver jingle out of the mountain gorges. Your copper and lead have overflown from the crevices of the rocks. Your oil wells spout into the air, and illuminating gas ready- made, or nearly so, flows unheeded right in the midst of some of your large towns. Why the best coal in the world has tumbled into your wagons, just at the mere touch of the ' starter's' or miner's crow-bar. You have so far scarcely required the aid of the mining engineer, and from what we learn, you get along, as best you can, without the aid of a mechanical one, which in a new district is a matter of still greater difficulty. The managers you have seem to be very jealous of mining experts and professionals. They seem to hurry and push ahead a lot of work hardly worth the doing. There is this difference, you will always observe, between men who understand their business, and men who do not. These latter push and fret, and take a great deal of trouble to do improperly that which would be of no trouble to those others who have taken the trouble to get started at the bottom of their trade, and get up to the top of the ladder. They go about their business as if they had nothing in hand, and as if important jobs gave them not the least trouble." The fire has gone out of your own cigar while your host has been speaking, and you relight it ; then you strike a match, and hand it to your host who, thanking you, lights his pipe again. You smoke for a few minutes, without speaking. Then you talk, as an American student well knows how to do, in a creditable manner. You amuse your host with a description of the Continental mines and miners; and in some things you literally instruct him, particularly on the application of electrical apparatus employed in the French and Belgian mines for signaling and for lighting the main portions of them. You have smoked out your Havana through your descriptions, and venture a remark on English practices and prejudices in mining. But he continues his remarks aptly : " Our systems of mining and transportation here in the north have always been in advance of the other districts, as a whole. Of 60 THE ART OF COAL MINING DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. up, a half-tram, a timber-leader, or " deputy's clerk," and a putter. At twenty he was a hewer ; at twenty-four a deputy ; at thirty a back overman ; at thirty-five a maister shifter, and at forty an overman. He is satisfied with his position, and being a master of it, he feels no anxiety concerning his heavy responsibilities. He looks like one ready for any emergency ; and nothing could take place inside of a coal mine that would take him by surprise. We have nothing to do with his physique, which is such as no man need be ashamed of. His dress belongs rather to his profession than to his person. The flannels are a protection to the miner, in case of slight explosions of gas. The parts of the body covered over with flannel are not often burnt, the flannels being bad conductors of heat. We walk on to the west of the shaft, and go along the shaft siding. A set of full tubs have just been delivered from the self-acting inclined plane a road worked on the principle of gravitation. The shaft boys are running up the empty tubs from the bottom of the shaft to form the set of the " incline, and as each tub is joined up it is coupled. Thirty tubs complete the set, and here is the last one just coupled up. The lad pulls down a lever fixed on the side of a piece of timber, and lets it spring back late, we have substituted the long wall of Derbyshire for our board and pillar system of getting the coal, which, in many cases, is to be preferred. This is the principal change which has taken place. We have substituted iron for wood at some of our heapsteads. You can see from the window behind you our elegant structure, built of trussed iron. Mounted over all are those fine wrought iron pulleys which are twenty-three feet in diameter. They stand seventy feet in the air on their light, elegant, yet strong system of iron network. It was mainly suggested by an English mining engineer who had served an apprenticeship to mechanical engineering in your country, in the works of Cooper & Hewitt, if I remember right, of Trenton, New Jersey. He came to me from Mr. Crawshay, of the Gateshead Iron Works, about the same time that Mr. Field, of New York, came to us to consult on the laying of the second Atlantic telegraphic cable which we took in hand. Peter Cooper, of the firm I have mentioned, was the president of the cable company. He knew our iron masters here, the Crawshays ; so your engineer and I became good friends. He came with an extraordinary offer. He proposed to erect his iron heap- stead, with the pulleys mounted on it, at the cost of the Gateshead Iron Works, and asked that, if it should suit us, we should pay the cost ; if it did not please us, he proposed to tear it down, and remove it. We did not accept the proposition at once, but^took the drawings, consulted Mr. Craw- shay, and after a year or two, put up the improvements as you see them. We objected to the plans then more on account of having our business interrupted, than for any other reason. We added to your American idea of truss-work our English ideas of a screen made to screen out the small coal, and to weigh the large coal ; and taking advantage of this plan to find out the miners who sent out the largest proportion of lump coal, to whom we paid premiums. We found that such a system benefited the proprietors, as well as the best of our miners, if not the whole of them." THE OVERMAN. 61 again to its original position, and the signal to start is thus given. The bell wire shakes and rattles, and shortly after the rope on the front of the set pulls up in line with the first tub on to which it is hooked, and the rope pulls, and the set starts steadily off up the plane after the wire rope ; and alter the set has disappeared, we hear it rumble up the plane till the receding sound is lost in the distance. Waiting here for a short time, we hear the sound of wagons again on the plane approaching. Then the set rolls into the siding, and comes to rest ; when we leave the shaft boys busy uncoupling the full set, and getting another empty set ready, and we go on up the incline. The inclined bank going west, and to the rise, is very similar to the engine back we have seen going on the dip to the east. There is a single track, hi the middle of which there are rollers to carry the wire rope. This single track goes on to " meetings," a siding at which the full set coming down passes the empty set going up. The tongues are fixed and open, and the empty wagons go into that track, to which a pair of peculiar switches directs them. The empty set goes on into the siding, and after it is well clear of the full set which it has met, runs on a track formed of three rails. These three rails form two tracks, but the middle rail is common to both of them. The full sets going from the siding at " meetings" into the single track below " meetings" shift the switches automatically, so that the empty set, coming up the plane, goes into that track of the siding which the full set has just left. AVhere the curves of the road have a tendency to draw the rope out of line, there are sheaves which retain it in the middle of the track. We should have remarked the same thing in the engine plane. On each side of the inclined plane drift, we find the cross-headings well stopped up by the substantial brick stopping, well cemented and plastered, to prevent air leaks. This denotes that there is on each side of this main drift to the western boundary of the mine, a return air- course collecting the returning air-currents, coming from the north and south sides of the colliery's workings. We find on the head of the " inclined bank" that the three rails run into a single track, and the single track branches out at once to form a siding of two tracks, one for the full, and another for the empty wagons. Here we also see that the sets coming up the inclined plane are divided into horse sets, and distributed to the various districts whose products are brought to the head of the plane. 62 THE ART OF COAL MINING DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. The machinery that " brakes" the sets up and down the plane is simple in plan and detail. A system of sheaves (three in number), six feet in diameter, around which the wire rope of the plane partly passes, constitutes the winding or lowering machinery. The spindles of the sheaves are set vertically, and the grooves of the three large sheaves are in the same plane ; and they are provided with a brake operated by a hand-wheel, pinion, and racked lever. A strong boy operates the brake, and this boy is termed the brakesman, who regulates the speed of the sets. Another boy who couples the wagons and drives a trained horse to start off the sets, constitutes the whole force required to operate the sets at the head of the " inclined bank." ELATE A711 PLATE BROKEN COAL" WORKED. 63 CHAPTER XII. " BROKEN COAL" WORKED. WE pass into the horse road, leading to the district south, where we find the broken coal being worked out. Here the overman will explain to us the various methods adopted in taking out pillars of coal, and his instructions need not be marked by the signs of quotation. The horse road is very often the main headway of a district. In Plate X. we have marked it as the main road. It has been of late years an object in the ventilation of a mine, to avoid, as much as possible, air doors. You will see that in our main tracks, as far as we have gone, we have no air doors ; and when there is an abundance of fresh air carried forward, there is no necessity for them (for air door, see Plate VII.).* It is only the mines inadequately * Plate VII THE MINER'S FIRST STEP represents the little " Trapper" at his door in the horse road. Trapper is a term derived from trap-door, which was formerly used to designate an air door in a coal mine. The scene shows the little fellow in his niche or " hole" cut in the rib of the wagon road headway. The door at which he is posted in this instance, is a wagon-way door. When such a door is situated near the switch of a forked track, the duty of switch-keeper is added to that of door-keeper. In our sketch, we have allowed him a candle, which he sticks to the coal-rib in a piece of tough clay. As a general rule, the trapper works in the dark, and acts in obedience to the communications he receives through his auditory senses. When he hears a wagon rumbling towards his door, or the step of a foot passenger approaching, his duty is to pull on his door string, one end of which is secured close to him, and open his door. As soon as the wagons or passengers are safely through, he allows the door to fall shut. Air doors are made to fall shut by gravity, by a certain mode of hanging them. The frames are not exactly perpendicular ; the king post leans at the top a little towards the track on the one hand, and as much away from the door on the other. Some of the main doors, which happen to be located in passages connecting the intake and return air courses near to the shafts, are subjected to a pressure amounting at times to as much as one hundred and fifty pounds, which requires a little tact to handle them and jerk them open. These doors are generally relieved of pressure by placing two doors (double doors) in the passage, within a short distance of each other, yet far enough off to allow a horse and his set to stand between them, so that the two doors have no need of being open at the same time. This is a plan also used to prevent an undue escape of air through such passages. By a skilful application of the Regulator and Air Crossing, the use of air doors has been aban- doned in some of the best ventilated coal mines. We have here reference to main doors in main passages. In passages used temporarily, near the face of the working places, doors may be used without 64 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. supplied with air through the insufficiency of air ways that are termed " FIERY." Where there is not an abundance of air, the lame method of using doors to force the little air in circulation here and there and everywhere, is resorted to. Plenty of capacious passages will furnish an amount of air, in proportion to their capacity. If the air is forced with a high velocity, it will rush through the nearest outlet, and a small opening or leak will waste a large amount of air. The overman tells us this as we pass through the main headway. A horse and train (set) of loaded wagons pass out as we go in, and the driver, a sharp lad of thirteen, sits rather comfortably on the limmers, holding a safety-lamp to light the horse on his way, as we have seen him in Plate VIII. We come next to the station which, as in the " whole coal," is only a siding in which the horse sets are collected. This is a large district, extending from A to B, the coal above belonging to a system of workings on a higher level, and in it are ten " juds" from each of which thirty tons of coal may be sent daily. In each jud two men work at a time, and during the day of twelve hours these men change, or are relieved by a second shift. On account of the downward action of the roof, the coal is easily mined with the pick, and during his short shift of six hours, the miner never ceases his work. The pick to loosen the coal is succeeded by the shovel to fill it into the tubs, which are quickly changed by the half naked putter, with the drops of perspiration falling from his chin. inconvenience, and with tolerable safety. In horse roads all doors should be dispensed with, if such a feat is possible. In place shown in this sketch it is desirable to turn the air up the board driven off the headway. To do this, in a continuous stream, it is necessary to put doors in the lateral passages also, as shown by the doors placed in the back headways. In actual practice, doors are not often placed so near to each other as they are shown to be here ; but they are quite frequently placed relatively so. I should advise those used to ventilate or force air by the use of air doors, to study the merits of the Regulator and Air Crossing, and solve the problems in ventilation to which they may be applied. We have taken advantage of this sketch to illustrate the method of tramway so extensively used in the mines of Durham and Northumberland. It will be observed that the single turn-out is made up of three pieces of casting, besides two sweeps and one straight piece. They are for tracks which branch off at right angles from a main track. They are used more in the barrow-way than in the horse roads, in which latter the ordinary switches and frog crossing are used to lay all turnouts and sidings. The triple turnout is very rarely used. Complete, it consists of five pieces of casting, besides the two pair of sweeps. By dispensing with the two upper pieces of casting, representing each a crossing, we have remaining the ordinary double turn, so useful in working-off the juds in the broken. "HDL Z ~:~7 Of THt UNIVERSITY "BROKEN COAL" WORKED. 65 There are twelve putters in this district and the deputy's " plate layer" or "timber leader," an attendant who is indispensable in the broken workings, has his troubles among them, fixing the tracks when there are so many together. We shall place the work as it is usually done, in a broken district, twice a day by the deputies. The letters on the blackboard refer to the letters of the Plate X. denoting the several juds. We have excluded those places driven outwards to split the Number . , of tubs Sheaths or ranks of Putters. Jnds - to each jud. A 42 B 42 C 42 D 42 E 42 F 42 G 42 H 42 I 42 J 42 1 2 3 456 789 10 11 12 17 18 7 10 18 14 3 18 17 4 14 17 11 7 17 18 7 18 17 14 18 10 11 4 17 17 14 .. 18 3 18 17 7 12)420 2)35 pillars ; but usually the coal to come from them is placed along with the coal of the juds, and they are arranged in their order, according to their relative distances; that is, those nearest to the district siding coming first in order in the column in which the miner's work is placed. The number of wagons allowed in such places would not be more than three-fourths of the number allowed for men working in the juds, and the price of the mining of such coal would be increased at a rate to make the wages of the pillar splitters equal to the wages of the men working off the juds. By reference to the above table, which corresponds to the blackboard nailed up in the district, we find that there are ten juds and twelve putters. The work placed is for one-half a putter's day or one whole shift of miners. Two men in each jud are allowed forty-two wagons, which are termed two score, the extra tubs being allowed to make good all bad filling and waste product. The total summed up and divided among twelve putters gives each boy thirty-five. Subdi- 66 THE ART OF MINING COAL DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED. vided by two gives the putters, either seventeen or eighteen " near" coals, with the same number of the " far-off" coals. By inspection of the blackboard, it will be seen how the odd numbers are divided. The first putter gets 17 tubs at the jud A, and 18 at the jud J. The rest will be seen as they succeed each other. It will be seen that several of the putters go in four different places ; and there are two of the juds C and H, in which four different putters go ; but the arrangement is so well understood that there is seldom any confusion in either the operations of putter or h ewer. We will, with the reader's permission, ask the overman a few questions concerning the working off of the juds. " What are the main dimensions of the pillars of this district V " The coal being highly charged with gas, we have done well to have them made so large as they are : namely, sixty by ninety feet. These you see are split headways, that is, on the end of the coal. The juds in each pillar are duplicated ; one is worked off to the dip, the other to the rise, and the work is pushed to the utmost to preserve the coal from the crush following up from the ' goaf.' ' " How long does it require to work off a jud "?" " Let me see :" and the overman makes a mental calculation. "In this district the juds only last two days ; and a jud of five yards in width will yield above one hundred tons of coal. As we take off about fifteen yards of each pillar weekly, this range of pillars yields in the neighborhood of eighteen to twenty-four hundred tons per week in the aggregate." " Then the yield of coal from a district working off the broken coal is quite an item in the produce of your colliery V " With the places splitting the pillars taken into the calculation, we do much here to keep the shaft pulleys running ; we get three hundred tons of coal weekly from those in addition to the amount we get from the juds." " Have you much trouble with the crush of the roof as it acts with its immense leverage over the goaf, pressing on the ends of your pillars as if on a fulcrum!" " We have the usual crush ; but we keep the pillars and juds in line with each other, or as nearly so as we can, to offer as strong a line of resistance as possible. When any small number of the pillars are left a little behind the others they ELATEJQ. PLATE ZQ. a K ficor of Cacti. sfiowuuy fJu; Jutf,-; oYF&te anA of fzsiti Tip the A, Jutl i/i TEhe 7i7-0to>n Tins; a cfistincf Signi/iccttio/l fimu /Jic Sfanr term Hfay/. appluxl to f7u> trfeoTe. /i is use A to iricticciff* the finlirp sl-i tuhpn off f/ie fftZfir .y