Colliery Working and Management ... With underground photographs and numerous other illustrations

Preface

. A large modern colliery, with its extensive and carefully elaborated equipment — including its various appliances for g-ettin"* the coal and bring-ing it to the surface, for transmitting power through long distances underground, for causing great volumes of air to flow through miles of confined passages, for draining wide areas of under ground workings and raising the water to the surface, for sorting the coal into various sizes and separating from it the intermingled stone and dirt — offers (as has been well said) " one of the most remarkable specimens of human activity, and its triumph over matter." The successful working of a colliery implies the getting of the largest possible proportion of the workable coal in the best condition, at the lowest possible cost, and with the greatest safety and comfort to those employed.

In order to attain this ideal, the method of working the coal should receive the fullest consideration, whilst the efficient organisation of the colliery — that is, the proper arrangement and super- COLLLERY WORKLNG AND MANAGEMENT, vision of the labour to be employed — is likewise a matter of the greatest moment. These are truths which will at once be admitted by practical men ; yet the matters referred to have received but scant treatment in the numerous works on Coal-mining which have been published during the last few years. Practical and useful as many of these are — dealing, most of them, with the engineering rather than with the working of collieries ; or describing the machinery and appliances required at collieries ; and in most cases being designed for the Mining Student rather than the Mine Manager — they have said little or nothing about labour, wages, cost of working, the daily routine of a colliery in work, or the actual duties of the Colliery Manager ; and where they have touched upon systems of getting the coal, they have done so in brief outline rather than in working detail.

In the present work the endeavour of the authors has been to deal with the side of the subject which has thus been neglected in the literature of Coal-mining. The getting of the coal is the useful work to be done, to effect which is the object of all the organisation, both of men and of machinery, which has to be devised in and about a colliery ; and the efficiency of the colliery may be expressed by the ratio which this result bears to the work expended. The work expended varies much at different collieries according to their natural conditions, but the less the work required to be performed for the purposes of

PREFACE.

. V drainage, haulage, lighting and ventilation, in order to raise a given quantity of coal, the higher is the value of the colliery. Its geographical position in relation to ports of shipment and main railways, or in other words the distance which the coal has to be conveyed to its chief markets, has necessarily a very important bearing on the prosperity of a colliery. The uninitiated may think that one coal seam is very much like another, and even that all seams may be worked to advantage on one plan. As a matter of fact, there is end less variety, both in the natural conditions of the seams, and in the means best adapted for working them. Coal seams are found varying in thickness from a few inches to thirty feet or more, and lying at all angles between a horizontal and a vertical line ; differing much in hardness and texture ; often containing bands of stone or clay interstratified with them ; some of them liberating during the process of working large volumes of explosive gases, while others are entirely free from gas ; some dry and dusty ; others abounding in water.

Sometimes the "roof" will stand without any support over considerable areas of excavation, and sometimes it will break down the strongest supports. Similarly the " floor" is sometimes hard and firm, and sometimes it heaves up readily when the coal has been removed. All seams have been subject, more or less, to geological dislocations — "faults," "dykes," "nip-outs," and "balks" — and these, being in many instances previously indeterminable quan- VI COLLLERY WORKLNG AND MA N'A CEMENT. tities, are apt to disturb the best-laid plans of development and working. Again, the distance between workable seams, and in many cases the probable effect on buildings on the surface, are points which must be taken into consideration ; while the size and shape of the coal properties to be worked, and the royalty and wayleave rents to be paid, may have an important bearing on the direction in which the main roads should be driven.

In dealing with Colliery Working in contradistinction to Mine Engineering, the authors have tried to show what progress has been made during the last one hundred years or more. In the words of Carlyle, " History is the basis of all true education," and some knowledge of the past is essential to a proper understanding of the present. They have accordingly described what was done in the past, and what is being done in the present, believing that facts will be found more useful than theories. In the earlier chapters of the volume they have briefly indicated the principal landmarks which appear in the path of progress during the last few centuries, especially in connection with the actual working of the coal ; they have traced up to the present time the general rise in wages, the improvement in the condition of the working miner, the variations in the cost of working, and in the market value of coal. In succeeding chapters they have given an outline of the duties and qualifications of a Colliery Manager, and

PREFACE.

. VII of the various grades of under-officials ; they have described the daily routine of a colliery, the different classes of labour employed, the method of calculating wages, and the system of wage bills, such as is general in Northumberland and Durham, the district with which they themselves are most familiar. That is the district which justly claims to be the "cradle" of the coal trade, and the alma mater of coal-mine engineering — -which employs about one-fifth of the entire coal-mining com munity of Great Britain and Ireland — and which supplies more than one-fifth of the annual output of coal in the country. In the concluding chapters they have dealt with the principal methods of working coal seams as practised at the present time — namely, the Bord and Pillar, the Longwall, and the Double Stall — describing in practical detail ex amples which have come within their own personal ken.

Underground the photographer works at a disadvantage, more especially in -scW-mines, and has to take what he can get rather than choose what he would like ; but it is hoped that the photographs reproduced in this volume may convey a true idea of some of the ordinary conditions of an average coal-mine, and of the personnel employed. In the Appendix will be found the text of various documents illustrating either the past history or the present conditions of coal-mining, in addition to others freely COLLLERY WORKING AND MANAGEMENT. VIII scattered throughout the body of the work.* It will be seen, therefore, that the subject-matter of the volume in every section is derived from trustworthy material ; and inasmuch as the authors have dealt here with subjects with which their own personal experiences and professional avo cations have made them long familiar, and have spared no pains in executing their task, they trust that the outcome of their joint labours may prove a useful and acceptable addition to coal-mining literature, and of some permanent value to many of those who are interested in the subject.

H. F. Bulman, By er Moor, Burnopfield, R.S.O., Co. Durham. R. A. S. Redmayne, Seaton Delaval, Northumberland. September 1896. * The Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1896, and the Truck Act, 1896, which were passed by Parliament while this work was in the press, will also be found referred to in the Appendix. CONTENTS.

Appendix

. I. Comparative Cost of Working Bord and Pillar and Modified Longwall at a Large Colliery - 243 II. Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887. Official Abstract of the Act, including the General Rules under the Act ------- 24S III. Special Rules established under the Act CONTENTS. XI PAGE IV. Pitmen's Yearly Bonds (not now in use) : — Bond dated 23RD November 1767 - 284 Bond dated 20TH November 1779 - 286 Bond dated 19TH March 1859 - - 287 V. Forms of Hiring Agreements : — First Form - - - 292 Second Form - 293 Third Form - - - 297 VI. Forms of Cavilling Rules : — First Form - - - 301 Second Form - 303 Third Form - - 306 VII. Joint-Committee Rules: — Northumberland Steam Colliery Owners' and Miners' Joint-Committee - - 308 Durham Coalowners' and Workmen's Joint- Committee - - - - - 310 VI II. Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1896.

Text of the Act 314 IX. Truck Act, 1896. General Effect of the Act - 317 GLOSSARY OF MINING TERMS - 319 INDEX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I'AGE New Hartley Colliery, Seaton Delaval, Northumberland, 1896 - Frontispiece Fig. I. Plate I. Mouth of a Day-Drift, with group of Coal-Hewers - facing 2 a 2. 11 II. Reproduction of Frontispiece of Old Treatise by Mr J. H. H. Holmes on Coal-Mining in Durham and Northumberland, published 18 16 a.d. - - - - facing 4 3. a III. Reproduction of Plan of Underground Workings made about the Middle of Eighteenth Century - - - facing 14 » 4. 1, IV. Miners' Children at School - - - - n 46 ,1 5. /< V. Putters' Flat, with Back-Shift Hewers going Inbye and Deputy in the Background ----- yacing 68 a 6. a VI. Deputy Drawing Timber near the Fallen Goaf - -it 7° « 7. a VII. A Hewer Kirving in a Thin Seam, and a Deputy Setting Timber ------ facing 76 „ 8.

A Hand-Putter at Work ------- 82 a 9. Plate VIIL A Stoneman at Work with a Hand-Drilling Machine in the face of a Stone Drift - - facing S4 // 10. Sketch illustrating Method of Calculating Cost of Stonework in Slanting a Staple ------- 85 n 11. Do. do. in Making an Air-Crossing - - - 86 a 12. Roads Cutting each other " Cross-cut on " - - - - - 87 » 13 and 14. Sketches illustrating Methods of Calculating Price for Ridding - S8 • 15. Do. do. do. for Inclined Stone-Drift 91 ,1 16. Plate IX. Stonemen at Work with Machine Rock- Drills driven by Compressed Air - - - - - - facing 92 » 17. 11 X. Onsetters at Work ----.„ g6 11 18. n XI. A Rolleywayman Boring a Sleeper, and Fore-Shift Hewers coming Outbye to the Shaft - - - facing 96 /; 19. Hewer's Pick and Shaft ------- ID9 " 20. » Shovel -------- 109 » 21. a Stemmer -------- 10q " 22. a Scraper - - - - - - - - 1 10 ;/ 23. « Pricker - - ----- no " 24. it Mall - - - - - 1 10 - 25. « Wedge - - - . . !

I0 LLST OF LLLUSTRATLONS. XIII PAGE Fig. 26. Hand-Drilling Machine - - - - - - m 11 27. Head of a Chain Coal-Cutter - - - - - 114 '/ 28. Plate XIX. Messrs Clarke and Steavenson's Electrical Coal-Cutter facing 11S » 29. Ingersoll-Sergeant Coal-Cutter - - - - - - 119 " 30. Do do. (Section) - - - 119 a 31. Gillott & Copley's Coal-Cutter - - - 121 " 32. Section showing Inclined Undercutting - - - - 123 " 33- Jeffrey Bar Coal-Cutting Machine - - - - 127 " 34. Jeffrey Chain Coal-Cutting Machine - 129 « 35. Sketch showing Arrangement of Air-Compressing Cylinders - - 130 a 36. Sketch of Underground Workings showing Position of Jeffrey Machine at Park Lane Colliery - - - - - 130 " 37' Tyne Coal-Cutter - - - - . jj, " 38. Section showing Coal left to Support Shaft in an Inclined Seam - - 136 39. Plan of Shaft Pillars .--..._ -,^ ' 40.

Bratticing of a Pair of Winning Places - - - - '39 a 41-44. Plans showing Different Modes of Face Ventilation of Three Winning Places -----.. j^q // 45. Special Case of Face-Bratticing in the Presence of a Blower of Gas - 141 a 46. Plate XX. A Deputy on his Rounds coming through a Canvas Brattice Door -..-.. facing 142 a 47. Air-Box --------- j^ » 48. Plate XXI. Air-Tubes carried Round a Corner, and Ventilating a Single Heading - - - 144 ,1 49. Pipe Air-Crossing - - - - - 145 n 50. Wood-topped Air-Crossing, in Section - - - 145 // 51. Plan of Top of do. - - 146 /; 52. Brick-Arch Air-Crossing, in Section - - 147 11 53. Do. do. in Plan - 14S " 54. Special Form of Air-Crossing, in Plan - - - 149 « 55. Do. do. in Section - - - - 149 " 56. Plate XXII. Face of a Winning Headways, showing Abnormal Thickening of a Thin Seam ----- facing 152 " 57.

Section showing Reversed Fault - - - 151 1, 58. Section explanatory of a Fault ... - - 152 /; 59. A Form of Fault ----- - 152 1, 60. Sketch illustrating Method of Drifting through a Fault - 1 53 a 61. Do. do. do. - 153 /; 62. Do. do. do. - 154 « 63. Levelling Lath ----- - 156 ,1 64. Tee-Bob - - - 156 a 65. Sketch illustrating Mode of Laying-out Underground Curved Road 157 " 66. Do. do. do. do. - - 15S // 67. Plate XXIII. Sketch Plan of a Mine Worked on the Panel System facing 160 „ 68. Plan of a Square Pillar - - - - - 161 a 69. Plan of an Oblong Pillar - - - - C OLLL ER Y WORKLNG AND MANAGEMENT. XIV PAGE Fig. 70. Sketch illustrating Proportion of Coal left in Pillar - - l°2 ,1 71. Sketch showing Position of Kirving, Nicking, and Shot-Holes - - 162 1, 72. Section of a " Place " showing Position of Shot-Hole and Kirving - 163 •1 73.

Position of Shot-Holes and Nicking in a Cross-Cut - - 163 » 74. Sketch illustrating Sump and Back End - - - l(>6 ./ 75. Plan of Ventilation in Panel (Non-Gassy) - - '67 tt 76. Do. do. (Gassy) - - 167 1, 77. Do. do. (Very Fiery) - - - - 168 1, 78. Do. do. do. Coursing Air, two and two - 168 » 79. Plate XXIV. Sketch Plan of Bord and Pillar Workings, illustrating Precautions to be taken in presence of Gas, and in approaching Old Workings containing Water at high pressure - facing 170 „ 80. ,1 XXV. Plan of Broken Workings— Bord and Pillar System » 172 // Si. Mode of Regulating Intake Air - - - - - '74 a S2, 83. Diagrams illustrating Old Pillars - - - - - 174 a 84. Sketch illustrating Method of Removing Old Pillars - 175 11 85. Sketch illustrating Method of Working Pillars at Seaton Burn - - 177 „ 86.

Do. do. do. at Marley Hill - - 178 » 87. Do. do. do. at Towneley - 179 ,, S8. Do. do. do. at Old Pontop - - 1S0 « S9. Do. do. do. at Killingworth - - 180 a 90. Do. do. do. do. - 182 „ 91. Do. do. do. at Garesfield - 183 „ 92. Do. do. do. at Murton - 184 ,, 93. Timbering of a Jud - - 185 a 94. Method of Working Pillars in the Hutton Seam at Eppleton - - 186 ■1 95. General Plan showing Broken Workings - - - - 188 a 96. Barrier Working in the Hutton Seam at Eppleton Colliery - 190 .; 97. Method of Working Large Pillars in the Main Coal Seam at Eppleton Colliery ------- 192 98, 99. Sketches illustrating the Results of Altering the Relative Lengths of Bords and Walls ------ 195 a 100. Modified Longwall Working - - - 202 ,, 101. Timbering in Modified Longwall Working - - 204 ,1 102. Modified Longwall Working (another instance) - - 205 " 103.

Plate XXVI. Hewers Working at a Longwall Face in a Thick Seam facing 210 » 104. Stone Pillaring and Timbering at Longwall Face - - - 210 a 105. Plate XXVII. Plan of Longwall Workings - - - facing 212 » 106. Plan showing Winning Headways - - - 213 a 107. Plan of Pillaring on Longwall Face - - 214 u 108. Cross-Section of Gateway - - 214 // 109. Drawing of a Flat showing the Mothergate and Cross-Headings - - 215 a no. Mode of Forming Cross-Headings ----- 216 11 in. Drawing of a Flat with Headways Mothergates - - 218 a 112. Plan showing Double-Stall Working - - 224 n 113. Removal of Ribs in Double-Stall Working . LLST OF LL LUSTRA TIONS. XV PAGE Fig. 114. Plan of Double-Stall Working at Elemore Colliery - - - 229 n 115. Single-Stall Working in South Wales 234 116. Do. do. Cross-Section of Main Level - - - 235 117.

Plate XXVIII. General Plan of Double-Stall Workings in Graigola Seam, South Wales (1895) - - - - facing 236 118. Sketch showing the Working of Two Seams near together - - 239 ■' 119. Example of Bord and Pillar Working ----- 243 LIST OF PLATES plate page New Hartley Colliery, Seaton Dei.aval, Northumberland, 1S96 ------- Frontispiece I. Mouth of a Day-Drift, with Group of Coal Hewers -facing 2 II. Harrington Mill Pit (about 1800 a.d.), Reproduced from Hoi.mes's Treatise on Coal-Mining in Durham and Northumberland - - - - - - " 4 III. Plan of Underground Workings made about Middle of Eighteenth Century - - - - - » 14 IV. Miners' Children at School - - - - - « 46 V. Putters' Flat, with Back -Shift Hewers going Inbye and Deputy in the Background - - - „ 68 VI. Deputy Drawing Timber near the Fallen Goaf - - » 70 VII.

A Hewer Kirving in a Thin Seam, and a Deputy Setting Timber ' - - - - - - « 76 VIIL A Stoneman at Work with a Hand-Drilling Machine in the Face of a Stone-Drift - - - „ 84 IX. Stonemen at Work with Machine Rock-Drills Driven by Compressed Air - - - - - -4/92 X. Onsetters at Work - - - - - ,, 96 XI. A Rolleyman Boring a Sleeper, and Fore-Shift Hewers coming Outbye to the Shaft - - - -4/96 XII. Forms Used for Making-up Hewers' and Putters' Wages Bills ..-----.» 100 XIIL Form of Abstract Account of Overman's Pay Bill - « 100 XIV. FoRiUS of Abstracts of Costs of Working - - » 104 XV. Form of Graphical Statement of Coals Produced and Disposed of Pay by Pay - - - - n 104 XVI. Form of Graphical Statement of Variations in Costs from Pay to Pay - - - » 104 XVII. Form of Fortnightly Return of Results - - » 106 XVIII.

Form of Return of Weekly Costs, &c. - - « C OLLL ER Y WORKLNG AND MANAGEMENT. XVI PLATE PAGE XIX. Messrs Clarke & Steavenson's Electrical Coal-Cutter -facing 118 XX. A Deputy on his Rounds coming through a Canvas Brattice Door - - - - - » 142 XXI. Air-Tubes carried Round a Corner, and Ventilating a Single Heading - - - - - - » 144 XXII. Face of a Winning Headways, showing Abnormal Thickening of a Thin Seam - - - » 152 XXIII. Sketch Plan of a Mine Worked on the Panel System - « 160 XXIV. Sketch Plan of Bord and Pillar Workings, illustrating Various Difficulties - - - - - » 170 XXV. Plan of Broken Workings — Bord and Pillar System - » 172 XXVI. Hewers Working at a Longwall Face in a Thick Seam » 210 XXVII. Plan of Longwall Workings - - - - n 212 XXVIII. General Plan of Double-Stall Workings in Graigola Seam, South Wales (1895) * " 23^ COLLIERY WORKING AND MANAGEMENT.

Chapter I. Earlier Methods Of Working Coal

WHEN one reflects that the British Coal Trade has been in existence for seven centuries — that coal has been worked in this country and sold as an article of commerce since about A.D. 121 5, the date of Magna Charta, which gave security to the right of private property — one naturally inquires what progress has been made in the getting of coal during all these years, and what has been the process of development.* The first step would doubtless be simple digging of the coal where actually exposed at the surface of the soil. In early times, in districts where only a few feet of overlying strata hindered access to the coal, small holes or shafts, 3 or 4 feet in diameter, were put down to the seam and then widened out, so as to allow of the excavation of as much coal as possible without causing the upper strata to fall in.

These are known as " bell pits." That this method was followed in very early times is proved by the fact that pits thus fashioned were evidently made in some instances for the purpose of obtaining, not coal but * Though the English coal trade does not date back earlier than the thirteenth century, coal was known and used long before this. About E.C. 371, Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, mentions in a treatise " On Stones," fossil substances "that are called coals, which kindle and burn like wood coals." " These are found in Liguria and in Elis, in the way to Olympias, over the mountains ; they are used by the smiths." This is probably the earliest mention of true coal (not charcoal) on record. The first record of its use in England is often stated to be in a.d. 852, when it is recorded that the Abbot of Peterborough received "twelve cart loads of coal," but it is doubtful whether the Anglo-Saxon word translated here "coal," does not mean "peat."

See "The Archæology ofthe Coal Trade," by T. John Taylor (1852). A COLLLERY WORKLNG AND MANAGEMENT. XVIII ironstone,* coal adjoining the ironstone having been left, — showing that the work was done before the value of coal was known. In the "Buke of Boldon "— an inventory of the estates held by the see of Durham in 1183, when Hugh Pudsey was Bishop — the use of coalt is mentioned several times. The references to it are in connection with grants of land made to certain individuals for finding coals. This duty seems usually to have fallen to the smith, no doubt an important village functionary, who required coals " for the iron-work of the ploughs" made by him. In the fourteenth! century coal was being mined by shaft and adit, the adit being a horizontal tunnel driven from the surface on some hillside at such a level as to drain off the water from the workings.

The coal was raised up the shaft by a jack -roll or common winch moved by manual labour, or by men or women carrying it on their backs up ladders. Narrow passages were driven in the coal seam, leaving small pillars to support the roof. When difficulties arose from want of air, from too much water, or from crush of the strata, the shaft was abandoned, and a new one sunk not far off, the depth being only a few fathoms. Thus in ancient mining districts, such as West Durham, old shafts may be seen in almost every field — sometimes, indeed, several in one field. Old plans of Tanfield Moor, a considerable area in West Durham, show that there was a shaft to every 10 or 11 acres. In hilly districts where coal seams " crop out to the day " in the sides of the hills, day-drifts were, and must always remain, the readiest means of access to them.

Fig. 1, Plate I., is a photograph of the mouth of a day-drift driven in at the outcrop of a coal seam. It shows the strata immediately overlying the seam, and also a group of coal-hewers, who have just come out of the mine, and are on their way home. During the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, few * See "Ancient Mining at the Coppice, Sedgley," by J. Meachem, jun., Fed. Inst, of Mining Engineers Trans., vol. vi., p. 554. t Whether this was mineral coal, or charcoal, is not certain. % In 1356, Bishop Hatfield of Durham granted on lease five mines in the Manor of Whickham to Sir Thomas de Gray, knight, and Sir John Pulhore, rector ofWhickham, for twelve years at 500 marks rent perannum( = i3s.4d. £1 in those days would be equivalent to about ,£20 now). The lessees were to work the mines as far as they could be wrought by five barrowmen, according to the view and oath of the chief forester and of the viewers ("par cynk Barrowemen par la vewe et serrement du chief fforester et des veiours "), and they were limited to one keel a day (probably about 20 tons). — Archæologia Æliana, Part 24, vol. viii., of Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Plate I — Mouth of a Day-drift, with Group of Coal Hewers. bio To face page 3. EARLLER METHODS OF WORKLNG COAL. 1 improvements of any note were introduced. The water being the greatest difficulty, attempts were made to raise it in several stages by chain pumps, operated by water wheels or by horses ; and whim gins worked by horses (see A, Fig 2, Plate II.) were substituted for jack-rolls in raising the coal. The depth of the workings was limited for the most part by the level at which free outlet for the water could be obtained through day-drifts, so that in 1610 it was stated in Parliament that the coal mines at Newcastle would not last out the term of their leases of twenty-one years. The invention of the atmospheric engine, by Thomas New comer., an ironmonger at Dartmouth, in 1710, changed the whole aspect of the industry.

At that time 60 fathoms was about the maximum depth of shafts, and their diameter 7 or S feet, and the area worked to one shaft was seldom more than 200 yards' radius round the shaft. Fifty years later Walker colliery, on the Tyne, was sunk to the Main coal a depth of 100 fathoms, and in 1763 a pumping engine was erected there, having a cylinder 72 inches in diameter and ioi feet long. The steam engine was first applied to drawing coals in 1780 at Willington colliery, Northum berland, and the first Boulton & Watt engine, with close-topped cylinder, was erected at St Anthony's, near Newcastle, in 1790. Deeper shafts, and more extensive areas of workings, brought in the era of big explosions, of which we have not yet seen the end. Repeated disasters in the pits led to the formation at Sunderland, in 1813, of "A Society for Prevention of Accidents in Coal Mines," and it was the members of this society who were instrumental in engaging Sir Humphry Davy in the exertions which, in 1815, culminated in the invention of his safety-lamp.

As regards the working of the coal, it would soon be found that planes of cleavage run through the seams in two directions at right angles to each other — roughly, north and south, and east and west, in the Newcastle coal-field — and that the cleavage in the former direction is more pronounced than that in the latter.* Roads, therefore, can be most easily cut in an east-and-west direction, or at right angles to the main cleavage planes. These ways came to be called "bords"— a term said to be derived from an old Saxon word meaning a road or way. In the eighteenth century these bords were usually made 3 yards wide, and pillars of coal, 4 or 5 yards wide, left between them. In an old paper bearing date 6th December 1768, and headed " Mems. of Urpeth and Ouston Colliery, by Wm. * See Chapter on Bord and Pillar Working, p. 163, and Chapter VI., p. 78.

COLLIERY WORKING AND MANAGEMENT. 2 Wanless," it is noted :— " Middle West Pasture Pit. — Wrought in the Main Coal, and not in the walls ; 8 yards to a winning ; bord 3 and wall 5 yards. The north headways driven about 19 winnings or 152 yards ; the Mothergate Westward 7 pillars at 30 yards to a pillar, the first and second pillars = 20 yards, so that the Mother gate Westward will be 190 yards west." The term "wall" is used to denote both the passage between the bords at the end of each pillar, and also the width of solid coal or pillar measured along the headways — that is, between the bords — and this width, plus the width of the bord, is termed a " winning." As (in the instance just cited) the headways advances every 8 yards, room for another bord is " won out." The temptation of making walls thin, in order to get a number of bords won out quickly, is apparent.

Judging from old " views " dated about the middle of the last century, it was usual to get as much coal as possible in the first working with little con sideration for a second working of the pillars. For instance, in a "view" of Murton collier)*, near Berwick-on-Tweed, dated nth November 1754, the viewer states: "I find the men win about 7 yards of headways to a winning, and take 3 yards of that for a bord, and leave 4 yards for a wall, and hole these walls at 4 yards long, so that the pillars are a square of 4 yards the side. . . . By the above method of working there is a great quantity of coal lost, for they cannot make a second working. Therefore I recommend for the future that the bords be driven 4 yards wide, and the headways twixt4 feet 6 inches and 6 feet wide, and the pillars left 20 yards long and 4 yards thick, by which method there may be a second working, and the coal will work much rounder, for these pillars will probably prevent a thrust at any time when working the broken mine, and in all probability near six-eighths of the coal may be got, whereas by present method of working not more than two thirds is got."