PROCESS OF WORKING. 123 In working the mine, a common practice is to take away the stratum of coal only partially, leaving huge pillars of it to support the roof. When they have thus proceeded some way, the miners come back and work out those pillars; which occasions the earth above to fall in, and fill up the cavity. These pillars are not left at random, but at regular intervals, and are of regular shapes; from twelve to eighteen feet thick. When they have wrought out all the pillars that can be safely removed, there will be left an Pitmen forming bords and judds, or chambers in the coal. 124 PROCESS OF WORKING. eighth, or more, of the whole substance of the coal, which they dare not touch. The chambers are hewn out of the coal by means of pickaxes, and the detached pieces are carried away in corves, or baskets, fixed on little carriages with wheels. In some places where the rock is very hard, it is "blasted," that is, blown up with gunpowder, as in the copper mines. As James and his father walked through the mine, they noticed that the workmen were constantly using a peculiar kind of lamp, which they had PROCESS OF WORKING. 125 seen in the copper mines, but they had so many other things to look at, they could not stop to examine it. In one place they saw horses employed in drawing sledges, loaded with great baskets filled with coal; five, six, and sometimes eight hundred weight, are drawn out at a time by one horse, if a slope, not too steep, can for this purpose be formed in a mine. But the surprise of the party was not small, when, coming to a place where no such slope could be made, they found the poor horses let down to their work, tied up in "Dragsman and Foal," conveying a corve filled with coal to the bottom of the shaft. a net. Where the mine is not large enough for horses to work, the coal is removed by men, who drag about half the load of a horse on a 126 FEMALE COAL-BEARERS. low carriage with four wheels. In some places, neither of these modes is possible, so the coals are brought out by women, called bearers, who carry them in baskets on their heads; the load is a hundred weight, and often more. And this is done in places where the ascent is so steep, that no carriage drawn either by horses or men could be used. The coal is thus brought from the place where it is dug out, to the bottom of the shaft which opens to the surface of the earth: Empty coal corves descending the shaft, and carried away on a four wheeled train to the interior of the coal pit. |