The Riverside Library for Young People


                               Number 5

                        COAL AND THE COAL MINES

                            By HOMER GREENE

                            [Illustration]




                        COAL AND THE COAL MINES

                                  BY
                             HOMER GREENE

                 _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY
                              THE AUTHOR_


                            [Illustration]


                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                     HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
                    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
                                 1898




                           Copyright, 1889.

                           BY HOMER GREENE.


                        _All rights reserved._


              _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, U. S. A._:
         Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.




                                  To
                                MY SON,

                         GILES POLLARD GREENE,

             WHO WAS BORN ON THE DAY THIS BOOK WAS BEGUN,
                      AND WHOSE SMILES AND TEARS
                          THROUGH HALF A YEAR
              HAVE BEEN A DAILY INSPIRATION IN THE WORK,
                          This Completed Task
                           IS NOW DEDICATED
                                  BY
                              THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.

[Illustration]

In treating of so large a theme in so small a compass it is impossible
to do more than make an outline sketch. It has been the aim of the
author to give reliable information free from minute details and
technicalities. That information has been, for the most part, gathered
through personal experience in the mines. The literature of this
special subject is very meagre, and the author is unable to acknowledge
any real indebtedness to more than half a dozen volumes. First among
these is the valuable treatise on “Coal Mining,” by H. M. Chance of the
Pennsylvania Geological Survey. Other volumes from which the author has
derived considerable information are the State geological reports of
Pennsylvania, the mine inspector’s reports of the same State, and the
“Coal Trade Annuals,” issued by Frederick E. Saward of New York.

The author desires also to acknowledge his indebtedness for valuable
assistance in the preparation of this work to John B. Law and Andrew
Bryden, mining superintendents, and George Johnson, real estate agent,
all of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, at Pittston, Pennsylvania, and to
the officers of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society of Wilkes
Barre, Pennsylvania.

                                                        HOMER GREENE.

 Honesdale, Pa.,
    _May 15, 1889_.




CONTENTS.

[Illustration]


 CHAPTER                                     PAGE
     I. IN THE BEGINNING                        1
    II. THE COMPOSITION OF COAL                 6
   III. WHEN COAL WAS FORMED                   14
    IV. HOW THE COAL BEDS LIE                  22
     V. THE DISCOVERY OF COAL                  35
    VI. THE INTRODUCTION OF COAL INTO USE      51
   VII. THE WAY INTO THE MINES                 75
  VIII. A PLAN OF A COAL MINE                  94
    IX. THE MINER AT WORK                     112
     X. WHEN THE MINE ROOF FALLS              127
    XI. AIR AND WATER IN THE MINES            147
   XII. THE DANGEROUS GASES                   159
  XIII. THE ANTHRACITE COAL BREAKER           176
   XIV. IN THE BITUMINOUS COAL MINES          192
    XV. THE BOY WORKERS AT THE MINES          204
   XVI. MINERS AND THEIR WAGES                222




COAL AND THE COAL MINES.




CHAPTER I.

IN THE BEGINNING.


Every one knows that mineral coal is dug out from the crust of the
earth. But the question frequently is asked concerning it, How and
under what conditions was it formed? In order to answer this inquiry it
is necessary to have recourse to the science of geology.

A brief review of the geological history of the earth’s crust will be
of prime importance, and it will not be inappropriate to go back to the
origin of the earth itself. But no man can begin at the beginning; that
is too far back in the eternal mists; only the Infinite Mind can reach
to it. There is a point, however, to which speculation can journey,
and from which it has brought back brilliant theories to account for
the existence of the planet on which we live. The most philosophic of
these theories, as it certainly is the most popular, is the one known
as the Nebular Hypothesis, propounded by Laplace, the great French
astronomer, in 1796. This theory accords so well with the laws of
physics, and with the human knowledge of the age, that most of the
great astronomers have adopted it as the best that has been given to
us, and the world of science may be said to have accepted it as final.
Let us suppose, then, in accordance with this theory, that our earth
was, at one time, a ball of liquid fire, revolving on its axis, and
moving, in its orbit, around the parent sun with the motion imparted to
it in the beginning. As cooling and condensation went on, a crust was
formed on its surface, and water was formed on the crust. The waters,
however, were no sooner spread out than they were tossed by the motion
of the atmosphere into waves, and these waves, by constant friction
against the rock crust of the earth, wore it down into pebbles, sand,
and mud. The silt thus made being washed up on to the primitive rock
and left there by the receding waters became again as hard and firm
as before. Occasionally a subsidence, due to the contraction of the
earth’s body, would take place and the sea would again sweep over the
entire surface, depositing another layer of silt on the one already
formed, or possibly washing that again into sand and pebbles. This
process continued through an indefinite period of time, forming layer
upon layer of stratified rock, or excavating great hollows in the
surface already formed.

That period in the history of the earth’s crust before stratification
began is known as Archean time. This was followed by the period known
as Paleozoic time, which is divided into three ages. The first is
the age of Invertebrates. It was during this age that life made its
advent on the earth. The waters were the first to bring it forth, but
before the close of the age it began also to appear on the land, in
isolated spots, in the simplest forms of vegetation. The next age is
known as the age of Fishes, during which vegetable life became more
varied and abundant, winged insects floated in the air, and great
sharks and gars swam in the seas. Then came the Carboniferous age or
age of Coal Plants, in which vast areas of what are now the Middle,
Southern, and Western States were covered with low marshes and shallow
seas, and were rich and rank with multitudinous forms of vegetation.
But these marshes were again and again submerged and covered with
material washed up by the waves before the final subsidence of the
waters left them as a continuing portion of the dry land. It was at the
close of the Carboniferous age that great disturbances took place in
the earth’s crust. Before this the rock strata had been comparatively
level; now they were folded, flexed, broken, rounded into hills, pushed
resistlessly up into mountain ranges. It was at this time that the
upheaval of the great Appalachian Range in North America took place.
Following this came Mesozoic time, which had but one age, the age of
Reptiles. It was during this age that the type of reptiles reached
its culmination. The land generally brought forth vegetation, though
not with the prolific richness and luxury of the Carboniferous age.
Birds, insects, and creeping things were abundant, and monsters of the
saurian tribe swam in the seas, roamed through the marshes, crawled
on the sandy shores, and took short flights through the air. The last
great division is known as Cenozoic time, and covers two ages, the age
of Mammals and the age of Man. It was during the mammalian age that
trees of modern types, such as oak, maple, beech, etc., first made
their appearance, and mammalian animals of great variety and size, both
herbivorous and carnivorous, roamed through the forests. True birds
flew in the air, true snakes crawled upon the ground, and in the waters
were whales and many kinds of fishes of the present day. But the marine
monsters and the gigantic and ferocious saurians of an earlier age had
disappeared. So the world became fitted to be the dwelling-place of the
human race. Then began the age of Man, an age which is yet not complete.

Such, in brief, is the history of the earth as the rocks have told
it to us. Without their help we could know but little of the story.
Through all the periods of time and all the ages, they were being
formed, layer upon layer, of sand and silt, of mud and pebbles,
hardening with the passing of the centuries. But while they were
still soft they received impressions of the feet of birds and of
beasts, they were marked by the waves and were cracked in the fierce
heat of the sun, and their surfaces were pitted by the rain-drops of
passing showers. Shells, corals, and sponges were imbedded in them;
the skeletons of fishes and the bones of animals that walked or crept
upon the land or flew in the air were covered over by them; they caught
and held the drooping fern, the falling leaf and twig and nut; they
closed around the body of the tree itself and buried it from sight;
and as the soil hardened into rock, bone and shell, leaf and stem,
hardened with it and became part of it. To-day we find these fossil
remains, sometimes near the surface of the earth, sometimes hundreds
or thousands of feet below it. We uncover them from the soil, we break
them from the rock, we blast them out in the quarries, we dig them
from the mines of coal and ore. It is by them and by the structure of
the rock which contains them that we read the history of the earth, a
history covering so long a period of time from the beginning of the
stratification of the rocks to the age when man appeared upon the globe
that no one has yet dared to reckon the millions upon millions of years
which intervened, and give the result of his computation to the world
as true.

[Illustration: COLUMNAR SECTION OF THE EARTH’S CRUST.]




CHAPTER II.

THE COMPOSITION OF COAL.


The first question that would naturally be asked concerning the subject
with which we are dealing is, What is coal?

In reply it may be said that it is a mineral. It is black or brown
in color, solid, heavy, and amorphous. The specific gravity of the
average Pennsylvania anthracite is about 1.6, and of the bituminous
coal about 1.4. There are four varieties of mineral coal, namely:
anthracite, bituminous, lignite or brown coal, and cannel coal. To
this list it would not be improper to add peat, since it partakes
of most of the characteristics of mineral coal, and would doubtless
develop into such coal if the process of transformation were allowed to
continue undisturbed. The principal element contained in each of these
different kinds of coal is carbon. An analysis of an average piece of
Pennsylvania anthracite would show the following chemical composition:――

    Fixed carbon        86.4
    Ash                  6.2
    Water                3.7
    Volatile matter      3.1
    Sulphur               .6
                       ―――――
    Total              100

The composition of the bituminous coals of Pennsylvania, as represented
by the gas coal of Westmoreland County, is shown by analysis to be as
follows:――

    Fixed carbon         55.
    Volatile matter      37.5
    Ash                   5.4
    Water                 1.4
    Sulphur                .7
                        ―――――
    Total               100

An analysis of coal from the Pittsburgh region would show its percentage
of carbon to be from 58 to 64, and of volatile matter and ash to be
proportionately less.

There is no strict line of demarcation between the anthracite and the
bituminous coals. They are classed generally, according to the amount
of carbon and volatile matter contained in them, as:――

    Hard-dry Anthracites,
    Semi-Anthracite,
    Semi-Bituminous,
    Bituminous.

Coals of the first class contain from 91 to 98 per cent, of carbon, and
of the second class from 85 to 90 per cent. The volatile matter in the
third class is usually less than 18 per cent., and in the fourth class
more than 18 per cent. of its composition.

The anthracite coal is hard and brittle, and has a rich black color
and a metallic lustre. It ignites with difficulty, and at first burns
with a small blue flame of carbonic oxide. This disappears, however,
when ignition is complete. No smoke is given off during combustion.
Semi-anthracite coal is neither so hard, so dense, nor so brilliant in
lustre as the anthracite, though when once fully ignited it has all
the characteristic features of the latter in combustion. It is found
principally at the western ends of the anthracite coal basins.

Bituminous coal is usually deep black in color, with little or no
lustre, having planes of cleavage which run nearly at right angles with
each other, so that when the coal is broken it separates into cubical
fragments. It ignites easily and burns with a yellowish flame. It gives
off smoke and leaves a large percentage of ashes after combustion. That
variety of it known as caking or coking coal is the most important.
This is quite soft, and will not bear much handling. During combustion
it swells, fuses, and finally runs together in large porous masses.

Following the question of the composition of coal comes the question
of its origin, of which, indeed, there is no longer any serious doubt.
It is generally conceded that coal is a vegetable product, and there
are excellent reasons for this belief. The fragments of which coal is
composed have been greatly deformed by compression and decomposition.
But when one of those fragments is made so thin that it will transmit
light, and is then subjected to a powerful microscope, its vegetable
structure may readily be distinguished; that is, the fragments are seen
to be the fragments of plants. Immediately under every separate seam of
coal there is a stratum of what is known as fire clay. It may, under
the beds of softer coals, be of the consistency of clay; but under the
coal seams of the harder varieties it is usually in the form of a slaty
rock. This fire clay stratum is always present, and contains in great
abundance the fossil impressions of roots and stems and twigs, showing
that it was once the soil from which vegetation grew luxuriantly. It
is common also to find fossil tree-stems lying mashed flat between the
layers of black slate which form the roof of the coal mines, also the
impressions of the leaves, nuts, and seeds which fell from these trees
while they were living. In some beds of cannel coal whole trees have
been found, with roots, branches, leaves, and seeds complete, and all
converted into the same quality of coal by which they were surrounded.
In short, the strata of the coal measures everywhere are full of the
fossil impressions of plants, of great variety both in kind and size.

If a piece of wood be subjected to heat and great pressure, a substance
is obtained which strongly resembles mineral coal.

That coal contains a very large proportion of carbon in its composition
has already been noted. If, therefore, it is a vegetable product, the
vegetation from which it was formed must have been subjected to some
process by which a large part of its substance was eliminated, since
wood or woody fibre contains only from 20 to 25 per cent. of carbon.
But wood can be transformed, by combustion, into charcoal, a material
containing in its composition 98 per cent, of carbon, or a greater
percentage than the best anthracite contains. This cannot be done,
however, by burning wood in an open fire, for in that case its carbon
unites with atmospheric oxygen and passes invisibly into the air. It
must be subjected to a process of smothered combustion; free access
of air must be denied to it while it is burning. Then the volatile
matter will be freed and expelled, and, since the carbon cannot come
in contact with the oxygen of the air, it will be retained, together
with a small percentage of ash. The result will be charcoal, or coal
artificially made. The principle on which this transformation is based
is combustion or decomposition out of contact with atmospheric air.
But Nature is as familiar with this principle as is man, and she may
not only be discovered putting it in practice, but the entire process
may be watched from beginning to end. One must go, for this purpose,
first, to a peat bed. This is simply an accumulation of the remains of
plants which grew and decayed on the spot where they are now found. As
these remains were deposited each year, every layer became buried under
its succeeding layer, until finally a great thickness was obtained.
When we remove the upper layer we find peat with its 52 to 66 per
cent. of carbon, and the deeper we go the better is the quality of the
substance. It may be cut out in blocks with sharp spades, the water may
be pressed from the blocks, and they may be stacked up, covered and
dried, and used for fuel. In most peat bogs the process of growth is
going on, and may be watched. There is a certain kind of moss called
_sphagnum_, which in large part makes up the peat-producing vegetation.
Its roots die annually, but from the living top new roots are sent out
each year. The workmen who dig peat understand that if this surface
is destroyed the growth of the bed must stop; consequently in many
instances they have removed the sod carefully, and after taking out
a stratum of peat have replaced the sod in order that the bed may be
renewed. There is little doubt that if these beds of peat could lie
undisturbed and covered over through many ages they would take on all
the characteristics of mineral coal.

A step farther back in geological history we reach the period of the
latest formations of lignite or brown coal. This coal is first found in
the strata of the glacial period, or first period in the age of Man.
But it is found there in an undeveloped state. The woody fibre has not
yet undergone the complete transformation into coal. The trunks and
branches of trees have indeed become softened to the consistence of
soap, but they still retain their natural color. Going back, however,
to the strata of the Miocene or second period of the Tertiary age or
age of Mammals, we find that this wood has become black, though it
has not yet hardened. But when we reach the upper cretaceous or last
period of the age of Reptiles, the transformation into coal has become
complete. The woody fibre is now black, hard, and compact, though it
may still be easily disaggregated by atmospheric action, and we have
the true lignite, so called because of its apparent woody structure.

The next step takes us back to the bituminous coal of the Carboniferous
age, the character and consistency of which has already been noted,
and finally we reach the complete development in anthracite. It is,
however, the opinion of the best geologists that the bituminous and
anthracite coals are of the same age, and were originally of the same
formation and character. That is, they were all bituminous; but during
the violent contortions and upheavals of the earth’s crust at the time
of the Appalachian revolution at the close of the Carboniferous age,
the bituminous coals involved in that disturbance were changed by heat,
pressure, and motion, and the consequent expulsion of volatile matter,
from bituminous to anthracite.

Cannel coal is a variety of bituminous coal, burning with great
freedom, the flame of which affords considerable light. It was called
“candle coal” by the English people who first used it, as it often
served as a substitute for that household necessity. But the name soon
became corrupted to “cannel,” and has so remained. It is duller and
more compact than the ordinary bituminous coal, and it can be wrought
in a lathe and polished. A certain variety of it, found in the lower
oölitic strata of Yorkshire in England, is manufactured into a kind of
jewelry, well known by its popular name of _jet_.




CHAPTER III.

WHEN COAL WAS FORMED.


It becomes of interest now to examine briefly into the causes and
process of the transformation from vegetable substance into coal, to
note the character of the vegetation which went to make up the coal
beds, and to glance at the animal life of the period.

As has already been said, the plants of the Carboniferous age were
exceedingly abundant and luxuriant. They grew up richly from the clayey
soil, and formed dense jungles in the vast marshes which covered so
large an area of the earth’s surface. Ferns, mosses, and tufts of
surface vegetation, and the leaves, branches, and trunks of trees fell
and decayed on the place where they grew, only to make the soil more
fertile and the next growth richer and more luxuriant. Year after
year, century after century, this process of growth and decay went on,
until the beds of vegetable matter thus deposited had reached a great
thickness. But condensation was still in progress in the earth’s body,
and in consequence of it her crust, of necessity, at times contracted
and fell. When it did so the land sank throughout vast areas, these
beds of incipient coal went down, and over the great marshes the waters
swept again, bringing drift of vegetation from higher levels to add
to that already buried. Then over these deposits of vegetable matter
the sand and mud and gravel were laid up anew, and the clayey soil
from which the next rich growth should spring was spread out upon the
surface. This process was repeated again and again, as often, indeed,
as we find seams of coal in any coal bed. Thus the final condition for
the formation of coal was met, the exclusion of atmospheric air from
this mass of decaying vegetation was complete, and under the water
of the ocean, under the sand and silt of the shore, under the new
deposits of succeeding ages, the transformation went on, the wood of
the Carboniferous era became the coal of to-day, while above and below
it the sand and clay were hardened into rock and shale.

The remarkable features of the vegetation of the coal era were the
size and abundance of its plants. Trees of that time whose trunks
were from one to three feet in diameter, and which grew to a height
of from forty to one hundred feet, are represented in our day by mere
stems a fraction of an inch in diameter and but one or two feet high.
A comparison of quantity would show differences as great as does the
comparison of size.

But at that time all the conditions were favorable for the rapid and
enormous growth of vegetation. The air was laden with carbon, which
is the principal food for plants; so laden, indeed, that man, who is
eminently an oxygen-breathing animal, could not have lived in it. The
great humidity of the atmosphere was another element favorable to
growth. Vegetation never lacked for an abundance of moisture either at
root or leaf. Then, too, the climate was universally warm. Over the
entire surface of the earth the heat was greater than it is to-day at
the torrid zone. It must be remembered that the internal fires of the
globe have been constantly cooling and receding, and that the earth, in
the Carboniferous age, was subjected to the greater power of a larger
sun than shines upon us to-day.

With all these circumstances in its favor, warmth, moisture, and an
atmosphere charged heavily with carbon, vegetation could not help but
flourish. That it did flourish amazingly is abundantly shown by its
fossil remains. The impressions of more than five hundred different
species of plants that grew in the Carboniferous era have been found
in the coal measures. There are few of them that bear any direct
analogy to existing species, and these few have their counterparts
only in the torrid zone. The most abundant of the plants of the coal
era were the ferns. Their fossil remains are found in great profusion
and variety in most of the rocks of the coal-bearing strata. There was
also the plant known as the tree fern, which attained a height of
twenty or thirty feet and carried a single tuft of leaves radiating
from its top. Probably the species next in abundance, as it certainly
is next in importance, to the ferns is that of the Lepidodendrids. It
doubtless contributed the greatest proportion of woody material to the
composition of coal. The plants of this species were forest trees,
but are supposed to have been analogous to the low club mosses of the
present. Fossil trunks of Lepidodendrids have been found measuring from
one hundred to one hundred and thirty feet in length, and from six to
ten feet in diameter.

Similar in appearance to the Lepidodendrids were the Sigillariæ, which
were also very abundant. The Conifers were of quite a different species
from those already named, and probably grew on higher ground. They were
somewhat analogous to the modern pine.

The Calamites belonged to the horsetail family. They grew up with long,
reed-like, articulated stems to a height of twenty feet or more, and
with a diameter of ten or twelve inches. They stood close together in
the muddy ground, forming an almost impenetrable thicket, and probably
made up a very large percentage of the vegetation which was transformed
into coal.

One of the most abundant species of plants of the coal era is that of
Stigmaria. Stout stems, from two to four inches in diameter, branched
downward from a short trunk, and then grew out in long root-like
processes, floating in the water or trailing on the mud to distances of
twenty or thirty feet. These are the roots with which the under clay of
every coal seam is usually filled.

The plants which have been described, together with their kindred
species, formed the largest and most important part of the vegetation
of the Carboniferous age. But of the hundreds of varieties which then
abounded, the greater portion reached their highest stage of perfection
in the coal era, and became extinct before the close of Paleozoic
time. Other types were lost during Mesozoic time, and to-day there is
scarcely a counterpart in existence of any of the multitude of forms of
plant life that grew and flourished in that far-off age of the world.

The animal life of the Carboniferous era was confined almost entirely
to the water. The dry land had not yet begun to produce in abundance
the higher forms of living things. There were spiders there, however,
and scorpions, and centipedes, and even cockroaches. There were also
land snails, beetles, locusts, and mayflies. Reptiles, with clumsy
feet and dragging tails, prowled about on the wet sands of the shore,
leaving footprints that were never effaced by time or the elements, and
are found to-day in the layers of the rocks, almost as perfect as when
they were formed, millions of years ago. But the waters teemed with
animal life. On the bottom of the shallow seas lay shells and corals
in such abundance and variety that from the deposits of their remains
great beds of limestone have been formed. Broken into minute fragments
by the action of the waves and washed up by the sea during periods of
submergence, they were spread over the beds of carboniferous deposits,
and became the rock strata through which the drills and shafts of
to-day are sunk to reach the veins of mineral coal.

Fishes were numerous. Some of them, belonging to species allied to the
modern shark, were of great size, with huge fin spines fully eighteen
inches in length. These spines have been found as fossils, as have also
the scales, teeth, and bones. Complete skeletons of smaller fishes of
the ganoid order were preserved in the rock as it hardened, and now
form fossil specimens which are unequaled in beauty and perfection.

Besides the fishes, there were the swimming reptiles; amphibian
monsters, allied to the ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs which were so
abundant during the Reptilian age that followed. These animals are
known as enaliosaurs. They attained great size, being from twenty-five
to fifty feet in length; they had air-breathing apparatus, and
propelled themselves through the water with paddles like the paddles
of whales. Their enormous jaws were lined with rows of sharp, pointed
teeth, and their food was fish, shell-fish, and any other kind of
animal life that came within their reach. They devoured even their own
species. Living mostly in the open seas or fresh-water lagoons, they
sometimes chased their prey far up the rivers, and sometimes basked in
the sunshine on the sands of the shore. Frightful in aspect, fierce,
and voracious, they were the terror and the tyrants of the seas.

Such were the animals, such were the plants, that lived and died, that
flourished and decayed, in the age when coal was being formed and
fashioned and hidden away in the crust of the earth. That the fauna and
flora of to-day have few prototypes among them should be little cause
for regret. There was, indeed, hardly a feature in the landscape of the
coal era that would have had a familiar look to an inhabitant of the
world in its present age. In place of the hills and valleys as we have
them now, there were great plains sloping imperceptibly to the borders
of the sea. There were vast marshes, shallow fresh-water lakes, and
broad and sluggish rivers. Save by isolated peaks the Rocky Mountains
had not yet been uplifted from the face of the deep, and the great West
of to-day was a waste of waters. In the wide forests no bird’s song was
ever heard, no flashing of a wing was ever seen, no serpent trailed
its length upon the ground, no wild beast searched the woods for prey.
The spider spun his web in silence from the dew-wet twigs, the locust
hopped drowsily from leaf to leaf, the mayfly floated lightly in the
heavy air, the slow-paced snail left his damp track on the surfaces of
the rocks, and the beetles, lifting the hard coverings from their gauzy
wings, flew aimlessly from place to place. In seas and lakes and swampy
pools strange fishes swam, up from the salt waters odd reptiles crawled
to sun themselves upon the sandy shore or make their way through
the dense jungles of the swamps, and out where the ocean waves were
dashing, fierce monsters of the sea darted on their prey, or churned
the water into foam in savage fights with each other.

But in all the world there were no flowers. Stems grew to be trunks,
branches were sent out, leaves formed and fell, the land was robed and
wrapped in the richest, most luxuriant foliage, yet the few buds that
tried to blossom were scentless and hidden, and earth was still void of
the beauty and the fragrance of the flowers.




CHAPTER IV.

HOW THE COAL BEDS LIE.


The process of growth, deposition, submergence, and burial, described
in the preceding chapter, continued throughout the Carboniferous age.
Each period of inundation and of the covering over of beds of vegetable
deposit by sand and silt is marked by the layers of stratified rock
that intervene between, and that overlie the separate seams of coal in
the coal measures of to-day. The number of these coal seams indicates
the number of periods during which the growth and decay of vegetation
was uninterrupted. This number, in the anthracite coal regions, varies
from ten to thirty or thereabouts, but in the bituminous regions it
scarcely ever exceeds eight or ten. The thickness of the separate
coal seams also varies greatly, ranging from a fraction of an inch up
to sixty or seventy feet. Indeed, there are basins of small extent
in the south of France and in India where the seam is two hundred
feet thick. It is seldom, however, that workable seams of anthracite
exceed twenty feet in thickness, and by far the largest number of
them do not go above eight or ten, while the seams of bituminous coal
do not even average these last figures in thickness. Neither is the
entire thickness of a seam made up of pure coal. Bands of slate called
“partings” usually run horizontally through a seam, dividing it into
“benches.” These partings vary from a fraction of an inch to several
feet in thickness, and make up from one fifth to one seventh of the
entire seam.

The rock strata between the coal seams range from three feet to three
hundred feet in thickness, and in exceptional cases go as high as five
or six hundred feet. Perhaps a fair average would be from eighty to one
hundred feet. These rock intervals are made up mostly of sandstones
and shales. The combined average thickness of the coal seams of
Pennsylvania varies from twenty-five feet at Pittsburgh in the western
bituminous region to one hundred and twenty feet at Pottsville in the
eastern anthracite district, and may be said to average about one
fiftieth of the entire thickness of the coal measures, which is placed
at 4,000 feet.

Some conception may be had of the enormous vegetable deposits of the
Carboniferous era by recalling the fact that the resultant coal in
each seam is only from one ninth to one sixteenth in bulk of the woody
fibre from which it has been derived, the loss being mainly in oxygen
and hydrogen. It is probable that the coal seams as well as the rock
strata had attained a comparative degree of hardness before the close
of the Carboniferous age. It was at the close of this age that those
profound disturbances of the earth’s crust throughout eastern North
America took place which have already been referred to. Hitherto,
through the long ages of Paleozoic time, there had been comparative
quiet. As cooling and contraction of the earth’s body were still going
on, there were doubtless oscillations of surface and subsidence of
strata in almost continuous progress. But these movements were very
slow, amounting, perhaps, to not more than a foot in a century. Yet
in Pennsylvania and Virginia the sinking of the crust up to the close
of the Carboniferous age amounted to 35,000 or 40,000 feet. That the
subsidence was quiet and unmarked by violent movement is attested by
the regularity of strata, especially of the carboniferous measures,
which alone show a sinking of 3,000 or 4,000 feet. Neither were the
disturbances which followed violent, nor were the changes paroxysmal.
Indeed, the probability is that they took place gradually through
long periods of time. They were, nevertheless, productive of enormous
results in the shape of hills, peaks, and mountain ranges. These
movements in the earth’s crust were due, as always, to contractions
in the earth’s body or reductions in its bulk. On the same principle
by which the skin of an apple that has dried without decay is thrown
into folds and wrinkles, the earth’s crust became corrugated. There
is this difference, however: the crust, being hard and unyielding,
has often been torn and broken in the process of change. Naturally
these ridges in the earth’s surface have been lifted along the lines
of least resistance, and these lines seem to have been, at the time of
the Appalachian revolution, practically parallel to the line of the
Atlantic coast, though long spurs were thrown out in other directions,
isolated dome-shaped elevations were raised up, and bowl-shaped valleys
were hollowed out among the hills.

The anthracite coal beds were in the regions of greatest disturbance,
and, together with the rock strata above and below them, assumed new
positions, which were inclined at all angles to their old ones of
horizontality. More than this, the heat and pressure of that period
exerted upon these beds of coal, which up to this time had been
bituminous in character, resulted in the expulsion of so large a
portion of the volatile matter still remaining in them as to change
their character from bituminous to anthracite. Although the strata,
in the positions to which they have been forced, are at times broken
and abrupt, yet as a rule they rise and fall in wave-like folds or
ridges. These ridges are called _anticlinals_, because the strata slope
in opposite directions from a common plane. The valleys between the
ridges are called _synclinals_, because the strata slope from opposite
directions toward a common plane. One result of this great force of
compression exerted on the earth’s crust was to make rents in it across
the lines of strata. These rents are called _fissures_. Sometimes
the faces of a fissure are parallel and sometimes they inclose a
wedge-shaped cavity. This cavity, whatever its shape, is usually filled
either with igneous rock that has come up from the molten mass below,
or with surface drift or broken rock fragments that have been deposited
there from above. Where there is displacement as well as fracture, that
is when the strata on one side of a fissure have been pushed up or have
fallen below the corresponding strata on the other side, we have what
is known as a _fault_. Sometimes the displacement seems to have been
accomplished with little disturbance to the sides of the fissure; at
other times we find, along the line of fracture, evidences of great
destruction caused by the pushing up of strata in this way. A fault
may reach a comparatively short distance, or it may traverse a country
for miles. The vertical displacement may be only a few inches, or it
may amount to hundreds or thousands of feet. In the bituminous coal
regions, where the strata lie comparatively undisturbed, faults are
but little known. In the anthracite districts they are common, but not
great.

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION THROUGH SOUTHERN COAL FIELD.]

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION THROUGH NORTHERN COAL FIELD.]

Besides the great folds into which the earth’s crust was crowded, there
are usually smaller folds corrugating the slopes of the greater
ones, sometimes running parallel with them, oftener stretching across
them at various angles. A marked instance of this formation is found in
the Wyoming coal basin, the general coal bed of which is in the shape
of a canoe, about fifty miles long, from two to six miles broad, and
with a maximum depth of perhaps one thousand feet. Running diagonally
across this basin, in practically parallel lines from one extremity to
the other, is a series of gentle anticlinals, dividing the basin into
some thirty smaller synclinal valleys or sub-basins.

The irregularities produced by folds, fissures, faults, and partings
are not the only ones with which the miner has to deal. So far we
have supposed the coal seams to have been laid down in horizontal
layers of uniform thickness, with smooth and regular under and upper
surfaces. This is true only in a large sense. As a matter of fact
each separate seam varies greatly in thickness, and its roof and
floor are often broken and irregular. The beds of clay on which the
deposits were laid were pushed up unevenly by the exuberant growth
of vegetation from them. The action of waves and ocean currents made
hollows in them, and laid down ridges and mounds of sand on them,
around and over which the decaying vegetation rose and hardened. The
same forces, together with the action of running streams, made channels
and hollows in the upper surfaces of these beds of incipient coal,
which cavities became filled by sand and gravel, and this also hardened
into rock. These irregularities are found by the miner of to-day in
the floor and roof of the coal seam, and are called _rolls_, _horses_,
or _horse-backs_. When the coal seam thins out so rapidly that the
floor and roof come nearly together, this state of things is called a
_pinch_, or _squeeze_, though the latter term is more properly applied
to the settling of the roof rock after the coal has been mined out.
The inequalities of a coal seam that have now been mentioned, although
perhaps but a small portion of those that are daily met with in the
process of mining, are neverthless characteristic of the whole.

The hills and mountain ranges that were thrown up at the close of the
Carboniferous age were many times higher and broader then than they
are to-day. Heat and cold and the storms of a thousand centuries,
working by disintegration and erosion, have worn away their substance,
the valleys and low lands are filled with it, and the rivers are
always carrying it down to the sea. The peaks and the crests have
been the portions of the elevations that have suffered most. It is
often as though the tops of the anticlinal folds had been sliced off
for the purpose of filling the valleys with them to the level of the
decapitated hills. A great part of the coal measures have thus wasted
away; in some portions of the anthracite district by far the greater
part, including many valuable coal seams.

When a fold or flexure of the earth’s crust has been decapitated in
the manner mentioned, the exposed edge of any stratum of rock or
coal is called its _outcrop_. The angle of inclination at which any
stratum descends into the earth is called its _dip_. The direction of
a horizontal line drawn along the face of a stratum of rock or coal is
its _strike_. It is obvious that the strike must always be at right
angles to the dip. That is, if the dip is downward toward the east or
toward the west, the direction of the strike must be north and south.
It is now apparent that if one begins at the outcrop of a coal seam
and traces the course of the seam downward along the line of dip, his
path will lie down the inclination for a longer or shorter distance,
until the bottom of the synclinal valley is reached. This is known as
the _basin_ or _swamp_. Here the seam may be comparatively level for
a short distance; more often it has a mild vertical curve, and starts
up the dip on the other side of the valley, which inclination may be
followed till the outcrop is reached. If now the decapitated portion of
the fold could be replaced in its natural position, we could trace the
same seam up to and over the anticlinal axis and down upon the other
side. As it is, we must cross on the surface from the outcrop to the
place where the corresponding seam enters the earth. In the southern
and eastern anthracite coal districts of Pennsylvania decapitation of
folds to a point below the coal measures is general; the coal seams
dip into the earth with a very sharp pitch, and the coal basins are
often very deep and very narrow, striking into the earth almost like
a wedge. In the northern or Wyoming district decapitation is not so
general, the angle of inclination of strata is mild, and the basins are
wide and comparatively shallow. In the bituminous districts, where the
disturbance to the earth’s crust has been slight, the coal beds lie
very nearly as they were formed, the dip seldom exceeding an angle of
five degrees with the horizon. The exposures here are due generally to
the erosive action of water.

[Illustration: OLD OPENING INTO AN OUT-CROP OF THE BALTIMORE VEIN.]

The carboniferous measures are the highest and latest geological
formation in the great coal fields of the United States. Therefore
where the strata have not been disturbed by flexure the coal seams
lie near the surface. This is generally the case in the bituminous
districts, and it is also partially true in the northern anthracite
coal field. Deep mining is necessary only in the middle and southern
anthracite coal fields, where the folds are close and precipitous,
and the deep and narrow basins formed by them have been filled with
deposits of a later geologic age.

Some of the difficulties to be met and overcome in mining coal will by
this time have been appreciated by the reader. But some of them only.
The inequalities of roof and floor, the pitching seams, the folds
and faults and fissures, all the accidents and irregularities of
formation and of location, make up but a few of the problems which
face the mining engineer. But the intellect and ingenuity of men have
overcome most of the obstacles which Nature placed in the way of
successful mining when she hardened the rocks above her coal beds,
crowded the earth’s crust into folds, and lifted the mountain ranges
into the air.

It will not be out of place at this time to make mention of those
localities in which coal is found. Indeed, there are few countries on
the globe in which there are not carboniferous deposits of greater
or less extent. Great Britain, with Ireland, has about 12,000 square
miles of them. In England alone there is an area of 8,139 square miles
of workable coal beds. In continental Europe the coal fields are
numerous, but the character of the deposit is inferior. Coal is found
also in the Asiatic countries, in Australia, and in South America; and
in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick there is an area of 18,000 square
miles of coal measures. The combined areas of coal measures in the
United States amount to about 185,000 square miles. The Appalachian
or Alleghany region contains about 60,000 square miles, included in
the States of Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Ohio,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. The Illinois and Missouri
region contains also about 60,000 square miles, and has areas not only
in the States named, but also in Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Kansas,
and Arkansas. Michigan has about 5,000 and Rhode Island about 500
square miles. There are also small areas in Utah and Texas, and in the
far West there are workable coal fields in Colorado, Dakota, Indian
Territory, Montana, New Mexico, Washington, Wyoming Territory, Oregon,
and California. The entire coal area of the United States, with the
exception of that in Rhode Island and a few outlying sections in
Pennsylvania, contains coal of the bituminous variety only. Both the
area and supply are therefore practically without limit. In the coal
regions of Rhode Island the disturbances affecting the earth’s crust
have been very violent. The motion, heat, and compression have been so
great as to give the rocks associated with the coal measures a true
metamorphic or crystalline structure, and to transform the coal itself
into an extremely hard anthracite; in some places, indeed, it has
been altered to graphite. The flexures of the coal formation are very
abrupt and full of faults, and the coal itself is greatly broken and
displaced. Its condition is such that it cannot be mined with great
profit, and but little of it is now sent to market. The only areas
of readily workable anthracite in the United States are therefore in
Pennsylvania. These are all east of the Alleghany Mountains, and are
located in four distinct regions. The first or Southern Coal Field
extends from the Lehigh River at Mauch Chunk, southwest to within a
few miles of the Susquehanna River, ending at this extremity in the
form of a fish’s tail. It is seventy-five miles in length, averages
somewhat less than two miles in breadth, and has an area of one hundred
and forty square miles. It lies in Carbon, Schuylkill, and Dauphin
counties. The second or Western Middle field, known also as the Mahanoy
and Shamokin field, lies between the eastern headwaters of the Little
Schuylkill River and the Susquehanna River. It has an area of about
ninety square miles, and is situated in the counties of Schuylkill,
Columbia, and Northumberland. It lies just north of the Southern field,
and the two together are frequently spoken of as the Schuylkill Region.
The Eastern Middle or Upper Lehigh field lies northeast of the first
two fields, and is separated into nine distinct parallel canoe-shaped
basins. These extend from the Lehigh River on the east to the Catawissa
Creek on the west, and comprise an area of about forty miles. They
are principally in Luzerne County, but extend also into Carbon,
Schuylkill, and Columbia counties. The Northern or Wyoming field is a
crescent-shaped basin about fifty miles long and from two to six miles
broad, with an area of about two hundred square miles. Its westerly
cusp is just north of the Eastern Middle field, and it extends from
that point northeasterly through Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, just
cutting into Wayne and Susquehanna counties with its northern cusp. It
lies in the valleys of the Susquehanna and Lackawanna rivers, and in
it are situated the mining towns of Plymouth, Wilkes Barre, Pittston,
Scranton, and Carbondale. There is also a fifth district, known as
the Loyalsock and Mehoopany coal field, lying in Sullivan and Wyoming
counties. It is from twenty to twenty-five miles northwest of the
Wyoming and Lackawanna field, its area is limited, and its coals are
not true anthracite.

It will thus be seen that aside from this last field the anthracite
coal area of Pennsylvania contains about four hundred and seventy
square miles.




CHAPTER V.

THE DISCOVERY OF COAL.


Although it has been within comparatively recent times that coal has
come into general use as a fuel, yet there can be no doubt that it was
discovered, and that its qualities were known, many centuries ago. To
prove its use by the ancients, mention is sometimes made of a passage
from the writings of Theophrastus, a pupil and friend of Aristotle
and for many years the head of the peripatetic school of philosophy.
This passage dates back to about 300 B. C., and is as follows: “Those
substances that are called coals and are broken for use are earthy, but
they kindle and burn like wooden coals. They are found in Liguria where
there is amber, and in Elis over the mountains toward Olympus. They are
used by the smiths.”

The word “coal,” however, as used in the Bible and other ancient
books, usually means charcoal, or burning wood. It is claimed, and
not without plausibility, that coal was mined in Britain prior to the
Roman invasion. The cinder heaps found among ruins of the time of Roman
supremacy in the island point to quite an extensive use of coal by the
people of that age. But no writings have been found recording the use
of coal prior to 852 A. D. In that year twelve cartloads of “fossil
fuel,” or “pit coal,” were received by the abbey of Peterborough in
England, and the receipt was recorded. It is said that coal first began
to be systematically mined in Great Britain about the year 1180.

It is certain that by the end of the thirteenth century the exportation
of coal from Newcastle was considerable, and the new fuel had come
to be largely used in London. But the people of that city conceived
the idea that its use was injurious to the health of the inhabitants
generally. The coal, being of the bituminous variety, burned with
considerable flame and gave off a good deal of smoke, and the ignorance
of the people led them into the belief that the air was contaminated
and poisoned by the products of combustion. So they presented a
petition to Parliament asking that the burning of coal be prohibited in
the city of London. Not only was the prayer of the petitioners granted,
but in order to render the prohibition effectual an act was passed
making it a capital offense to burn the dreaded fuel. This was in the
reign of Edward I., and is characteristic of the policy of that strong,
unyielding king, whose ends, great and just perhaps, were too often
attained by harsh and cruel means.

The coal industry was checked, but it was not destroyed; for, half
a century later, we find Edward III. granting a license to the
inhabitants of Newcastle “to dig coals and stones in the common soil of
the town without the walls thereof in the place called the Castle Field
and the Forth.” Afterward this town, owing to the fine coal beds in its
vicinity, became one of the great centres of the British coal trade,
from which fact doubtless arose that ancient saying concerning useless
trouble or labor, that it is like “carrying coals to Newcastle.”

In Scotland coal was mined in the twelfth century and in Germany in
the thirteenth, and the Chinese had already become familiar with its
use. But in Paris the same prejudice was excited against it that had
prevailed in London, and it did not come into use in that city as a
household fuel until about the middle of the sixteenth century. This
was also the date of its introduction into Wales, Belgium, and other
European countries.

That coal was familiar, in appearance at least, to the natives of
America, long before the feet of white men ever pressed American
soil, cannot well be doubted. They must have seen it at its numerous
outcrops; perhaps they took pieces of it in their hard hands, handled
it, broke it, powdered it, or cast it away from them as useless.
Indeed, it is not improbable that they should have known something
of its qualities as a fuel. But of this there is no proof. The
first record we have of the observation of coal in this country was
made by Father Hennepin, a French explorer, in 1679. On a map of his
explorations he marked the site of a coal mine on the bank of the
Illinois River above Fort Crevecœur, near the present town of Ottawa.
In his record of travel he states that in the country then occupied
by the Pimitoui or Pimitwi Indians “there are mines of coal, slate,
and iron.” The oldest coal workings in America are doubtless those in
what is known as the Richmond or Chesterfield coal bed, near Richmond
in Chesterfield and Powhatan counties in the State of Virginia. It is
supposed that coal was discovered and mined there as early as 1750.
But by whom and under what circumstances the discovery was made we
have only tradition to inform us. This says that one day, during
the year last named, a certain boy, living in that vicinity, went
out into an unfrequented district on a private and personal fishing
excursion. Either the fish bit better than he had thought they would,
or for some other cause his supply of bait ran out, and it became
necessary for him to renew it. Hunting around in the small creeks and
inlets for crawfish with which to bait his hook, he chanced to stumble
upon the outcrop of a coal bed which crosses the James River about
twelve miles above Richmond. He made his discovery known, and further
examination disclosed a seam of rich bituminous coal, which has since
been conceded to be a formation of Mesozoic time rather than of the
Carboniferous age. Mining operations were soon begun, and were carried
on so successfully that by the year 1775 the coal was in general use
in the vicinity for smithing and domestic purposes. It played a part
in the war for independence by entering into the manufacture of cannon
balls, and by 1789 it had achieved so much of a reputation that it
was being shipped to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and sold in
those markets. But the mines were operated by slave labor, and mining
was carried on in the most primitive fashion for three quarters of a
century. So late as 1860 the improved systems of mining, long in use in
the North, were still comparatively unknown at the Virginia mines.

During the war of the rebellion these mines were seized by the
Confederate government and operated by it, in order to obtain directly
the necessary fuel for purposes of modern warfare; and upon the
cessation of hostilities the paralysis which had fallen upon all other
Southern industries fell also upon this. But with the revival of
business, mining was again begun in the Richmond field, and from 1874
to the present time the industry has prospered and grown, and Virginia
has furnished to the country at large a considerable amount of an
excellent quality of bituminous coal. This coal bed covers an area of
about 180 square miles, and has an average thickness of twenty-four
feet. It is supposed to contain about 50,000,000 of tons yet unmined.

Another of the early discoveries of coal in the United States was that
of the Rhode Island anthracite bed in 1760. Mines began to be regularly
worked here in 1808, but only about 750,000 tons, all told, have been
taken from them. For reasons which have been already given these mines
cannot be profitably worked in competition with the anthracite mines of
Pennsylvania, in which the location and formation of the coal beds are
greatly superior.

It is impossible to say when the coal of the great bituminous district
of Pennsylvania and Ohio was first seen by white men. In the summer of
1755 General Braddock led his army through western Pennsylvania by a
military road to that terrible defeat and slaughter in which he himself
received his death wound. This road, laid out by the army’s engineers
and graded by its men, was so well built that its course can still be
traced, and it is seen to have crossed the outcrop of the Pittsburgh
coal seam in many places. It is not improbable that a large number of
the soldiers in the English army were familiar with the appearance of
coal, and knew how to mine it and use it. Indeed, Colonel James Burd,
who was engaged in the construction of the road, claims to have burned
about a bushel of this coal on his camp-fire at that time.

Some of the English soldiers who survived that terrible disaster to
their arms afterward returned and purchased lands in the vicinity, and
it is reasonable to suppose that the coal was dug and put to use by
them. A lease, still in existence, dated April 11, 1767, making a grant
of lands on “Coal Pitt Creek,” in Westmoreland County, indicates that
there were coal openings there at that date. Captain Thomas Hutchins,
who visited Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) in 1760, mentions the fact that
he found an open coal mine on the opposite side of the Monongahela
River, from which coal was being taken for the use of the garrison.

From 1770 to 1777 it was common for maps of certain portions of the
Ohio River country to have marked on them sites of coal beds along the
shores of that stream in regions which are now known to contain seams
of the great bituminous deposit.

Probably the Susquehanna River region was the first in which this coal
was dug systematically and put to use. It was burned by blacksmiths
in their forges, and as early as 1785 the river towns were supplied
with it by Samuel Boyd, who shipped it from his mines in arks. In 1813
Philip Karthaus took a quantity of coal to Fort Deposit, and sent it
thence by canal to Philadelphia. After this he sent cargoes regularly
to Philadelphia and Baltimore, and sold them readily at the rate of
thirty-three cents per bushel. This trade was stopped, however, by
the building of dams across the Susquehanna, and it was not until many
years afterward that the mineral resources of this section of the coal
field were developed again through the introduction of railroads.

In the Pittsburgh region the demand for coal increased with the
increase of population, and at the beginning of the present century
it was in general use, not only in the manufacturing industries but
also as a domestic fuel, throughout that section of country. The
first coal sent from Pittsburgh to an eastern market was shipped to
Philadelphia in 1803. It was carried by the Louisiana, a boat of 350
tons burden, and was sold at the rate of thirty-seven and a half cents
per bushel. From that time the increase in the mining of bituminous
coal in the Pittsburgh region has been steady and enormous. Its
presence, its quality and abundance, have induced the establishment
of great manufacturing enterprises in that section of the State, and
many millions of tons of it are sent every year to the markets of the
seaboard.

Pennsylvania was a region much in favor with the North American
Indians, and it is more than probable that they were aware, to some
extent, of the existence of mineral wealth beneath her soil, long
before white men ever came among them.

Besides the numerous outcroppings of coal which, in their journeyings,
they must have crossed and recrossed for centuries, there were
many places where the coal seams, having been cut through by creeks
and rivers, were exposed fully to view. In this way, in the Wyoming
district, the seven feet vein along the Nanticoke Creek had been
disclosed, and the nine feet vein on Ransom’s Creek at Plymouth;
while at Pittston the Susquehanna River had bared the coal seams in
the faces of its rocky banks, and up the Lackawanna the black strata
were frequently visible. But whatever knowledge the Indians had on the
subject was, with proverbial reticence, kept to themselves. It is said
that about the year 1750 a party of Indians brought a bag of coal to a
gunsmith living near Nazareth in Pennsylvania, but refused to say where
they had obtained it. The gunsmith burned it successfully in the forge
which he used for the purpose of repairing their guns.

The presumption that the Indians knew something of the uses of coal,
and actually mined it, is borne out by the following incident: In the
year 1766 a trader by the name of John Anderson was settled at Wyoming,
and carried on a small business as a shopkeeper, trading largely with
the red men. In September of that year a company of six Nanticoke,
Conoy, and Mohican Indians visited the governor at Philadelphia, and
made to him the following address:――

“Brother,――As we came down from Chenango we stopped at Wyoming, where
we had a mine in two places, and we discovered that some white people
had been at work in the mine, and had filled three canoes with the ore;
and we saw their tools with which they had dug it out of the ground,
where they had made a hole at least forty feet long and five or six
feet deep. It happened formerly that some white people did take, now
and then, only a small bit and carry it away, but these people have
been working at the mine, and have filled their canoes. We desire that
you will tell us whether you know anything of this matter, or if it be
done by your consent. We inform you that there is one John Anderson, a
trader, now living at Wyoming, and we suspect that he, or somebody by
him, has robbed our mine. This man has a store of goods there, and it
may happen when the Indians see their mine robbed they will come and
take away his goods.”

There is little doubt that the mines referred to were coal mines.
The presence of coal on the same side of the river a few miles below
Wyoming was certainly known, if not at that time then very soon
afterward; for in 1768 Charles Stewart made a survey of the Manor of
Sunbury opposite Wilkes Barre for the “Proprietaries’” government, and
on the original map of the survey “stone coal” is noted as appearing on
the site of what is now called Rosshill.

This valley of Wyoming, the seat of such vast mineral wealth, was
first settled by people from Connecticut in 1762, and in the fall of
that year they reported the discovery of coal.

These energetic, enterprising Yankee settlers could not fail to know
the location of the coal beds before they had been long in the valley.
Some of them were probably familiar with the English bituminous coals,
which were then being exported in small quantities to America under the
name of “sea coal;” and from the fact that our anthracite was known
to them as “stone coal” it is probable that there were those among
them who knew that the English people had a very hard coal which they
could not burn, and to which they had given the name “stone coal.”
Specimens of this Wyoming valley stone coal had already been gathered
and sent to England for examination. Indeed, there is no doubt that the
first anthracite coal ever found by white men in the United States was
discovered in this valley. But these Yankee settlers could not make
their stone coal burn. Repeated trials met with repeated failures.
There was one among them, however, Obadiah Gore, a blacksmith, who
would not be discouraged. In 1769 he took a quantity of these coals to
the blacksmith’s shop conducted by him and his brother, put them in
his forge, and continued his efforts and experiments until finally the
black lumps yielded to his persistency, and he had the satisfaction of
seeing the blue flames dart from them, and the red color creep over
them, and of feeling the intense heat sent out by their combustion. But
their ignition and burning were dependent upon the strong air current
sent through them by the bellows; without that he could do nothing with
them.

So this Yankee blacksmith, who was afterwards one of the associate
judges of the courts of Luzerne County, became, so far as is known, the
first white man to demonstrate practically the value of anthracite coal
as a fuel. The success of Gore’s experiments soon became known, other
smiths began to recognize the merits of the lately despised stone coal,
and it was not long before the forge fires of nearly every smithy in
the region were ablaze with anthracite.

The fame of the new fuel soon spread beyond the limits of the valley,
and if the difficulties of transportation checked its use elsewhere,
the knowledge of how to use it in forges and furnaces was not uncommon.
The demand for it overcame, at times, even the obstacles in the way of
shipment, and it was sent to points at long distances from the mines.

In 1776 the proprietary government of Pennsylvania had an armory at
Carlisle in that State, in which they were manufacturing firearms to be
used by the Continental troops in the war with Great Britain; and the
first coal ever sent out from the Wyoming valley was shipped by them
to Carlisle during that year and the succeeding years of the war, for
use in their armory.

The next discoveries of anthracite were made in what is now known
as the Southern coal field. It had long been a matter of tradition
among the stolid German farmers of Pennsylvania that coal existed
in the rugged hills along the Lehigh River, but no one succeeded in
finding it there until the year 1791. It was then discovered by one
Philip Ginther, a hunter and backwoodsman, who had built a rough
cabin in the forest near the Mauch Chunk mountain, and there gave to
himself and his family a precarious support by killing game, large
and small, carrying it to the nearest settlement, and exchanging it
at the village store for the necessaries of life. Telling the story
afterward, himself, he said that at one time the supply of food in
his cabin chanced to run out, and he started into the woods with his
gun in quest of something which should satisfy the hunger of those
who were at home. It was a most unsuccessful hunting expedition. The
morning passed, the afternoon went by, night approached, but his
game-bag was still empty. He was tired, hungry, and sadly disappointed.
A drizzling rain set in as he started homeward across the Mauch Chunk
mountain, darkness was coming rapidly on, and despondency filled his
mind as he thought of the expectant faces of little ones at home to
whom he was returning empty-handed. Making his way slowly through
the thick, wet undergrowth, and still looking about him, if perchance
something in the way of game might yet come within the range of his
gun, his foot happened to strike a hard substance which rolled away
before him. He looked down at it, and then bent over and picked it up,
and saw by the deepening twilight that it was black. He was familiar
with the traditions of the country concerning the existence of stone
coal in this region, and he began to wonder if this, indeed, was not
a specimen of it. He carried the black lump home with him that night,
and the next day he set out with it to find Colonel Jacob Weiss at
Fort Allen, now Weissport, to whom he exhibited what he had found.
Colonel Weiss became deeply interested in the matter, and brought the
specimen to Philadelphia, where he submitted it to the inspection of
John Nicholson, Michael Hillegas, and Charles Cist. These men, after
assuring themselves that it was really anthracite coal, authorized
Colonel Weiss to make such a contract with Ginther as would induce
him to point out the exact spot where the mineral was found. It
happened that the hunter coveted a vacant piece of land in the vicinity
containing a fine water-power and mill-site, and on Colonel Weiss
agreeing to obtain a patent for him from the State for the desired lot
of land, he very readily gave all the information in his possession
concerning the “stone coal.”

In the Pottsville district of the Southern anthracite region coal was
discovered at about the same time as in the Mauch Chunk field. This
discovery too was made by accident, and the discoverer in this case
also was a hunter, Nicholas Allen. He had been out with his gun all
day, and at nightfall had found himself too far away from his home
to make the attempt to reach it. He accordingly built a fire under a
projecting ledge at the foot of Broad Mountain, and, lying down by
it, soon fell asleep. He was wakened in the night by a strong light
shining on his eyes, and by the sensation of great heat. Springing
to his feet, he discovered that the ledge itself was burning, or, as
he afterward expressed it, “that the mountain was on fire.” He could
not understand the phenomenon, and remained in the vicinity until
morning, when he saw, by daylight, that what he had thought to be a
ledge of rocks was really a projecting outcrop of mineral coal, which
had become ignited from his camp-fire of sticks. Whether this story is
or is not authentic, it is certain that no practical results attended
the discovery of coal in this region. It was not until twenty-six
years after Obadiah Gore’s experiments in the Wyoming valley that coal
was successfully burned here in a blacksmith’s forge. The attempt
was made by one Whetstone, and met with the same marked success that
had attended the earlier effort. But owing to the difficulty still
ordinarily experienced in combustion, the coal of this region was not
generally used until after the year 1806. In that year David Berlin,
another blacksmith, experimented with it in his forge, with such
complete success that a new impetus was given to the coal trade, mining
was resumed, and the new fuel came into general use in the blacksmiths’
shops of the vicinity.

In the Middle anthracite district coal was not discovered until 1826.
This discovery also was made by a hunter, John Charles. On one of his
hunting expeditions he chanced to find a groundhog’s hole, and, laying
down his rifle, he began to dig for his game. In the course of the
excavation he uncovered a projecting shelf of stone coal. He made his
discovery known, further explorations were set on foot, the coal bed
was located, and a company called the Hazleton Coal Company was formed
to work the field.

From these several points of discovery the search for anthracite coal
was extended in all directions, the limits of the beds were eventually
defined, and each field was surveyed and mapped with much care.




CHAPTER VI.

THE INTRODUCTION OF COAL INTO USE.


At the beginning of the present century the anthracite or stone coal
was in general use, in all the districts where it was found, as a fuel
for the blacksmith’s fire and the iron worker’s forge. This, however,
was the limit of its utility. It was thought to be necessary to force a
strong artificial air current up through it to make it burn, and since
this could not well be done in grates, stoves, or furnaces, there was
no demand for coal for domestic use, or for the great manufacturing
industries. Efforts were indeed made to overcome this difficulty.
Schemes without number were set on foot and abandoned. It was proposed,
at one time, to force air through a tube to the under part of the grate
by means of clockwork operated by a weight or by a spring. But the cost
of such an arrangement made it impracticable.

It seems, however, that Weiss, Cist, and Hillegas, who were developing
the discovery made by Ginther in the Mauch Chunk mountain, also solved
the problem of burning the stone coal without an artificial draft. They
had sent specimens of their coals to Philadelphia, and presumably had
accompanied them with instructions as to the proper method of burning
them. This presumption is borne out by certain letters sent to Jacob
Cist of Wilkes Barre, a son of Charles Cist the printer, who was in
company with Weiss and Hillegas. Two of these letters are now in the
possession of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society at Wilkes
Barre. An extract from one of them reads as follows:――

    “I have experienced the use of them” (the Lehigh coals) “in
    a close stove and also in a fireplace that may be closed and
    opened at pleasure, so constructed, as to cause a brisk current
    of air to pass up through a small contracted grate on which
    they were laid. I find them more difficult to be kindled than
    the Virginia coal, yet a small quantity of dry wood laid on
    the grate under them is sufficient to ignite them, which being
    done, they continue to burn while a sufficient amount be added
    to keep up the combustion, occasionally stirring them to keep
    down the ashes. They produce no smoke, contain no sulphur, and
    when well ignited exhibit a vivid bright appearance, all which
    render them suitable for warming rooms.”

This letter is dated “Philadelphia, Feb. 15^th 1803,” and is signed
“Oliver Evans.”

The second letter is similar in its recommendation and report of
success, and states that the writer, “Fred^k Graff, clerk of the
Water Works of Phil^a ... made a trial of the Lehigh coals in the
year 1802 in the large stove at the Pennsylvania Bank in Phil^a.”

So far as is known these are the first recorded instances of any
successful attempts to burn anthracite coal in grates and stoves. Dr.
James of Philadelphia has also left on record the fact that he made
constant use of anthracite coal for heating purposes from the year 1804.

These well-authenticated instances of the use of anthracite appear to
destroy the commonly accepted belief that Judge Jesse Fell of Wilkes
Barre was the first person whose attempts to burn this coal in an open
grate were rewarded with complete success. Nevertheless the value of
Judge Fell’s experiments cannot be questioned, nor can he be deprived
of the full measure of credit due to him for bringing those experiments
to a successful issue.

Until the year 1808 all efforts in the Wyoming valley to burn the
“stone coal” of the region without an artificial air blast had utterly
failed. People did not believe that it could be done. The successes
of Evans and Graff in this direction were either not known or not
credited. It is certain that Judge Fell had not heard of them. His
opinion that this coal could be made to burn in an open fireplace was
based wholly on the reasoning of his own mind. He was a member of the
Society of Friends, and had come to Wilkes Barre some years before
from Berks County. He was a blacksmith by trade, the proprietor of the
best hotel in town, and he came afterward to be one of the associate
judges of Luzerne County. When he had fully considered the matter of
burning the stone coal, and had reached definite conclusions, he began
to experiment. At first he constructed a grate of green hickory sticks,
and the presumption is that the fire he kindled in it was a success;
for he began, immediately afterward, to make an iron grate similar to
the grates now in use. The work was done by his nephew Edward Fell and
himself in the blacksmith shop of the former, and was completed in a
single day. Judge Fell took the grate home late in the afternoon and
set it with brick in the fireplace of his bar-room. In the evening
he kindled in it, with oak wood, a glowing coal fire, and invited a
large number of the most respected citizens of the place to come in
and see the stone coal burn. Only a few came, however, in response
to his invitation; they believed his theory to be impracticable, and
feared that they might be made the victims of a hoax. But to those
who came the fire was a revelation. It cleared the way for immense
possibilities. Judge Fell himself realized the importance of his
discovery, and thought the incident worthy of record. Being a devoted
member of the order of Free and Accepted Masons, he chose from his
library a book entitled “The Free Mason’s Monitor,” and wrote on the
fly-leaf, in a clear, bold hand, this memorandum:――

    “Fe’b 11^th, of Masonry 5808. Made the experiment of burning
    the common stone coal of the valley in a grate in a common fire
    place in my house, and find it will answer the purpose of fuel;
    making a clearer and better fire, at less expense, than burning
    wood in the common way.

    [Signed] JESSE FELL.

    “BOROUGH OF WILKESBARRE,
    _February 11^th 1808_.”

The complete success of Judge Fell’s experiment was soon noised abroad,
and a new era of usefulness for anthracite coal set in. From Wilkes
Barre up and down the entire Wyoming valley fireplaces for wood were
discarded and grates were set for the burning of the new domestic fuel.
This was followed, not long after, by the introduction of stoves, so
that by 1820, says Stewart Pearce in his “Annals of Luzerne County,”
grates and coal stoves were in general use throughout the valley, coal
for domestic purposes selling at three dollars per ton. At the time of
Judge Fell’s experiment there was no outside market for the product
of the mines of the Wyoming valley. The distances to the large cities
and manufacturing centres were too great, the means of transportation
too rude, and the knowledge of the use of anthracite too limited, to
warrant any serious effort to create a foreign market for it. The
attempt had nevertheless been made in 1807 by Abijah Smith, who
shipped an ark-load of coal down the Susquehanna River to Columbia, and
was obliged to leave it there unsold.

In 1808 the experiment was repeated by Abijah and his brother John,
who, profiting by the success of Judge Fell’s late experiment, took
with them an iron grate, set it up at Columbia, and proceeded to
demonstrate to the doubting inhabitants the practical value of their
coal as a domestic fuel. The venture proved successful, and after this
they found no difficulty in selling at the river towns all the coal
they could mine. After 1812 they extended their trade by running their
coal to Havre de Grace, and sending it thence by schooner to New York.

The success which attended the efforts of the Smiths appears to have
been an inducement to other enterprising citizens of the Wyoming valley
to embark in the coal trade, and in 1813 and 1814 Colonel George M.
Hollenback, Colonel Lord Butler, Joseph Wright, Esq., and Crandal
Wilcox all engaged in the mining and shipping of coal. They sent the
product of the mines down the river in arks, and up to 1830 85,000
tons had been mined in the valley for such shipment. After that year
coal was sent by the North Branch Canal just completed to Nanticoke,
and in 1846 the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad pierced the valley,
and opened a new era in transportation. So it came about that this
region, which in 1807 opened the anthracite coal trade with a shipment
of fifty-five tons, sent to market in 1887 a grand total of 19,684,929
tons.

[Illustration:

                                  MAP
                               _SHOWING_
                       ·ANTHRACITE·COAL·FIELDS·
                                -_OF_-
                            ·PENNSYLVANIA·]

In the mean time Weiss, Cist, and Hillegas pushed their coal enterprise
on the Mauch Chunk mountain, opening what was afterward known as the
Great Summit Mine, and in 1803 started six ark-loads of coal down the
Lehigh River, to be floated to its junction with the Delaware, and
thence to Philadelphia. Only two of the arks reached their destination,
the others having met with disaster on the way, owing to swift currents
and unskillful navigation. Of the two cargoes that arrived safely
at Philadelphia not a lump could be sold. The owners made strenuous
efforts to find a market for it, but people did not wish to purchase
a fuel that they could not make burn. At last the city authorities
were appealed to, and, after some hesitation, they agreed to take the
coal and try to make use of it for a steam-engine employed at the city
waterworks. This they did; but all their attempts to make the alleged
fuel burn proved unavailing. They finally gave up the task in disgust,
declared the coal to be a nuisance, and caused what remained of it
to be broken up and spread on the footpaths of the public grounds,
in place of gravel. This was indeed a most ignominious failure. It
caused a sudden cessation of mining operations at Summit Hill, and for
several years the Lehigh Mine Company, utterly discouraged, made no
effort to retrieve its fallen fortunes. William Turnbull attempted to
revive the project a few years later, but his effort also met with a
dismal failure.

In 1813 Charles Miner, Jacob Cist, and John W. Robinson, all of Wilkes
Barre, renewed the enterprise at Summit Hill with great energy, and
on the 9th of August, 1814, started their first ark-load of coal down
the river to Philadelphia. Before it had gone eighty rods from the
place of starting it struck a ledge which tore a hole in the bow of the
boat, “and,” Mr. Miner says, “the lads stripped themselves nearly naked
to stop the rush of water with their clothes.” After many and varied
adventures on the swift currents of the rivers the ark reached its
destination on the following Sunday morning at eight o’clock, having
been five days on the way. Its arrival had been anticipated by its
owners, and they had called public attention to its cargo by means of
handbills printed in both English and German, and distributed freely
throughout the city. These handbills, besides advertising the coal,
gave information as to the method of burning it in grates, stoves, and
smith’s forges. They were also accompanied by printed certificates
from blacksmiths and others attesting the value and availability of
the Lehigh coal as a fuel. The owners of the ark went still farther.
They put up stoves in conspicuous public places in the city, built
coal fires in them, and invited the people to stop and inspect them.
They went to private houses and prevailed on the inmates to be allowed
to kindle anthracite fires in the grates which had been built for the
use of Liverpool coals. They attended at blacksmith’s shops, and even
bribed the journeymen to give their coals a fair trial in the forge.
Thus, by persistent and industrious, nay by presumptuous, efforts,
these men succeeded in awakening public interest in their enterprise,
and in creating a demand for their wares. The proprietors of the Lehigh
coals gave particular attention also to the instruction of the people
in the matter of igniting the new fuel. Having once disabused them
of the idea that a strong artificial air current was necessary, the
next step was to prevent them from disturbing the coals constantly by
poking, punching, and raking them, a proceeding which the uninitiated
seemed to consider of prime importance, in order to induce them to
ignite. And, strange as it may seem, this fallacy was the hardest to
overcome. Among the purchasers of the Lehigh coals in 1814 was the
firm of White & Hazard, manufacturers of iron wire at the falls of the
Schuylkill. They had been told by Mr. Joshua Malin, proprietor of a
rolling mill, that he had succeeded in using the new fuel, and as the
Virginia coal was very scarce at that time, White & Hazard decided to
test the qualities of the anthracite. They purchased a cart-load of
it, paying a dollar a bushel for it, and took it to their works. Here
they tried to build a fire with it in their furnace, giving it what
they considered the most skillful manipulation and the most assiduous
attention. Their efforts were in vain. The entire cart-load was wasted
in a futile attempt to make the coals burn. Nothing daunted, they
obtained another cartload, and determined to spend the night, if need
should be, in the work of building a coal fire. And they did spend
the night. But when morning came they were apparently as far from
the attainment of their object as ever. They had poked and punched
and raked; they had labored incessantly; but notwithstanding the
most constant manipulation, the coals above the burning wood would
not sufficiently ignite. By this time the men were disheartened and
disgusted, and slamming the door of the furnace, they left the mill in
despair, and went to breakfast. It happened that one of them had left
his jacket in the furnace room, and returning for it about half an
hour later, he discovered that the furnace door was red-hot. In great
surprise he flung the door open and found the interior glowing with
intense white heat. The other hands were immediately summoned, and four
separate parcels of iron were heated and rolled by the same fire before
it required renewing. Seeking for the cause of this unexpected result
the men came to the conclusion that it was due to simply letting the
fire alone, a theory the correctness of which they afterward abundantly
proved. Thus, by chance, these men hit upon the secret of success in
the matter of building a fire of anthracite coals. That secret is
simply to throw the coals loosely on the burning wood, and then _let
them alone_. The incident at White & Hazard’s mills becoming generally
known, people learned more from it about the process of building a coal
fire than they had learned from all their previous instruction.

Nevertheless the enterprise of the Lehigh operators was still not
destined to meet with success. They had embarked in the coal trade in
1814, while the war with Great Britain was still in progress, when it
was impossible to procure coal from England, and when coal from the
Richmond district was very scarce. They were therefore able to obtain
fourteen dollars per ton for the Lehigh coal, but even at this price
the cost and risk of mining and shipping was so great that the business
was barely a paying one. In 1815, however, peace was concluded with
Great Britain, the market was again opened to the reception of foreign
coals, and the Lehigh operators, being unable to compete with the
sellers of soft coal, were obliged to abandon the field.

Notwithstanding the efforts and energy of these proprietors the Summit
Hill mining industry did not pay, and in 1817 the mines passed into
the hands of Josiah White and Erskine Hazard. They perfected a system
of slack-water navigation on the Lehigh, and in 1820 made their first
shipment of 365 tons. The tables commonly printed showing the growth
of the anthracite coal trade usually make that trade begin with this
shipment of Lehigh coal in 1820. This, however, is not quite correct,
as we have seen that coal was sent to market from the Wyoming region
at a much earlier date. It is remarkable that, whereas in 1820 the 365
tons of Lehigh coal stocked the market, in 1831, the year in which the
system of slack water navigation was superseded by shipment on the
Delaware division of the Pennsylvania Canal, this region sent down
40,966 tons. And in 1887 there was sent to market from the Lehigh
district a total of 4,347,061 tons, an amount which would have been
much greater had not a prolonged strike of coal miners seriously
interfered with the output.

In the Schuylkill region of the Southern coal field similar obstacles
to the introduction of coal were encountered. Nicholas Allen, the
discoverer of coal in that region, had formed a partnership with
Colonel George Shoemaker, and the firm had purchased a tract of coal
land near Pottsville, on which they began mining operations in the year
1812. They raised several wagon loads of coal, and offered it for sale
in the vicinity, but with the exception of a few blacksmiths, who had
been taught its value as a fuel by Colonel Shoemaker, no one could
be found to purchase it. Allen soon became disheartened and sold his
entire interest in the property to his partner, who, still persisting
in the enterprise, mined a considerable quantity of the coal, filled
ten wagons with it, and took it to Philadelphia in quest of a market.
But it did not meet with a ready sale. People looked at the coals
curiously, considered them to be nothing more than black stones, and,
seeing no reason why they should burn better than stones of any other
color, would not buy them.

Colonel Shoemaker sounded the praises of his wares so vigorously and
persistently, however, that at last a few purchasers were induced to
take them in small quantities, just for trial. The trials, as usual,
proved to be unsuccessful, and the people who had purchased the coals,
believing they had been victimized, denounced Colonel Shoemaker as a
cheat and a swindler; while one person, whose wrath rose to a high
pitch, procured a warrant for the colonel’s arrest, on the charge that
he was a common impostor. At this stage of the proceedings, Colonel
Shoemaker, believing discretion to be the better part of valor, quietly
left the city and started toward his home by a circuitous route,
driving, it is said, some thirty miles out of his way, in order to
avoid the officer of the law holding the warrant for his arrest.

This was indeed a discouraging beginning for the Schuylkill coal
trade. Fortunately, however, not all of the colonel’s customers at
Philadelphia had met with failure in the effort to burn his coal.
Messrs. Mellen & Bishop, a firm of iron factors in Delaware County,
at the earnest solicitation of Colonel Shoemaker, made the experiment
with the small quantity of coals purchased by them, and finding that
the fuel burned successfully they announced that fact through the
Philadelphia newspapers. Other iron workers were thus induced to try
the coal, and finally all the furnaces along the Schuylkill had open
doors for it. Eventually it came into use for the purpose of generating
steam, the experiments of John Price Wetherill in that direction having
been only partially satisfactory, but those at the Phœnixville iron
works in 1825 meeting with complete success.

Still the prices which coal commanded in the Philadelphia market
were not sufficient to pay for the labor of mining it and the cost
of shipping it. So that, prior to 1818, nearly all the coal mined in
the Schuylkill region was sold to the blacksmiths of the surrounding
country. In that year, however, the improvements of the Schuylkill
navigation were completed, and afforded an additional, though not by
any means safe or sufficient, outlet for the products of the mines. By
1826 and 1827 the growing importance of the coal trade became manifest,
the Schuylkill navigation system was placed in excellent repair,
and the mining business of the district grew rapidly to enormous
proportions.

The northeasterly extension of the Wyoming coal basin, leaving the
Susquehanna River at Pittston, follows the valley of the Lackawanna
up to a point seven miles beyond Carbondale, where it cuts slightly
into the counties of Wayne and Susquehanna, and there runs out. This
extension is known as the Lackawanna region. Coal was dug up and
experimented with here at the beginning of the present century. Its
outcrop at the river bank was noted by Preston, a surveyor, in 1804.
In 1812 it was mined at Providence and burned in a rude grate by H.
C. L. Von Storch. About this time the brothers William and Maurice
Wurts, having been attracted by the mineral wealth of the region, came
there from Philadelphia and began explorations for the purpose of
ascertaining the location, area, and quality of the beds of anthracite
coal. William, the younger brother, in the course of his wanderings
through the rugged hills and thick forests of the country, chanced to
meet a hunter by the name of David Nobles, who, having fled from the
adjoining county of Wayne to avoid imprisonment for debt, was leading a
precarious existence in the woods. Nobles was well acquainted with the
country, knew where the outcroppings of coal were, and having entered
into the service of Wurts, rendered him most valuable assistance.

Their investigations having proved the presence of large bodies of
coal, the Wurts brothers next procured title to the lands containing
it, and then turned their attention to the problem of finding an
outlet to market. They decided finally to ship coal on rafts by the
Wallenpaupack Creek to the Lackawaxen, by the Lackawaxen to the
Delaware, and thence to Philadelphia. This method was experimented
on from 1814 to 1822 with varying degrees of disaster. In the year
last mentioned they succeeded in taking to Philadelphia 100 tons of
coal, only to find the market flooded with 2,240 tons of Lehigh coal.
Competition was apparently hopeless; but instead of abandoning the
enterprise, as men of less energy and perseverance would now have done,
Maurice Wurts turned his attention to a new project. This was nothing
less than to make an outlet to the New York market by building a canal
which should reach from the Hudson River at Rondout, across to the
Delaware at Port Jervis, and thence up that stream and the Lackawaxen
to the nearest practicable point east of the coal beds. But when that
point should be reached there would still be the Moosic Mountain,
with its towering heights and precipitous bluffs, lying between the
boats and the mines. The Wurts brothers did not acknowledge this to
be a serious obstacle. They proposed to overcome this difficulty by
building across the mountains a railroad, which should consist largely
of inclined planes, the cars to be drawn up and let down these planes
by means of stationary steam-engines, and to move along the stretches
between the planes by force of gravity. Having formed their plans they
set to work to carry them out. They procured the necessary legislation
from the States of New York and Pennsylvania, they secured a charter
in 1823–25 for a corporation known as the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Company, and by dint of supreme personal effort they succeeded in
obtaining capital enough to begin and carry on the work. In 1828 the
canal was completed to its terminus at Honesdale, the gravity railroad
having been already constructed from the coal fields to that point,
and in 1829 the company began to ship coal to tide-water on the
Hudson. It was a bold and ingenious scheme, and for those days it was
an enterprise of immense proportions. That these two men conceived
it and earned it out in the face of great difficulties and against
overwhelming odds entitles them to a place in those higher orders of
genius that are touched with the light of the heroic. The Lackawanna
region has been pierced by many other lines of railway, and to-day by
these great highways a vast amount of Lackawanna coal is sent to the
eastern cities and the seaboard.

But as a rule, men who invested their money in coal lands in the early
days after the discovery of coal lost the amount of the investment.
They, with prophetic vision, saw the comfort, the commerce, the
manufactures, of a nation dependent on the products of the coal mines,
but the people at large could not see so far. These pioneers made
ready to supply an anticipated demand, but it did not come. Talking
did not bring it. Exhibitions of the wonderful utility of the black
coals served to arouse but a passing interest. No other product of the
globe which has obtained a position of equal importance ever had to
fight its way into public favor with such persistent effort through so
many years. But when at last its worth became generally recognized,
when the people had reached the conclusion that they wanted it, and
its value in dollars had become fixed and permanent, then the pioneers
of the industry had vanished from the field; they were disheartened,
destitute, or dead; new hands and brains took up the work, matured
the plans of the elders, and reaped the fortunes of which former
generations had sown the seed.

In the beginning the coal lands were mostly divided into small
tracts, and held by persons many of whom thought to open mines on
their property and carry on the business of mining as an individual
enterprise. This plan of work was partially successful so long as
coal could be dug from the outcrop and carted away like stones from
a quarry; but when it became necessary, as it soon did, to penetrate
more deeply into the earth for the article of trade, then the cost
of shafting, tunneling, and mining in general usually exceeded the
resources of the individual operator, and either he succumbed to
financial distress, or disposed of his mining interests to men or firms
with more money. As the art of mining advanced with its necessities,
it was learned, sometimes after bitter experience, that the business
was profitable only when a large amount of capital was behind it.
Therefore men who had invested a few thousand dollars transferred
their interests to men who had a few hundred thousand to invest, and
these, in turn, associating other capitalists with them, doubled or
trebled the investment or ran it into the millions, forming companies
or corporations to accomplish with their more perfect organization
that which would be impossible to the individual. So it has come about
that in these later days the individual operators have given place
largely to the corporations; those who still remain in the field often
operating their mines on a small capital at great disadvantage. In the
bituminous regions, however, this rule does not hold good. There the
coal lies near the surface, is accessible, and easily mined. It needs
only to be carried to the river bank and screened as it is loaded into
boats and started on its way to market. Compared with the anthracite
regions, it requires but a small capital here to sustain an extensive
plant, and produce a large quantity of coal. Therefore we find, as we
should expect to find, that in the bituminous districts the bulk of
the coal is produced by individuals, firms, and small companies. In the
anthracite regions, however, this rule is reversed. Of the 36,204,000
tons of anthracite produced in the year 1887, 16,109,387 tons, or
nearly one half, were mined by five great companies; namely: The
Philadelphia and Reading; Delaware and Hudson; Delaware, Lackawanna,
and Western; Lehigh Valley; and Pennsylvania Coal Company. The immense
out-put of as many more large corporations left but a very small
proportion of the total product to the small companies, firms, and
individuals.

It follows, as a matter of course, that the acreage of coal lands held
by these companies bears the same proportion to the total acreage that
their coal out-put bears to the entire coal out-put. That is, they
either own or hold under lease the great bulk of the coal beds of the
anthracite regions. The value of coal lands varies with the number,
thickness, and accessibility of the coal seams contained in it. In the
very early days of anthracite mining these lands were purchased from
farmers and others at from twenty and thirty dollars to one hundred
dollars per acre. Before 1850 the price had advanced, in the Wyoming
region, to from seventy-five dollars to two hundred dollars per acre.
Recently a piece of coal land was sold in this region for $1,200 per
acre, and another piece, containing thirty-six acres, was sold at the
rate of $1,500 per acre. Perhaps from $800 to $1,000 per acre might
be considered an average price. In the Middle and Southern anthracite
regions the coal lands are of still greater value; not because the
quality of the mineral is better, nor because the market for it is more
accessible, but because the coal seams dip at a greater angle, and,
therefore, a given number of acres contains a larger amount of coal.

The system of leasing coal lands to coal operators is a very common
one, especially in the Wyoming valley, where the surface is so richly
adapted to agricultural uses. The proprietor can, in this way, retain
the use of the soil, and at the same time reap a handsome profit from
the development of the mineral deposits beneath it. He invests no
capital, runs no risk, and is sure of a steady income. As it is usual
to work leased coal seams, wherever convenient, from openings made on
the adjoining lands owned by the company, it is not often that the
surface of leased property is interfered with, or if it is, but a
comparatively small area of it is taken. The contract of lease usually
stipulates that a certain royalty shall be paid to the lessor for each
ton of coal mined, and it binds the lessee to mine not less than a
certain number of tons each year; or at least to pay royalties on not
less than a certain number of tons each year, whether that number is
or is not mined. Twenty years or more ago coal lands in the Wyoming
district could be leased at the rate of ten cents per ton. Lately a
large body of coal land was rented to the Lehigh Valley Coal Company
at forty-five cents per ton, and it is said that one proprietor at
Kingston has been offered a lease at fifty cents per ton, and has
refused it. Perhaps from twenty-five cents to thirty-five cents per ton
would be an average rate.

As an example of the immense purchases made by these companies, it may
be noted that the Philadelphia and Reading Company, in 1871, purchased
one hundred thousand acres of coal lands in the Schuylkill region, at
a cost of forty millions of dollars. And as an example of the amount
of business done in a year, it may be noted that the Delaware and
Hudson Canal Company paid in 1887 $5,019,147.16 for the single item of
mining coal, and that their coal sales for the same year amounted to
$10,100,118.69.

This concentration of coal lands and coal mining in the hands of great
corporations, aside from its tendency to stifle healthy competition,
is productive of many benefits. Coal can be mined much cheaper when
the mining is done on a large scale. This is the rule, indeed, in
all productive industries. An enterprise backed by the combined
capital of many individuals is more certain to become successful and
permanent than an enterprise inaugurated by, and carried on with,
the entire capital of a single individual. Especially is this the
rule in a business attended with as much risk as is the business of
coal mining. One person may put his entire fortune of two or three
hundred thousand dollars into a single colliery. A depression in
the coal trade, a strike among the miners, an explosion, or a fire
would be very apt to bring financial ruin on him. A company, with its
great resources and its elastic character, can meet and recover from
an adverse incident of this kind with scarcely a perceptible shock
to its business. It is simply one of the items of loss which it is
prepared to cover with a larger item of profit. There is also the
additional assurance that all work that is done will be well done. The
most careful observations and calculations are made of the amount and
quality of included coal in any tract of land before it is purchased,
and the best surveyors are employed to mark out the boundary lines of
lands. The services of the most skillful mining engineers are retained,
at salaries which no individual operator could afford to pay. Their
forces are well organized, their mining operations are conducted with
system and economy, and they are able to keep abreast of the age in
all inventions and appliances that insure greater facility in mining
and manufacturing, and greater safety to the workmen. Their employees
are paid promptly at stated periods, and the possibility of a workman
losing his wages by reason of neglect or failure on the part of his
employer is reduced to a minimum.

In general, it may be said that the control of the anthracite coal
business by the great corporations, rather than by individual operators,
is an undoubted benefit, not only to all the parties in direct interest,
but to commerce and society as a whole. The only danger to be feared is
from an abuse of the great powers to which these companies have
attained; a danger which, thus far, has not seriously menaced the
community.




CHAPTER VII.

THE WAY INTO THE MINES.


A wise coal operator never begins to open a mine for the purpose of
taking out coal until he knows the character of the bed and the quality
of the mineral. This knowledge can only be obtained by an exhaustive
search for, and a careful examination of, all surface indications,
and by drilling or boring holes down to and through the strata of
coal. This is called “prospecting.” The examiner in a new field will
first look for outcrops. He will follow up the valleys and inspect
the ledges and the banks of streams. If he be so fortunate as to find
an exposure of the coal seams, or of any one of them, he will measure
its thickness, will calculate its dip and strike, and will follow its
outcrop. He will also study and make careful note of the rock strata
with which it is associated, for by this means he may be able to
determine the probability of other seams lying above or below it. This
examination of the rock strata he will make, whether coal is visible
or not visible. It will be of much service to him. For instance, it is
known that the great Baltimore vein in the Wyoming valley is usually
overlaid by a coarse red sandstone. If the examiner finds rock of this
character in that section, he has good reason to hope that coal lies
beneath it. Under the lowest coal seam of the anthracite beds there
is found, as a rule, a rock known as the conglomerate. If, therefore,
the explorer finds an outcrop of conglomerate, he will know that, as
a rule, he need not look for coal beyond it. This rock, coming to the
surface on the westerly side of the Moosic range of mountains, marks
the limit of the Lackawanna coal field toward the east. No one, having
once studied the conglomerate rock, could mistake it for any other,
though its composition is very simple. It is nothing more than white,
water-worn quartz pebbles, held together by a firm, lead-colored
cement. But it is a rock of unusual hardness and durability. It is
proof against the erosive action of water, grows harder by exposure
to the air, and has a consistency that approximates to that of iron.
In the coal districts it is used largely for building purposes, where
heavy walls and foundations are required. Experience has taught that
there are no coal seams below the conglomerate, so that wherever this
is found as a surface rock, or wherever it is pierced by the drill,
it is usually unnecessary to explore below it. If no coal outcrop is
found, the bed of a stream is searched for fragments of the mineral,
and, if any are discovered, they are traced to their source. Coal is
sometimes exposed where a tree has been uprooted by the wind, and
pieces of it have been found in the soil thrown out at a groundhog’s
burrow.

Wagon roads crossing the country may be scanned for traces of the
“smut” or “blossom.” This is the decomposed outcrop, which has become
mingled with the soil, and may be more readily distinguished in the
bed of a traveled road than elsewhere. Other surface indications
failing, the topographical features of this section of country should
be studied. Wherever the coal seams come to the surface, being softer
than the rock strata above and below them, they are disintegrated and
eroded more rapidly by the action of the atmosphere and the elements.
This wearing away of the exposed coal leaves the surface outline in
the form of a bench or terrace, which follows the line of the outcrop.
And this form is retained even with a thick deposit of soil over the
edges of the strata. Small shafts may be sunk or tunnels driven through
this thickness of earth, and the outcrop explored in this way. This
process of examination is of more value in the bituminous than in the
anthracite regions, since the bituminous coal, being soft, is more
rapidly eroded, and the terrace formation resulting from such erosion
is more distinct and certain. In these days, in the anthracite coal
fields, there is hardly an area of any great extent in which mines have
not been actually opened. These mines, therefore, in the facilities
they afford for studying exposed strata and developed coal seams,
offer the best means of acquiring knowledge concerning the coal beds
of adjoining tracts. In a country where no surface indications of coal
are found over a large area, it is hardly worth while to explore for it
by boring. In the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania the limits of the
coal beds are now so accurately defined that it is seldom necessary to
bore for the purpose of testing the presence of coal. But it is always
advisable, before opening a mine in a new field, to test the depth,
dip, and quality of the coal and the character of the seams by sinking
one or more bore holes. Surface measurements of a seam are, at best,
very uncertain, as indications of its continuing character. The angle
of dip may change radically before a depth of one hundred feet shall be
reached. And coal undergoes so great deterioration by long exposure to
the atmosphere that, in order to judge the quality of a coal bed, it is
necessary to have a specimen fragment from it that has been hidden away
in the rocks. Hence the necessity of boring.

Hand drills were generally used in the early days of prospecting, and
a sand pump drew out the sludge or borings for examination. This was
superseded by the spring pole method, which in turn gave way to the
rope method in use in the oil regions, the borings in each case being
carefully preserved for inspection. The diamond drill is the one now
in common use in the coal regions. Its cutting end is in the form of a
circle set with black, amorphous diamonds. It cuts an annular groove in
the rock as it descends, forming a core, which is withdrawn with the
drill, and which may be examined in vertical section. The sludge is
washed out by a stream of water which passes down through the centre of
the drill rod, and is forced back to the surface between the rod and
the face of the bore hole. The invention of this rotary cutting drill
is due to Leschot of Geneva, and the method of flushing the hole to
Flauvelle.

After having obtained all possible information concerning his coal
property, and, if he be wise, embodying it in the form of maps, the
coal operator must decide where he shall make an opening for mining
purposes, and what kind of an opening he shall make. The answers to
these two questions are, to a certain extent, dependent on each other,
as certain kinds of openings must be located at certain places. When
coal was first gathered for experiment or observation, it was taken
up loosely from the ground, where it had fallen or been broken down
from the outcrop of some seam. As it came into demand for practical
purposes, it was quarried from this outcrop backward and downward, as
stones for building purposes are now quarried, the seam being uncovered
as the work proceeded. This process was followed along the line of the
outcrop, but excavations were not made to any considerable depth, owing
to the great expense of uncovering the coal.

The open quarry system of mining coal has been successfully practiced
in America in but a few places. One of these was the great Summit
Hill open mine, near Mauch Chunk, where the Lehigh coal was first
discovered. Here, on a hill-top, was a horizontal coal bed, some
sixty acres in extent, and varying in thickness from fifteen to fifty
feet. Over this was a covering of rock, slate, and earth from three
to fifteen feet in thickness. This bed was mined by simply removing
the covering and taking the coal out as from a quarry. Other examples
of this method are seen at Hollywood Colliery, and at Hazleton No. 6
Colliery, both near Hazleton, in Luzerne County. There are isolated
instances of this method of stripping elsewhere in the anthracite
regions, but as a rule the conditions are not favorable for it.
Ordinarily there are four methods of making an entrance into a mine
for the purpose of taking out coal. These are known as the drift, the
tunnel, the slope, and the shaft.

To the early miners the drift was the favorite mode of entry. Finding
an exposed seam of coal in the face of a ledge or cliff, they would
dig in on it and bring the coal out from the opening in wheelbarrows.
A place was selected, if possible, where a creek or river ran at
the base of the ledge, and the coal was dumped from the wheelbarrow
directly into a boat. In default of a water way a wagon road was built
at the foot of the hill or cliff, a platform extended out over it, and
the coal was thus loaded from the wheelbarrow into the wagon.

[Illustration: CROSS SECTION OF DRIFT OR GANGWAY WITH TIMBERS AND
LAGGING.]

The modern drift, though fashioned on an improved plan, is the simplest
and least expensive way of making an entrance into a coal mine. The
outline of the proposed opening is first marked out on the edge of the
exposed coal seam. From fifteen to eighteen feet is an ordinary width
to accommodate two tracks, and ten feet will readily accommodate one.
Seven feet is an average height, though, if the seam be comparatively
flat, the coal will be taken down until the rock is reached, even
though a greater height should be attained. With this width and height
the opening is cut into the hill through the coal seam. The floor of
the drift must have a constant upward grade as it progresses inward, in
order that the water may run out, and that loaded cars may be hauled
more easily. The mouth of the drift must be above the level of the
adjacent valley or stream, so that the water may be carried away, and
the drift is therefore what is known as a water-level opening. It is
usually necessary to support the roof and sides of the drift by timbers
joined together in the form of a bent, and placed more or less closely
to each other. These timbers are also sometimes lined by sticks placed
behind and over them horizontally, and known as “lagging.” It will be
seen that the conditions under which the opening by drift may be made
place a serious limitation on the use of this method. It will also
now be seen why the drift is the simplest and most economical mode of
making an entrance to a mine. In this method there is no expense for
removing earth or for cutting through rock, nor any cost at any time of
pumping water or of hoisting coal. When the fact is remembered that it
sometimes costs from $50,000 to $100,000 to sink a deep shaft through
hard rock, and that to this amount must be added the cost of buildings,
machinery, and repairs, and the perpetual cost of pumping water and of
hoisting coal, the economy of the drift method will be appreciated. But
the day of drift mining in the anthracite regions has gone by. Those
portions of the coal beds lying above water level have been largely
mined out, and the areas of coal that are now accessible by drift are
very limited. In the bituminous districts, however, where the seams lie
comparatively flat and the coal is mostly above water level, the method
by drift is still almost universally used.

Next to a drift, the tunnel is the simplest and most economical method,
under certain circumstances, of making an entrance into a mine. This
is a passage driven across the measures, and at right angles to the
seam, in order to reach coal which at the point of opening is not
exposed. The tunnel is usually driven into the side of a hill. The
earth is first dug away until the rock is exposed, or, if the soil be
too deep for that, only enough of it is taken to make a vertical face
for the mouth of the tunnel. The opening is then driven into the hill
at about the same width and height that a drift would be made, and in
practically the same manner. If there is a section of earth tunneling
at the mouth, the timbering must be close, and the lagging will be of
heavy planks. When the solid rock is reached, however, it is not often
that any timbering is necessary, the sides and roof being so hard and
firm as not to need support. This passage is driven against the face
of a coal seam, and when the coal is finally reached the tunnel proper
ends, a passage is opened to the right and one to the left along the
strike of the seam, and from these gangways the coal is mined. The
tunnel, like the drift, must be above water level, and its floor must
have a descending grade toward the mouth, to carry off water. The
expense of the tunnel, and its superiority to the slope or shaft, will
depend upon the distance through which the rock must be pierced before
coal is reached. It is especially advisable, therefore, before opening
a tunnel, to have an accurate map of the location and dip of the coal
seams to be struck by it, otherwise no approximate calculation can be
made of the extent or cost of the work.

In the anthracite districts, where the seams are sharply pitching,
tunnels are driven in the interior of a mine from the workings of
a seam already opened across the intervening measures to strike an
adjacent seam. In this way two, three, or more coal seams can be
worked, and the coal can all be brought out at one surface opening.
This is virtually the only kind of tunneling that is now done in the
anthracite regions; for, as has already been explained, the coal that
lay above water level and was thus accessible by tunnel has now been
mostly mined out.

If there is an outcrop of coal on the tract to be mined, and the dip
of the seam is more than twenty degrees, it is usually advisable to
enter the mine by means of a slope. This is a passage which, beginning
at the outcrop, follows the coal seam down until the necessary depth
is reached. It is driven in the coal. The distinction between the
drift and the slope is that the drift is driven from the surface on
the strike of the seam while the slope is driven on its dip. Where
the coal seam comes within a moderate distance of the surface, as at
an anticlinal ridge, a slope may be driven through the rock until the
coal is reached at the axis, and from that point follow the seam down.
Sometimes a shaft is sunk to the top of an anticlinal ridge, and from
its foot two slopes are driven, one down each side of the roll, in
opposite directions. If the seam is very irregular, or if it is much
broken by faults, there may be a great deal of rock cutting to be done
in order to preserve the uniformity of grade necessary for the slope.
The cost may, indeed, in this case, amount to more than would have been
sufficient to sink a shaft to the same depth, although, as a rule, the
entrance by slope should cost only about one fourth of that by shaft.

[Illustration: CROSS SECTION OF SLOPE WITH DOUBLE TRACK.]

The same methods are employed in sinking a slope as are used in driving
a drift, except that generally the timbering need not be so heavy. The
minimum height of the slope is about 6½ feet, the width at the top, or
collar, about 8 feet, and the width at the bottom, or spread, about 12
feet. If a double track is desired the spread should be 18 feet and
the collar 14 feet. In the Wyoming region, where the dip is usually
less than twenty degrees, with infrequent outcrops, the slope is not in
general use; but in the Southern coal field, where the dip varies from
twenty degrees to the vertical, the slope is the most common method of
entering a mine. There the opening is driven down for a distance of 300
feet, at which point gangways are started out to right and left, along
the strike, and chambers driven from them back toward the surface. This
is called the first lift. The slope is then continued downward for
another distance of 300 feet, new gangways and chambers are laid off,
and this is called the second lift. This process is continued until the
synclinal basin is reached.

Where the dip of the slope is less than thirty degrees the coal is
brought to the surface in the car into which it was first loaded in the
mine. At a greater angle than this the ordinary mine car is superseded
by a car or carriage especially adapted to carrying coal up a steep
incline.

Where there is no outcrop in the tract to be mined, and the coal
lies below water level, the best mode of making an entrance to it is
by shaft. In the Wyoming region, since the upper veins have been so
generally mined out, nearly all the openings are by shaft. The location
of the shaft at the surface should be such that when it is completed
its foot shall be at the bottom, or nearly at the bottom, of the
synclinal valley into which it is sunk. As will be more readily seen
hereafter, this is necessary in order to carry the water of the mine
to the foot of the shaft, to facilitate the transportation of coal
under ground, and to get room to open up the greatest possible working
area. The depth to which a shaft must be sunk depends on the seam to
be reached, and on the district in which it is located. At Carbondale,
in the northeasterly extremity of the Wyoming basin, the average depth
to the conglomerate or bed of the lowest coal seam is 250 feet. From
Scranton to Pittston it is from 500 to 600 feet. At Wilkes Barre it is
1,200 feet. It reaches its greatest average depth a mile northeast of
Nanticoke, where it is from 1,500 to 1,600 feet.

This will be the limit of depth for shafts in the Wyoming region. At
present the average depth is from 300 to 400 feet, and there are few
that are more than 800 feet deep. The red-ash vein to which most of
the shafts are now being sunk is, at Pittston in the middle of the
general basin, from 450 to 650 feet below the surface. In the southern
anthracite region the average depth of shafts is somewhat greater, the
maximum depth being reached in the vicinity of Pottsville, where the
Pottsville deep shafts are about 1,600 feet in depth.

In beginning to open a shaft a rectangular space is staked out on the
ground from four to eight feet wider and longer than the proposed
dimensions of the shaft; and the soil and loose stones are thrown out
from this larger area until bed rock is reached, which is usually done,
except in the river bottom lands, within a depth of twenty feet.

From this rock as a foundation a cribbing of solid timber, twelve
inches square, is built up to the surface on the four sides of the
opening to prevent the earth from caving in. Sometimes heavy walls of
masonry are built up instead of the timber cribbing, and though the
original cost is greater, the purpose is far better answered by the
stone curbing. When this has been completed, sinking through the rock
goes on by the ordinary process of blasting, plumb lines being hung at
the corners of the shaft to keep the opening vertical.

An act of the Pennsylvania legislature, approved June 30, 1885,
regulates the conduct of coal mining in the State so far as the safety
of persons employed in and about the mines is concerned. Former acts
are consolidated and revised in this, and new provisions are added.
By virtue of this act both the anthracite and bituminous coal fields
are divided into districts, each of which is placed in charge of
an inspector, whose duty it is to see that the provisions of the
law are carried out, and to make annual report to the Secretary of
Internal Affairs of such facts and statistics as the law requires
to be made. As there will be frequent occasion hereafter to refer
to various provisions of this act of assembly, it will be mentioned
simply as the act of 1885. The matter is brought up here in order
that the rules relating to the sinking of shafts, as laid down in the
act, may be referred to. These rules provide the manner in which the
necessary structures at the mouth of the opening shall be erected, what
precautions shall be taken to prevent material from falling into the
pit, how the ascent and descent shall be made, that all blasts during
the process of sinking shall be exploded by an electric battery, etc.
All these rules have but one object, the safety of the workmen.

The horizontal dimensions of the modern shaft average about twelve feet
in width by thirty feet in length. This space is divided crosswise,
down the entire depth of the shaft, into compartments of which there
are usually four. The first of these compartments is the pump way, a
space devoted to the pipes, pump-rod, and other appliances connected
with the pumping system. To this six feet in breadth is allowed. Then
come, in succession, the two carriage ways, each of which may be seven
feet wide, and, finally, the air passage through which the foul air is
exhausted from the mine, and to which ten feet is appropriated. The
partitions between these compartments are made of oak sticks six inches
square, called buntons. The ends of the buntons are let into the rock
sides of the shaft, and they are placed horizontally at a vertical
distance from each other of about four feet. These bunton partitions
are then closely boarded down the entire distance. The partition
between the hoisting compartment and the airway is not only boarded up,
but the boards are matched and are rabbeted together. It is necessary
to make as nearly air-tight as possible this way for the passage of
air, and where the edges of the boarding meet the rock sides of the
shaft the irregularities are carefully filled in with brick and mortar.

Fastened to the buntons at each side of each hoisting compartment
are continuous strips of hard wood, from four to six inches square,
reaching from the top of the shaft to its bottom. These are the
“guides.” To each side of the carriage, which raises and lowers men and
materials, is fastened an iron shoe, shaped like a small rectangular
box without top or ends. This shoe fits loosely on to the guide,
slides up and down it, and serves to keep the carriage steady while
it is ascending or descending. This invention is due to John Curr of
Sheffield, England, who introduced it as early as 1798. The ordinary
carriage consists of a wooden platform with vertical posts at the
middle of the sides united by a cross-beam at the top, and all solidly
built and thoroughly braced. The posts are just inside of the guides
when the carriage is in place, and are kept parallel to them by the
shoes already mentioned. To the middle of the cross-beam is attached
the end of a wire cable, from which the carriage is suspended, and by
which it is raised and lowered. On the floor of the platform, which
is planked over, a track is built uniform with the track at the foot
and head of the shaft, and continuous with it when the carriage is at
rest at either place. The mine car is pushed on to the platform of the
carriage and fastened there by a device which clings to the axle or
blocks the wheels.

[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION AT FOOT OF SHAFT, WITH ASCENDING
CARRIAGE.]

At the mouth of the shaft and projecting into it are the “wings,”
“keeps,” or “cage rests,” which are pressed against the sides of the
shaft by the ascending carriage, but spring back into place underneath
it and support it while it is at rest. When the carriage is ready to
descend the wings are withdrawn by hand levers.

The safety carriage is now in general use in at least one hoisting
compartment of every shaft. This carriage is built of wrought iron
instead of wood; it has a bonnet or roof as a protection against
objects falling down the shaft, and it has safety clutches or dogs to
stop the carriage and hold it in place in case of accident by breaking
ropes or machinery. Operators are required by the act of 1885 to
provide safety carriages for the use of their employees, and also to
keep movable gates or covers at the mouth of each shaft to prevent
persons and materials from falling into the opening.

Where mining is done by shaft there is seldom any other way provided
for the passage of workmen in and out than the way by the carriage.
A small shaft for the admission of air is sometimes driven down to
the highest part of the seam, and ladders are placed in the opening
on which men may climb up and down, but these ladders are seldom used
save in an emergency. It is made obligatory upon operators, by the act
of 1885, to provide two openings to every seam of coal that is being
worked; these openings to be at least sixty feet apart underground,
and one hundred and fifty feet apart at the surface. The object of this
rule is to provide a way of escape for workmen in case of accident to
the main outlet.

It is seldom necessary, however, in these days, to sink a separate shaft
in order to comply with this provision of the law; the underground
workings of the mines having such extensive connections that often not
only two but many openings are accessible from each seam.

As to the comparative cost of the different methods of entry, the drift
is of course the cheapest. In this method the very first blow of the
pick brings down a fragment of coal that may be sent to market and
sold. For this reason the sinking of a slope is less expensive than
tunneling or shafting, because the excavation is made in the coal. It
may be said to cost from twenty-five to fifty dollars per linear yard
to sink an ordinary double track slope, from fifty to seventy-five
dollars per linear yard to drive a tunnel of average cross-section to
accommodate two tracks, and from three hundred to five hundred dollars
per linear yard to sink a shaft with four compartments. Of course
circumstances, especially the character of strata, may greatly increase
or lessen these limits of cost. Indeed, it has happened that a shaft in
process of sinking, which had already cost many thousands of dollars,
has been necessarily abandoned because an intractable bed of quicksand
has been encountered.

The experienced coal operator, knowing the advantages and disadvantages
of each of these methods of entering a mine, and the adaptability of
each to his particular coal bed, will find no difficulty in making a
selection from them. Indeed, there may be, and usually is, practically,
no choice. The selection of a site for the opening is ordinarily
attended with but little more freedom of choice. The outcrop, if there
be one, the topography of the surface, the outline of the coal seam,
the accessibility of the spot, the location of the breaker, all govern
in the selection of the site, and usually all point to the one most
available spot.




CHAPTER VIII.

A PLAN OF A COAL MINE.


The progress that has been made in the science of mining coal within
the last half century bears favorable comparison with the progress
that has been made in the other industrial sciences. To-day the ripest
experience and the best engineering skill in the land are brought
to bear upon the problems connected with coal mining. In comparison
with the marked ability employed and the marked success attained in
the mining enterprises of to-day, the efforts of the early miners are
almost amusing. The pick and the wedge were the chief instruments used
in getting out coal. Powder was not thought to be available until John
Flanigan, a miner for Abijah Smith, introduced it into the mines in
1818. It is said that when openings were first made for coal in the
vicinity of Pottsville shallow shafts were sunk, and the coal was
hoisted in a large vessel by means of a common windlass. As soon as the
water became troublesome, which was usually as soon as the shaft had
reached a depth of twenty or thirty feet, this opening was abandoned, a
new shaft sunk, and the process repeated.

The mine operator of to-day, having decided upon the shaft as the best
method of entry into his mine, sinks it to the bottom of the coal
bed, so that its longest dimension shall be with the dip of the seam.
Then from each side of the shaft, and at right angles to it, he cuts
a passage out through the coal with a width of from ten to fourteen
feet. These are the beginnings of the “gangways.” Then from each end
of the rectangular foot of the shaft he cuts another passage, at right
angles to the first one, about six or eight feet wide, and extending
to a distance of from fifteen to thirty feet. These are the first
“cross-headings.” At the extremities of the cross-headings passages are
now driven parallel to the gangways. These last passages are called
“airways.” When the gangways and airways have reached a distance of
from sixty to one hundred feet from the foot of the shaft they are
united by new cross-headings.

It is now apparent that two pillars of coal, each from fifteen to
thirty feet wide and from sixty to one hundred feet long are left on
each side of the shaft. Larger pillars than these may be left if the
roof about the shaft should need more support. It is also apparent,
the coal seam being inclined, that the level of one of the airways is
higher than the level of the gangway, and the level of the other airway
is lower.

It will be remembered that the design was to sink the shaft so that its
foot should be nearly to the bottom of the synclinal valley or basin.
If this has been done, then it is possible that the passage below the
foot of the shaft parallel to the gangway actually runs along the
synclinal axis. But if the bottom of the valley is still lower, the
cross-headings will be driven farther down and a new parallel passage
made, and, if necessary, still another. These openings now slope from
the foot of the shaft downward, and in them is collected not only the
water that may fall from the shaft, but, as the work advances, all the
water that comes from all parts of the mine. This basin which is thus
made to receive the mine water is called the “sump,” and from it the
water is pumped up through the shaft and discharged at the surface.
If the mine happens to be a very wet one it will require the constant
labor of the most powerful pumping engine to keep the level of the
water in the sump lower than the foot of the shaft. In some cases, in
older workings, a section of the mine which has been worked out and
abandoned is used for a sump, and then the water may cover an area many
acres in extent. When a shaft has been newly sunk, the openings for
the sump are the only ones that are made below the level of the foot
of the shaft or below the level of the gangway. Henceforth all the
workings will be made on the upper side of the gangway, extending up
the slope of the seam, until such time as it may be deemed advisable to
sink an inside slope to open a new set of workings on a lower level.
The main gangway on one side of the shaft and the airway above it are
now carried along simultaneously, and parallel with each other, and
are united at distances of from forty to sixty feet by cross-headings.
As soon as the last cross-heading is opened the one which immediately
preceded it is walled up as tightly as possible. This is to insure
ventilation. A current of air comes down the hoisting-way of the shaft,
passes into the gangway and along it to the last cross-heading, where
it crosses up into the airway and traverses the airway back to the
cross-heading that was driven up from the upper end of the foot of the
shaft. Passing down this cross-heading it comes to the air compartment
of the shaft, and is drawn out to the surface by a powerful fan. This
is the ventilating system of the mine in its simplest form. It is
apparent that if any of the cross-headings nearer to the shaft than the
last one should be left open, the air current would take a short course
through it up to the airway, and so back to the shaft, without going to
the extremity of the gangway at all. This gangway is the main artery of
the mine; it is the highway by which all the empty cars go in to the
working faces, and by which all the loaded cars come out to the foot
of the shaft; it is the general watercourse by which the entire mine
above it is drained, and by which the water is carried to the sump. In
comparatively flat seams its height is the height of the slate or rock
roof of the coal bed, but in steep pitching seams it is made seven or
eight feet high with a roof wholly or partly of coal. In some cases
the roof and sides are so firm that no timbering is required, and in
other cases the timbering must be close and heavy in order to give
the necessary support and security. The floor of the gangway must be
given a constantly ascending grade, usually from six inches to one foot
in every hundred feet, as it is driven inward. This is to facilitate
drainage and the movement of loaded cars.

Where the strata are horizontal, or nearly so, as in many of the
bituminous mines, the gangway may, and usually does, take a perfectly
straight course. This is also true where the line of strike has but a
single direction, no matter how steep the pitch of the seam may be. But
both of these conditions are so rare in the anthracite regions that
one seldom finds a gangway driven for any considerable distance in
one direction. The surface of an inclined coal seam is not dissimilar
to the surface of one side of a range of small hills. Any one who has
seen a railroad track winding in and out along such a range, keeping
to the surface of the ground and preserving a uniformity of grade, can
understand why, for the same reasons, the gangway must often change
direction in following the seam of coal. It must curve in around the
valleys and hollows that indent the seam in the same manner that a
surface railroad curves in around the depression where some hillside
brook runs down to meet the stream, the course of which the railroad
tries to follow; and it must strike out around the projections of the
seam in the same way in which a surface railroad bends out around the
projecting spurs of the hill range along which it runs. But the coal
seam is more irregular and more uncertain in its outline than the
hillside, and the curves in it are sharper and more varied. The surface
railroad too may shorten its route and relieve its curves by bridging
its small valleys and cutting through its narrow ridges. For the
gangway this cannot be done. As a rule the coal seam must be followed,
no matter where it leads. And it often leads in strange courses,――in
courses that at times curve back on themselves like a horseshoe and
point toward the foot of the shaft. The mining superintendent or
engineer never knows in advance just what tortuous course his main
artery may take. He cannot go over the ground and stake out his line
as a civil engineer does for a surface railway; he must build as he
advances, not knowing what the rock and coal may hide in the next
foot ahead of him. He must be prepared to encounter faults, fissures,
streams of water, diluvial deposits, and every other obstacle known to
mining engineers.

There are several systems of laying out a mine for actual working
after the gangway has been driven a sufficient distance. The one most
commonly in use in the anthracite region is known as the “pillar and
breast” system. In the bituminous mines it is called the “pillar and
room,” and in the mines of Great Britain the “bord and pillar.” It will
be borne in mind that the mine which is now being described is in the
Wyoming region, where the seams are comparatively flat, the entrance
usually by shaft, and the method of working is the pillar and breast
system. The gangway and airway are not driven far, not more than two
or three hundred feet, perhaps, before the openings are made for the
larger production of coal. Beginning on the upper side of the airway,
at such a distance from the shaft as will leave a reasonably large
sustaining pillar, perhaps from sixty to one hundred feet, an opening
is made and driven up the seam at right angles to the airway. This
opening is called a “chamber” or “breast.” In the bituminous districts
it is known as a “room.” The chamber is usually about twenty-four
feet wide, though where the roof is exceptionally good its width may
be increased to thirty-six feet. It is not often opened the full
width at the airway. Instead of this a narrow passage, large enough
to accommodate the mine car track, is driven up to a distance not
exceeding fifteen feet, and it is from this point that the chamber is
driven up at its full width. This narrow opening can be more easily
closed in case it is desired to prevent the passage of air through
it, and besides a greater proportion of coal is left in pillars along
the airway to prevent the passage from becoming blockaded by falls.
When the first chamber has been driven up a distance equal to its
width, a new chamber is begun parallel to it and on the side farthest
from the shaft. These two chambers are now separated by a wall of coal
from fourteen to twenty feet thick. If, however, the workings are
deep and there is danger from the weight of superincumbent strata,
the wall should be made as thick as the chamber is wide. When the new
chamber has been driven to a distance of twenty-five feet, or, if the
mine is free from gas and the ventilation is good, to a distance of
forty or sixty feet, the wall between the two chambers is pierced by
an opening from six to ten feet wide. This is called a cross-heading
or “entrance.” A partition is now built across the airway between the
openings to the two chambers, and the air current is thus forced up
into the last chamber, across through the entrance into the first, down
it to the airway again, and so in its regular course back to the foot
of the shaft. In the mean time progress has been made in the first
chamber, and by the time the second chamber has been driven another
distance of thirty or sixty feet, the entrance which will then be cut
through the wall will find the first chamber still in advance. The
inner extremity of the chamber is called the “face.” It is sometimes
spoken of also as the “breast,” though this last name is properly
that of the chamber as a whole. The wall of coal at the side of the
chamber is called the “rib.” A third chamber is now begun and driven up
parallel to the other two, then a fourth, a fifth, and so on; as many
chambers, indeed, as can be laid off in this way without deviating too
greatly from a right angle to the airway. But the face of the first
chamber is kept in advance of the face of the second, the face of the
second in advance of the face of the third, and so on, until the limit
of length is reached. This limit is determined, to some extent, by the
dip of the seam. In comparatively flat workings a set of chambers may
be driven in to a distance of five hundred, or even six hundred feet.
Where the pitch is steep, however, two hundred or three hundred feet is
the greatest length at which chambers can be economically worked. The
limit of length of chambers is sometimes determined also by an outcrop,
an anticlinal axis, a fault, or a boundary line. The wall of coal left
between any two chambers is divided by the entrances cut through it
into a line of pillars nearly uniform in size. As soon as the second
entrance from the airway is cut through the wall the first entrance is
blocked tightly up, and as soon as the third entrance is cut through
the second is closed, and so on to the extremity of the line of
pillars. This is to compel the air current to pass up to the very face
of the chamber before it can find a way across to the other chambers
and down again into the airway. If the air of the mine is bad, or if
the coal is giving off deleterious gases with rapidity, a “brattice” or
rude board partition is built from the lower side of the last entrance
diagonally up toward the face of the chamber to force the air to the
very point where men are working before it finds its way out through an
open entrance. These boards are sometimes replaced by a sheet of coarse
canvas, called brattice cloth, which is lighter, more easily handled,
and answers the same purpose.

[Illustration: A PLAN OF AN ANTHRACITE MINE WITH A SHAFT ENTRANCE.]

From the mine car track in the gangway a branch track is built,
crossing the airway and running up each chamber to its face. Up this
branch track a mule draws the empty car, and when it is loaded it is
let down to the gangway by the miner’s laborer. If the dip of the
chamber is too steep――more than ten degrees――for a mule to draw the
car up, a light car, used only in the chamber and called a “buggy,” is
pushed up by hand, and when the dip is too steep for this the coal is
pushed or allowed to slide down to the foot of the chamber. Chambers
are often driven up obliquely in order to reduce the grade, or are
curved in their course for the same reason.

When, on account of the steepness of pitch or a change in the direction
of the gangway, or for any other reason, one set of parallel chambers
is brought to a close, a new set is begun farther along with a
different course.

The direction in which a gangway, airway, or chamber is to be driven is
fixed by the mine boss. His bearings are obtained with a small miner’s
compass, and he marks on the roof, near the face of the opening, a
chalk line in the direction desired. The miner, sighting back on this
line, is thus able to take his course and to keep his opening straight.

Sets of chambers similar to those described are driven up from the
gangway along its entire length. This length may be limited by various
causes. A boundary line of property, a fault, a thinning out of the
coal seam, are some of them. They are usually driven, however, as far
as strict principles of economy will allow. A gangway that requires no
timbering and is easily kept in good working condition may be driven
to a distance of three or four miles. But where these conditions are
reversed, a mile may be as great a distance as coal can be hauled
through with economy. Beyond that limit it will be cheaper to sink
a new shaft or slope than to increase the distance for underground
haulage.

As the main gangway progresses inward it may separate into two
branches, each following a depression in the coal seam, and these
branches may separate into others; so that there may be a number of
gangways all keeping the same general level, from each of which sets
of chambers are driven. When the chambers tributary to a gangway
have reached their limit of length, and there is still an area of
coal above them to be mined, a new gangway is opened along the faces
of the chambers, or is driven just above them in the solid coal, and
from this, which is called a “counter-gangway,” new sets of chambers
are driven up the seam. It is often necessary to raise and lower cars
passing from one gangway to the other on an inclined plane, on which
the loaded cars, descending, and attached to one end of a rope, pull
up the light cars, ascending and attached to the other end, the rope
itself winding around a revolving drum at the head of the plane. This
system can be put into use on any incline where the gradient is one in
thirty, or steeper.

By this general system of gangways, counter-gangways, airways,
chambers, and planes, the area of coal lying on the upper side of the
main gangway and on both sides of the shaft is mined out, hauled by
mules to the foot of the shaft, and raised to the surface. On long
straight gangways the mule is sometimes replaced by a small mine
locomotive, and in these later days the electric engine has been
introduced into the mines as a hauling agent.

So far, however, in this mine which we are supposed to be working, not
a tap of a drill nor a blow of a pick has been made into the coal on
the lower side of the gangway save where the sump was excavated at the
foot of the shaft. If this shaft has been sunk nearly to the bottom
of the basin or synclinal axis, a short tunnel may be driven from the
main gangway through the rock or upper bench of coal across the valley
to the rise of the seam on the other side. A new gangway may here be
driven right and left, and this area of coal be made tributary to the
shaft already sunk. It often happens that a large body of coal lies
between the main gangway and the synclinal axis, for these two lines
may diverge greatly as they recede from the shaft. But chambers cannot
be driven down from the main gangway owing to the difficulties of
transportation and drainage. It therefore becomes necessary, in order
to work this area, to sink a slope from the main gangway down to or
toward the synclinal axis, and from the foot of this slope to drive a
new gangway. From this new gangway chambers will be opened extending up
the seam to the line of the main gangway, but not generally breaking
through into it. The coal is run down to the lower level gangway,
hauled to the foot of the slope, and hoisted up it to the main gangway.
It is apparent, however, that the inclined plane system cannot work
here; the conditions are reversed; the loaded cars are drawn up and
the light ones are let down. To do this work it is necessary to bring
into use a small steam stationary engine, or one working by compressed
air. A common method is to locate the steam engine on the surface
vertically above the head of the underground slope, and to carry power
to the sheaves below by wire ropes running down through bore holes
drilled for that purpose.

The system of slope mining by lifts, which is in common use in the
Middle and Southern anthracite districts, has been explained in a
preceding chapter. In this system the sump is always made by extending
the slope a short distance below the level of the gangway. This gangway
is driven from the foot of the slope to the right and left in the same
manner as in the Wyoming region, except that, the seam being so greatly
inclined, the gangway roof, or a part of it at least, will usually be
of coal instead of slate or rock, and in very steep pitching seams the
airway will be almost vertically above the gangway. The gangway is not
usually so crooked as where the workings are flat, and having been
started only three hundred feet down the slope from the surface, it
often follows the coal to some low point on the line of outcrop, and is
then known as a water level gangway, which is practically the same as a
drift.

The system of opening and working breasts differs somewhat from that
in use in the Northern field. Beginning at such a distance from the
foot of the slope as will leave a good thick slope pillar for its
protection, a narrow shute is driven up from the gangway into the coal
to a distance of perhaps thirty feet, at a height of six feet, and
with a width of from six to nine feet. It is then opened out to its
full width as a breast and continued up the seam toward the outcrop,
not often breaking through to daylight unless an airway or manway is
to be made. Parallel breasts are then laid off and worked out by the
usual pillar and breast system. If the dip is less than twelve or
fifteen degrees, the coal may be run down from the working face in a
buggy, dumped on to a platform or into the shute, and loaded thence
into a mine car standing on the gangway. If the dip is more than
fifteen degrees the pieces of coal will slide down the breast to the
shute, though if it is under twenty-five or thirty degrees the floor of
the breast should be laid with sheet iron to lessen the friction and
give greater facility in movement. In a steep-pitching breast a plank
partition is built across the shute just above the gangway, to hold
back the coal until it is desired to load a car with it. This partition
is called a “battery,” or, if there is a similar partition to hold the
coal in the breast, a “check battery.” In this partition there is an
opening through which the coal may be drawn when desired, and through
which the men may also go to their work, though a separate manway is
often provided. In these steep-pitching breasts the miner works by
standing on the coal which he has already mined, and which is held back
by the battery, in order to reach the uncut coal above him. There are
various systems of shutes, batteries, man ways, etc., in use, but
all are based on the same principles.

[Illustration: GROUND PLAN AND LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF CHAMBER.]

When the gangway of the first lift has reached its limit in both
directions, and the breasts from it have been worked up to their limit,
the slope is sunk to another distance of three hundred feet, and the
process is repeated. From the gangway of the second lift the breasts
are not extended up far enough to break through into the gangway
above; a wall of coal is left between that gangway and the faces of
the breasts, from fifteen to forty feet in thickness, known as the
“chain-pillar.” This is for the protection of the upper gangway against
falls and crushes, and is also necessary to hold back water from
escaping into the lower level. These lifts will continue, at distances
of about three hundred feet apart, until the synclinal valley is
reached.

When the method of opening the mine by a shaft is employed in these
steep-pitching seams, the shaft is sunk to the lowest level, and the
successive sets of gangways and breasts are laid off as the work
progresses upwards; that is, the slope method of extending the lifts
downwards is simply reversed.

The method of mining by tunnel and drift, and by slope in the flat
workings, is not different from the method already described for
shafts. So soon as the drift, tunnel, or slope has extended far enough
into the coal seam it becomes a gangway, chambers are laid off from
it, and mining goes on in the familiar mode.

Various modifications of the pillar and breast system are employed in
the anthracite coal mines, but no system is in use which is radically
different.

In the “long wall system,” common in Great Britain, and used to some
extent in the bituminous mines of Pennsylvania and the Western States,
the process of cutting coal is carried on simultaneously along an
extended face. The roof is allowed to fall, back of the workers, roads
being preserved to the gangway, and the roof at the face is temporarily
supported by an abundance of wooden props.

The descriptions of underground workings that have now been given have,
of necessity, been very general in their character. It is impossible,
in a limited space, to describe the various methods and modifications
of methods which are in use. No two mines, even in the same district,
are worked exactly alike. Sometimes they differ widely in plan and
operation. That system must be employed in each one which will best
meet its peculiar requirements. There is large scope here for the play
of inventive genius. There is scarcely a mine of any importance in
the entire coal region in which one cannot find some new contrivance,
some ingenious scheme, some masterpiece of invention devised to meet
some special emergency which may have arisen for the first time in
the history of mining. Yet the general features of all coal mining
methods must of necessity be the same in underground workings. No one
reasonably familiar with them could ever mistake a map of a coal mine
for a map of anything else under the sun.




CHAPTER IX.

THE MINER AT WORK.


The number of persons employed in a single mine in the anthracite
regions varies from a dozen in the newest and smallest mines to seven
hundred or eight hundred in the largest and busiest. The average would
probably be between two hundred and three hundred. In the bituminous
districts the average is not so large.

First among those who go down into the mine is the mine boss, or, as
he is sometimes called, the “inside boss.” It is his duty “to direct
and generally supervise the whole working of the mine.” All the workmen
are under his control, and everything is done in obedience to his
orders. He reports to, and receives instructions from, the general
superintendent of the mines.

Next in authority is the fire boss. It is his duty to examine, every
morning before the men come to their work, every place in the mine
where explosive gas is evolved or likely to be evolved, and to give
the necessary instructions to the workmen regarding the same. He also
has general oversight of the ventilating system, and sees that all
stoppings, doors, brattices, and airways are kept in proper condition.
The driver boss has charge of the driver boys and door boys, and sees
that the mules are properly cared for and are not abused. Each driver
boy has charge of a mule, and the mule draws the empty cars in along
the gangway and up to the faces of the chambers, and draws the loaded
cars out to the foot of the shaft. The door boy must stay at his post
all day and open and close the door for the cars to pass in and out.
The use and necessity of these doors will be explained in a subsequent
chapter. Then there are the footmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons,
and tracklayers, whose occupations in the mines are apparent from the
names which indicate their several callings.

Finally we have the miners and the miners’ laborers, and it now becomes
a matter of especial interest to inquire into the character of their
work and their manner of performing it. To drive a gangway or airway
is much the same as driving a chamber, except that the gangway is
only about one third the width of a chamber, and must be driven on a
slightly ascending grade. Gangway driving is special work, for which
the miner receives special wages, it being impossible in this work to
send out as much coal with the same amount of labor as can be sent out
in chamber work. And since the great bulk of coal is taken from the
chambers, it will be better to observe in one of them the processes of
mining.

There are usually four workmen, two miners and two laborers, employed
in each chamber. The miners are employed by, or are under contract
with, the coal company, and the laborers are employed by the miners,
subject to the approval of the mining superintendent. The two miners
divide their profits or wages equally with each other, and are called
“butties.” A miner’s butty is the man who works the chamber with him on
halves. A laborer’s butty is the man who is associated with him in the
employ of the same miners. Between the miner and the laborer there is
a well-defined and strictly observed line of social demarcation. The
miner belongs to the aristocracy of underground workers; the laborer
is of a lower order, whose great ambition it is to be elevated, at an
early day, to that height on which his employer stands.

Now as to the work done by these four men. Before the chamber has
progressed a pillar’s length above the airway, propping will usually
be necessary to sustain the roof, so large an area of which has been
left without support. Hardwood props about nine inches in diameter
are used for the purpose. They are purchased by the mining companies
in large quantities, and are usually cut and hauled to the railroad
in the winter time to be shipped at any season to the mines. By the
law of 1885 the person or company operating a mine is obliged to
furnish to the miner, at the face of his chamber, as many props of the
required length as he may need. Having received the props the miner
himself sets them on each side of the middle line of the chamber at
such points as he thinks require them, or at such points as the mine
boss designates. He drives the prop to its place by means of a large
flat wedge inserted between the top of it and the roof, thus making
the stick tight and firm and also giving it a larger bearing against
the roof. Some chambers require very few props; others must be well
lined with them. Their necessity depends upon the character of the
roof. If it is soft, slaty, and loose it must be supported at frequent
intervals. It very rarely occurs that a chamber, worked to its limit,
has needed no propping from its foot to its face. Usually a good part
of the miner’s time is occupied in setting props as his work at the
face advances.

Every seam has its top and bottom bench of coal, divided about midway
by a thin slate partition, and one bench is always taken out to a
horizontal depth of four or five feet before the other one is mined.
If the upper bench contains the best and cleanest coal, with the
smoothest plane of cleavage at the roof, that is first taken out; but
if the choice coal lies at the bottom, then the lower bench is first
mined. The reason for this is that a shot heavy enough to blast out
effectually the section of rough, bony, or slaty coal which sticks to
the roof or floor would be heavy enough to shatter the adjoining bench
of clean brittle coal, and make a large part of it so fine as to be
useless.

Let us now suppose that the miner has a clean, vertical wall of coal
at the face of his chamber in which to begin work. Making sure that
his tools and materials are all at hand, he first takes up his drill.
This is a round or hexagonal iron bar about one and an eighth inches in
diameter, and about five and a half feet long, tipped at the working
end with steel. This end is flattened out into a blade or chisel,
having a slight concave curve on its edge, and being somewhat wider at
its extremity than the diameter of the bar. At the other end of the
drill the diameter is increased to one and a half inches, forming a
circular ridge at the extremity of the bar, in one side of which ridge
a semicircular notch is cut into the face of the drill. The use of this
notch will be subsequently explained. This, then, is the tool with
which the miner begins his work. Selecting the bench to be first mined
he chooses a point a few feet to the right or left of the middle line
of the face and delivers upon it the first stroke with the sharp edge
of his drill; and as he strikes successive blows he rotates the drill
in his hands in order to make the hole round. The drill is never struck
on the head with sledges. Its cutting force depends on the momentum
given to it in the hands of the miner, and the stroke made by it is a
jumping or elastic stroke.

Instead of the bar drill, which has been described, many of the miners
use a machine hand-drill for boring holes. This machine works upon the
same principle that the jackscrew does. It is operated by hand by means
of a crank, and an auger-like projection forces its way into the coal.
The work of turning the crank is more laborious than that of drilling
with the bar-drill, but the extra labor is much more than compensated
for by the greater speed at which boring is done. It is probably due
to the spirit of conservatism among miners that this machine is not
in general use by them. Coal-cutting machines, working by steam or
compressed air, are not used in the anthracite mines. The character of
the coal, the thickness of the seams, and the inclination of the strata
make their employment impracticable.

When the hole has been drilled to a depth of about four and a half
feet it is carefully cleaned out with a scraper. This is a light iron
rod with a handle on one end of it and a little spoon, turned up like
a mustard spoon, on the other end. Then the cartridge is inserted and
pushed in to the farther extremity of the hole. The cartridge is simply
a tube made of heavy manila paper formed over a cartridge stick, filled
with black powder, and folded at the ends. Dynamite and other high
explosives are not used, because they create too much waste. Ready-made
cartridges in jointed sections are largely used, but as a rule the
miner makes his own cartridge as he needs it.

The miner’s needle is an iron rod about five and one half feet in
length, with a handle at one end. It is about five eighths of an inch
in diameter at the handle end, and tapers to a point at the other end.
When the cartridge has been pushed in to the extreme end of the bore
hole, the needle is inserted also, the point of it piercing the outer
end of the cartridge. The needle is then allowed to rest on the bottom
or at the side of the drill hole while the miner gathers fine dirt from
the floor of the mine, dampens it slightly if it is dry, and pushes
it into the hole alongside. This dirt is then forced in against the
cartridge with the head of the drill. More dirt is put in and driven
home, and still more, until, by the time the hole is filled to its
outer extremity, the packing is hard and firm. This process is called
tamping. It can now be seen that the semicircular notch on the rim of
the blunt end of the drill is for the purpose of allowing the drill
to slip along over the needle, which still retains its position, and
at the same time to fill the diameter of the hole. The tamping being
finished the miner takes hold of the needle by the handle, turns it
once or twice gently in its bed, and then slowly withdraws it. A round,
smooth channel is thus left from the outside directly in to the powder
of the cartridge, and into this channel the squib is inserted. The
squib is simply an elongated fire-cracker. It has about the diameter
of a rye straw, is about four inches in length, and its covering
projects an inch or two at one end and is twisted up for a fuse. The
covering of the squib may indeed be of straw, sometimes it is of hempen
material, but more often, in these days, it is made of paper. It is
filled with powder and is then dipped into a resinous mixture to make
it water-proof, to coat over the open end so that the powder shall not
run out, and to make the wick at the other end mildly inflammable. If
the bore hole should be very wet an iron or copper tube, through which
the needle is run, is laid to the cartridge before the hole is tamped,
and when the needle is withdrawn the squib is inserted into the mouth
of the tube. If inflammable gases are exuding from the coal through the
bore hole, or if for any other reason it is feared that the cartridge
will be exploded too quickly, a short piece of cotton wick, dipped in
oil, is attached to the fuse of the squib to lengthen it, and this
extra section of fuse is allowed to hang down from the mouth of the
bore hole against the face of coal.

When all is ready the tools are removed to a safe distance, a lighted
lamp is touched to the fuse, the men cry “Fire!” to warn all who may
be in the vicinity, and, retreating down the chamber, they take refuge
behind some convenient pillar. The fuse burns so slowly that the men
have ample time in which to get out of harm’s way, if ordinary care is
taken. When the fire reaches the powder in the squib the same force
that propels a fire-cracker or a rocket acts upon the squib and sends
it violently through the channel or tube into contact with the powder
of the cartridge. The explosion that results throws out a section of
coal from the face, breaking it into large pieces. So soon as the
place has settled after the firing of the shot the men go back to the
face to note the result. The broken coal is pushed to one side, and
preparations are made for drilling the next hole. It usually takes five
shots to break down a single bench. When both benches of coal have been
blasted out the length of the chamber has been increased by five or six
feet. In blasting, the miner must take advantage of such conditions as
are presented to him at the face of the working, and he will bore his
hole and fire his shot where, in his judgment, the best result will
be attained. He cannot always take one position at his drilling; it
is rarely that he finds a comfortable one. Sometimes he must hold the
drill at arm’s length above his head, at other times he must rest on
his knees while working, still oftener he is obliged to lie on his back
or side on the wet floor of the mine, and work in that position, with
occasional respite, for hours at a time.

In nearly every chamber the miner has a powder chest which he keeps
locked, and which is stored at some safe and convenient place, not too
close to the face. In this chest he keeps, besides his powder, his
cartridge paper, cartridge pin, squibs, lamp-wick, chalk, and such
other little conveniences and necessaries as every workingman must
have at hand. The other tools are usually at the face. He has there a
mining pick. This pick is straight and pointed, and from the head or
eye, where the handle enters, it will measure about nine inches to each
end. It is used for bringing down slate and coal from roof, ribs, and
face. The bottom pick is used by the laborer for breaking up the coal
after it is down. This pick measures about two feet from tip to tip,
and is curved slightly upward at the points. Each miner has two drills,
and perhaps a hand machine-drill. He has also a steel crowbar for
prying down loose portions of the roof, and for turning heavy pieces of
slate or coal. He has an eight-pound steel hammer, with a handle two
feet and four inches in length, which he uses in setting props; and he
has a heavy sledge for breaking rock and coal. The list is completed by
three large scoop shovels, used generally to shovel the smaller pieces
of broken coal from the floor of the chamber into the mine car.

[Illustration: MINER’S TOOLS.]

The miner must furnish his own tools. His powder, fuse, and oil he gets
from the company that employs him, and they are charged to him in the
account that is stated between them monthly. It will not do to omit
the miner’s lamp from the list of appliances used in his calling; it
is too great a necessity. Without it he could do absolutely nothing;
he could not even find his way to his chamber. Formerly candles were
much used in the mines; in Great Britain they are still common; but the
anthracite miner invariably uses a lamp. This is a round, flat-bottomed
tin box, about the size of a small after-dinner coffee cup. It has a
hinged lid on top, a spout on one side, and a handle shaped like a hook
with the point down on the opposite side. By this hooked handle the
lamp is fastened to the front of the miner’s cap, and he wears it so at
his labor, removing it only for the purpose of renewing the material in
it, or of approaching the powder chest, or of examining more closely
some portion of his work. In the lamp he burns crude petroleum, which
is fed from a cotton wick emerging from the spout. Very recently
electricity has been introduced into the gangways of some large mines,
for lighting purposes, and has given great satisfaction. Perhaps the
day is not far distant when an electric light will swing from the roof
at the face of every working chamber.

When the coal has been blasted down and the props have been set the
miner’s work is done; the rest belongs to the laborers. They must
break up the coal, load it into the cars, run it down to the gangway,
pile up the refuse, and clear the chamber for the next day’s work. The
mine carpenters have laid a track, consisting of wooden rails set into
caps or notched ties, as far up the chamber as the working at the face
would permit. Up this track the mule and driver boy have brought the
empty car and left it at the face. The laborers throw into it first
the smaller pieces of coal which they shovel up from the floor of the
chamber, then huge chunks are tumbled in and piled skillfully on top
until the car is almost overbalanced with its load. It is then pushed
out to the gangway to await the coming of the driver boy, who attaches
it to his trip of loads and takes it to the shaft.

The mine car is usually but a smaller edition of the coal cars that can
be seen any day on the surface railways of the country. The running
portion is of iron, and the box is stoutly built of hardwood, braced
and stiffened by iron tie-rods, bolts, and shoes. At the end of the car
is a vertical swinging door, hung from the top by an iron rod, which
crosses the box. This door is latched on the outside near the bottom,
and the coal is dumped from the car by tipping it up and letting the
unlatched door swing outward. The size of the car depends greatly on
the size and character of the workings in which it is used. Perhaps
an average size would be ten feet long, five feet wide, and five feet
high from the rail. Such a car would contain about one hundred cubic
feet, and would hold from two and one half to three tons of coal. The
track gauges in common use vary by three inch widths from two feet and
six inches to four feet. The miner and laborer start to their work
in the morning at six o’clock. If they enter the mine by shaft they
must go down before seven o’clock, for at that hour the engineer stops
lowering men and begins to hoist coal. Immediately after arriving at
the face of his chamber the miner begins to cut coal. If the vein is
thick and clean, if his shots are all effective, and if he has good
luck generally, he will cut his allowance of coal for the day by ten
or eleven o’clock in the forenoon. It will be understood that by the
system in use by most of the coal companies not more than a certain
number of carloads may be sent out from each chamber per day. And when
the miner has blasted down enough coal to make up that number of loads
his day’s work is done. It is very seldom indeed that he is not through
before two o’clock in the afternoon. But he never stays to assist the
laborer. It is beneath his dignity as a miner to help break up and
load the coal which has been brought down by means of his judgment and
skill. So the laborer is always last in the chamber. His work is seldom
done before four or five o’clock in the afternoon. He has just so much
coal to break up, load, and push down to the gangway, no matter how
successful the miner may have been. He consoles himself, however, by
looking forward to the time when he shall himself become a miner.

Blasting is always a dangerous occupation, and the law in Pennsylvania,
embodied in the act of 1885, has recognized its especial danger in the
mines, by making certain provisions concerning it for the protection
of life and limb. The rules laid down are strict and complete, yet,
in spite of them, accidents from powder explosions and premature
blasts are frequent and destructive. But it must be said that these
accidents are due, in most part, to violations of these rules. It is
impossible for colliery authorities to keep constant watch over the
workmen in every chamber. The conduct of these men must be largely
governed by themselves, and the frequency of accidents, both serious
and fatal, as a result of carelessness on the part of workmen, does
not seem to deter other workmen from constantly running the same
risks. The most prevalent and the most serious source of danger to
the miner is not, however, in blasting, but in falls of coal, slate,
and rock from the roof, ribs, and face of the chamber. Material that
has become loosened by blasting is pulled down carelessly, or falls
without warning. In many cases the roof is insufficiently propped,
and large sections of it give way. Men are caught under these falling
masses every day, and are either killed outright or seriously injured.
Yet, as in the case of blasting, their injuries are largely the result
of their own carelessness. Any one who reads the reports of these
cases cannot fail to be convinced of this fact. The mine inspector’s
reports of Pennsylvania show that during the year 1887 there were in
the anthracite district three hundred and thirteen fatal accidents
which occurred in and about the mines. Of this number one hundred and
forty-seven were due to falls of roof and coal, while only twenty-one
were caused by explosions of blasting material. These figures indicate
plainly the direction in which the skill and supervision of operators
and the care and watchfulness of workmen should be exerted for the
protection of life.




CHAPTER X.

WHEN THE MINE ROOF FALLS.


A first visit to a coal mine will be prolific of strange sights and
sounds and of novel sensations. If one enters the mine by a shaft,
the first noteworthy experience will be the descent on the cage or
carriage. The visitor will probably be under the care of one of the
mine foremen, without whose presence or authority he would not be
allowed to descend, and indeed would not wish to. From the head to the
foot of every shaft a speaking tube extends, and signaling apparatus,
which is continued to the engine-room. These appliances are required
by law. In these days the signals are often operated by electricity.
At the head of the shaft is stationed a headman and at the foot of the
shaft a footman, whose assistants aid in pushing cars on and off the
carriages. The footman is notified of your coming, and you take your
place on the empty safety carriage. It swings slightly as you step on
to it, just enough to make you realize that you have passed from the
stable to the unstable, and that besides the few inches of planking
under your feet, there is nothing between you and the floor of the
mine, five hundred feet or more below you. When all is ready the
foreman cries: “Slack off!” the signal to the engineer is given, the
carriage is slightly raised, the wings are withdrawn, and the descent
begins. If the carriage goes down as rapidly as it ordinarily does
your first sensation will be that of falling. It will seem as though
that on which you were standing has been suddenly removed from beneath
your feet, and your impulse will be to grasp for something above you.
You will hardly have recovered from this sensation when it will seem
to you that the motion of the carriage has been reversed, and that
you are now going up more rapidly than you were at first descending.
There will be an alternation of these sensations during the minute or
two occupied in the descent, until finally the motion of the carriage
becomes suddenly slower, and you feel it strike gently at the bottom
of the shaft. As you step out into the darkness nothing is visible to
you except the shifting flames of the workmen’s lamps; you cannot even
see distinctly the men who carry them. You are given a seat on the
footman’s bench near by until your eyes have accommodated themselves to
the situation. After a few minutes you are able to distinguish objects
that are ten or fifteen feet away. You can see through the murky
atmosphere the rough walls of solid coal about you, the flat, black,
moist roof overhead, the mine car tracks at your feet. The carriages
appear and disappear, and are loaded and unloaded at the foot of the
shaft, while the passage, at one side of which you sit, is filled with
mine cars, mules, and driver boys in apparently inextricable confusion.
The body of a mule looms up suddenly in front of you; you catch a
glimpse of a boy hurrying by; a swarthy face, lighted up by the flame
of a lamp gleams out of the darkness, but the body that belongs to it
is in deep shadow, you cannot see it. Bare, brawny arms become visible
and are withdrawn, men’s voices sound strange, there is a constant
rumbling of cars, a regular clicking sound as the carriage stops and
starts, incessant shouting by the boys; somewhere the sound of falling
water. Such are the sights and sounds at the shaft’s foot. If now you
pass in along the gangway, you will be apt to throw the light of your
lamp to your feet to see where you are stepping. You will experience a
sense of confinement in the narrow passage with its low roof and close,
black walls. Occasionally you will have to crowd against the rib to
let a trip of mine cars, drawn by a smoking mule, in charge of a boy
with soiled face and greasy clothes, pass by. Perhaps you walk up one
of the inclined planes to a counter gangway. You are lucky if you are
in a mine where the roof is so high that you need not bend over as you
walk. The men whom you meet have little lamps on their caps, smoking
and flaring in the strong air current. You can see little of these
persons except their soiled faces. Everything here is black and dingy;
there is no color relief to outline the form of any object. Now you
come to a door on the upper side of the gangway. A small boy jumps up
from a bench and pulls the door open for the party to pass through. As
it closes behind you the strong current of air nearly extinguishes your
lamp. You walk along the airway for a little distance, and then you
come to the foot of a chamber. Up somewhere in the darkness, apparently
far away, you see lights twinkling, four of them. They appear and
disappear, they bob up and down, they waver from side to side, till
you wonder what strange contortions the people who carry them must be
going through to give them such erratic movements. By and by there is
a cry of “Fire!” the cry is repeated several times, three lights move
down the chamber toward you and suddenly disappear, then the fourth
one approaches apparently with more action, and disappears also. The
men who carry them have hidden behind pillars. You wait one, two,
three minutes, looking into darkness. Then there is a sudden wave-like
movement in the air; it strikes your face, you feel it in your ears;
the flame of your lamp is blown aside. Immediately there is the sound
of an explosion and the crash of falling blocks of coal. The waves of
disturbed air still touch your face gently. Soon the lights reappear,
all four of them, and advance toward the face. In a minute they are
swallowed up in the powder smoke that has rolled out from the blast;
you see only a faint blur, and their movements are indistinct. But when
the smoke has reached and passed you the air is clearer again, and the
lights twinkle and dance as merrily as they did before the blast was
fired. Now you go up the chamber, taking care not to stumble over the
high caps, into the notches of which the wooden rails of the track are
laid. On one side of you is a wall, built up with pieces of slate and
bony coal and the refuse of the mine, on the other you can reach out
your hand and touch the heavy wooden props that support the roof, and
beyond the props there is darkness, or if the rib of coal is visible it
is barely distinct. Up at the face there is a scene of great activity.
Bare-armed men, without coat or vest, are working with bar and pick
and shovel, moving the fallen coal from the face, breaking it, loading
it into the mine car which stands near by. The miners are at the face
prying down loose pieces of coal. One takes his lamp in his hand and
flashes its light along the black, broken, shiny surface, deciding upon
the best point to begin the next drill hole, discussing the matter with
his companion, giving quick orders to the laborers, acting with energy
and a will. He takes up his drill, runs his fingers across the edge
of it professionally, balances it in his hands, and strikes a certain
point on the face with it, turning it slightly at each stroke. He has
taken his position, lying on his side perhaps, and then begins the
regular tap, tap, of the drill into the coal. The laborers have loaded
the mine car, removed the block from the wheel, and now, grasping the
end of it firmly, hold back on it as it moves by gravity down the
chamber to the gangway. You may follow it out, watch the driver boy as
he attaches it to his trip, and go with him back to the foot of the
shaft.

You have seen something of the operation of taking out coal, something
of the ceaseless activity which pervades the working portions of the
mine. But your visit to the mine has been at a time when hundreds of
men are busy around you, when the rumble, the click, the tap, the noise
of blasting, the sound of human voices, are incessant. If you were
there alone, the only living being in the mine, you would experience a
different set of sensations. If you stood or sat motionless you would
find the silence oppressive. One who has not had this experience can
have no adequate conception of the profound stillness of a deserted
mine. On the surface of the earth one cannot find a time nor a place
in which the ear is not assailed by noises; the stirring of the
grasses in the field at midnight sends sound-waves traveling through
space. Wherever there is life there is motion, and wherever there is
motion there is sound. But down here there is no life, no motion, no
sound. The silence is not only oppressive, it is painful, it becomes
unbearable. No person could be long subjected to it and retain his
reason; it would be like trying to live in an element to which the
human body is not adapted. Suppose you are not only in silence but in
darkness. There is no darkness on the surface of the earth that is at
all comparable with the darkness of the mine. On the surface the eyes
can grow accustomed to the deepest gloom of night. Clouds cannot shut
out every ray of light from hidden moon or stars. But down in the mine,
whether in night-time or daytime, there is no possible lightening up
of the gloom by nature; she cannot send her brightest sunbeam through
three hundred feet of solid rock. If one is in the mines without a
light, he has before him, behind him, everywhere, utter blackness. To
be lost in this way, a mile from any opening to day, in the midst of a
confusion of galleries, in an abandoned mine, and to be compelled to
feel one’s way to safety, is a painful experience, is one indeed which
the writer himself has had.

There comes a time in the history of every mine when it is pervaded
only by silence and darkness. All the coal that can be carried from it
by the shaft or slope or other outlet has been mined and taken out,
and the place is abandoned. But before this comes to pass the work
of robbing the pillars must be done. This work consists in breaking
from the pillars as much coal as can possibly be taken without too
great risk to the workmen. The process is begun at the faces of
the chambers, at the farthest extremity of the mine, and the work
progresses constantly toward the shaft or other opening by which the
coal thus obtained is taken out. It can readily be seen that robbing
pillars is a dangerous business. For so soon as the column becomes
too slender to support the roof it will give way and the slate and
rock will come crashing down into the chamber. The workmen must be
constantly on the alert, watchful for every sign of danger, but at the
best some will be injured, some will perhaps be killed, by the falling
masses from the roof. Yet this work must be done, otherwise coal
mining would not be profitable, the waste would be too great. The coal
that can be taken out under the prevailing systems will average only
fifty per cent. of the whole body in the mine, and at least ten per
cent. more will be lost in waste at the breaker, so that it behooves
a company to have its pillars robbed as closely as possible. It is
after all this has been done, and all tools and appliances have been
removed from the mine, that it is abandoned. Perhaps the lower levels
of it become filled with water. It is a waste of crushed pillars,
fallen rock, and blocked passages. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive
of anything more weird and desolate than an abandoned mine. To walk
or climb or creep through one is like walking with Dante through
the regions of the lost. There are masses of rock piled up in great
confusion to the jagged roof, dull surfaces of coal and slate, rotting
timbers patched here and there with spots of snow-white fungus, black
stretches of still water into which a bit of falling slate or coal
will strike and send a thousand echoes rattling through the ghostly
chambers. For a noise which on the surface of the earth will not break
the quiet of a summer night, down here will almost make your heart
stand still with fear, so startling is it in distinctness.

But it is not only in abandoned mines that falls of roof take place,
nor yet alone at the unpropped face of breast or gangway. They are
liable to occur at almost any point in any mine. Sometimes only a small
piece of slate, not larger perhaps than a shingle, will come down;
again the roof of an entire chamber will fall. It is possible that two
or more chambers will be involved in the disturbance, and instances
occasionally occur in a working mine where a fall covers an area
many acres in extent. The falls that are limited in extent, that are
confined to a single chamber or the face of a chamber, do not interfere
with the pillars and can be readily cleared away. They are due to lack
of support for the roof, to insufficient propping and injudicious
blasting, and may, to a great extent, be guarded against successfully
by care and watchfulness. But to foresee or prevent the more extended
falls is often impossible. They are due to the general pressure of
overlying strata over a considerable area, and both props and pillars
give way under so great a strain. Sometimes they come without a
moment’s warning; usually, however, their approach is indicated by
unmistakable signs days or even weeks in advance of the actual fall.
There will be cracks in the roof, small pieces of slate will drop to
the floor, the distance between floor and roof will grow perceptibly
less, pillars will bulge in the middle and little fragments of coal
not larger than peas will break from them with a crackling sound and
fall to the floor, until a deposit of fine coal is thus formed at
the base of each pillar in the infected district. This crackling and
falling is known as “working,” and this general condition is called
a “crush” or a “squeeze.” If one stands quite still in a section of
a mine where there is a squeeze, he will hear all about him, coming
from the “working” pillars, these faint crackling noises, like the
snapping of dry twigs under the feet. Sometimes the floor of underclay
or the roof of shale is so soft that the pillar, instead of bulging or
breaking, enters the strata above or below as the roof settles. When
this occurs it is called “creeping.” In the steep-pitching veins the
tendency of the pillars on the approach of a squeeze is to “slip,”
that is, to move perceptibly down the incline. When these indications
occur the workmen are withdrawn from the portion of the mine which is
“working,” and vigorous measures are taken to counteract the pressure,
by props and other supports placed under the roof. Sometimes this work
is effectual, sometimes it is of no avail whatever. Often the fall
comes before the first prop can be set; and when it comes the crash is
terrible, the destruction is great. However, not many feet in thickness
of the roof strata can come down; the slate and rock which first fall
are broken and heaped in such irregular masses on the floor that they
soon extend up to the roof and afford it new and effectual support.
It is therefore only near the outcrop, or where the mine is not deep,
that a fall in it disturbs the earth at the surface. But in the
mining of the upper veins such disturbances were frequent. In passing
through the coal regions one will occasionally see a depression, or a
series of depressions, in the earth’s surface to which his attention
will be attracted on account of their peculiar shape. They are not
often more than ten or fifteen feet in depth, and though of irregular
outline their approximate diameter seldom exceeds sixty feet. They
are the surface indications of a fall in shallow mines, and are known
as “caves” or “cave holes.” A section of country one or more acres
in extent may, however, be so strewn with them as to make the land
practically valueless.

When the upper vein in the Wyoming region was being mined, buildings
on the surface were occasionally disturbed by these falls, but not
often. If houses had been erected over a shallow mine before the coal
was taken out, strong pillars were left under them to support the
roof, and if the mining had already been done and the pillars robbed,
no one would risk the erection of a building over a place liable to
fall, for these places were known, and points above them on the surface
could be definitely located. Sensational stories are sometimes started
concerning a mining town or city that it is liable any night, while
its inhabitants are asleep, to be engulfed in the depths of some mine,
the vast cavities of which are spread out beneath it. It is almost
unnecessary to say that such dangers are purely imaginary. There is
probably not a town or city in the mining districts so located that a
single stone of it in the populated portion would be disturbed by a
fall in the mines underneath it, supposing there were mines underneath
it, and that a fall is liable to take place in them. The areas of
surface which could possibly be disturbed by a fall are too limited in
extent, and are too well known, to make such a general catastrophe at
all within the possibilities. The mines in the upper coal seams have
for the most part been worked out and abandoned long ago, and the roof
rock has settled into permanent position and rigidity. In the deep
mines of the present day no fall, however extensive, could be felt
at the surface. The broken masses of roof rock that come down first
would have filled up the cavities and supported the strata above them,
long before any perceptible movement could have reached the surface.
The conditions that lead to surface falls in the Middle and Southern
regions are somewhat different from those that prevail in the Wyoming
field. In the first-mentioned districts steep-pitching coal seams are
the rule, and they all come to the surface in lines of outcrop. In
driving breasts up from the gangway of the first level, it is intended
to leave from ten to twelve yards of coal between the face of the
breast and the outcrop; while over the outcrop will be from twelve
to twenty feet of soil. Any experienced miner can tell when the face
of the breast is approaching the outcrop; the coal becomes softer,
changes in color, breaks into smaller pieces, sometimes water runs
down through. It is obviously unsafe to erect buildings on the line
of this outcrop, or immediately inside of it, where the roof is thin.
There is no assurance that the body of coal left will not slip down the
breast; and the pillars of coal near the surface are so soft that any
disturbance of this kind may cause them to give way and let down the
entire thickness of strata above them. This was what occurred at the
Stockton mines near Hazleton on December 18, 1869. Two double tenement
houses were situated over the face of a worked-out breast, near the
outcrop. About five o’clock in the morning the roof fell, carrying
both houses down with it a distance of about eighty feet into the old
breast. The inhabitants of one of the houses escaped from it a moment
before it went down, those in the other house, ten in number, were
carried into the mine, and were killed. The buildings in the pit took
fire almost immediately, and rescue of the bodies crushed there among
the débris was impossible.

[Illustration: GANGWAY IN KOHINOOR COLLIERY, NEAR SHENANDOAH, PA.]

Accidents of this class are happily very rare. The exercise of ordinary
judgment is sufficient to prevent them. The list of disasters due to
falls of roof at the faces of chambers might, as has already been
explained, be greatly reduced by the same means. But it is often
impossible to prevent, or even to guard against, those falls which
cover a large area, though their coming may be heralded for days by
the working of pillars and all the indications of a squeeze. This was
the case at the fall in the Carbondale mines in 1846, one of the most
extensive falls that has ever been known. It covered an area of from
forty to fifty acres, fourteen persons were killed by it, and the
bodies of eight of them were never recovered. Although this disaster
occurred more than forty years ago, the writer had the privilege,
in the summer of 1888, of hearing an account of it from one of the
survivors, Mr. Andrew Bryden. Mr. Bryden is now, and has been for many
years, one of the general mining superintendents for the Pennsylvania
Coal Company, with headquarters at Pittston, Pennsylvania. His story
of the fall is as follows: “This disaster occurred on the twelfth day
of January, 1846, at about eight o’clock in the forenoon. It was
in Drifts No. 1 and No. 2 of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company’s
mines at Carbondale. The part of the mine in which the caving in was
most serious was on the plane heading, at the face of which I was
at work. We heard the fall; it came like a thunderclap. We felt the
concussion distinctly, and the rush of air occasioned by it put out
our lights. I and those who were working with me knew that the fall
had come, and we thought it better to try immediately to find our way
out, although we had no idea that the fall had been so extensive or
the calamity so great. We did not doubt but that we should be able to
make our way along the faces of the chambers, next to the solid coal,
to an opening at the outcrop; so we relighted our lamps and started. We
had gone but a little way before we saw the effects of the tremendous
rush of air. Loaded cars had been lifted and thrown from the track,
and the heavy walls with which entrances were blocked had been torn
out and the débris scattered through the chambers. We began then to
believe that the fall had been a large one, but before we reached the
line of it we met a party of twenty-five or thirty men. They were
much frightened, and were running in toward the face of the heading,
the point from which we had just come. They said that the entire mine
had caved in; that the fall had extended close up to the faces of the
chambers along the line of solid coal, leaving no possible means of
escape in the direction we were going; and that the only safe place in
the entire section was the place which we were leaving, at the face of
the heading. This heading having been driven for some distance into
the solid coal, the fall could not well reach in to the face of it. We
were greatly discouraged by the news that these men told us, and we
turned back and went with them in to the face of the heading. We had
little hope of being able to get out through the body of the fall,――the
way in which we did finally escape,――for we knew that the mine had
been working, and that the roof had been breaking down that morning
in the lower level. Indeed, we could hear it at that moment cracking,
crashing, and falling with a great noise. We felt that the only safe
place was at the face of the heading where we were, and most of the
party clung closely to it. Some of us would go out occasionally to the
last entrance to listen and investigate, but the noise of the still
falling roof was so alarming that no one dared venture farther. After
a long time spent thus in waiting I suggested that we should start out
in parties of three or four, so that we should not be in each other’s
way, and so that all of us should not be exposed to the same particular
danger, and try to make our way through the fall. But the majority of
the men were too much frightened to accede to this proposition; they
were determined that we should all remain together. So when some of
us started out the whole body rushed out after us, and followed along
until we came to the line of the fall. We had succeeded in picking our
way but a short distance through the fallen portion of the mine when
we met my father, Alexander Bryden, coming toward us. He was foreman
of the mine. We heard him calling us out before he reached us, and
you may be sure that no more welcome sound ever struck upon our ears.
He was outside when the fall came, but the thunder of it had scarcely
ceased before he started in to learn its extent, and to rescue, if
possible, the endangered men. He had not gone far when he met three men
hastening toward the surface, who told him how extensive and dreadful
the calamity had been, and urged him not to imperil his life by going
farther. But my father was determined to go, and he pushed on. He made
his way over hills of fallen rock, he crawled under leaning slabs of
slate, he forced his body through apertures scarcely large enough to
admit it, he hurried under hanging pieces of roof that crashed down in
his path the moment he had passed; and finally he came to us. I have
no doubt that he was as glad to find us and help us as we were to see
him. Then he led us back through the terrible path by which he had
come, and brought us every one beyond the fall to a place of safety.
When we were there my father asked if any person had been left inside.
He was told that one, Dennis Farrell, was at the face of his chamber,
so badly injured across his spine that he could not walk. The miners
in their retreat to the face of our heading had found him lying under
a heavy piece of coal. They had rolled it off from him, but seeing
that he could not walk they set him up in the corner of his chamber,
thinking it might be as safe a place as the one to which they were
going, and gave him a light and left him. My father asked if any one
would go in with him and help carry Dennis out, but none of them dared
to go; it was too dangerous a journey. So my father made his way back
alone through the fallen mine, and found the crippled and imprisoned
miner. The man was totally helpless, and my father lifted him to his
back and carried him as far as he could. He drew him gently through the
low and narrow passages of the fall, he climbed with him over the hills
of broken rock, and finally he brought him out to where the other men
were. They carried him to the surface, a mile farther, and then to his
home. Dennis and his brother John were working the chamber together,
and when the piece of coal fell upon Dennis his brother ran into the
next chamber for help. He had scarcely got into it when the roof of the
chamber fell and buried him, and he was never seen again, alive or dead.

“It was only a little while after we got out before the roof fell in on
the way we had come and closed it up, and it was not opened again for
a year afterward. But we knew there were others still in the mine, and
after we got Farrell out my father organized a rescuing party, and kept
up the search for the imprisoned miners night and day.

“John Hosie was in the mine when the fall came. He was one of the
foremen, and he and my father were friends. Two days had passed in
unavailing search for him, and it was thought that he must have been
crushed under the rock with the rest. But on the morning of the third
day my father met him face to face in one of the desolate fallen
portions of the mine. He was in darkness, he was almost exhausted, his
clothing was in rags, and his fingers were torn and bleeding. When he
saw my father he could give utterance to only two words: ‘Oh, Bryden!’
he said, and then his heart failed him and he cried like a child. He
had been caught in the fall and had lost his light, and though he
was familiar with the passages of the mine he could not find his way
along them on account of the débris with which they were filled, and
the utter confusion into which everything had been thrown. He had
wandered about for two days and nights in the fallen mine, clambering
over jagged hills of rock, digging his way, with torn fingers, through
masses of wreckage, in constant peril from falling roof and yawning
pit, hungry, thirsty, and alone in the terrible darkness. What wonder
that his heart gave way in the moment of rescue!

“The bodies of some of those who were shut in by the fall, or buried
under it, were found when the drift was again opened, but for others
the mine has been an undisturbed grave for more than forty years.”

    NOTE ADDED IN 1898.――The latest disaster resulting from a
    squeeze or fall in the mines occurred June 28, 1896, at the
    Twin Shaft of The Newton Coal Mining Company at Pittston,
    Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. This mine had been working for
    some days, and when the fall came the Superintendent, together
    with his foremen and workmen, were engaged in timbering or
    propping the affected region, in order, if possible, to prevent
    a fall. The effort was useless, however, and these officials
    and workmen were caught while at their work, and perished
    in the disaster. There were fifty-eight of them. Superhuman
    efforts were put forth to rescue them, but the attempt was
    useless, and later on it was found utterly impossible even to
    recover their bodies, owing to the extent and magnitude of the
    fall.




CHAPTER XI.

AIR AND WATER IN THE MINES.


Man is an air-breathing animal. So soon as his supply of air is cut
off he dies. In proportion as that supply is lessened or vitiated,
his physical and mental energies fail. One of the first requisites,
therefore, in all mining operations is that the ventilation shall be
good. To accomplish this end an air current must be established. It is
true that into any accessible cavity atmospheric air will rush, but
if it be allowed to remain in that cavity without any replacement it
becomes dead and unfit to breathe. If, in addition to this, it takes
up deleterious gases, like those which escape from the coal measures,
it becomes poisoned and dangerous to human life. Hence the necessity
of a continuous current. Provisions for such a current are made with
the opening into every mine. The separate air compartment of a shaft
has already been noticed. In drifts, tunnels, and slopes a part of the
opening is partitioned off for an airway, or, what is more common, a
separate passage is driven parallel with, and alongside of, the main
one. In drifts and tunnels, since the mines there are not deep, air
shafts are often driven at some other point above the workings, or
slopes are sunk from the outcrop to accommodate the return air from the
mine. It is due to the necessity of maintaining an air current that
all passages and chambers are driven in pairs or sets in the manner
already explained. It has also been explained how the fresh air going
in at the carriage ways of the shaft, or other openings, passes along
the gangway to its extremity, back along the airway, up to and across
the faces of each set of chambers, and then down into the airway again,
to be carried to the foot of the shaft and up by the air passage to
the surface. But in the larger mines there are many passages besides
the main gangway that must be supplied with air, and the current must
therefore be divided or split to accommodate them; so these separate
currents, taken in this way from the main current, and themselves often
divided and subdivided, are called “splits.” The air channels thus
branching, uniting, crossing, and recrossing form a most complicated
system of ventilation. But the current goes nowhere by chance. Every
course is marked out for it. On the fact that it follows that given
path depends the lives of the workmen and the successful operation
of the mine. Sometimes it becomes necessary to carry two currents of
air through the same passage in opposite directions. In that case the
passage will either be partitioned along its length, or a wooden box
laid through it to conduct one of the air currents. If one air course
crosses another, as is often the case, a channel will be cut in the
roof of one of the passages, and the lower side of the channel will be
closed tightly by masonry, to prevent any possible intermingling of the
currents, a circumstance which might prove disastrous. Entrances and
cross-headings cut through between parallel passages for purposes of
ventilation are closed as soon as the next cross-heading is made, for
reasons already explained. This closing is usually done by building up
in the aperture a wall of slate, rock, and coal, and filling the chinks
with dirt from the floor of the mine. Sometimes wooden partitions are
put in instead, and between principal air passages the cross-headings
are closed by heavy walls of masonry. When it is necessary to turn the
air from any traveling way, or to prevent it from further following
such traveling way, a partition is built across the passage, and in
the opening left in the partition a door is swung. If this is across a
way through which mine cars pass, a boy will be stationed at the door
to open it when the cars come and close it as soon as they have gone
through. He is called a “door boy.” All doors are so hung as to swing
open against the current of air, and are therefore self-closing. The
law directs that this shall be done. There are several patented devices
for giving an automatic movement to mine doors; but few if any of them
are in practical operation in the anthracite mines. The conditions here
are not favorable for the use of self-acting doors, and besides this
the act of 1885 provides that all main doors shall have an attendant.
The law is very explicit on this subject of ventilation; it is a matter
of the utmost importance in operating a mine. A failure of the air
current for even an hour might, in some mines, result in the death of
all those who chanced to be inside. For this current not only supplies
air for breathing purposes, but it takes up the smoke, the dust, the
dangerous and the poisonous gases, and carries them to the surface.
In the same way pure air is drawn into the lungs, loaded with the
refuse matter brought there by the blood, and then expelled. So life is
preserved in both cases.

In order to create this circulation of air and make it continuous,
artificial means are ordinarily used. The earliest method of creating
an artificial air current which should be constant, and one still
in use to a limited extent, is that by the open furnace. This is an
ordinary fireplace with grate bars, built near the foot of an opening
into the mine, and having a bricked-in smoke-flue which leads into the
air passage of that opening at some little distance above the floor of
the mine. The volume of heat thus passing into the airway will rarefy
the air therein, and so create and maintain a strong, invariable,
upward current. Sometimes the furnace is placed at the foot of an air
shaft a long distance from the main opening, thus making it an upcast
shaft. The reverse, however, is usually the case. All air that enters
the mine by any opening is usually drawn out at the main shaft or other
main entrance. But as the air returning from the working places of
the mine is often laden with inflammable gases, it is not allowed to
come into contact with the fire of the furnace, but is carried into
the shaft by a channel cut into the rock above the roof of the mine.
Furnace ventilation in mines in which explosive gases are generated is
dangerous at the best, and is now prohibited by the act of 1885.

The modern and most common method of creating and maintaining a
circulation of air in a mine is by a fan built at the mouth of the air
compartment of the shaft or slope. The fan exhausts the air from the
mine by the airway, and fresh air rushes in by the carriage way, or
any other opening to the surface to restore the equilibrium. Sometimes
the fan is used as a blower and forces air into the mine instead of
exhausting it. The advantage of this method is that it gives better air
to the workmen at the faces of chambers and headings, but the objection
to it is that it brings all the smoke and gases out by the main
gangway. This is a serious objection, not only making this principal
passage unfit to see or breathe in, but making it dangerous also by the
presence of inflammable gases. The fan is therefore commonly used as an
exhauster.

There are various kinds of fans in use at the mines, but the kind
generally employed is patterned after Guibal’s invention. It is simply
a great wheel without a rim, and instead of spokes it has blades
like those of a windmill. It is run by a steam-engine, makes forty
revolutions per minute at an average rate of speed, and sends from one
hundred thousand to two hundred thousand cubic feet of fresh air per
minute into the mine.

The act of 1885 requires the mine operator to furnish two hundred cubic
feet of air per minute to every man in the mine. This is the maximum
amount necessary for perfect respiration. In the larger workings
perhaps six hundred men and boys are employed. For this number one
hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet of air per minute would be
required by law. A large fan would supply this amount by running at
almost its minimum rate of speed. So long, therefore, as the fan and
air passages are in good working condition there need be no fear of
lack of proper ventilation. But to give absolutely pure air to the
workers in the mine is an utter impossibility under any system that has
yet been devised. The outer atmosphere that is drawn into the mines
has hardly got beyond the light of the sun before it has taken up a
certain percentage of impurities. As it passes by the working faces
of the chambers it carries along with it the gases evolved from the
coal; principally the carbonic acid gas or black damp, and the light
carbureted hydrogen or fire damp. It also takes up and carries along
the powder smoke, the organic matter contained in the exhalations of
men and animals, the products of decaying timber, and the dust which
is always in the air. Nor is this the only deterioration which this
air current undergoes. The proportion of oxygen in it is diminished by
the burning of many lamps, by the respiration of many men, and by the
constant decay of wood. It is seen, therefore, that the air in which
the miner must breathe is far from being the pure oxygen and nitrogen
of the outside atmosphere. It follows also that the longer the route is
of any particular current, and the more working faces it passes in its
course, the more heavily laden will it be with impurities, and the more
poisonous for those men who last breathe it on its return to the upcast
air shaft.

This evil, however, is limited in extent by the act of 1885, which
provides that no more than seventy-five persons shall be employed at
the same time in any one split or current of air.

The wonder is that the health of these mine workers does not sooner
fail them, especially when we take into consideration the wet condition
of many of the mines. It is a fact, however, that miners as a class are
not more subject to disease than other workmen. The decimation in their
ranks is due mostly to accidents producing bodily injuries and death,
not to diseases which attack them as a result of their occupation.

Next in importance to the matter of ventilation in mines is the matter
of drainage. The first difficulty experienced from water is while the
shaft or slope is in process of sinking. It is usually necessary to
hold the water in one side of the opening while work is going on in
the other side. A small pumping engine is generally sufficient to keep
the pit clear until the bottom is reached, but occasionally the amount
of water is such that a large engine and pumping appliances have to be
put in place at once. In Europe much trouble is often experienced from
the excessive flow of water while sinking the shaft, and a watertight
casing has frequently to follow the shaft downward in order that work
may go on at all. Such appliances are not as a rule necessary in this
country, though much difficulty has been encountered in sinking shafts
through the quicksand deposits of the Susquehanna basin in the Wyoming
valley.

The general principle of mine drainage has been already explained. It
is, in brief, that the floor of the mine shall be so graded that all
water will gravitate to a certain point. That point is near the foot
of the shaft or slope, and is at the mouth of the drift or tunnel.
But from the sump of the shaft or slope the water must be raised by
artificial means. A powerful steam pumping engine, located at the
surface, is employed to do this work, and one compartment of the shaft
or slope, known as the pump-way, is set aside for the accommodation
of pipe, pump-rods, and supporting timbers, which extend from the top
to the bottom of the shaft. The most powerful of these pumps will
throw out a volume of twelve hundred gallons of water per minute. It
is seldom that the tonnage of water pumped from a mine falls below
the tonnage of coal hoisted, and in some of the wet collieries of the
Lehigh district eight or ten tons of water are pumped out for every ton
of coal hoisted. In the Wyoming district a thousand tons of water a day
is not an unusual amount to be thrown out of a mine by a single pump.

In driving gangways or chambers toward abandoned workings that have
been allowed to fill with water much care is necessary, especially if
the new mine is on a lower level, which is usually the case. The act of
1885 provides that “whenever a place is likely to contain a dangerous
accumulation of water, the working approaching such place shall not
exceed twelve feet in width, and there shall constantly be kept, at a
distance of not less than twenty feet in advance, at least one bore
hole near the centre of the working, and sufficient flank bore holes on
each side.” It often happened, before accurate surveys of mines were
required to be made and filed, that operators would drive chambers
or gangways toward these reservoirs of water in ignorance of their
whereabouts. The firing of a blast, the blow of a pick, perhaps, would
so weaken the barrier pillar that it would give way and the water
breaking through would sweep into the lower workings with irresistible
force, carrying death to the workmen in its path and destruction to the
mine. Some very distressing accidents have occurred in this way. It
is customary now for operators, when approaching with their workings
a boundary line of property, to leave a barrier pillar at least one
hundred feet thick between that line and the outer rib or face of their
workings; and this whether the area on the other side of the line is
or is not worked out. Under the present system of accurate surveying
and mapping, accidents resulting from flooding by mine water should be
rare, since the location of boundary lines may be calculated almost to
the inch, as well as the location of all workings in their relation to
each other.

But accidents due to a flooding by surface water are not always to
be obviated. Sometimes when a stream crosses the line of outcrop the
water will break through into the mine and flood the lower levels in
an incredibly short space of time; and this too when good judgment and
prudence have been used in leaving sufficient coal for protection.
The continuity and character of the strata lying between the earth’s
surface and the coal face cannot always be determined. It is not often
that accidents from flooding occur while mining is going on under large
bodies of water. The precautionary measures taken in presence of a
known danger are sufficient to reduce that danger to a minimum.

Disasters occur occasionally as the result of a peculiarly deceptive
condition of the overlying strata, whereby a rush of earth, quicksand,
or mud into a mine causes loss of life and destruction of property.
The bed of a stream cut deep into the rocks in some former geological
period, and then filled to the level of the surrounding country
with drift in some later age, leaves a dangerous and unsuspected
depression in the strata which the miner’s drill may pierce or his
blast break into at any time with disastrous results. One of the most
characteristic of this class of accidents occurred at Nanticoke in
the Wyoming region on the 18th of December, 1885, in a mine operated
by the Susquehanna Coal Company. A miner by the name of Kiveler broke
into a depression of this kind while blasting, and immediately through
the aperture a great volume of water, quicksand, and culm came rushing
down. It filled up that entire portion of the mine, burying twenty-six
men and boys beyond possible hope of rescue and endangering the lives
of hundreds of others. Energetic efforts were made to tunnel through
the masses of sand and culm packed in the passages of the mine in
order to reach those whose avenues of escape had been cut off, many
believing that they had been able to reach high enough ground to escape
the flood. These efforts, lasting through many weeks, were wholly
unsuccessful. The men were never reached. Bore holes, drilled into the
chambers where they were imprisoned, both from the inside and from the
surface, proved conclusively that the passages were crowded full of
sand and culm, and that the men must have perished immediately upon the
occurrence of the disaster.




CHAPTER XII.

THE DANGEROUS GASES.


One of the chief dangers to which workmen in the mines are subject
arises from the gases given off by minerals and metals. Though these
deleterious gases are commonly found in more or less abundance in
the coal mines, and are usually considered in connection with such
mines, they are, nevertheless, not confined to the coal measures.
They have been noticed also in mines of lead, sulphur, salt, and
other substances. It is said that anthracite contains a much larger
proportion of these gases than do bituminous or other coals, but that
being hard it holds them more tenaciously, and is therefore worked
with less risk. The soft coals, on the contrary, being porous as well
as soft, allow the gases to escape from them much more readily, and
so increase the danger at the working faces of the mines. The gas
given out most abundantly by the coal is light carbureted hydrogen,
known as marsh gas, from the fact that being a product of vegetable
decomposition under water, bubbles of it rise to the surface on
stirring the waters of a marsh. This is the gas that is known to miners
as fire damp. The French call it grisou. Marsh gas, in its simple
form, consists of four parts of hydrogen to one of carbon. It is about
one half the weight of air, and therefore rises and gathers at the
roof of a mine chamber, extending downward as it accumulates. When it
is mixed with from four to twelve times its volume of atmospheric air
it becomes violently explosive. If the mixture is above or below this
proportion it is simply inflammable, burning without explosive force,
with a pale blue flame. The value of a perfect ventilating current
across the faces of chambers which are making gas rapidly can now be
appreciated. It is not only necessary that the supply of air should
be sufficient to make the gas non-explosive, but that it should be
sufficient to dilute it beyond even the point of inflammability. For
to its inflammable more than to its explosive quality is due most of
the disasters with which it is accredited. A peculiar and dangerous
feature of this gas is that it does not always escape from the coal at
a uniform rate, but often comes out suddenly in large compact bodies.
These are called “blowers.” They are found most commonly in faults, in
cracks in the coal seams, or in open spots in the body of coal, where
they have opportunity to accumulate. They contain, besides marsh gas,
less than one per cent. of carbonic acid, and from one to four per
cent. of nitrogen. It is impossible to anticipate their coming; the
miner’s drill may strike into one and free it at any time without a
moment’s warning. It may even burst through the face by its own power.
In such cases danger is imminent, disaster is most common.

When the naked light of the miner comes into contact with any
considerable quantity of fire damp in an explosive state the shock that
follows is terrific. Men and mules, cars and coal, are hurled together
to destruction. Walls are swept out, iron rails are bent double, doors
are torn from their fastenings, the mine is laid waste. The damage
which results from an explosion of gas is of course much greater than
that which is due to mere ignition and burning without the explosive
force. In the latter case, however, the danger to the miner is but
slightly diminished. He is liable to receive injuries which may prove
immediately fatal. His burning lamp no sooner touches the body of fire
damp than it bursts into flame, which, propelled by expansive force,
passes swiftly down along the roof of the chamber. Taking up enough
oxygen from the atmospheric air to make combustion more fierce, it
returns to the face of the chamber with a violent contractile surge,
scorching everything in its path, and then, perhaps after another brief
sally, it burns itself out.

The miner who accidentally fires a block of fire damp falls suddenly
flat on his face on the floor of the mine, burying his mouth, nose,
and eyes in the dirt to protect them from the flame and intense heat.
Then he clasps his hands over the back of his head and neck to protect
these parts from injury, and lies waiting for the minute or two to pass
before the fire shall have burned itself out. But he must not wait too
long. The fatal after damp follows quick upon the heels of the flame,
and his only safety from certain death lies now in immediate flight.

The danger from inflammable gases was known and appreciated very early
in the history of mining. But it was long thought to be an unavoidable
danger. Light must be had or no work could be done, and the only light
that could be obtained was from the flame produced by combustion.
Candles were commonly used. They were stuck into a ball of clay and
fastened to the sides of the working places at the most advantageous
points. The bituminous mines of England were peculiarly prolific of
inflammable gases; accidents were almost of daily occurrence. On the
25th of May, 1812, a great disaster occurred at Felling Colliery,
near Newcastle, in which eighty-nine persons lost their lives by
explosion of fire damp, and public attention and the public conscience
were directed to the matter of safety in mines more intensely than
ever. Sir Humphrey Davy was then in the zenith of his fame. In April,
1815, he returned to London after a triumphal tour through France and
Italy, in which his progress had been marked by a series of brilliant
experiments. He had no sooner reached home than he was asked by Mr.
Buddie, a well-known colliery owner of that day, to turn his attention
toward improved methods of lighting the mines. Specimens of the
dangerous gas were sent to him from Newcastle, and he experimented with
them. He found that the flame from them would not pass through a small
tube, nor through a set of small tubes standing side by side. He found
also that the length of the tube was immaterial. He therefore shortened
them until they were mere sections, until his set of parallel tubes
became simply wire gauze. The proper proportion between the substance
of the wire and the size of the aperture was found to be twenty-eight
wires to the linear inch, and seven hundred and eighty-four apertures
to the square inch, a proportion that is still in use. This wire gauze
was then made into the form of a cylindrical tube about six inches long
and one and one half inches in diameter, with a flat gauze top. To the
bottom of this tube was fastened a small cylindrical oil vessel, and to
the top a ring handle. The wick extended up from the oil vessel inside
the tube.

When Sir Humphrey had perfected his lamp to a point of safety he took
it and went with Mr. Buddie down to Newcastle, and together they
traversed with impunity some of the most dangerous parts of the Bentham
seam, at that time one of the most fiery coal beds known. At about the
same time the celebrated George Stephenson also invented a safety lamp
similar in most respects to the Davy, so also, later, did Clanny and
Museler, and all four kinds are in general use. Other styles have been
invented also, but for the purposes to which a safety lamp is properly
applied the Davy doubtless still excels all others. Those purposes are
principally the investigation of workings to discover the presence
of gas, and to aid in the erection of proper appliances for driving
it out. It is not necessary, in these days of powerful ventilating
machinery, to allow dangerous gases to remain in working places and
to mine the coal there by the light of safety lamps. It is far safer,
and better in every way, to sweep the chambers clean from foul air by
strong ventilating currents, so that the miner may work by the light
of his naked and most convenient common tin lamp. The objection,
therefore, to the Davy lamp, that the light given out by it is too dim,
need not be considered a serious one. The size of the flame cannot be
increased without destroying the proportion between it and the gauze
cylinder, and the size of the cylinder cannot be increased without
making a dangerously large chamber for the accommodation of explosive
gas. Therefore the light given out must, of necessity, be dim.

But the safety lamp itself must be used with care and prudence,
otherwise it may become no less an instrument of danger than the naked
lamp. When it is carried into a chamber that contains fire damp the
gas enters freely through the gauze into the cylindrical chamber, and
is there ignited and consumed without communicating its flame to the
outside body. The presence of gas is indicated by the conduct of the
flame of the lamp. If the percentage of marsh gas is small the flame
simply elongates and becomes smoky. If it is mixed with from eight to
twelve or fourteen times its volume of atmospheric air the flame of
the wick disappears entirely, and the interior of the cylinder becomes
filled with the blue flame of burning gas. It will not do to hold the
lamp long in this mixture, the wires will become red with heat, and the
outer gas may then become ignited from them. Neither will it do to hold
the lamp in a current of gaseous air moving at a greater rate of speed
than six or eight feet per second, since in that case the flame is apt
to be driven through the gauze and to set fire to the gas outside.
There is also danger if the lamp be thrust suddenly into an explosive
mixture that the force of the explosion inside the wire-gauze cylinder
will force the flame through the mesh. It will be seen, therefore, that
even the safety lamp is not an absolute protection against danger from
explosive and inflammable gases.

The position and duties of the fire boss at each colliery have already
been referred to. He goes into the mine about four o’clock in the
morning and makes his round before the men arrive. If gas has been
found in an inflammable or explosive condition the workmen are not
allowed to enter the place until it has been cleared out by the
erection of brattices and other ventilating appliances. If only an
insignificant quantity has been found in any chamber, the miner who
works the place is warned of its existence and told to brush it out. In
obedience to this order he goes to the working face, sets his lamp on
the floor, and removing his coat swings that garment vigorously over
his head, thus mixing and diluting the gas and driving it down into the
current.

It is not in the working chambers, however, that the most dangerous
accumulations of fire damp are found, but in the worked out and
abandoned portions of the mine. Here it may collect unnoticed until
large bodies of it are formed, and then when some one blunders into it
with a naked lamp a terrific explosion is the inevitable result. The
act of 1885 recognizes this especial danger, and makes it obligatory
on operators to keep old workings free of dangerous bodies of gas; and
to this end it directs that they shall be inspected at least once a
week by the fire boss or his assistant. Where it is known that such
gas exists, or is liable to accumulate in old workings, the entrances
to such places are barred across, and the word “Fire!” is written
conspicuously at the opening to them. But notwithstanding all rules
and precautions, ignitions and explosions of fire damp are still
dangerously common. Among the thousands of mine workers there is always
some one who is careless, some one who blunders; the lessons of
perfect watchfulness and obedience are hard lessons to be learned.

As has already been intimated, the danger which results from the
burning of fire damp lies not alone in the fierce flame given forth,
but also, and perhaps in a still greater degree, in the product of its
combustion. This product is known to the miner as “after damp,” and
consists principally of carbonic acid gas with some nitrogen. It is
irrespirable, and a single inhalation of it, in its pure state, will
produce immediate insensibility and speedy death. It is heavier than
atmospheric air and therefore falls to the bottom of the mine as soon
as it is formed from the combustion of the light carbureted hydrogen.
It is for this reason that the miner, who has fallen on his face on the
floor of the mine to escape the flame of the burning fire damp, rises
as soon as that flame has disappeared and hastens, if he is able, to a
place of safety. Indeed, it is easier to protect one’s self from the
surging fire above than from the invisible and insidious gas below, so
quickly does it form, so deadly is it in effect.

One of the most characteristic disasters of recent times, resulting
from the explosion of fire damp and the accumulation of after damp,
occurred on Monday, August 14, 1871, at the Eagle Shaft, situated about
a mile below the town of Pittston, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
At nine o’clock on the morning of that day a driver boy by the name
of Martin Mangan was passing along an upper gangway, driving a mule
with a trip of mine cars. Just above him lay a section of the mine
that had been worked out and abandoned, in the old chambers of which
a large body of fire damp had been allowed to accumulate. At the hour
mentioned there came a sudden and extensive fall of roof in these old
workings. The impulse given to the air by this fall drove it out into
the working galleries, and with it the inflammable gas. When the fire
damp reached the heading and touched the flame of Martin Mangan’s
lighted lamp there was a terrific explosion. At the mouth of the shaft
timbers were cracked, clouds of dust poured out, and débris from the
mine was thrown violently into the outer air. People who were a mile
away heard the noise of the explosion and hastened to the scene. Mining
experts knew at once what had occurred. As soon as sufficient repairs
could be made to the shaft a rescuing party, led by Superintendent
Andrew Bryden of the Pennsylvania Coal Company’s mines, descended into
the mine and began to search for victims. Those workmen who were on
the other side of the shaft from where the explosion took place were
rescued and brought out alive. But little progress could be made,
however, toward the region of the trouble on account of the after damp
which had accumulated. Up to two o’clock on Tuesday morning five dead
bodies had been discovered, and during that day twelve more were taken
out; all who had worked in that section of the mine. The positions of
these bodies showed that the men had fallen where they chanced to be
when the explosion occurred. The first wave of after damp that touched
them had made them insensible, and death speedily followed. They died
from asphyxia.

“Black damp” is pure carbonic acid gas, containing two parts of oxygen
to one of carbon. It is the principal constituent of after damp, which
may, indeed, contain no other elements in appreciable quantities. The
two mixtures are therefore often spoken of as being the same, and the
miners apply the term “choke damp” indiscriminately to either.

Black damp is also given off by the coal in the same manner that fire
damp is, and frequently the two mixtures are evolved together. Carbonic
acid gas is also one of the products of burning coal, of burning oil,
and of the respiration of man and beast. It is about one and a half
times as heavy as air, and is therefore always found next to the floor
of the mine. This gas is not inflammable. Its presence may be detected
by the conduct of the flame of the lamp. In an atmosphere containing
but a small percentage of it the lamp light will grow dim, and, as the
proportion of gas increases, will become more and more feeble until
it is finally extinguished. An atmosphere containing from eight to
ten per cent. of this gas may be breathed without immediate danger;
it will simply occasion dullness of intellect and numbness of body.
This condition changes into one of insensibility as the inhalation
continues, or as the percentage of gas is increased, and to enter an
undiluted body of it means sudden death. It is stated that the workmen
in the Creuzot mine, in France, descended the shaft one morning,
on their way to work, not knowing that carbonic acid had formed in
the mine during the night. Following one after another along the
main passage, they had reached a point not far from the foot of the
shaft when the leader suddenly entered into a body of black damp and
fell, stricken with asphyxia, before he could utter a cry. The man
following him fell also. The third, bending over to draw his comrade
out of danger, was himself prostrated, and the fourth, by reason of a
similar effort, shared the fate of the others. But the fifth, being
an experienced master miner, turned quickly in his tracks and obliged
those behind him to ascend the shaft. The black damp is thus quick
and terrible in its effect. The greatest danger from it, however,
exists, not at the working faces, where it is usually swept away in
the ventilating current, but in abandoned workings, where it often
accumulates unnoticed.

“White damp” is a more dangerous gas than either of the others, but
is not so frequently found. It is carbonic oxide, and consists of
equal portions of carbon and oxygen. It is a very little lighter than
air, and has a tendency to rise. When present in a sufficiently pure
state it burns with a blue flame, but ordinarily it is incombustible
and produces no effect upon the flame of the lamp. It is tasteless
and odorless, and its presence cannot be detected before it has done
its dangerous work. To breathe an atmosphere containing a very small
percentage of it will speedily produce a fatal result. It acts on the
system as a narcotic, and its effect is produced even more quickly than
is that of black damp. It is not thought to be given off in appreciable
quantities by the coal at the open faces; but it is formed when the
carbonic acid passes through any ignited carbonaceous material, or
when steam passes over burning coal. It is therefore produced most
frequently by smouldering gob fires, by burning wood in the mines, or
by a shaft on fire, and may exist as one of the results of an explosion
of fire damp or of blasting powder. It is the most to be dreaded of any
of the gases which the miner has to encounter. He may possibly avoid
the surging flame of the fire damp, he may escape from the falling
after damp, and make his way unharmed through bodies of black damp
lying thick about his feet, but if he has still to encounter this
terrible white damp his good fortune will have been of little avail;
death will almost surely seize him.

In connection with this may be mentioned the fact that under certain
conditions coal dust may become violently explosive. When it is mixed
with air, with or without the presence of fire damp, and is set into
sudden and intense vibration by a heavy powder blast, a fall of roof,
or other means, it may explode with greater destructive force than even
fire damp is capable of. Happily such explosions are not frequent, all
the conditions necessary being rarely present at the same time. It is
obvious, moreover, that an accident of this kind could occur only in
a very dry mine. It is true also that the dust of bituminous coals is
much more liable to be explosive than the dust of anthracite. No well
authenticated instances of coal dust explosions have been reported
from the anthracite regions, while in mining soft coals they have
undoubtedly occurred. Two cases of this kind were reported from France,
one in 1875 and one in 1877. No longer ago than November 9, 1888, a
terrible explosion of coal dust occurred in a bituminous coal mine at
Pittsburg, Kansas, by which more than one hundred lives were lost.

In some mines the inflammable and poisonous gases are given off in such
abundance by the coal that it is dangerous to remain in them for even
an hour after ventilation has been stopped. At such collieries when, on
account of accident, or for any reason, the fan stops running, the men
are called out immediately, and are not allowed to enter again until a
new circulating current has been established. One of the most notable
mine disasters of recent years was caused by the quick accumulation
of black damp and white damp in a mine, the ventilating system of
which had been destroyed and the shaft burned out by fire. This was at
Avondale, near Plymouth, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on the 6th
of September, 1869. There were three conditions here, the presence and
coöperation of which made this calamity possible. First, the mine was
ventilated by a furnace at the foot of the shaft; second, the breaker
was built over the mouth of the shaft; and, third, the shaft was the
only outlet from the mine. The partition of the ventilating flue took
fire from the furnace draught. At ten o’clock in the forenoon a young
man by the name of Palmer Steele stepped on the carriage with a load of
hay to take to the inside stables. Half way down the shaft the hay took
fire from the burning buntons. The engineer saw the flames rise from
the mouth and let the carriage, with the young man on it, as quickly
as possible to the bottom. There were then in the mine one hundred and
eight men. Not one of them came out from it alive. In an incredibly
short space of time the flames leaped to the top of the breaker, one
hundred feet from the ground, and by the middle of the afternoon the
great building was a mass of ruins, covering over and blocking up
the only entrance to the mine. It was far into the night before the
débris had been sufficiently cleared away to permit of descent into the
shaft. Then two men, Thomas W. Williams and David Jones, went down to
search for the imprisoned miners. They were scarcely beyond the foot
of the shaft when they stumbled into a body of white damp and were
stricken with death. The fire occurred on Monday. It was not until ten
o’clock Tuesday morning that a sufficient ventilating current had been
established to make it safe for men to descend. The greatest distance
that it was possible to go from the foot of the shaft on Tuesday was
seventy-five feet. Beyond that point the danger from suffocation was
still imminent. Only three bodies had been thus far found.

Wednesday morning a rescuing party went up the plane at some distance
from the foot of the shaft, and at the head of the plane they found a
barrier across the gangway. It had been formed by placing a mine car in
position and packing the space between it and the walls with clothing
and refuse. This barrier was broken down, but there was no one behind
it. Later another party was able to go a little farther, and came to
a second barrier. Outside of this lay the dead body of John Bowen. He
had come out for some purpose from behind the barricade, leaving open
an aperture through which to crawl back, but before he could do so he
had died from asphyxia. This barrier was broken down, and behind it
lay the victims, one hundred and five of them, all dead, suffocated
by the foul gases of the mine. The story of their experiences, their
struggles, their sufferings, can never be known.

The disaster which occurred at the West Pittston mine on May 27, 1871,
was similar in many respects to that at Avondale. In this case also the
breaker, built over the shaft, the only opening to the mine, took fire
and burned to the ground, closing the avenue of escape to thirty-six
men and boys. These prisoners shut themselves into a chamber, building
a barricade across the foot of it to keep out the foul gases; but when
the rescuing party broke in to them on the following day fourteen of
them were found dead and the rest were unconscious. Of those who were
brought out alive four died soon after reaching the surface.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE ANTHRACITE COAL BREAKER.


In the act of 1885 it is provided that “no inflammable structure other
than a frame to sustain pulleys or sheaves shall be erected over the
entrance of any opening connecting the surface with the underground
workings of any mine, and no breaker or other inflammable structure
for the preparation or storage of coal shall be erected nearer than
two hundred feet to any such opening.” This was for the purpose of
preventing, if possible, such lamentable disasters as those of Avondale
and West Pittston. The results of this legislation in providing greater
security to the employees in mines is invaluable. Formerly it had
been the custom to build not only the shaft-house over the opening
into the mine, but the breaker itself, wherever there was one, was
usually erected over the mouth of the shaft. This was convenient and
economical, since the coal could be hoisted directly from the mine to
the top of the breaker, without the delay of a horizontal transfer at
the surface of the earth. Many of the shaft houses and breakers that
had thus been built at the time of the passage of the act are still
in operation, and will so remain until the time of their utility is
passed. But all new buildings are erected in accordance with the law.

[Illustration: THE SLOAN COAL BREAKER, HYDE PARK, PA.]

At the mouth of the shaft heavy upright timbers are set up, inclosing
the opening. These are united by cross-beams, and the whole structure
is well braced. In this head-frame are set the sheaves, at a distance
from the ground of from thirty to fifty feet, although, when the entire
surface plant was under one cover, they were set much lower. These
sheaves are huge upright wheels sixteen feet in diameter, over which
the ropes pass that connect with the cages. A sheave similar in form to
the bicycle wheel is now coming rapidly into use; it is found to bear a
greater strain in comparison with its weight than does any other form.

The hoisting engine must be in the immediate vicinity of the shaft, and
the rooms for this and the boiler, furnace, and pump are usually all
under one roof. The iron or steel wire ropes extend from the sheaves
in the head frame to the drum in the engine-room, around which they
are coiled in such a manner that as one is being wound up the other is
being unwound. Therefore as one carriage ascends the other descends by
virtue of the same movement of the engine.

Since the breaker may receive coal from two or more openings it must be
so located as to be convenient to both or all of them. If the ground
slopes sufficiently the breaker may be so built that its head will be
on a level with the head of the shaft. This will save breaker hoisting.
When coal is brought out by a slope the track and grade of the slope
are usually continued, by an open trestlework, from the mouth of the
opening to the head of the breaker. Wherever it is possible to do so,
the loaded cars are run by gravity from the mouth of the opening to the
breaker, and the empty ones are drawn back by mules. Sometimes they
are hauled both ways by mules, and sometimes a small steam locomotive
engine is employed to draw them back and forth.

The coal breaker is an institution that is peculiar to the anthracite
coal fields of Pennsylvania. Its need was made manifest early in the
history of anthracite mining, its development was rapid, and it has now
come to be wholly indispensable in the preparation of anthracite coal
for the market. It is very seldom indeed that one sees this coal in the
shape and size in which it was mined. All anthracite coal for domestic
use is now broken, screened, and separated into grades of uniform size
before being placed upon the market, and this work is done in the coal
breakers.

Previous to the year 1844 these breakers were unknown. Several
experiments had been made in the matter of breaking coal by machinery,
but there had been no practical results, and the breaking still
continued to be done by hand. In that year, however, a breaker after
the modern plan was erected at the mines of Gideon Bast, in Schuylkill
County, by J. & S. Battin of Philadelphia. It was started on the 28th
of February, 1844. There were two cast-iron rollers in it, each about
thirty inches long and thirty inches in diameter, and on the surface
of these rollers were set iron teeth or projections about two and one
half inches long and four inches from centre to centre. These rollers
were placed horizontally, side by side, and were so geared that, as
they revolved, their upper surfaces turned toward each other, and the
teeth on one roller were opposite to the spaces on the other. These
rolls were afterward improved by being perforated between the teeth,
thus presenting less of solid surface to the coal, and causing less
crushing. Another set of rollers was afterward added, being placed
above the first set, and having the teeth larger and wider apart,
so that large lumps of coal might first be broken into pieces small
enough to be crushed readily by the lower set. After the perfecting
of the rolls came the perfecting of the screens for the purpose of
separating the broken coal into grades according to size. Before the
introduction of coal breakers a hand screen was used. This screen was
set in a frame, was cylindrical in form, and was slightly inclined from
the horizontal. It was turned by a crank at one end, in the manner of
a grindstone. The screen placed in the breaker was of much the same
pattern, except that instead of being from five to eight feet long the
length was increased to twenty feet, and the diameter correspondingly
enlarged. Mr. Henry Jenkins of Pottsville then invented a method of
weaving thick wire into screen plates about three feet wide, having
the proper curve. These curved plates being joined together formed the
necessary hollow cylinder. These separate plates are called jackets,
and when one of them wears out it may be taken from the cylinder and
replaced, with but little trouble and delay. The screen is set in heavy
framework, and is inclined slightly from the horizontal. The first
segment at the upper end of the screen is made of wire woven into a
mesh so fine that only the smallest particles of coal will pass through
it; the mesh of the next segment is larger, and that of the next larger
still. The screen may contain from two to five segments in its length.
Now the coal, being poured in on top of the revolving rolls, comes out
from under them broken into small pieces, and passes immediately into
the upper or highest end of the hollow cylindrical screen as it would
pass into a barrel. But, as the screen revolves on its axis, the finer
particles of coal fall out through the fine mesh of the first segment,
and are carried away in an inclined trough, while the rest of the coal
slides on to the next segment. Here the next smallest particles fall
through and are carried away, and the process is continued until the
lower end of the screen is reached, out of which end all the coal that
was too large to pass through the mesh of the last segment is now
poured. It will be seen that by this means the different sizes of coal
have been separated from each other and can be carried by separate
shutes to the loading place. This is the principle of the rolls and
screens which are the main features of every coal breaker, though each
breaker usually contains two or more sets of rolls and from eight to
twelve screens. The Woodward breaker recently erected near Kingston,
Pennsylvania, has six pairs of rollers and twenty screens. Some of
these screens are double; that is, they have a larger outside screen
surrounding the smaller one, and the coal that passes through the inner
screen is caught by the outer one and again divided by means of a
smaller mesh.

Before the days of breakers and screens coal was sent to market in
the lump, as it came from the mine, and it was generally broken and
prepared for use by the consumer. But when the separation of coal in
the breaker became reduced to a system, the four smaller sizes than
lump coal were soon graded. They were known as steamboat, egg, stove,
and chestnut. It was thought at the time that no finer grade of coal
than chestnut could be burned to advantage. But it was not long before
a smaller size, known as pea coal, was separated, placed on the market,
and readily sold; and now, within recent years, another still smaller
size called buckwheat has been saved from the refuse and has come into
general use. Everything smaller than this is culm and goes to the waste
pile. The names of the different sizes of marketable coal and the
spaces over and through which they pass in the process of separation
are given in the following table, taken from Saward’s “Coal Trade
Annual,” for 1888:――

    ───────────────────┬──────────┬──────────
                       │   OVER.  │  THROUGH.
                       │  Inches. │  Inches.
    ───────────────────┼──────────┼──────────
    Lump coal     bars │ 4½ to 9  │
    Steamboat      “   │ 3½ to 5  │  7
    Broken        mesh │ 2⅜ to 2⅞ │ 3¼ to 4½
    Egg            “   │ 1¾ to 2¼ │ 2⅜ to 2⅞
    Large stove    “   │ 1¼ to 1⅞ │ 1¾ to 2¼
    Small stove    “   │ 1  to 1¼ │ 1¼ to 1½
    Chestnut       “   │  ⅝ to  ¾ │ 1  to 1¼
    Pea            “   │  ⅜ to  ⅝ │  ⅝ to  ⅞
    Buckwheat      “   │³∕₁₆ to  ⅜ │  ⅜ to  ⅝
    Dirt           “   │          │³∕₁₆ to  ⅜
    ───────────────────┴──────────┴──────────

The necessity which controls the form and construction of the breaker
building is that the unbroken and unscreened coal must first be
taken to a point in the building sufficiently high to allow of its
passage, by gradual descent, with slow movement, through successive
rolls, screens, shutes, and troughs until, thoroughly broken and fully
cleaned and separated, it reaches the railroad cars, standing under
the pockets, and is loaded into them for shipment. It is sometimes
possible, as has already been intimated, to locate a breaker on the
side of a hill so that the coal may be run into the head of it from the
mine by a surface track without the necessity of hoisting. In this case
the building will hug the hill, extending for a long distance down the
slope of it, but without rising at any point to a great height from
the surface of the ground. In these days, however, the breaker is more
frequently erected in the valley. The general results are thought to be
better, and the special convenience to railroad outlets to market is
certainly greater. Besides this, the necessities of the case in shaft
mining seem to demand it.

A peculiar and characteristic feature of a breaker so built is the
great vertical height to which one portion of the building is run
up. This is the portion that contains the shaft up which the coal is
hoisted, and from the top of which it starts on its long descending
route to the surface again. From one hundred to one hundred and fifty
feet is not an unusual height for this portion of the building. From
this topmost part of the structure the roof slopes down by stages, on
one or two sides, widening out, running off at an angle to cover a
wing, spreading by a projection here and there until, by the time the
last ten feet in height are reached, the ground space covered by the
building has come to be very great. Under the last or lowest portion
of the structure are the railroad sidings on which the cars stand to
be loaded from the many pockets in which the shutes have terminated.
Two engines are necessary at the breaker, one a winding engine to
hoist coal from the surface to the top of the breaker, and the other a
breaker engine to move the rolls, screens, and other breaker machinery.
The winding engine is usually put on the opposite side of the shaft
tower from the rolls and screens, and the ropes from it, either exposed
or under cover of a long sloping roof, reach up to the sheaves in the
head frame. The breaker engine is usually housed in a wing at one
side of the main building, while the several nests of boilers, under
a separate cover, are required by the act of 1885 to be at least one
hundred feet away from the breaker.

No one, having once seen and examined an anthracite coal breaker, could
ever mistake one for a building erected for any other purpose. These
breakers have a character peculiarly their own. They are the most
prominent features in the landscape of every anthracite coal region,
where they tower up black, majestic, many-winged, and many-windowed, in
the range of almost every outlook.

When the mine car full of coal is hoisted to the head of the breaker it
is run by two headmen from the carriage across the scale platform to
the dump shute bars on to which it is dumped. These are long, sloping,
parallel iron bars, set two and one half inches apart. The dirt and all
the coal that is small enough falls through these bars into a hopper,
from which it is fed into a pair of screens, one on each side. These
separate the dirt in the manner already described, and divide the clean
coal into sizes smaller than, and including, egg. Each size as it falls
through the segment of, or out at the end of, the screen, is caught in
a separate shute and carried to a second set of revolving screens where
it is again cleaned and separated, passing from these screens into the
picking shutes. All the shutes or troughs in which the coal is carried
have a sufficient inclination to make the material move by gravity,
and, to decrease the amount of friction, the bottom and sides of each
shute are lined with sheet iron. The large coals which passed over the
dump shute bars now slide down to a second set of bars, set four and
one half inches apart, called steamboat bars; all coal falling through
these being separated by still a third set of bars into steamboat and
egg, and eventually finding its way to the picking shutes or to the
rolls which break the prepared coal. All coal which passed over the
steamboat bars is lump coal, and, after having the slate and bony coal
removed from it by hand as it passes, is carried into the lump-coal
shute and sent down to the loading place; or else it is carried, by
another shute, into the heavy rolls and crushed. As it emerges,
broken, from these rolls, it passes into revolving screens, and the
same process of screening and separating goes on that has been already
described in the case of coal falling through the first or dump-shute
bars. But all this broken, screened, and separated coal finds its way
eventually into the picking shutes. These are narrow troughs down which
the separate grades of coal pass slowly in shallow streams. Across the
top of each trough, at two or more points in its route through the
picking-room, narrow seats are placed on which boys sit facing up the
shute. These boys are called slate pickers. It is their duty to pick
out the pieces of slate, stone, or bone, from the stream of coal which
passes under them, and throw this refuse into a trough at the side of
the shute, from which point it slides rapidly away. The coal as it
comes from the mine is full of waste material, so that the boy who
sits first or highest on the shute has no trouble in finding plenty to
do, and, work as hard as he may, much of the unfit material must still
escape him. The boy who sits below him on the shute is able to give the
passing stream a closer inspection and more careful treatment, and,
should there be one still below, he must have sharp eyes and skillful
fingers to detect worthless pieces that have been left by his comrades.
The boys often put their feet in the shute and dam the coal back for
a moment to give them time to throw out the abundance of slate that
they may see, but no matter how careful they are, nor how many hands
the coal may pass through in the picking process, a certain percentage
of slate and bone is sure to remain. The slate pickers are not all
stationed in one room, though the picking-room usually holds the
greater number of them. They are put at the shutes in any part of the
breaker where their services may be useful or necessary. Indeed, there
are pickers who sit at the refuse shutes to pick out the pieces of good
coal which have been inadvertently thrown in by the other pickers. In
some breakers the coal passes from the shute across a gently sloping
platform, by the side of which the boy sits to pick out the waste.

[Illustration: SCREEN-ROOM IN BREAKER, SHOWING SCREEN AND SHUTES.]

But the time is undoubtedly coming when the occupation of the picker
boy will be gone. The inventive genius of the age has already devised
machinery which does its work faster, better, and with greater
certainty than the most conscientious breaker boy could hope to do it.
The great collieries are, one by one, adopting the new methods, and the
army of breaker boys is gradually but surely decreasing.

Nearly all the slate-picking machines are based on the fact that the
specific gravity of coal is lighter than that of slate or stone. One
method brings the principle of friction into play. A section, a few
feet in length, of the floor of the shute down which the coal passes
is made of stone. At the end of this stone section is a narrow slot
cut in the floor, crosswise of the shute, and beyond the slot the iron
bottom is continued as before. Now when the shallow stream of broken
coal strikes the stone bottom the friction between that bottom and
the pieces of slate and stone is so great that these particles are
impeded in their progress, and by the time they reach the slot they
have not impetus enough to cross it and must therefore drop into it and
be carried away. But the friction between coal and stone is slight in
comparison, and the pieces of coal retain enough of their impetus to
carry them safely across the slot and on down the shute. This is not a
perfect separation, and the coal and slate which it divides has usually
to be looked over again, to insure satisfactory results. The best and
most practicable invention thus far brought into use is that of Mr.
Charles W. Ziegler, picker boss at the Von Storch colliery, Scranton.
This machine acts somewhat upon the method last described, though by
a system of rollers, levers, and screens in connection with it and
attached to it, it is able to make quite perfect separation of the coal
and slate. Two or three of these machines placed on a single shute
should do the work required of them very thoroughly.

The experience of domestic buyers of coal would seem to indicate,
either that the picker boys do not do their whole duty or that the
picking machines have not yet been made perfect. But it must be
remembered that the separation of slate and bony coal from good
material is made only in a rough and general way in the mine, and that
a very large percentage of the output, as it reaches the breaker,
is unfit for use. To clean and separate this material thoroughly,
therefore, requires much labor, and extreme care and skill.

After these separate streams of coal have passed the scrutiny of the
picker boys or the test of the picking machine, the shutes in which
they run are narrowed into pockets or bins, closed at the end by a
gate. The pocket projects over the car track high enough from it for a
railroad coal car to stand beneath, and the coal is then fed from the
pocket into the car at will.

There is also a loading place for the rock and slate which have been
separated from the coal on its way through the breaker; and there are
two or three points where the coal dirt is gathered from its pockets
to be taken away. All this refuse is run out by separate tracks to a
convenient distance from the breaker and there dumped.

It is estimated that sixteen per cent. of the material which goes
into the breaker to be prepared comes out as waste, and is sent to
the refuse dump. It can readily be supposed, therefore, that in the
course of a few years these waste heaps will grow to an enormous size;
and as a matter of fact they do. The dirt or culm, which includes all
material finer than buckwheat coal, is usually dumped on a separate
pile from the rock, slate, and bony coal, since it is not wholly
without at least prospective value. It has been used frequently in
the coal regions to fill in beneath railroad tracks supported by
trestle-work, and it is valuable as a foundation on which to lay
stone flagging for footwalks, since it does not yield readily to
the action of frost. Culm has also been utilized by adding to it a
certain percentage of mucilaginous or pitchy material and compressing
it into bricks for fuel. In some European countries a large amount of
waste is burned in this way, but in America the cost of preparation
is still too great to permit of competition with prepared anthracite.
The most characteristic feature of scenery in the anthracite coal
regions, aside from the breakers themselves, is the presence of these
great, bare, black hills of culm, shining in the sunlight, smoothly
white under the snows of winter. Sometimes these culm banks take fire,
either spontaneously or as the result of carelessness or accident. If
the pile is near enough to the breaker to menace it, or near enough
to an outcrop to carry combustion into the coal of the mine, the fire
must be extinguished, and this is sometimes done with much labor and
at great expense. If no danger is apprehended, the fire is allowed to
smoulder until it burns out, a process which may take months or even
years, during which time little blue flames flicker on the surface of
the bank, the sky above it is tinged with red at night, and the whole
black hillside is finally covered with great blotches of white ash. To
the poor people who live in the vicinity of the breakers these heaps
of refuse coal are an unmixed blessing. Pieces of good coal are always
being thrown out inadvertently with the waste, and the bony coal that
is discarded is not by any means without value as a fuel; indeed it
makes a very respectable fire. So, too, one can obtain, with a screen,
from the culm heap quite a little percentage of material that will
burn. Thus it comes about that every day women and children and old
men go to these black hills with hammer and screen and gather fuel for
their fires, and carry it home in bags, or wheelbarrows, or little
handcarts. It is the old story over again of the gleaners in the field.




CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE BITUMINOUS COAL MINES.


A brief history of the discovery and introduction into use of the
bituminous coals of Pennsylvania has already been given; but only
casual reference has been made to the methods of mining in the
bituminous regions. It is true that of the one hundred and twenty
thousand square miles of workable coal beds in the United States less
than five hundred square miles are of anthracite coal. It is true,
also, that more than two thirds of the coal produced in the United
States during the year 1887 was of the bituminous variety, and that
the income from bituminous coal during that year was nearly twice as
much as the income from anthracite. Yet it is obvious that in any
description of coal mining methods the anthracite mines should be
used as the chief examples. This is not only because of the greater
commercial importance of anthracite, and of its greater familiarity
as a domestic fuel, but it is principally because of the far greater
skill, judgment, and ingenuity required in mining it and preparing it
for market. In the bituminous regions the coal is soft, lies flat and
near the surface, and is mined by the simplest methods. The reader
is already familiar with some of the complications, obstacles, and
problems that meet and beset the operator in the anthracite regions,
and with the great labor, vast expenditures, and high degree of skill
necessary to reach, take out, and prepare the anthracite coal. In
view of these facts no excuse is necessary for attaching the greater
importance to the description of methods in the anthracite region. But
a brief outline of the systems in vogue at the bituminous mines will
not be uninteresting, so far at least as they differ from those in use
at the anthracite mines.

In the year 1887 a little more than one third of the bituminous
coal output of the United States came from the Pennsylvania mines.
Pittsburgh is the centre of the soft coal trade of that state, and
the principal coal seam of the region is known as the “Pittsburgh
bed.” It is included in an area about fifty miles square, and varies
in thickness from two or three feet in the northwestern part, and six
feet at Pittsburgh, to ten feet up the Monongahela River, and twelve
feet up the Youghiogeny. The exhaustion of so vast a coal bed is a
practical impossibility, and the questions that engage the attention of
the mining engineer in these regions are not so much questions of the
economy of coal as they are questions of the economy of labor. The coal
lies near the surface, and the outcrops on the flanks of the hills and
banks of the rivers are so numerous that most of the mining can be,
and is, done by drift above water level. The outlay of capital required
in opening a mine is therefore very small, marketable coal being
obtained at almost the first blow of the pick.

Before mining operations are begun a complete survey is made of all
outcroppings, and their differences in level are obtained. From this
data a comparatively accurate knowledge may be had of the position of
the coal bed under ground, as the dip of the seams is very moderate and
uniform, and but few faults and other irregularities are encountered.
It is then decided where to locate the mouth of the drift so that the
entry can be driven in on the rise of the coal and the mine become
self-draining. It is important, however, to have the opening at a
convenient point near the river or railroad, and it is usually so made
if possible, even though the dip should be away from the opening.
The inclination is always so slight as not to interfere greatly with
the hauling of cars, and it is not much of a task to make a separate
opening for drainage. The coal seam is divided by vertical cleavage
planes, running at right angles to each other, one of which is known
as the _butt_ cleavage and the other as the _face_ cleavage. The
main entries are driven in, if possible, on the face cleavage, as
are also the chambers, or “rooms” as they are called here; while the
entries from which the rooms are turned are always driven on the butt
cleavage. The drift, or main entry, has an airway running parallel
with it; sometimes it has one on each side of it. It is driven eight
or nine feet in width, except where two tracks are necessary, in which
case it is made from twelve to fifteen feet wide. These double or
treble entries are parallel to each other, and are separated by a wall
of coal from twenty-five to forty feet in width. Through this wall,
at about every thirty yards, entrances, or, as they are called here,
“break-throughs,” are made, having the same width as the entry. The
height of roof in the entries of the Pittsburgh seam is usually five
and one half or six feet in the clear. At right angles to the main
entry butt entries are driven in pairs, parallel to each other and
about thirty or forty feet apart, with break-throughs or cross-cuts
for the passage of air, as on the main entries. From each of these
butt entries, at right angles to them, and in opposite directions,
the rooms are driven. They are made about twenty-one feet wide, with
pillars between them twelve feet thick, and are not often more than
eighty yards in length. They are usually driven to meet the faces of
the rooms which are being worked from the next parallel butt entry, or
are extended to that butt entry itself. At the point where the room
turns off from the butt entry it is made only seven feet wide for a
distance of from fifteen to twenty-one feet, then the room is widened
out to its full width of twenty-one feet. The track on which the mine
wagon runs is laid straight up the side of the room from the opening
at the entry, occupying a clear space about seven feet wide. The rest
of the room is well filled with the refuse which has been separated
from the coal as mining has progressed, and the roof is supported by an
abundance of props, or “posts” as they are here called. In one room,
with an ordinary roof, about six hundred and fifteen posts would be
necessary. The pillars are long, the distances between break-throughs
averaging thirty yards. This is known as the “double entry” system,
to distinguish it from the single entry system which was formerly in
general use. The method by single entry consisted in driving the butt
entries singly, about one hundred and sixty yards apart, and the face
entries the same distance apart, at right angles to the butt entries,
thus laying off the mine in large square blocks which were then mined
out. The difficulty with this system was that from twenty-five to fifty
per cent. of the pillars were necessarily lost, while by the double
entry system, which now prevails, all or nearly all the pillars can be
taken out.

Of course the features in the plan of each mine vary according to the
special necessities of that mine, but in general they do not differ
greatly from those that have been described.

[Illustration: PLAN OF A BITUMINOUS COAL MINE.]

The method of cutting coal here is also peculiar to the soft coal
mines. The miner has a pick with sharp, pointed ends, and with this
he cuts a horizontal groove or channel, from two and a half to three
and a half feet deep across the entire width of the entry or room.
This groove is cut in that horizontal section of the face known as the
bearing-in section. It may be in the bottom layer of coal, or it may
be one or two feet above the bottom. The process itself is known as
“bearing in,” “under cutting,” “holing,” or “undermining.” While he
is at this work the miner must lie on the floor of the room, partly
on his side, but with hands and arms free. When the horizontal groove
has been completed a vertical groove similar to it in size and shape
is made at one side of the face. These channels are sometimes cut
with mining machines having compressed air for a motive power. This
machine is small but powerful. It is placed on a low inclined platform
at the face of coal, and is operated by a man called a “runner.” The
inclination of the platform causes the machine, which is on wheels, to
gravitate constantly toward, and to press against, the face of coal.
The compressed air cylinder drives a piston-rod to which is attached
a steel bit two inches in diameter projecting from the front of the
machine. This bit strikes the coal with sharp, swift blows, chipping
it out in small fragments, and eats its way rapidly into the seam.
The compressed air is carried to the machine in an iron pipe from the
compressing engine, which is located at the mouth of the mine. When
a machine is used, seven men usually work three rooms. Three of these
men are contractors or partners, three of them are laborers employed
by the contractors, and one of them, called the “scraper,” is a
laborer employed by the coal company. When the channel has been cut a
sufficient depth and distance the coal above it is brought down either
by wedging or blasting. If blasting is to be resorted to it will be
unnecessary to cut the vertical groove. If the bearing-in channel was
cut above the floor, the bottom coal is then lifted by wedging, and
broken up. The miners do the cutting and blasting, the laborers break
up the coal and load it into the mine wagons, and the scraper is kept
busy cleaning the cuttings away from the channels and attending to the
lamps.

The mine car track that is extended up into the room is of wooden
rails, and the empty wagon is pushed in to the face by the laborers,
and loaded and run out by them to the entry. Each wagon will hold a
little more than a ton, and a mule will draw four wagons to the mouth
of the drift. The wheels of the mine car are set close to each other,
near the middle of the car, to facilitate its movement around sharp
curves; the doors at the ends of the car are swung from a bar hinge at
the top, and the cars are dumped in the same manner as those in the
anthracite region. In some of the bituminous mines a small locomotive
is used to draw the trains of mine wagons from the working parts of
the mine to the opening. It will draw from twelve to sixteen wagons
at a time, and will do the work of twenty mules. There is usually a
separate split of the air current to supply the locomotive road in
order to keep the smoke out of the working rooms.

When a set of rooms has been driven to its limit the miners then
“draw back the rib;” that is, take out the pillars between the rooms,
beginning at the face and working back. Posts must be used freely to
support the roof while this work is in progress, about sixty or seventy
being necessary in drawing a rib.

Ventilation here is obtained by both the fan and the furnace systems.
In mines that are worked below water level fire damp often accumulates,
but where the coal does not descend at any point below the water-level
line, there is no probability that mine gases will be found.

As has already been said, the usual method of entry into the bituminous
mines has been, and still is, by drift. But as the working faces of the
mines recede farther and farther from the general lines of outcrop, it
often becomes necessary to resort to the method of entry by shaft, and
this latter method will doubtless in time supersede the former almost
entirely. The main shaft, as it is now constructed, is usually about
twenty feet long by nine feet wide, and has three compartments, two for
hoisting and one for ventilation and pumping. It rarely exceeds two
hundred feet in depth. The hoisting apparatus is much like that in use
in the anthracite districts. Air shafts from fifty to one hundred feet
deep, sunk for purposes of ventilation and drainage, are frequent, and
stair shafts in which are fixed ladders for the purpose of ascent and
descent, and which may be used as air shafts also, are not uncommon.
Slopes, like those in the anthracite regions, are not usual here; the
coal seams do not dip sufficiently to make them practicable. Narrow
rock slopes are sometimes driven diagonally through the strata, at an
inclination of twenty degrees or less, to strike the coal bed, but they
are used only as air ways, as traveling ways for men and mules, and to
serve as the “second opening” required by the mine law.

In the bituminous regions coal breakers are unnecessary and are
unknown. As the vertical planes of cleavage of the coal are at right
angles to each other, and as the stratification is nearly horizontal,
the coal when broken takes a cubical form, large blocks of it being
made up of smaller cubes, and these of still smaller, to an almost
microscopic limit. All slate is separated from the coal as it is mined,
and the refuse is piled up in the room.

The mine wagon is loaded only with good coal, and is taken directly
from the mine to a building which, with its appliances, is called a
“tipple.” It is here dumped into a screen, it runs from the screen
into a car or boat, and is then ready to be hauled or floated to market.

If the opening of the mine is practically on the same level as the
tipple the arrangements are very simple, as no extra motive power is
required to get the cars to the dumping place. It is usual, however, to
find the opening at a higher point than the tipple, since the latter
must always be at the railroad track or on the bank of a river. It
becomes necessary, therefore, in this case, to raise and lower the cars
between the opening of the mine and the tipple. This is usually done by
the inclined plane system, in which the loaded cars descending draw the
light ones up. The same system is much used in the anthracite mines,
and has already been explained.

The railroad tipple consists simply of a frame building from forty to
sixty feet long, fifteen feet high, and from eighteen to thirty feet
wide. This structure is set upon four or five plain timber bents,
and its floor is usually twenty-seven feet higher than the top of
the track rails which run beneath the outer end of it. A platform on
this floor is so adjusted by a single shaft that, when a loaded car
is pushed on it, it tips forward to an angle of about thirty degrees.
The end gate of the wagon is then opened and the coal runs out on to
the screen. This screen is simply a set of longitudinal iron bars
inclined outwardly at distances apart of one and one half inches. All
coal that passes over these bars is called “lump coal” and is run
into a sheet-iron pan suspended from the scales platform, where it is
weighed, and it is then dropped directly into a car standing on the
track below it. The coal which passed through the first set of bars
has, in the mean time, fallen on to a second screen with bars only
three quarters of an inch apart. The coal that passes over these bars
is called nut coal, and is also weighed and dropped into the cars,
while the coal that passes through the bars is called “slack.” This is
dropped into a shute, is carried by it into a car on the slack track,
and is run thence to the dumping ground. When all three kinds of coal
are loaded together it is called “run of mine,” while lump and nut coal
together make “three quarter coal.” These tipples may, of course, be
built with two sets of screens and platforms, and thus be made to do
double work, and some of them are so built. Under the projecting end
of the tipple there are usually four tracks; the first or outside one
for box-cars, the next for lump-coal cars, the next for nut-coal cars,
and the last for cars for slack. Four men operate a single railroad
tipple; two dump and weigh the coal above, while the others trim and
move the railroad cars on the track below. To this number a helper is
often added, both above and below. Besides these men a boy is usually
employed to rake the nut coal from the lower screening bars where it
sticks and prevents the slack from passing through. Sometimes it takes
two boys to do this work properly. Boys are also employed to push the
slack with a scraper down the shutes into the car on the slack track
when the elevation of the tipple above the rails is not sufficient to
afford the necessary grade. Bars are being largely superseded now by
revolving screens for separating slack from nut coal; they do the work
far better, and make the employment of a raking boy unnecessary.

The river tipple is operated in much the same way as the railroad
tipple, except that its apparatus must be so arranged as to accommodate
itself to high or low water. The floor of the river tipple is usually
placed from forty to fifty feet above low-water mark, and the weighing
pan is held in position by a counter-weight, which may be raised or
lowered at pleasure. A small stationary engine, or a hand windlass,
draws the empty boat or barge into position under that end of the
tipple which projects over the water. About twice as many men are
required to operate a river tipple as are necessary to operate a
railroad tipple, and while the railroad tipple costs but from two
thousand to four thousand dollars the river tipple is built at an
expense of from four thousand to ten thousand dollars. But even this
latter figure is small when compared with the cost of an anthracite
breaker, which may run anywhere from twenty thousand to one hundred
thousand dollars.




CHAPTER XV.

THE BOY WORKERS AT THE MINES.


In the coal mines of the United States boys are employed at two kinds
of labor: to attend the doors on the traveling roads, and to drive the
mules. This is known as inside work. Their outside work consists in
picking slate at the breaker, and in driving the mules that draw mine
cars on the surface. No one of these different kinds of employment is
such as to overtax the physical strength of boys of a proper age, but
they are all confining, some are dangerous, and some are laborious. Yet
the system of child labor in the coal mines of America has never been
comparable to that which was formerly in vogue in Great Britain. The
British “Coal Mines Regulation Act” of 1872 remedied the then existing
evils to a considerable extent; but the hardships still to be endured
by children in the British mines are greater than those which their
American brothers must suffer. The act of 1872, just referred to,
provides that boys under ten years of age shall not be employed under
ground, and that boys between ten and twelve years of age shall be
allowed to work only in thin mines. It is the duty of these children
to push the cars, or trams as they are called, from the working faces
to the main road and back. Boys who are thus employed are called
“hurriers” or “putters.” They are often obliged to crawl on their hands
and knees, pushing the car ahead of them, because the roof of the
excavation is so low. That is why boys who are so young are allowed
to work here; because, being small, they can the more readily crawl
through the passages cut in these thin seams, which often do not have a
vertical measurement of more than from twenty to twenty-eight inches.
The act of 1872 forbids the employment of females in the British mines;
but formerly not only boys but girls and women also worked underground.
There was then no restriction as to age, and girls were sent into the
mines to labor at an earlier age than were boys, because they were
credited with being smarter and more obedient. It was common to find
children of both sexes not more than six years old working underground;
and girls of five years were employed at the same tasks as boys of six
or eight. They took the coal from the working faces in the thin mines
to the foot of the pit. Sometimes they carried it, sometimes they drew
it in little carts. The older children and young women had a sort of
sledge, called a “corve,” on which they dragged the coal, but sometimes
they preferred to carry it in baskets on their backs. They were called
“pannier women.” The girls tucked their hair up under their caps,
dressed like their brothers, and in the darkness of the mine could
scarcely be distinguished from boys. And the girls and boys not only
dressed alike, but worked alike, lived alike, and were treated alike at
their tasks, and that treatment was rough and harsh at the very best.
As the girls grew they were given harder work to do. On one occasion
Mr. William Hunter, the mine foreman at Ormiston Colliery said that
in the mines women always did the lifting or heavy part of the work,
and that neither they nor the children were treated like human beings.
“Females,” he said, “submit to work in places in which no man nor lad
could be got to labor. They work on bad roads, up to their knees in
water, and bent nearly double. The consequence of this is that they are
attacked with disease, drag out a miserable existence, or are brought
prematurely to the grave.” Says Robert Bold, the eminent miner: “In
surveying the workings of an extensive colliery underground a married
woman came forward, groaning under an excessive weight of coals,
trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to keep her knees from
sinking under her. On coming up she said in a plaintive, melancholy
voice: ‘Oh, sir! this is sore, sore, sore work. I would to God that the
first woman who tried to bear coals had broken her back and none ever
tried it again.’”

One cannot read of such things as these, of a slavery that condemned
even the babes to a life of wretched toil in the blackness of the
mines, and then wonder that the great heart of Mrs. Browning should
have been wrenched by the contemplation of such sorrow until she gave
voice to her feeling in that most pathetic and wonderful of all her
poems, “The Cry of the Children.”

    “Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers!
       Ere the sorrow comes with years?
     They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
       And _that_ cannot stop their tears.
     The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
       The young birds are chirping in their nest,
     The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
       The young flowers are blooming toward the west.
     But the young, young children, O my brothers!
       They are weeping bitterly;
     They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
       In the country of the free.

    “‘For, oh!’ say the children, ‘we are weary,
       And we cannot run or leap;
     If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
       To drop down in them and sleep.
     Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
       We fall upon our faces trying to go,
     And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
       The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
     For all day we drag our burden tiring,
       Through the coal dark underground,
     Or all day we drive the wheels of iron
       In the factories round and round.’

    “‘How long,’ they say, ‘how long, O cruel nation!
       Will you stand to move the world on a child’s heart,
     Stifle down, with a mailed heel, its palpitation,
       And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
     Our blood splashes upward, O gold heaper!
       And your purple shows your path;
     But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper
       Than the strong man in his wrath.’”

In the United States neither girls nor women have ever been employed
in or about the mines. The legislative prohibition of such employment,
enacted in Pennsylvania in 1885, was therefore unnecessary but not
inappropriate.

The general mine law of Pennsylvania of 1870, which was the first to
limit the employment of boys in the mines according to their age, fixed
twelve years as the age under which a boy might not work underground;
but maintained silence as to the age at which he might work at a
colliery outside. This provision was amended and enlarged by the act of
1885, which prohibited the employment of boys under fourteen years of
age inside the mines, and of boys under twelve years of age in or about
the outside structures or workings of a colliery.

The duties of a driver boy are more laborious than those of a
door-tender, but less monotonous and tiresome than those of a slate
picker or breaker-boy. When the mules are kept in the mines night
and day, as they frequently are in deep workings, the driver must
go down the shaft before seven o’clock, get his mule from the mine
stable, bring him to the foot of the shaft, and hitch him to a trip
of empty cars. He usually takes in to the working faces four empty
cars and brings out four loaded ones. When he is ready to start in
with his trip, he climbs into the forward car, cracks his whip about
the beast’s head, and goes off shouting. His whip is a long, braided
leather lash, attached to a short stout stick for a handle. He may
have a journey of a mile or more before reaching the foot of the
first chamber he is to supply; but when he comes to it he unfastens
the first car from the others and drives the mule up the chamber with
it, leaving it at a convenient distance from the face. He continues
this process at each of the chambers in succession, until his supply
of empty cars is exhausted. At the foot of the last chamber which
he visits he finds a loaded car to which he attaches his mule, and
picking up other loaded cars on his way back, he makes up his return
trip, and is soon on the long, unbroken journey to the shaft. There
are sidings at intervals along the heading, where trips going in the
opposite direction are met and passed, and where there is opportunity
to stop for a moment and talk with or chaff some other driver boy.
If there be a plane on the main road, either ascending or descending
from the first level, two sets of driver boys and mules are necessary,
one set to draw cars between the breasts and the plane, and the other
set to draw them between the plane and the shaft. Of course, in steep
pitching seams, all cars are left at the foot of the chamber and are
loaded there. There are two dangers to which driver boys are chiefly
subjected; one is that of being crushed between cars, or between cars
and pillars or props, and the other is that of being kicked or bitten
by vicious mules. The boy must not only learn to drive, but he must
learn to govern his beast and keep out of harm’s way. He is generally
sufficiently skillful and agile to do this, but it is not unusual to
read of severe injuries to boys, given by kicking, bucking, or biting
mules.

If the mine in which the boy works is entered by drift or tunnel,
his duties lie partly outside of it, since he must bring every trip
of cars not only to the mouth of the opening but to the breaker or
other dumping place, which may be located at a considerable distance
from the entrance to the mine. So that for a greater or less number
of times each day he has from ten minutes to half an hour in the open
air. In the summer time, when the weather is pleasant, this occasional
glimpse of out-of-doors is very gratifying to him. He likes to be in
the sunlight, to look out over the woods and fields, to feel the fresh
wind blowing in his face, and to breathe an unpolluted atmosphere. But
in the winter time, when it is cold, when the storms are raging, when
the snow and sleet are whirled savagely into his face, then the outside
portion of his trip is not pleasant. In the mine he finds a uniform
temperature of about sixty degrees Fahrenheit. To go from this, within
ten minutes, without additional clothing, into an atmosphere in which
the mercury stands at zero, and where the wind is blowing a hurricane,
is necessarily to suffer. It cannot be otherwise. So there is no
lagging outside on winter days; the driver boy delivers his loads, gets
his empty cars, and hastens back to the friendly shelter of the mine.
At such openings as these the mine stable is outside, and the boy must
go there in the morning to get his mule, and must leave him there when
he quits work at night. Sometimes, when the mining is done by shaft
or slope, there is a separate entrance for men and mules, a narrow
tunnel or slope, not too steep, and in this case, though his duties lie
entirely in the mine, the driver boy must take the mule in from the
outside stable in the morning and bring him back at night.

One afternoon I chanced to be in a certain mine in the Wyoming
district, in company with the fire boss. We were standing in a
passage that led to one of these mule ways. In the distance we heard
a clattering of hoofs, growing louder as it came nearer, and, as we
stepped aside, a mule went dashing by with a boy lying close on his
back, the flame from the little lamp in the boy’s cap just a tiny
backward streak of blue that gave no light. They had appeared from the
intense darkness and had disappeared into it again almost while one
could draw a breath. I looked at the fire boss inquiringly.

“Oh! that’s all right,” he said, “they’ve got through work and they’re
going out, and the mule is in just as much of a hurry as the boy is.”

“But the danger,” I suggested, “of racing at such speed through narrow,
winding passages, in almost total darkness!”

“Oh!” he replied, “that beast knows the way out just as well as I do,
and he can find it as easy as if he could see every inch of it, and I
don’t know but what he can. Anyway the boy ain’t afraid if the mule
ain’t.”

In deep mines, as has already been said, it is customary to build
stables not far from the foot of the shaft, and to keep the mules there
except when for any reason there is a long suspension of work. At many
mines, however, the greater convenience of having the stables on the
surface induces the operators to have the mules hoisted from the shaft
every night and taken down every morning. They step on the carriage
very demurely, and ascend or descend without making trouble. They are
especially glad to go up to their stables at night. Where mules are
fed in the mine, and especially in those mines that have stables in
them, rats are usually found. How they get down a shaft is a mystery.
The common explanation is that they go with the hay. But they take up
their quarters in the mine, live, thrive, increase rapidly, and grow
to an enormous size. They are much like the wharf rats that infest the
wharves of great cities, both in size and ugliness. They are very bold
and aggressive, and when attacked will turn on their enemy, whether man
or beast, and fight to the death. There is a superstition among miners
to the effect that when the rats leave a mine some great disaster is
about to take place in it; probably an extensive fall. Rats are hardly
to be credited, however, with an instinct that would lead them to
forecast such an event with more certainty than human experience and
skill can do.

But it is not improbable that the driver boy and his mule will be
superseded, at no distant day, by electricity. In one instance at least
this new motive power has already been put into use. This is at the
Lykens Valley Colliery of the Lykens Valley Coal Company, in Dauphin
County, Pennsylvania.

The duty of an outside driver boy is to take the loaded cars from the
head of the shaft or slope to the breaker, and to bring the empty ones
back; his work being all done in the open air. Of late this service,
especially where the distance is considerable, is performed by a small
locomotive, which draws trains of as many cars as can well be held
together. The wages paid to inside driver boys by the Pennsylvania Coal
Company in 1888 were from one dollar to one dollar and ten cents a day,
and to outside driver boys eighty-eight cents a day.

The door boys are usually younger and smaller than the driver boys,
and though their duty is not so laborious as that of the latter class,
it is far more monotonous and tiresome. The door boy must be at his
post when the first trip goes in in the morning, and must remain there
till the last one comes out at night. He is alone all day, save when
other boys and men pass back and forth through his door, and he has but
little opportunity for companionship. He fashions for himself a rude
bench to sit on; sometimes he has a rope or other contrivance attached
to his door by which he can open it without rising; but usually he is
glad to move about a little to break the monotony of his task. There is
little he can do to entertain himself, except perhaps to whittle. He
seldom tries to read; indeed, the light given forth by a miner’s lamp
is too feeble to read by. In rare cases the door boy extinguishes his
light, on the score of economy, and sits in darkness, performing his
duties by the light of the lamps of those who pass. But there are few
who can endure this. It is hard enough to bear the oppressive silence
that settles down on the neighborhood when no cars are passing; if
darkness be added to this the strain becomes too great, the effect too
depressing, a child cannot bear it. The wages of the door boy are about
sixty-five cents per day.

Although the duties of the breaker boy or slate picker are more
laborious and more monotonous than those of either driver boy or door
tender, he does not receive so high a rate of wages as either of them.
His daily compensation is only from fifty to sixty-five cents, and he
works ten hours a day. At seven o’clock in the morning he must have
climbed the dark and dusty stairway to the screen room, and taken his
place on the little bench across the long shute. The whistle screams,
the ponderous machinery is set in motion, the iron-teethed rollers
begin to revolve heavily, crunching the big lumps of coal as they turn,
the deafening noise breaks forth, and then the black, shallow streams
of broken coal start on their journey down the iron-sheathed shutes, to
be screened and cleaned, and picked and loaded.

At first glance it would not seem to be a difficult task to pick
slate, but there are several things to be taken into consideration
before a judgment can properly be made up in the matter. To begin
with, the work is confining and monotonous. The boy must sit on his
bench all day, bending over constantly to look down at the coal that
is passing beneath him. His tender hands must become toughened by long
and harsh contact with sharp pieces of slate and coal, and after many
cuts and bruises have left marks and scars on them for a lifetime.
He must breathe an atmosphere thick with the dust of coal, so thick
that one can barely see across the screen room when the boys are
sitting at their tasks. It is no wonder that a person long subjected
to the irritating presence of this dust in his bronchial tubes and
on his lungs is liable to suffer from the disease known as “miner’s
consumption.” In the hot days of summer the screen-room is a stifling
place. The sun pours its rays upon the broad, sloping roof of the
breaker, just overhead; the dust-laden atmosphere is never cleared
or freshened by so much as a breath of pure sweet air, and the very
thought of green fields and blossoming flowers and the swaying branches
of trees renders the task here to be performed more burdensome. Yet
even this is not so bad as it is to work here in the cold days of
winter. It is almost impossible to heat satisfactorily by any ordinary
method so rambling a structure as a breaker necessarily is, and it is
quite impossible to divide the portion devoted to screening and picking
into closed rooms. The screen-rooms are, therefore, always cold. Stoves
are often set up in them, but they radiate heat through only a limited
space, and cannot be said to make the room warm. Notwithstanding the
presence of stoves, the boys on the benches shiver at their tasks, and
pick slate with numb fingers, and suffer from the extreme cold through
many a winter day. But science and the progress of ideas are coming to
their aid. In some breakers, recently erected, steam-heating pipes have
been introduced into the screen-rooms with great success; the warmth
and comfort given by them to the little workers is beyond measurement.
Fans have been put into the breakers, also, to collect and carry
away the dust and keep the air of the picking-room clean and fresh,
and electric lamps have been swung from the beams to be lighted in the
early mornings and late afternoons, that the young toilers may see
to do their work. Indeed, such improvements as these pass beyond the
domain of science and progress into that of humanitarianism.

[Illustration: SLATE PICKERS AT WORK.]

When night comes no laborer is more rejoiced at leaving his task than
is the breaker boy. One can see his eyes shine and his white teeth
gleam as he starts out into the open air, while all else, hands,
face, clothing, are thickly covered with coal dust, are black and
unrecognizable. But he is happy because his day’s work is done and he
is free, for a few hours at least, from the tyranny of the “cracker
boss.” For, in the estimation of the picker boys, the cracker boss is
indeed the most tyrannical of masters. How else could they regard a man
whose sole duty it is to be constantly in their midst, to keep them
at their tasks, to urge them to greater zeal and care, to repress all
boyish freaks, to rule over them almost literally with a rod of iron?
But, alas! the best commentary on the severity of his government is
that it is necessary.

As has already been said, the day is evidently not far distant when the
work which the breaker boy now does will be performed almost wholly by
machinery. And this will be not alone because the machine does its
work better, more surely, more economically, than the breaker boy has
done his, but it will be also because the requisite number of boys for
breaker work will not be obtainable. Even now it is more than difficult
to keep the ranks of the slate pickers full. Parents in the coal
regions of to-day have too much regard for the health, the comfort,
the future welfare of their children, to send them generally to such
grinding tasks as these. This is one of the signs of that advancing
civilization which has already lifted girls and women from this, for
them, exhausting and degrading labor at the collieries; which is
lessening, one by one, the hardships of the boys who still toil there;
which, it is fondly hoped, will in the course of time give to all
children the quiet of the school-room, the freedom of the play-ground,
and the task that love sets, in place of that irksome toil that stunts
the body and dwarfs the soul. It is now mainly from the homes of the
very poor that the child-workers at the collieries are recruited, and
the scant wages that they earn may serve to keep bread in the mouths
of the younger children of their households and clothing on their own
backs.

Accidents to boys employed at the mines are of frequent occurrence.
Scarcely a day passes but the tender flesh of some poor little fellow
is cut or bruised, or his bones, twisted and broken. It is only
the more serious of these accidents that reach the notice of the
mine inspector and are returned in his annual report. Yet, to the
humanitarian and the lover of children, these annual returns tell a
sad story. The mine inspector’s reports for 1887 show that in the
anthracite region alone during that year eighteen boys fifteen years
of age and under were killed while fulfilling the duties of their
employment in and about the coal mines, and that seventy-three others
were seriously injured, many of them doubtless maimed for life. These
figures tell their own story of sorrow and of suffering.

Yet with all their hardships it cannot be said that the boys who work
in the collieries are wholly unhappy. It is difficult, indeed, to
so limit, confine, and gird down a boy that he will not snatch some
enjoyment from his life; and these boys seek to get much.

One who has been long accustomed to them can generally tell the nature
of their several occupations by the way in which they try to amuse
themselves. The driver boys are inclined to be rude and boisterous in
their fun, free and impertinent in their manner, and chafe greatly
under restraint. The slate pickers, confined all day at their tasks,
with no opportunity for sport of any kind, are inclined to bubble over
when night and freedom come, but, as a rule, they are too tired to
display more than a passing effort at jocularity. Door boys are quiet
and contemplative. Sitting so long alone in the darkness they become
thoughtful, sober, sometimes melancholy. They go silently to their
homes when they leave the mine; they do not stop to play tricks or
to joke with their fellows; they do not run, nor sing, nor whistle.
Darkness and silence are always depressing, and so much of it in
these young lives cannot help but sadden without sweetening them. We
shall never see, in America, those horrors of child slavery that drew
so passionate a protest from the great-hearted Mrs. Browning, but
certainly, looking at the progress already made, it is not too much to
hope for that the day will come when no child’s hand shall ever again
be soiled by the labor of the mine.

It will be a fitting close to this chapter, and will be an act of
justice to the memory of a brave and heroic boy, to relate the story
of Martin Crahan’s sacrifice at the time of the disaster at the West
Pittston shaft. Martin was a driver boy, of humble parentage, poor and
unlearned. He was in the mine when the fire in the breaker broke out,
and he ran, with others, to the foot of the shaft. But just as he was
about to step on the carriage that would have taken him in safety to
the surface he bethought him of the men on the other side of the shaft,
who might not have heard of the fire, and his brave heart prompted him
to go to them with the alarm. He asked another boy to go with him, but
that boy refused. He did not stop to parley; he started at once alone.
But while he ran through the dark passage on his errand of mercy, the
carriage went speeding, for the last time, up the burning shaft. He
gave the alarm and returned, in breathless haste, with those whom he
had sought; but it was too late, the cage had already fallen. When the
party was driven away from the foot of the shaft by the smoke and the
gas, he, in some unexplained way, became separated from the rest, and
wandered off alone. The next day a rescuing party found him in the
mine-stable, dead. He lay there beside the body of his mule. Deprived
of the presence of human beings in the hours of that dreadful night, he
had sought the company of the beast that had long been his companion in
daily labor――and they died together.

But he had thought of those who were dear to him, for on a rough board
near by he had written with chalk the name of his father and of his
mother, and of a little cousin who had been named for him. He was only
twelve years old when he died, but the title of hero was never more
fairly earned than it was by him.




CHAPTER XVI.

MINERS AND THEIR WAGES.


A good miner may be called a “skilled workman,” and, as such, he
is entitled to greater compensation for his labor than an ordinary
workman. He expects it and gets it. There are two principal systems by
which payments are made to miners. The first is according to the number
of cubic yards of coal cut, and the second is according to the number
of tons of coal mined and sent out. The first, which is prevalent in
the regions of steep-pitching seams, is followed because the coal may
remain in the chamber for an indefinite time after being cut. The
second, which in the Wyoming region is almost universal, is somewhat
more complicated. A chamber is taken by two miners, but the account
on the books of the coal company is usually kept in the name of only
one of them, who is held to be the responsible member of the firm. For
instance, “Patrick Collins & Co.” work a chamber in Law Shaft, and
the firm is so designated. The first thing they do is to adopt some
distinctive mark which may be chalked on the sides of their loaded cars
to distinguish them from the loaded cars from other chambers. The
letters of the alphabet are frequently used by miners, but, in default
of these, some simple design that cannot readily be mistaken for any
other is put into service. The triangle ∆ is a very common symbol with
them, so is the long, horizontal line, crossed by short vertical ones,
thus: ――|――|――――|――. The miners call this a candle. When a car has
been loaded the symbol is chalked on the side of it, together with a
number which tells how many cars have been sent from the chamber during
the day. For instance, when a mine car appears at the surface marked
“∆ 5” it means that the car is from a certain chamber designated by
that symbol, and that this is the fifth car which has been sent from
that chamber during the day. On its way from the head of the breaker
to the dumping cradle, the loaded car passes over the platform of the
weighing scales and registers its weight on the scale beam. This weight
is quickly read by the weigh-master, is transferred to his book, and
goes to make up the daily report. In some districts a system in which
tickets are used instead of chalk marks is in vogue, and in other
districts duplicate checks are employed, but everywhere the general
features remain the same.

In order to get a chamber from any of the large mining corporations, a
miner must apply in person to the mining superintendent. He must come
well recommended, or he must be known as a skillful, industrious, and
temperate workman. The responsibility of driving a chamber properly is
not a small one, and mining companies choose to take as little risk as
possible in the selection of their men. Having accepted an applicant
for a chamber, the company makes a contract with him, usually a verbal
one, to pay him at a certain rate per ton or yard for the coal mined
by him. The rate, though not wholly uniform, on account of the greater
or less difficulty of cutting coal at the different collieries, is
practically the same throughout an entire district.

A miner working at full time and in a good seam will send out enough
coal each month to amount, at the contract price, to $150. But his
expenses for laborers’ wages, powder, oil, fuse, etc., will amount to
$75 per month, leaving him a net income of $75 per month. The laborer
is also paid according to the number of tons of coal sent out, and his
wages will probably average $2 per day. It is not often in these days
of thin seams that these rates of income are exceeded. And when the
mines are in operation only a portion of the time, as is now often the
case, these figures are seriously reduced.

The subject of wages frequently has been under discussion between
miners and operators, and the differences of opinion on it have been
prolific of many strikes. By some corporations and at some collieries
a sliding scale has been adopted. That is, the miner has been paid,
not at a fixed rate, but at a rate which constantly adjusts itself to
the market price of coal. The objection to this method is said to be
that the great companies who practically control the anthracite coal
business form syndicates, fix the market price of their coal for a
certain period of time, and then limit the output of each member of the
syndicate to a certain number of tons during that period.

It is certain that no scheme of payment has yet been devised which is
perfectly satisfactory to the great body of workers in the mines. But
it is true also that employer and employee are working together more
harmoniously now than they have worked at any time in the past, and
that long and stubborn strikes of miners are growing, year by year,
less frequent. It is to be hoped that the time will come when even the
strike will not be considered necessary as a weapon of defense for the
workman. As a rule strikes result in loss, and in loss only, to both
capital and labor; and, as a rule also, labor suffers from them more
than does capital, and this is the saddest feature of the case. Hon.
Carroll D. Wright, the National Commissioner of Labor, has compiled the
statistics of miners’ strikes in Pennsylvania for the years 1881 to
1886 inclusive. His tables show that of 880 such strikes, which was the
total number that occurred during the period named, 186 succeeded, 52
partly succeeded, and 642 failed. The loss to employers resulting from
these strikes was $1,549,219; the loss to employees was $5,850,382; and
the assistance given to the strikers during the periods of suspension
amounted to $101,053. These figures form the best commentary to be had
on the subject of strikes; they are eloquent with tales of hardship, of
suffering, and of despair.

In those regions which have had long immunity from strikes, and in
which work at full time has been the rule, the mine-workers are not
only comfortable, but frequently are prosperous. They rarely occupy
rooms in the cheap tenement houses of the towns, even if such occupancy
would be to their convenience. They prefer to live in the outlying
districts, where they can have homes of their own and gardens that
they may cultivate. In the colliery villages the lots are usually laid
out and sold or rented by the mining company to its workmen. Rent is
not high, and, in case of sale, a long term contract is given, so that
payments are in easy installments. The miner prefers to own his house
and lot. Such ownership has a tendency to impress any man with the
importance and responsibility of his duty as a citizen, and the miner
is no exception to the rule. He is apt to waste neither his time nor
his money when he has property and a family to care for. He tries, too,
to lay by something for a rainy day; he knows that the probabilities
are that either he or his family will eventually need it. As his hours
of labor are comparatively short he has considerable leisure which he
may spend profitably or foolishly as he will. Many of the men spend
this leisure working in their gardens or about their premises. It is
seldom that any of them go so far as to have regular extra employment
to occupy their time while out of the mines. Indeed the prevailing
tendency among miners is to do as little work as possible outside of
the mines. The opinion seems to be prevalent among them that when a
miner has cut his coal he has done his full duty for the day, and is
entitled then to rest and recreation. He does not take kindly to other
kinds of work. He rarely deserts his occupation of mining to take up
any other calling, and it may be said that after he has passed middle
age he never does. There is a fascination to the old miner about the
dark chambers, the black walls, the tap of the drill, the crash of
falling coal, the smell of powder smoke in the air, a fascination that
is irresistible. He would almost rather die in the familiar gloom of
the mine than live and toil in the sunlight on the surface. Years of
walking under the low mine roofs have bent his back, have thrown his
head and shoulders forward, have given him that long swinging stride
characteristic of old miners. His face is always pale; this is due, no
doubt, to the absence of sunlight in his working place; but, as a rule,
his general health is good; except when he has worked for a long time
in dry and dusty mines. In that case he is apt to find himself, sooner
or later, a victim to the disease known as “miner’s consumption.” The
miner’s appearance, as he passes along the street or road on his way
home from his work, is, to eyes unaccustomed to the sight, anything but
favorable. He wears heavy, hobnailed shoes or boots, flannel shirt,
coarse jacket and pantaloons, all of them black with coal dirt and
saturated with oil. He has a habit, when he comes from his work, of
throwing his coat loosely about his shoulders, and wearing it so as
he goes to his home. He usually wears a cap on his head, sometimes a
slouch hat, rarely the helmet or fireman’s hat with which artists are
accustomed to picture him. This latter is too heavy and clumsy for
common use; he only puts it on when working in places where water comes
down freely on his head. Hooked to the front of his cap is the little
tin lamp already described. When he goes to or comes from his work in
the dark he allows it to burn and light him on his way. His face and
hands are also black with coal dirt and powder smoke, and his features
are hardly recognizable. The predominating race among the mine workers
is the Irish, next in point of numbers comes the Welsh, then follow the
Scotch and English, and, finally, the German. Of late years, however,
Hungarian, Italian, and Russian laborers have come to the mines in
large numbers, especially in the southern districts. These people can
hardly be compared with the English or German speaking races; they
do not become citizens of the country, have in the main no family
life, and are, in a certain sense, slaves whose masters are their own
countrymen.

In speaking of the characteristics of the mine workers as a class, it
may be well, and it certainly is just, to correct a misapprehension
concerning them which has become prevalent. From reading the
descriptions given by newspaper correspondents and by certain writers
of fiction, many people have come to think that all miners are little
less than outlaws, that they are rude, ignorant, brutal in their
instincts, and blind in their passions and animosities. This is very
far indeed from the truth. Mine workers, as a class, are peaceful,
law-abiding, intelligent citizens. That they are economical and
industrious is well attested by the comfortable appearance of their
homes, and the modest deposits that are made, in large numbers, in
the numerous miner’s savings banks of the different districts. There
are, indeed, among them those who are intemperate, those who are
coarse and violent, a disgrace to themselves and a menace to society.
These are always the ones who come to the surface at a time when
strained relations exist between employers and employees, and by their
harsh language and unlawful conduct in the name of oppressed labor
call down just retribution on themselves, but unjust condemnation
on the true mine workers, who compose ninety-nine one hundredths of
the class, but who do not go about drinking, ranting, destroying
property, and inciting to crime. The proportion of “good-for-naughts”
among the miners, however, is no greater than it is among any other
class of workmen having the same numbers, and the same advantages
and disadvantages. With the exception of the Hungarians, Russians,
Italians, and Poles, of whom mention has already been made, the miners
and their families compare favorably with any class of workers in
the same grade of labor in America. Many of them indeed attain to
prominent and responsible positions in business and society. Not a
few of the clerks, merchants, contractors, mining engineers, bankers,
lawyers, preachers, of the coal regions of to-day have stepped into
those positions from the chambers of the mines, and have filled them
admirably. The miner is fond of his family; his children are dear
to him, and, whenever the grim necessities of life permit, he sends
them to the schools instead of to the mines or breakers. He wishes
to prepare them for a larger enjoyment of life than he himself has
had, even though that life should be spent in the occupation which he
himself has followed. And, indeed, there are few other occupations in
which the possibilities of advancement are so great and so favorable.
There must be mine bosses, mine inspectors, mine superintendents, and
many of them, and they are, as a rule, promoted from the ranks. Young
men of character, skill, and judgment are almost sure to step into the
higher places.

If it were not for two evils that constantly menace and hamper him, the
coal miner of to-day would be the most favored of workmen. These twin
evils are strikes and lockouts. Abolish them and there would be no more
comfortable, happy, and generally prosperous class of people in America
than the workers in the coal mines.




GLOSSARY OF MINING TERMS.


_After damp._ The mixture of gases resulting from the burning of fire
damp.

_Air shaft._ A vertical opening into a mine for the passage of air.

_Airway._ Any passage in the mine along which an air current passes;
but the term is commonly applied to that passage which is driven, for
ventilating purposes, parallel to and simultaneously with the gangway.

_Anticlinal._ A fold of strata in which the inclination of the sides of
the fold is from the axis downward.


_Barrier pillars._ Large pillars of coal left at a boundary line, or on
the outskirts of a squeeze.

_Basin._ The hollow formed by a fold of the seam; any large area of
included coal.

_Battery_. In steep-pitching seams, a wooden structure built across the
shute to hold the mined coal back.

_Bearing in._ Cutting a horizontal groove at the bottom or side of the
face of a breast.

_Bed._ Any separate stratum of rock or coal.

_Bench._ A horizontal section of the coal seam, included between
partings of slate or shale.

_Black damp._ Carbonic acid gas; known also as choke damp.

_Blossom._ Decomposed coal, indicating the presence of an outcrop.

_Blower._ A forcible and copious discharge of gas from a cavity in the
coal seam.

_Bony coal._ Coal containing in its composition slaty or argillaceous
material.

_Bore-hole._ A hole of small diameter drilled or bored, either
vertically or horizontally, through the measures or in the coal;
usually, a hole drilled vertically for prospecting purposes.

_Brattice._ A partition made of boards or of brattice cloth, and put up
to force the air current to the face of the workings.

_Breaker._ A building, with its appliances, used in the preparation of
anthracite coal for the market.

_Break-through._ A cross-heading or entrance, used in the bituminous
mines.

_Breast._ The principal excavation in the mine from which coal is
taken; known also as chamber.

_Broken coal._ One of the regular sizes of prepared anthracite.

_Buckwheat coal._ One of the regular sizes of prepared anthracite.

_Buggy._ A small car or wagon used for transporting coal from the
working face to the gangway.

_Buntons._ The timbers placed crosswise of a shaft down its entire
depth, dividing it into vertical compartments.

_Butt._ In bituminous coal seams, the vertical planes of cleavage at
right angles to the face cleavage.

_Butty._ A comrade; a fellow-worker in the same chamber.


_Cage._ See Carriage.

_Carriage._ The apparatus on which coal is hoisted in a shaft.

_Cartridge pin._ A round stick of wood on which the paper tube for the
cartridge is formed.

_Cave-hole._ A depression at the surface, caused by a fall of roof in
the mine.

_Chain pillars._ Heavy pillars of coal, lining one or both sides of
the gangway, and left for the protection of that passage.

_Chamber._ See Breast.

_Chestnut coal._ One of the regular sizes of prepared anthracite.

_Choice damp._ See After-damp.

_Cleavage._ The property of splitting on a certain plane.

_Collar._ The upper horizontal crosspiece uniting the legs in the
timbering of a drift, tunnel, slope, or gangway.

_Colliery._ All the workings of one mine, both underground and at the
surface.

_Conglomerate._ The rock strata lying next beneath the coal measures.

_Counter-gangway._ A gangway which is tributary to the main gangway,
and from which a new section of coal is worked.

_Cracker boss._ The officer in charge of the screen room in a breaker.

_Creep._ A crush in which the pillars are forced down into the floor or
up into the roof of the mine.

_Cribbing._ The timber lining of a shaft, extending usually from the
surface to bed-rock.

_Crop-fall._ A caving in of the surface at the outcrop.

_Cross-heading._ A narrow opening for ventilation, driven through a
wall of coal separating two passages or breasts.

_Crush._ A settling downward of the strata overlying a portion of an
excavated coal seam.

_Culm._ All coal refuse finer than buckwheat size.


_Dip._ The angle which any inclined stratum makes with a horizontal
line.

_Door boy._ A boy who opens and shuts the door placed across any
passageway in the mines to control the direction of the ventilating
current.

_Double entry._ One of the systems by which openings into the bituminous
coal mines are made.

_Downcast._ The passage or way through which air is drawn into a mine.

_Drift._ A water-level entrance to a mine, driven in from the surface
on the coal.

_Drill._ Any tool used for boring holes in the rock or coal.

_Driving._ Excavating any horizontal passage in or into the mines.

_Drum._ A revolving cylinder, at the head of any hoisting-way, on which
the winding rope is coiled.


_Egg coal._ One of the regular sizes of prepared anthracite.

_Entrance._ See Cross-heading.

_Entry._ The main entrance and traveling road in bituminous mines.


_Face._ The end wall at the inner or working extremity of any excavation
in or into the mines. In bituminous mines the vertical plane of cleavage
at right angles to the butt cleavage.

_Fan._ A machine used to force a ventilating current of air through a
mine.

_Fault._ A displacement of strata in which the measures on one side of
a fissure are pushed up above the corresponding measures on the other
side.

_Fire-board._ A blackboard, fixed near the main entrance of a mine, on
which the fire boss indicates each morning the amount and location of
dangerous gases.

_Fire boss._ An official whose duty it is to examine the workings for
accumulations of dangerous gases.

_Fire clay._ The geological formation which is usually found immediately
underlying a coal bed.

_Fire damp._ Light carbureted hydrogen.

_Fissure._ A separation of rock or coal across the measures.

_Floor._ The upper surface of the stratum immediately underlying a coal
seam.


_Gangway._ An excavation or passageway, driven in the coal, at a slight
grade, forming the base from which the other workings of the mine are
begun.

_Gas._ Fire damp.

_Gob._ The refuse separated from the coal and left in the mine.

_Guides._ Narrow vertical strips of timber at each side of the carriage
way in shafts, to steady and guide the carriage in its upward or
downward movement.

_Gunboat._ A car used for hoisting coal on steep slopes.


_Head-frame._ The frame erected at the head of a shaft to support the
sheaves and hold the carriage.

_Heading._ Synonymous with gangway. Any separate continuous passage
used as a traveling way or as an airway.

_Hopper._ A feeding shute or pocket in a breaker.

_Horseback._ A small ridge in the roof or floor of a coal seam.


_Inside slope._ An inclined plane in a mine, on which coal is hoisted
from a lower to a higher level.


_Jacket._ One of the sections or frames of wire mesh of which a
revolving screen is made up.


_Keeps._ Projections of wood or iron on which the carriage rests while
it is in place at the head of the shaft.


_Lagging._ Small timbers or planks driven in behind the legs and over
the collars to give additional support to the sides and roof of the
passage.

_Legs._ The inclined sticks on which the collar rests in gangway,
tunnel, drift, and slope timbering.

_Lift._ All the workings driven from one level in a steep-pitching
seam.

_Loading place._ The lowest extremity of the breaker, where prepared
coal is loaded into railway cars.

_Lump coal._ The largest size of prepared anthracite.


_Manway._ A passageway in or into the mine, used as a footway for
workmen.

_Mouth._ The opening, at the surface, of any way into the mines.


_Needle._ An instrument used in blasting coal, with which a channel is
formed through the tamping for the entrance of the squib.

_Nut coal._ One of the regular sizes of bituminous coal.


_Opening._ Any excavation in or into a mine.

_Operator._ The person, firm, or corporation working a colliery.

_Outcrop._ That portion of any geological stratum which appears at the
surface.

_Output._ The amount of coal produced from any mine, or from any area
of country.


_Parting._ The layer of slate or bony coal which separates two benches
of a coal seam.

_Pea coal._ One of the regular sizes of prepared anthracite.

_Picking shute._ A shute in the breaker from which the pieces of slate
are picked out by a boy as they pass down with the coal.

_Pillar._ A column or body of coal left unmined to support the roof.

_Pillar and breast._ The name of a common mining method.

_Pinch._ See Crush.

_Pitch._ See Dip.

_Plane._ Any incline on which a track is laid for the purpose of
lowering or hoisting coal.

_Pockets._ Receptacles at the lower ends of shutes, in breakers, from
which coal is loaded into railway cars.

_Post._ A wooden prop to support the roof in bituminous mines.

_Prop._ A timber set at right angles to the seam, in anthracite mines,
to support the roof.

_Prospecting._ Searching for indications of coal on the surface, and
testing coal seams from the surface.

_Pump way._ That compartment of a shaft or slope down which the pump
rods and pipes are extended.


_Rib._ The side of an excavation as distinguished from the end or face.

_Rob._ To mine coal from the pillars after the breasts are worked out.

_Rock tunnel._ A tunnel driven through rock strata.

_Rolls._ In breakers, heavy iron or steel cylinders set with teeth,
used for breaking coal.

_Roof._ The stratum immediately overlying a coal seam. The rock or coal
overhead in any excavation.

_Room._ Synonymous with breast or chamber; used in bituminous mines.


_Safety lamp._ A lamp that can be carried into inflammable gases
without igniting them.

_Scraper._ A tool used for cleaning out bore holes in blasting.

_Screen._ Any apparatus used for separating coal into different sizes;
usually, the revolving cylinder of wire mesh in a breaker.

_Seam._ A stratum of coal.

_Separator._ A machine for picking slate.

_Shaft._ A vertical entrance into a mine.

_Sheave._ The wheel in the head-frame that supports the winding rope.

_Shift._ The time during which a miner or laborer works continuously,
alternating with some other similar period.

_Shute._ A narrow passageway through which coal descends by gravity
from the foot of the breast to the gangway; an inclined trough, in a
breaker, down which coal slides by gravity.

_Single entry._ One of the systems by which bituminous mines are
entered.

_Slack._ The dirt from bituminous coal.

_Slate picker._ A boy who picks slate from coal. A machine used for the
same purpose.

_Slope._ An entrance to a mine driven down through an inclined coal
seam. Inside slope: a passage in the mine driven down through the seam,
by which to bring coal up from a lower level.

_Slope carriage._ A platform on wheels on which cars are raised and
lowered in steep slopes.

_Smut._ See Blossom.

_Split._ A branch of a ventilating air current.

_Spread._ The bottom width of a slope, drift, tunnel, or gangway
between the legs of the timbering.

_Squeeze._ See Crush.

_Squib._ A powder cracker used for igniting the cartridge in blasting.

_Steamboat coal._ One of the regular sizes of prepared anthracite.

_Stopping._ A wall built across an entrance or any passage to control
the ventilating current.

_Stove coal._ One of the regular sizes of prepared anthracite.

_Strike._ The direction of a line drawn horizontally along any stratum.

_Stripping._ Mining coal by first removing the surface down to the coal
bed; open working.

_Sump._ A basin in mines entered by a slope or shaft, in which the
water of the mine is collected to be pumped out.

_Swamp._ A depression in the seam.

_Synclinal._ A fold of strata in which the inclination of the sides is
from the axis upward.


_Tipple._ In the bituminous regions, a building in which coal is
dumped, screened, and loaded into boats or cars.

_Trapper._ See Door boy.

_Traveling way._ A passageway for men and mules in or into the mines.

_Trip._ The number of cars less than enough to constitute a train drawn
at one time by any motive power.

_Tunnel._ An opening into a mine driven horizontally across the
measures.


_Under-clay._ See Fire clay.

_Underholing._ See Bearing in.

_Upcast._ An opening from a mine through which air is taken out.


_Vein._ Used (improperly) synonymously with seam, bed, or stratum.


_Wagon._ A mine car.

_Waste._ Gob; coal dirt.

_Water level._ An entrance into or passage in a mine, driven with just
sufficient grade to carry off water.

_White damp._ Carbonic oxide.

_Wings._ See Keeps.

_Work._ To mine.

_Working face._ A face at which mining is being done.

_Workings._ The excavations of a mine, taken as a whole; or, more
particularly, that portion of the mine in which mining is being done.




INDEX.


    Accidents resulting from falls, 126;
      to boys, 218.

    Act of 1885, 88.

    After damp, composition of, etc., 167.

    Air currents in mines, 148, 149.

    Air, deterioration of, in mines, 147, 152.

    Airways, beginning of, 95.

    Allen, Nicholas, 49, 62.

    Ancients, use of coal by, 35.

    Animal life of Carboniferous era, 18.

    Anthracite coal, analysis of, 6;
      commercial sizes of, 181;
      description of, 8;
      ignition of, 59;
      of bituminous origin, 25;
      skill in mining, 192.

    Anticlinals, 25.

    Appalachian Range, 3.

    Archean time, 3.

    Areas of coal measures, 31;
      of Pennsylvania coal fields, 33, 34.

    Avondale Mine, disaster at, 173.


    Baltimore vein, 75.

    Basin in a coal seam, 29.

    Battery in steep chambers, 108.

    Bearing in, in bituminous mines, 197.

    Benches in coal seams, 23–115.

    Bituminous coal, analysis of, 7;
      description of, 8;
      process of mining, 194.

    Black damp, composition, etc., 169.

    Blasting in mines, 119, 120, 125, 131.

    Blossom of coal, 77.

    Blower of gas, 160.

    Boys, accidents to, 218;
      amusements of, 219;
      at tipple work, 202;
      characteristics of, 217;
      duties of, at breaker, 215;
      in British coal mines, 205.

    Boy door-tenders, duties of, 214.

    Boy drivers, duties of, 210.

    Braddock’s road, 40.

    Brattice at face of chamber, 103.

    Breaker, description of, 179;
      location of, 178, 183;
      passage of coal through, 185;
      picking shutes in, 186;
      structure and appearance of, 184.

    Break through, in bituminous mines, 195.

    Breast. See Chamber.

    Bryden, Alexander, 143.

    Bryden, Andrew, 140, 168.

    Buildings at mouth of shaft, 176.

    Buntons in shaft, 89.

    Butler, Col. Lord, 56.

    Butt cleavage in bituminous mines, 194.

    Butty, 114.


    Calamites, 17.

    Candles, use of, in mines, 162.

    Cannel coal, 6, 13.

    Carbondale Mines, fall in, 140.

    Carboniferous age, 3.

    Carboniferous era, animal life of, 18.

    Carboniferous plants, 14–16.

    Carriage in shaft, 90.

    Cartridge, how made and used, 117.

    Cave holes, 137.

    Cenozoic time, 4.

    Chain pillars, 109.

    Chamber, car track in, 103;
      description of, 100;
      length of, 102;
      scene at face of, 131.

    Charcoal, process of formation, 10.

    Charles, John, 50.

    Chest, miner’s, 120.

    Choke damp, 169.

    Cist, Charles, 48.

    Cist, Jacob, 52, 58.

    Coal, classification of, 7;
      originally all bituminous, 12;
      origin of, 8;
      production, by corporations, 70;
      specific gravity of, what is it? 6.

    Coal dust, explosive quality of, 172.

    Coal lands, division of, 69;
      investments in, 68;
      leasing of, 71;
      value of, 70.

    Coal mining by corporations, 72.

    Coal plants, age of, 3.

    Coal seams, number and thickness of, 22, 23.

    Coal-waste, heaps of, 191.

    Conglomerate, 76.

    Conifers, 17.

    Corve, in British coal mines, 205.

    Cost of different methods of entry, 92.

    Counter-gangway, 105.

    Crahan, Martin, story of, 220.

    Creeping pillars, 136.

    Creuzot Mine, accident at, 170.

    Crop falls, 139.

    Cross-headings, 95.

    Crowbar, miner’s tool, 121.

    Crust of earth, subsidence of, etc., 24.

    “Cry of the Children,” Mrs. Browning’s, 207.

    Culm, its disposition and use, 190.

    Curr, John, 90.


    Davy, Sir Humphrey, experiments of, 162.

    Decapitation of coal seams, 29.

    Delaware and Hudson gravity railroad, 66;
      canal, 66.

    Diamond drill, 79.

    Dip of strata, 29.

    Door boy, duties of, etc., 149, 214.

    Doors in mines, 149.

    Drainage in mines, 154.

    Drift, as a mode of entry, 80.

    Drilling, by diamond drill, 79;
      by hand, 78;
      by rope method, 78;
      by spring pole method, 78.

    Drill, machine hand, 116;
      miner’s, 116.

    Driver boss, his duties, etc., 113.

    Driver boy, duties of, etc., 113, 210, 213.

    Dump shute bars in breaker, 185.


    Eagle Shaft, disaster at, 168.

    Early mining methods, 94.

    Eastern middle coal field, 33.

    Electricity in breakers, 217;
      in mines, 105, 122, 127, 213.

    Enaliosaurs, 20.

    Entrances in mines, 101.

    Entries in bituminous mines, 195, 196.

    Evans, Oliver, 52.

    Experiments with anthracite, 52, 53.


    Face cleavage in bituminous mines, 194.

    Face of chamber, 101.

    Falls of roof and coal, 125, 135.

    Fan for ventilation, 151.

    Fault in strata, 26.

    Felling Colliery, disaster at, 162.

    Fell, Judge Jesse, 53.

    Females in British coal mines, 206.

    Ferns of coal era, 16.

    Fire boss, duties of, etc., 112, 166.

    Fire damp, characteristics of, 160;
      explosions of, 161;
      in abandoned workings, 166.

    Fishes, age of, 3;
      of Carboniferous age, 19.

    Fissures in strata, 26.

    Flanigan, John, 94.

    Flowers in Carboniferous age, 21.


    Gangways, beginning of, 95;
      description of, 97;
      direction of, 98;
      driving, 113;
      length of, 104;
      walking in, 129.

    Gases not confined to coal measures, 159.

    Germany, mining of coal in, 37.

    Ginther, Philip, 47.

    Girls in British coal mines, 205.

    Gore, Obadiah, experiments of, 45.

    Graff, Frederick, 52.

    Great Summit Mine, 57.

    Guibal, inventor of fan, 152.

    Guides in shaft, 90.


    Hammer, miner’s, 121.

    Head-frame at mouth of shaft, 177.

    Health of mine workers, 153.

    Hennepin, Father, explorer, 38.

    Hillegas, Michael, 48.

    Hoisting apparatus at shaft, 177.

    Hollenback, Colonel George M., 56.

    Horsebacks in coal seams, 28.

    Hosie, John, adventure of, 145.

    Hurrier in British mines, 205.


    Inclined planes in mines, 105.

    Indians, coal known to, 37, 43, 44.

    Inside slopes, 106.

    Invertebrates, age of, 3.

    Investments in coal lands, 68.


    Jenkins, Henry, 180.


    Laborers, duties of, etc., 114, 122.

    Lackawanna region, early coal trade in, 65.

    Lagging, its use, etc., 82.

    Lamp, miner’s, 121.

    Laplace, astronomer, 1.

    Lehigh coal, early trade in, 57, 58, 62.

    Lepidodendrids, 17.

    Leschot, inventor, 79.

    Lift mining, 85, 107.

    Light carbureted hydrogen, 159.

    Lignite, 6, 11.

    Loading place in breaker, 189.

    Localities in which coal is found, 31, 32.

    Locomotives in mines, 199.

    London, burning of coal in, 36.

    Long wall mining system, 110.

    Loyalsock coal field, 31.

    Lump coal, bituminous, 202.


    Machine for mining soft coal, 197.

    Mammals, age of, 4, 12.

    Man, age of, 4.

    Marsh gas, composition of, etc., 160.

    Mellen and Bishop, experimenters, 64.

    Mesozoic time, 4.

    Mine, anthracite, number of employees in, 112.

    Mine boss, duties, etc., 112.

    Mine car, 123.

    Mine, darkness in a, 133;
      in an abandoned, 134;
      silence in a deserted, 132.

    Mine law of 1870 and 1885, 208.

    Miner, Charles, 58.

    Miner, appearance of, 227;
      character and ambition of, 230;
      clothing of, 228;
      duties of, etc., 114, 122, 124;
      home and outside occupation of, 226;
      nativity of, 228.

    Mines, flooding of, 156.

    Miocene period, 12.

    Mules in mines, 212.


    Nanticoke, accident at, 157.

    Nebular Hypothesis, 1.

    Needle, miner’s, 117.

    Newcastle, carrying coals to, 37.

    Nobles, David, hunter, 65.

    Northern coal field, 33.

    Nut coal, bituminous, 202.


    Open quarry mining, 80.

    Outcrop of strata, 29, 75.


    Paleozoic time, 3.

    Pannier women in British mines, 205.

    Paris, burning of coal in, 37.

    Partings in coal seams, 23.

    Peat, 6, 11.

    Pennsylvania, coal fields of, 32, 33, 34.

    Picking machine in breaker, 187.

    Picking shute in breaker, 186.

    Pick, miner’s, 121.

    Pillar and breast mining system, 99.

    Pillars at foot of shaft, 95;
      creeping, 136;
      robbing of, 133;
      slipping, 136.

    Pinch in a coal mine, 28.

    Pittsburgh, coal beds near, 193;
      coal trade of, 42;
      discovery of coal near, 41.

    Pittsburg, Kansas, disaster at, 172.

    Pockets in breaker, 189.

    Props, use and setting of, 114.

    Prospecting for coal, 75.

    Pump mining, 155.

    Pumpway in shaft, 155.

    Putter, in British mines, 205.


    Rats in mines, 212.

    Reptiles, age of, 4, 12.

    Rhode Island, coal in, 32, 40.

    Rib of coal, 101.

    Richmond coal field, 38.

    Robbing pillars, 133.

    Robinson, John W., 58.

    Rocky Mountains, 20.

    Rolls in breaker, 179.

    Rolls in coal seams, 28.

    Rooms in bituminous mines, 195.

    Run of mine, bituminous coal, 202.


    Safety carriage, 91.

    Safety lamps, how to use, 165;
      invention of, 163.

    Schuylkill region, early coal trade in, 62, 64.

    Scotland, mining of coal in, 37.

    Scraper, in bituminous mines, 198.

    Scraper, use of, 117.

    Screen, revolving, in breaker, 180.

    Semi-anthracite coal, 8.

    Shaft, compartments of, 89;
      descending a, 128;
      foot of, 128;
      in bituminous mines, 199;
      in steep-pitching seams, 109;
      location and depth of, 86;
      sinking of, 87;
      water in, while sinking, 154.

    Sheaves in head-frame, 177.

    Shoemaker, Colonel George, 62.

    Shovel, miner’s, 121.

    Sigillariæ, 17.

    Slack, bituminous waste, 202.

    Slate picker’s duties, etc., 186.

    Sledge, miner’s, 121.

    Slipping pillars, 136.

    Slope, dimensions of, 85;
      entrance by, 84;
      in steep-pitching seams, 85.

    Smith, Abijah, 56.

    Smith, John, 56.

    Smut of coal, 77.

    Southern coal field, 32.

    Sphagnum, 11.

    Splits of the air current, 148.

    Squeeze in a mine, 28, 136.

    Squib, use of, 118.

    Stair shaft in bituminous mines, 200.

    States in which coal is found, 31, 32.

    Steep-pitching seams, raining in, 107.

    Stigmaria, 18.

    Stockton Mines, accident at, 139.

    Strike of strata, 29.

    Strikes among miners, 225.

    Summit Hill Mine, 80.

    Sump in mine, 96.

    Surface, disturbance of, by falls, 138.

    Susquehanna River, coal trade, 41.

    Swamp in mines, 29.

    Symbols marked on cars, 223.

    Synclinals, 25.


    Tamping, process of, 118.

    Temperature in mines, 210.

    Terrace in coal outcrop, 77.

    Theophrastus, 35.

    Tipple, at the bituminous mines, 201, 203.

    Tunnel, entrance by, 82.

    Tunnels in mine interiors, 84, 106.

    Turnbull, William, 58.


    Ventilation by fan, 151;
      by open furnace, 150;
      in bituminous mines, 199;
      principle of, in mines, 97, 148.

    Von Storch, H. C. L., 65.


    Wages of miners, 224;
      computing and payment of, 222;
      of boys, 213–215;
      sliding scale for computing, 224.

    Waste in coal mining, 134;
      of the coal measures, 28.

    Water, driving workings toward, 155;
      in mine, 96;
      tonnage of, hoisted, 155.

    Weighing coal, 223.

    Weiss, Colonel Jacob, 48.

    Western middle coal field, 33.

    West Pittston, disaster at, 175.

    White & Hazard, coal trade of, 62;
      experiments of, 60.

    Wilcox, Crandal, 56.

    Wings in shaft, 91.

    Woodward breaker, 121.

    Working pillars, 136.

    Wright, Joseph, 56.

    Wurts, William and Maurice, 65.

    Wyoming coal field, 33.

    Wyoming valley, discovery of coal in, 45;
      early coal trade of, 56.


    Ziegler, Charles W., 188.


                   *       *       *       *       *


 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). Superscripted
   characters follow a caret (Fred^k, 11^th)

 ――Obvious printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were
   silently corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

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