Scottish Mining Website

 

A Glossary of Scotch Mining Terms

Compiled by James Barrowman, Mining Engineer, Secretary to the Mining Institute of Scotland, 1886
Hamilton: Printed at the "Advertiser" Office, by W. Naismith, 1886

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Preface
It has been the aim of the compiler of the following Glossary to bring together all mining terms which have been and are in common use in the stratified mines in Scotland. No attempt has been made to include the names of parts of machinery, and other engineering terms, which, although well-known in Scotland, are not peculiar to that country.


The most of the terms are known and used over Scotland; some are confined to one or two districts, and a few are quite local. Localities have not been indicated throughout, as it would be impossible to do this accurately in all cases. Neither has it been thought desirable to distinguish obsolete names, because some, although quite obsolete in some districts, are still lingering, or even in common use, in others.
In some instances a technical word is explained by another technical word; but the meaning of the latter in plain terms will be found elsewhere.


Thanks are due to those members of the Mining Institute of Scotland who kindly co-operated with the writer in this matter, and especially to Mr John Gemmell and Mr James Hamilton, Mining Engineers.
Hamilton, November 1886

 

 

ABREAST, In a line.

A-CROPPING, Towards the outcrop.

A-DIPPING, Towards the dip.

ADVANCE, Payment of wages to account; an increase in wages.

AFTER-DAMP, The mixture of gases resulting from an explosion of fire-damp.

AIR, The ventilating current.

To AIR, To ventilate.

AIR-BOX, or AIR-BOXES, A rectangular channel made of deals for the conveyance of air for ventilation.

AIR-COCK, A cock for letting off air from a pump.

AIR-COURSE, An underground road or passage used exclusively or chiefly for ventilation.

AIR-CROSSING, An erection or arrangement of airways, whereby one air current is carried over and kept separate from another.

AIR-GATE, Old name for Air-course, which see.

AIR-PIT, A shaft used specially for ventilation.

AIR-VESSEL, A chamber connected with a pump, and partially filled with air, to regulate the flow of water and lessen shocks.

AIR-WAY. See Air course.

AIXTRIE, An axle.

ALCHYMY (often pronounced A'CHYMY or ACAIM), A white film, usually carbonate of lime, in joints of coal, iron-stone, and other minerals.

ALUM SHALE, Shale from which alum is manufactured.

APPLE COAL. See Yolk Coal.

APRON, In pumping, a method of connecting parallel pump rods by filling the intervening space with short logs and fastening the whole with iron glands. See Fig 1.

ARLES, Money given in former times to the colliers at the baptism of their children, as a token of the children being attached like their parents to the coal-work.

A-STRETCHING, In the line of the strike of the strata; level course.

AXLETREE, An axle made of wood ; the centre shaft of a horse gin.

BACK-BALANCE, A weight to counterbalance moving machinery.

BACK-COAL, Coal which miners were allowed to carry home for firecoal.

BACK-COMING, The working out, towards the shaft, of the pillars in stoop-and-room working. See also Back-splinting.

BACKING, Wood laid behind side gearing.

To BACK or BACK OUT, To throw mineral along the wall-face to the road-head.

BACK-LYE, A siding behind the shaft or other centre of haulage operations.

BACK-MINE, or BACKSET-MINE, A cross-cut mine towards the dip of the strata.

BACKS, Cleavage planes ; the main joints, vertical or nearly so, by which strata are intersected.

BACK-SHIFT, The second of two shifts.

BACK-SKIN, A leather or waterproof covering worn by sinkers and others under dripping water.

BACK-SPLINTING, Working the upper of two seams backwards by long wall, using the roads of the lower seam.

BACK- VENT, In wide rooms with centre building, the air-course alongside the pillar.

BACK-WORKING. See Back-coming and Back-splinting.

To BAG, To swell or bulge.

BAGGED, or BAGGIT, Swelled or bulged.

To BAIL, To lave, or remove water by means of a hand pail or scoop.

BAIN, Old form of Ben, which see.

BAKIE, A sled ; a slype.

BALANCE-BOB, A weight attached to a crank or beam for balancing pump rods.

BALANCE-ROPE, A rope hung under the cage in a shaft to counter-balance the winding rope.

BALLS, or BALL IRONSTONE, Ironstone occurring in balls or nodules.

BAND, A thin stratum. Now used chiefly as part of the compound words Blackband, Clayband, Slatyband, Roughband, Musselband.

BANJO, An iron frame for carrying a false clack,

BANK, The surface of the ground at a pit mouth.

BANKSMAN, A man engaged on the bank; a pitheadman.

To BARE, To expose, e.g. to bare a hitch; to remove overlying earth or strata in a quarry or opencast working.

BARING, The material so removed ; tirring.

BARGES, Sheets of iron, zinc, or wood, for shedding water aside in wet shafts or workings.

BARREL, A vessel by which water is lifted by engine or windlass from sinking shafts.

BARRIER, A strip of mineral left unworked, e.g. along the march or between two sections of a mineral field.

BARRING, The wooden lining of a shaft.

BASIN, A synclinal bend in strata; a hollow or trough; sometimes a coalfield.

BASTARD, Impure, e.g., bastard fireclay, bastard limestone.

BATS, Sometimes used to denote the hard part of the holing under a seam.

BATS AND BANDS, Iron mounting and hinges of agate or trap-door.

BEARER, A person, usually a woman or girl, who formerly carried the coal in baskets from the workings to the shaft, and in many cases up the shaft on ladders to the surface. The bearer was usually the miner's wife or daughter. When not so she was called a "Fremit bearer." See Fig 2

BEARERS' WAY, An underground road or passage along winch the bearers carried their burdens.

BEARING, Direction; a line of an underground survey.

BEARING, or LINE OF BEARING, The line of the strike of the strata; level course.

BEARING-DOORS, Double doors on a main airway.

BEARING-PIT, A shaft up which coal was carried by bearers. BEARING-ROAD, A road on the line of bearing; a road used by bearers.

BECHE (pronounced BITCH), A hollow cone for extracting broken rods from bore holes.

BED, A seam or stratum.

BEECHES, Strips of hard wood fastened to pump rods to save them from wear on the collaring.

BELL, An audible signal.

To BELL, To signal.

BELL-CRANK, A triangular iron frame used to change the direction of reciprocating motion. See Fig. 3.

BEN, Inwards; towards the workings ; the workman's right to enter the pit; hence the term claiming his ben, i.e., going to the pit in the morning and having his right to enter the pit and have hutches in his turn acknowledged, which right he may then delegate to his boys. The day's work of a youth, indicating the proportion of a man's "darg" which he is able or allowed to put out, is termed quarter-ben, half-ben, three-quarter-ben.

BENCH, A portion of a seam which is too thick to be worked in one face.

BENCH, A landing place.

To BENCH, To work a seam in sections.

BENCHING-SHOT, A shot hole bored vertically downward in an open face of work.

BENT, A seam which is rendered more difficult to work on account of the unequal distribution of the weight of the overlying strata is said to be bent.

To BIG, To build. (A Scotch word little used in mining).

BIGGlNG, A building or packwall.

BILLY FAIRPLAY, A machine which weighs the dross passing through a scree.

BIN or BING, A heap, e.g., a coal bing, a dirt bing.

BINDING BOLTS, Bolts binding machinery to foundations.

BITCHES, Set of three chains for slinging pit pipes.

BLACKBAND IRONSTONE, Mineral carbonate of iron, containing coaly matter sometimes sufficient in quantity for its calcination.

BLACK COAL, Coal slightly burned by igneous rock.

BLACK-DAMP, Carbonic acid, or choke-damp.

BLACKS, Black or coaly blaes.

BLAES, Shale; laminated clay; indurated mud.

BLAES AND BALLS, Blaes with ironstone nodules imbedded.

To BLAST, To excavate by means of gunpowder or other explosive.

BLAST, A severe explosion. A fall of water down the downcast shaft to produce or quicken, ventilation.

BLIND COAL, Coal deprived of part of its volatile matter and which burns without smoke; anthracite coal.

BLINDED, Not opposite. Two ends driven from opposite sides of a plane and not opposite each other, but nearly so, are said to be blinded.

BLIND LEVEL, A water level, the driving of which has been obstructed by a bed of running sand or gravel, in which case a shaft is sunk through it and a mine driven forward to another shaft, from which the level proceeds on its original course; a level in the form of inverted siphon.

BLIND PIT, An underground shaft, i.e., a shaft which does not reach the surface; a shaft from an upper to a lower seam.

BLIND. SHEARING, A side cutting without holing.

To BLOW, To excavate by blasting.

BLOWER, The abundant and audible emission of fire-damp from a fissure ; the point of issue.

BLOWN-OUT-SHOT, A charge which has forced out the stemming instead of doing the desired work.

BLUE-CAP, The characteristic blue aureola over the flame of a safety lamp where fire-damp is present in the air.

BOAM, A beam, usually the log supporting the pit pumps.

BOBBING-JOHN, An appliance formerly used in pumping, the motive power being water run into a box at the end of a beam working on a centre, the pump-rods being attached to the other end.

BOGIE, A small truck or trolly used for purposes other than carriage of mineral.

BOILER-BUILDING, or BOILER-SEAT, Setting of steam boilers.

BOLL, An old measure of capacity for coal.

BONNET, A portion of a seam left on for a roof.

BONNET, A flat piece of wood on the top of a prop.

BONNETS, Gas coal or shale overlying and worked along with a coal seam.

To BORE, To drill, or otherwise pierce a hole in the strata.

BORE, OR BORE-HOLE, A hole made in strata.

BORER, or MINERAL BORER, A person whose business it is to search for minerals by boring.

BOSS, Hollow.

The BOSS, The waste or exhausted workings of any mineral.

To BOSS, To hole or undercut.

BOSSING, The holing or undercutting of a thick seam, as of limestone, the height of the undercutting being sufficient for a man to work in.

BOTTLE-COAL, Gas coal.

BOTTOM, The lowest landing in a shaft or incline; sometimes any underground landing, e.g., high-bottom, low-bottom.

BOTTOMER, The person who loads and unloads the cages at the bottom or intermediate landings in a shaft.

BOTTOM-PILLAR, or BOTTOM-STOOP, The block of mineral left unworked at a shaft for its support.

BOTTOMS, The lower part of a seam.

'BOUTGATE, A road by which the miners can reach the surface; a travelling round a shaft at a landing; a travelling-road from one seam to another.

BOUTON, A projecting stone in a shaft or underground road.

BOUKED, or BOWKED, Bulked; increased in size, e.g., when a .drum is increased in diameter, or a cylinder or the working barrel of a pump worn wide.

BOUKING, Segments of wood or other material used for increasing the diameter of a drum. When a rope is not coiling evenly on a drum it is said not to be bouking well.

BOX, A hutch.

BRACE, or BRACEHEAD, The cross handles on the top of, boring-rods by which the rods are moved round in a bore-hole.

BRAE, An inclined roadway, more commonly used in the compound form, e.g., pulley-brae, cuddy-brae.

BRACE, An old measure of weight. The Hurlet brace was equal to 4 cwts.

BRAIRDING, Height of holing at front.

To BRAIRD, To widen up the holing.

BRANCH, A road in longwall working formed off a level, heading, or other main road.

BRANDERS, Furnace bars.

BRASSES, Iron pyrites, occurring in veins and nodules in some seams of coal.

BRATTICE, A partition for directing the ventilating current.

BREAK, The fracture of the strata consequent on the working out of a seam.

BREAK, A reduction of the day's wage.

To BREAK BAND, To arrange stones or bricks in building so that the vertical joints shall not be in one line.

BREAKER, A machine to break or crush coal or oil shale.

BREAST, The face of an unworked area of coal between the lowest level and the outcrop or boundary of old workings.

BREAST-BORE, A bore-hole in front.

BREESE, Small or poor coke.

BRIDLE, or BRIDLE-CHAIN, A chain used to prevent hutches tilting over on steep inclines ; a safety chain.

BRITISH, or BRETTYS, A packwall or stone pillar in longwall working ; a cundie pillar.

BROSING, or BROSING TIME, Meal time.

To BRUSH, To remove part of the roof or pavement by blasting or otherwise in order to heighten the roadway.

BRUSHER, One who performs the above operation and puts up side-buildings of roadways.

BRUSHING, That part of the roof or pavement of a seam removed to form roadways.

BUCKET, The movable or reciprocating valve of a pump.

BUCKET-DOOR, The cover of an opening in pipes for access to the pump bucket.

BUCKET-LID, The flap of a bucket valve.

BUCKET-LIFT, A set of pumps raising water with a bucket.

BRIDGE RAILS, Edge rails hollow underneath.

BUCKET-MOUNTING, Leather or gutta percha packing of a bucket.

BUCKET-PIECE, The pipe carrying the bucket door.

BUCKET-SHELL, The cast-iron or brass frame of a bucket.

BUCKET-STRAP, or BUCKET-RING, An iron ring clasping the leather of a bucket.

BUFFER-BEAMS, Beams fixed in a shaft to prevent pump rods from travelling too far.

BUILDING, A packwall in longwall working; a pillar built of stone.

BULL-SHOT, or BULLER, A blown-out shot.

BUMMING, Heaving or rising of the pavement.

BUMMING, Emitting a hollow sound when struck.

BUNTONS, Wooden cross-stays in a shaft; supports for shaft slides ; needles.

BURNT COAL, Coal altered by trap rock.

BURST OF WHINSTONE, A bed or mass of igneous rock at the surface of the ground.

BURSTER, or BURSTING-SHOT, A shot in the solid seam which has not been prepared by shearing or holing.

BURTHEN, The load of coal which the bearers carried on their backs.

BUT, Outwards, towards the shaft.

BUTT-TO-BUTT, End to end.

BUTTERFLY VALVE, A check valve usually wrought by' a governor. See Fig, 4

BY-PIT, A pit nearer the outcrop than the engine pit; an air pit.

BY-ROAD, A subsidiary road.

To CA', To drive home or into position, as ca' up a tree; to wedge the coal as distinguished from blasting it.

CABIN, A shelter for workmen;, an enclosed place underground used for a particular purpose, e.g., lamp cabin.

CAGE, The carriage or platform used to raise men and materials in a shaft.

CAGE-COVER, The malleable iron sheets fixed above a cage to protect its occupants.

CAGE-GUIDES, Shoes, usually cast iron, clasping the slides in a shaft and guiding the cage in its movements in the shaft.

CAGE-SEAT, The frame or scaffolding on which the cage rests at the pit-bottom.

CAGE TAIL-CHAIN, A chain fastened to the bottom of the shaft cage to haul out of a short dook.

CALCINING HEARTH, A space, usually floored with bricks, where ironstone is calcined.

CALM, or CAULM, White or light coloured blaes.

CALMY, or CAULMY, Of an argillaceous nature.

CAMPER, Coal slightly altered by whin ; dirty coal.

CANDLE COAL, or CANNEL COAL, Gas coal, which see.

CANISTER, A tin can to hold blasting powder.

CAPES, Movable sides and ends put on a hutch, waggon, or cart to increase its capacity.

CARRIAGE, or CARRIGAL, A wheeled bogie on which a number of hutches are placed for conveyance of coal; a platform on wheels for conveying hutches in a level position on a highly-inclined roadway.

CARRY, The thickness of roof-rock taken down in working a seam; the thickness of seam which can be conveniently taken down at one working; the width of face, as in stooping.

CART, A measure of 12 cwts. of riddled coal (but in practice varying from 12 to 15 cwts.), by which miners were formerly paid.

CART, A measure of weight equal to 12 cwts. Coal sold for delivery in horse carts is usually sold by the cart of 12 cwts., or waggon of 24 cwts.

CARTRIDGE, A quantity of powder or other explosive packed in suitable form for use in blasting.

CASH, Soft coaly blaes.

CASHY BLAES, Soft coaly blaes; blaes with little coherence.

CAST METAL, Cast iron.

CATHEAD, Inferior ironstone.

CATS, Burnt clay used for tamping in wet strata.

CAVE IN, A collapse; falling in of the sides of a shaft or open working.

CHAIN AND BUCKETS, OR CHAIN PUMP, An old method of raising water in shafts. See Fig. 5.

CHAIN-WALL, A system of working by means of wide rooms and long narrow pillars, sometimes called room and rance; a long narrow strip of mineral left unworked, e.g., along the low side of a level.

CHALDER, A measure of weight. The Perth chalder was 5 tons, the River Forth chalder 30 cwts.; the Hurlet chalder, 2 tons.

CHAIN-RUNNER, CHAIN-BOY, or CHAIN-MAN, A person in charge of, and who accompanies, trains of hutches in mechanical haulage.

CHANNEL, Gravel.

CHANNEL BED, A bed of gravel.

To CHAP, To strike; to knock ; to signal. Miners chap the roof to find if it is safe. When two rooms are nearly met the miners chap on the face to ascertain the thickness of the intervening coal. The bottomer when signalling to the pit-head, where the signalling apparatus consists of a hammer falling on an iron plate, is said to chap.

CHAR, Coke; more usually calcined ironstone.

CHECK CLACK, A fixed valve in a rising main other than a delivery valve.

CHECK GRIEVE, A person who checks the weight of mineral at a colliery on behalf of the landlord.

CHECK OUT, Meeting of the roof and pavement, the seam being thereby cut off; a want.

CHECK WEIGHER, One who takes account of the mineral raised on behalf of the miners ; a justiceman.

CHEESE CLACK, A temporary clack inserted between two pipes.

CHERRY COAL, A bright, freely burning coal.

CHEST, A wheeled box used to carry water; a veal.

CHESTING, Drawing water by means of a chest-or veal.

CHEWS, or CHOWS, Coal filled with a harp; middling sized pieces of coal.

CHIRLS, or CHURRELS, Coal which passes through a harp; small coal free from dross or dirt.

CHOCK, A wooden pillar built of props laid crosswise. See Fig. 6.

CHOCKS, Buffer beams, which see.

CHOKE DAMP, Carbonic acid gas; after damp.

CLACK, The fixed or stationary valve of a pump.

CLACK DOOR, The cover of the opening in a pump pipe giving access to the clack.

CLACK-GUARD, A ring to prevent undue opening of the clack.

CLACK-LID, The flap,of a clack or stationary valve.

CLACK-PIECE, The pump pipe containing the clack and clack-door.

CLACK SEAT, The turned seat in the clack-piece on which the clack rests.

CLASP, The rivetted cap or hose on a hemp or wire rope.

CLAT, or CLAUT, A scraper with a long handle.

CLAY IRONSTONE, or CLAYBAND IRONSTONE, Clayey carbonate of iron.

CLAYER, A rod for forcing clay into joints of strata in wet shot holes.

To CLEAD (pronounced CLEED), To cover, e.g., to cover a cylinder with non-conducting material.

CLEADING, The wood composing the box of & hutch; the wooden portion of a drum or rope roll on which the rope is coiled.

CLEAN COAL, Coal from which the dross has been separated; good or pure coal as distinguished from impure coal in a seam.

CLEANER, A scraper for cleaning out a shot hole.

CLEAN FIELD, A mineral field free of troubles.

CLEAT, A bracket fixed to the barring in a shaft in which the ends of the buntons rest; a strip of hardwood fastened to pump rods to protect them from wear.

CLEAVE, One of two or more divisions of a seam, usually ironstone.

CLEEK, A hook. In former times the baskets in which the coal was drawn up the shaft were attached to the rope by a cleek, and the cleek in course of time came to mean the whole organization for raising the coal from a colliery. Hence stopping the cleek or stegging the cleek, i.e., causing an interruption of the output of the coal.

CLEEK COAL, Coal as it comes from the pit.

CLEEKSMAN, or CLEEKIE, In former times the person who unhooked the baskets of coal at the pithead ; a pit-headman.

CLIVEY, or CLIVIS, A spring hook; a hook for hanging boring rods.

CLOD, A thick fire-clay holing under or over a seam of coal; a bed of fire-clay in a coal working.

CLOD COAL, Strong homogeneous coal.

CLOSE PLACE, A narrow drift without a separate air return.

COAL-BEARER. See Bearer.

COAL-FACE, The face of the solid coal.

COAL-FIELD, An extent of country having coal-bearing strata; the area of coal comprised in a winning.

COAL-FAULD, A storing place for coal. See also Coal-Rith.

COAL-HEUGH, A place where coal is dug; a coal pit.

COAL-HEWER, A person who digs coal; a collier.

COAL-HILL, Ground occupied at a pithead or mine-mouth for colliery purposes.

COALMASTER, The owner of a colliery.

COAL-MEASURES, The Carboniferous series of rocks.

COAL-METALS, Strata in which coal seams occur.

COAL-RITH, or COAL-REE, or COAL-FAULD, A sale place for coal other than at a colliery.

COAL-ROOM, A working face in stoop-and-room workings.

COAL-WALL, The coal face.

COAL WORK, A colliery.

COD, A bush : the bearing of a hutch axle.

COLLAR, or COLLARING, A frame to guide pump rods; the fastening of pipes in a shaft.

COLLIER, A coal miner.

COLLIERY (old form COALERY), The shaft and associated works employed in raising coal.

COLUMN, Usually applied to the rising main of a pump, e.g. column of pipes.

COMBS, Indented metal castings in which the ends of scree bars rest.

COMMUNICATION ROAD, An underground road between two pits.

CONNECTING-ROD, The rod connecting piston rod and crank-the rod connecting tumbling crank and bell crank. See Fig. 3.

CONTRA COUP, or COUNTER COUP, Dip in an opposite direction.

COOM, Wooden centering for an arch; hence the roof of a mine or roadway is said to be coomed when it is arch shaped.

COOM, Soot; the dust of coal.

COOMING, Arching.

CORE, A cylindrical piece of mineral extracted from a borehole by means of a sample cutter.

CORF, A hutch or tram of wicker work in which coal was formerly conveyed from the coal face to the shaft, and sometimes up the shaft; a creel.

CORKED, See Bent.

CORNER RACKINGS, Triangular pieces of wood inserted in the corners of rectangular shafts to fix the barring.

CORNING, Mealtime.

CORNISH CLACK, A clack with two circular lids the upper .one seated on the lower. See Fig. 7.

COUNTRY SALE, Hill sale; sale by cart, as distinguished from disposal by rail or sea.

COUP, A bank, or face of a bing, where debris is tipped.

COUP-UP, A recess in a single road where empty hutches are thrown off the road to allow full ones to pass.

To COUP, To overturn.

COUPLING, A short chain connecting hutches or trucks.

COUPLING-CHAINS, Short chains connecting the cage with the winding rope.

COUPLING-TONGS, A tool used in joining flanged pipes together.


COUSIE (pronounced COWSSIE), A self-acting incline.

COUSIE-WHEEL, The drum or pulley on a self-acting incline.

COVER, The strata overlying a seam; the earth and soft material from the surface to the top of the rock.

CRAB, or CRAB WINCH, A geared windlass.

CRACKS, End joints; cutters; the secondary joints in strata, usually at right angles to backs.

CRADLING, Stone walling of a shaft.

CRANE BRAE, A short incline in steep workings.

CRAW COAL, CRAWS, or CROW COAL, Usually a thin seam of inferior coal.

CRAW PICKER, One who picks stones from coal or shale at the pithead.

CREEL, A wicker basket, formerly used to draw coal up the shaft.

CREEP, The filling up of the rooms or open spaces in workings caused by weight of upper strata forcing the material of the pavement into them; the slow settling down of old stoop-and-room workings.

CRIB, A ring of wood or iron bedded on the rock in a shaft and upon which the tubbing or cradling rests.

CRIBBING, A mode of lining a shaft, formerly practised, where great pressure of water had to be withstood, by means of cribs of oak built one upon other, carefully bedded and tightly wedged.

CROSS-CUT, or CROSS-CUT MINE, A mine driven from one seam to another through intervening strata.

CROSSING, The part where two hutch roads or railways diverge.

CROSSING-PLATE, Iron or steel plate forming crossing of rails.

CROSS-ROAD, A main road driven at a more moderate inclination than directly to the rise of the strata.

CROWN, or CROWN TREE, The horizontal roof, tree of a set of timbers.

CRUSH, The collapse or breaking down of pillars by weight of superincumbent strata.

CULM (little used), Very small dross; gum.

CUBE, A ventilating furnace.

CUDDIE, A weight mounted on wheels ; a loaded bogie, used to counter-balance the hutch on a cuddie brae,

CUDDIE-BRAE, An inclined roadway, worked in the same manner as a self-acting incline, the cuddie serving as a drag on the full hutch running down.

CUNDIE, A culvert.

CUNDIE, The unfilled space between pack walls. In steep long-wall workings, a narrow roadway without rails, down which mineral is rolled, to be loaded into hutches at the bottom ; a small roadway or aircourse.

CURLY IRONSTONE, Foliated ironstone.

CURLY SHALE, Foliated shale; shale having a crumpled appearance.

CUT, The open side. In longwall working, one face in advance of another gives it cut.

CUT CHAIN, A chain used on inclines, which may be cut at different places, to suit various levels.

CUT-CHAIN BRAE, An incline on which cut chains are used.

CUT COAL, In stoop-and-room working, coal cut on two sides where two rooms at right angles to each other just meet.

CUT SHOT, A shot designed to bring down coal which has been sheared or opened up on one side.

CUTTER, A fissure or rift.

CUTTERS. See Cracks

CUTTERY, Much intersected with joints or fissures, e.g., cutlery sandstone.

DALE, A measure by which coals were formerly sold in the east of Scotland.

DALE, A share.

To DALE, To divide or distribute.

DAM, An artificial barrier to keep out water.

DAMP, Gas. Most frequently used in the compound words fire-damp, choke-damp.

DAMPED, Fire-damp rendered inexplosive through want of air or through excess of carbonic acid gas is said to be damped.

DAMPER, A sliding shutter for cutting off the draught from a furnace; a regulator.

DAMPOSCOPE, An instrument invented by Professor Forbes, Glasgow, for detecting fire-damp. (Described in the Transactions of the Mining Institute of Scotland, Vol. I, p. 278.)

DANDER, Ash; clinker.

DANDERED COAL, Coal burned by, and generally mixed with, trap.

DANGER-BOARD, A notice giving warning against entering a dangerous part of the workings.

DARG, A day's work; the amount of mineral put out by a miner in a day.

DASS, A slice or cut taken off a pillar in stooping.

DAUGH, Soft fire-clay associated with a seam, and in which the holing is usually made.

DAY-LEVEL, A water level driven from the surface.

DAYLIGHT-MINE, A mine or drift running to the surface.

DAY-SHIFT, A relay of workmen who begin work in the morning.

DEAD, or DEAD LEVEL, Quite level.

DEAD-PLATE, A cast-iron plate at the end of scree bars or furnace bars.

DECK, A platform of a cage.

DEIL, A tool for unscrewing broken rods in a bore-hole when a beche is inadequate.

DERRICK, A mast or jib supporting a hoisting pulley.

DIAL, A mining compass.

DIALLER, A mineral surveyor.

DIP, Declivity or declination of strata.

DIP AND RISE, The slope or inclination of strata.

DIP LEVEL, The lowest drift or roadway following the strike of the strata.

DIPHEAD-LEVEL, The main level from the engine-pit bottom.

DIPPING, A dook, which see.

DIP SIDE, or LAIGH SIDE, The lowest side of a room or wall.

DIRT, Rubbish or refuse ; a stratum of soft blaes or fireclay in a coal seam.

DIRT-BING, A debris heap.

DIRTY COAL, A coal seam with thick partings of blaes or fireclay ; a very ashy coal.

DISCHARGE-CLACK, The delivery valve of a pump.

DISPOSALS, Quantities of mineral sold or disposed of.

DOG, A hook-headed spike for fastening down flat-bottomed rails.

DOG, A spring hook, most commonly in use for attaching a sinking kettle to the winding rope.

To DOG, DOG ON, or DUG ON, To put the hutches on the cage. This term probably had its origin in the hooking of the creel to the pit rope in olden times by means of a dog hook.

DOGGAR, or DOGGART, Inferior ironstone; an irregular piece of stony coal in a seam.

DONKEY-ENGINE, A small engine used to force water into steam boilers.

DOOK, A mine or roadway driven to the dip, visually the main road going to the dip.

DOOK WORKINGS, Workings below the level of the pit-bottom.

DOOR-CHAIN, A chain with adjusting screw by which bucket and clack doors are slung.

DOOR-HEADS, The roof or top of the workings at a shaft.

DOORS, The entrance to the workings at the shaft; hence high doors, an upper landing in a shaft; mid doors, a middle landing ; low or laigh doors, the lowest landing place.

DOOR-STOOP, A pillar or block of mineral left around a shaft for its protection.

DOUBLE-ACTING PUMP, A pump which discharges at both forward and backward stroke.

DOUBLING, Thickening of a seam, sometimes due to its being folded over or doubled.

DOUP-OUT, In stoop and room workings, where a miner connects his drift with one formerly driven.

DOUR HOLING, Difficult undercutting in hard coal or stone.

DOWNCAST, A shaft or other opening by which the air current enters a working; a downthrow, which see.

DOWNSET, A short drift to the dip.

DOWNTHROW, A break or dislocation in the strata met with on the higher side.

DRAG, A brake ; a snibble ; a sprag.

DRAW, The distance that mineral is hauled by drawers.

DRAW, The distance that the extraction of mineral disturbs the surface beyond the limit of working.

DRAW-BAR, A bar fixed to the bottom of a hutch or waggon to which the coupling is attached.

To DRAW COALS, To haul coals by means of men or boys.

DRAW-KILN, A lime-kiln in which the process of calcination can be carried on continuously, the raw limestone and fuel being put in at the top and the limeshells withdrawn at the kiln-eye at the bottom.

To DRAW WOOD, or TREES, To extract the propwood in stooping.

DRAWER, A man or boy who takes the minerals from the working face to the shaft, or terminus of the horse or haulage road.

DRAWING-ROAD, An underground passage along which mineral is conveyed

DRAW-ROPE, A putter's harness.

DRIFT, A mine or roadway in solid strata.

DRILL, A boring chisel.

DRIPPIE, Dripping with water.

To DRIVE, To cut or excavate, e.g., to drive a place, to drive a mine.

DRIVER, A person in charge of a horse.

DROP, The apparatus by which mineral is let down a blind pit to a lower level.

DROP-PIT, A pit for lowering minerals to an under seam.

To DROP, To work the upper portion of a thick seam after the lower portion has been worked.

To DROP, To stop work.

DROSS, Small coal which passes through a riddle or scree.

DROSS-COAL, In cannel coal districts, common or free coal.

DROWNED, Flooded; under water.

DRUM, A rope roll for round ropes.

DRY, An incipient crack, as in building stone.

DRY-RODS, Pump rods outside the deli very pipes or rising main.

DUFFY, Soft; inferior.

DUG. See Dog.

DUMB-BOLTS, Bolts at joints of single-plated pump rods, at right angles to those through the plates, and meant to prevent them from tearing the wood.

DUMB-DRIFT, A drift carrying the return air into the upcast shaft by another way than over the furnace.

DUMBSCREW, A screw-jack.

DUMPER, A tool for keeping a bore-hole circular.

DUNDY, Coal deteriorated by trap-rock; inferior coal.

DUST. See Mine Dust.

DYING SHIFT, The third or ten o'clock shift.

DYKE, or DIKE, A wall or vein of igneous or other rock intersecting strata; a large slip or dislocation.

EBB, Shallow. A seam is ebb when near the surface ; the pit is ebb which is sunk to it.

EDGE SEAMS, Seams lying at a higher inclination than 1 in 1.

EDGE RAILS, Bails of rolled iron or steel on the upper edge of which the wheels run.

EENIE COAL, Coal slightly altered through nearness to whin, the broken edges of which shew bright circular spots more or less distinct, like eyes.

EMPTIES, Empty waggons or hutches.

ENCROACHMENT, Trespass; the area from which mineral has been abstracted out of bounds.

END, A room or working place facing the ends or secondary joints of a seam, i.e., in the line of the main joints.

END-COURSE, or ON-END, At right angles to, or facing, the end joints.

ENDLESS-CHAIN, A system of haulage where hutches or waggons are hauled by attachment to a chain moving always in one direction.

ENDLESS-ROPE, A system of haulage similar to the foregoing, there being a rope of iron or steel instead of a chain.

ENGINE-BARREL, A large water barrel used in sinking shafts.

ENGINEMAN, or ENGINE-KEEPER, A man in charge of an engine.

ENGINE-PIT, Applied in former times to the shaft where the pumping of the water was done by means of an engine, the hauling of coals being done elsewhere by means of horse gins ; the main pumping shaft.

ENGINE-ROAD, A haulage road worked by engine power.

ENGINE-SEAT, The platform or erection to which an engine is fastened.

ENTRY, The beginning of a lease.

ESCAPE-PIT, A shaft used as a second outlet.

EXCAMBION (a Scotch law term), Exchange of land or minerals.

EXPLORING MINE, A working place driven ahead of the others to explore the field.

FACE, The wall of mineral in course of being worked.

FAKES, Laminated sandy shale.

FALL, Falling in of the roof or sides of an underground excavation.

FALLING, An overlying stratum which falls or comes down as the mineral is extracted from under it, sometimes called following.

FAN, A revolving ventilating machine.

FAN-DRIFT, A tunnel connecting the upcast shaft with the ear of a ventilating fan.

FANG, The power of a bucket to form a vacuum. Hence a pump has lost the fang when so much air passes the bucket that a vacuum cannot be made until water be poured on the top of the bucket.

FANKLED, Tangled, as a rope.

FANNERS, A small portable hand fan.

FAST, Solid.

FAST END, Solid end or rib-side.

FAST SIDE, In a room where shearing is done on one side only, the side not sheared.

FAST PLACE, Drift or working place in advance of the others.

FAST IN THE FOOT. When the suction holes of a pump are filled up, the pump is said to be fast in the foot.

FATHOM, Six feet.

FATHOMAGE, Payment made to miners per fathom driven or cut.

FEEDER, A flow of water or gas from a fissure.

FETCH, A breast, which see.

FIDDLE BLOCKS, Pulley blocks used for raising pump pipes, in which the pulleys are placed one above another.

FIELD, or MINERAL FIELD, A tract of country in which workable minerals are found; a mineral leasehold.

To FILL, To load a hutch at the working face.

FIRE, Explosive gas ; fire-damp.

To FIRE, To explode.

FIRECLAY, Silicate of alumina suitable for brick making.

FIRE-COAL, Coal supplied to workmen connected with a colliery, and which is usually free of lordship.

FIRE-DOORS, Doors of the boiler furnaces.

FIRE-ENGINE, Name formerly given to the steam engine.

FIRE-HOLE, A space in front of boiler furnaces to hold fuel.

FIRE-LAMP, An iron cage or grating in which a" fire is kept burning in exposed places for light and heat.

FIREMAN, or FIRESMAN, A subordinate colliery official charged with the supervision of the ventilation of the workings.

FIRE STYTH, or FIRE STINK, The burning smell of spontaneous combustion of coal.

FIRING-LINE, An appliance sometimes used in former times for clearing a room of fire-damp. A prop being set up near the face, a ring was fixed in it near the roof, and a cord or wire passed through the ring. Attaching his lamp to one end of the cord, the miner withdrew-to a distance, and pulling the cord raised the lamp to the height necessary to explode the accumulated fire-damp.

FIRST WORKING, In stoop and room working, the cutting out or forming the pillars.

FISH-HEAD, A tool for extracting clacks from pit pumps.

FITTING, The whole machinery, plant and works of a colliery.

FIXED RENT, The minimum yearly rent of a mineral field.

FLANGE, The projecting ring of metal round the end of a pipe through which the joining bolts pass; the raised rim of hutch or tram rails.

FLANK-BORE, A bore-hole put in the side of an exploring mine.

FLASK, A tinned vessel in which a miner carries oil for his lamp, or tea for his piece.

FLAT COALS, Coal seams lying at a low inclination.

FLAT RAILS, Tram rails.

FLAT ROPE, A rope rectangular in section, made of hemp or wire, used for winding.

FLAT WORKING, A working of moderate inclination.

FLOAT, The floating part of an apparatus for indicating the height of water in a steam boiler or other vessel.

FLOAT, Intrusive trap rock either on the surface or between strata.

FODDOM, or FADDUM, Fathom.

FOLDING-BOARDS, Shuts; a shifting frame on which the cage rests in or at the top of a shaft.

FOLLOWING. See Falling.

FOOT-ROD, An iron rod at the foot of pump rods to which the bucket is attached.

FORCING LIFT, or FORCING SET, A set of pumps raising water by a plunger; a ram pump.

FOREBREAST, The face of a mine.

FORE-HAMMER, A sledge hammer, commonly applied to the hammer used by a blacksmith's assistant.

FOREHEAD, The face of a mine or level.

FORE-MINE, or FORESET MINE, A mine crosscutting towards the rise of the. strata. FORK, The upper portion of a heart joint; a tool used for changing buckets.

FOUL, Impure; as, foul air, foul coal,

FOULNESS, An impurity in a seam; an irregularity in the physical character of a seam, caused, e.g., by numerous lypes or small hitches.

FREE CLEEK, The right of a miner to get hutches without waiting his turn or ben.

FREE COAL; Coal on which lordship or royalty is not paid.

FREE COAL, Coal easily broken or which burns freely.

FREESTONE, Sandstone.

FREMIT BEARER. See Bearer.

FRUSH, Brittle ; having unusually little tenacity; soft and easily broken up.

FURNACE, A ventilating furnace or cube.

GAIST, See Ghaist.

GABBIE, A hook on the end of a chain or rope; a coupling.

GAE, A trouble, slip, or dyke. See also Gaw.

GAFFER, A foreman; an oversman.

GANGWAY, Scaffolding for a hutch railway.

GAS, Fire-damp.

GAS COAL, Coal yielding gas of high illuminating power on distillation, of lustreless appearance, and having a conchoidal fracture.

GASH, A break or opening in the strata, usually filled with sand, gravel, or other loose rocks; a sand dyke..

GATE, or GAIT, A roadway.

GATESMAN, A roadsman.

GATTON. See Gauton.

GAUGE, A standard of measure,

GAUGE-RING, A standard ring for measuring buckets.

GAUTON, A water course cut in the pavement of a mine or working.

GAUZE LAMP, A Davy lamp ; a safety lamp.

GAW, A narrow vein of igneous rock intersecting the strata.

To GEAR, To make a mine secure by supporting the roof and sides with wood.

GEARING, The mechanical arrangement for increasing or reducing the speed of an engine shaft.

GEARS, Heavy prop wood, the two uprights and crown piece being termed a set of gears. See Fig. 8.

GEG, or GAG, A piece of stone or other obstruction preventing the proper closing of a pump valve. The valve is said to be gegged when so obstructed.

GEORDIE LAMP, A safety lamp after the pattern of that invented by George Stephenson.

GHAIST, The white ash or cinder of shale or shaley coal.

GHOST, A veal, which see.

GIB, A sprag; a prop put in the holing of a seam while being under-cut. See Fig. 9.

GIB AND KEY, A wedging arrangement for tightening the strap that holds the brasses at the end of a connecting rod. See Fig. 10.

GIG, A winding engine.

GIG-HOUSE, A winding engine house.

GIN, A machine formerly used for raising mineral in a shaft, usually driven by horses, sometimes by water power See Figs. 14 and 20.

GIN PIT, A pit from which mineral is raised by means of a gin.

GLAND, A malleable iron band embracing a pipe or log and tightened by means of bolts. See Fig. 1 and Fig 3.

GLAND-BRIDGE, A bar or strip of iron through which a gland is sometimes bolted. See Fig. 1 and Fig 3.

GLEG PARTING, The easy parting of one stratum from another.

GOING, Working, e.g., a going place, i.e., a room in course of being worked.

GOOSE, An arrangement for drawing on steep roads, the hutch wheels being run on a carrier bearing throughout its length on the rails.

GOOSE-BRAE, A cuddy-brae, which see.

GRAIN, Texture, e.g., coarse-grained sandstone.

GRAITH, A miner's tools ; horse harness.

GRASS, The surface of the ground.

GRASS-CROP, The outcrop.

GRASSHOPPER-ENGINE, A beam engine having one end of the beam supported on a rocking fulcrum.

GRASSUM (a legal term), One payment.

GREAT COAL, Large pieces of selected coal. In the East of Scotland, the coal was formerly divided into four grades, great coal, chews, lime-coal, and panwood.

GREEK, Grit, the texture of a hard rock; coarse sandstone.

GREENSTONE, Igneous rock ; whinstone.

GRIEVE, A weigher ; a pitheadman; a hill salesman.

GRIP, A pick.

GROUND COAL, or GROUNDS, The lowest stratum of a coal seam.

GROUND-CRAB, A windlass connected to hanging pumps in a sinking pit.

GROUND-ROPE, The rope connecting hanging pumps to a ground crab.

GROWTH, The rate of income of water into a pit or working.

To GROZE, To turn a chisel in the bottom of a bore-hole, by which means the borer, from a sense of feeling and hearing, knows when a change of strata occurs.

GUARD, The lever which prevents hutches running off the cage.

GUIDES, Rails of iron steel or wire rope to guide cages in a shaft.

GUIDE-PLATE, A cast-iron plate with raised semi-circle or triangle to guide hutches on to rails.

GUM, Very small coal, e.g., what would pass through a riddle 1/2-inch or less in the mesh.

GUNNED SHOT, See Blown-out shot.

GURDY, An arrangement of three pulleys with brake for self-acting inclines. See Fig. 11.

GURRY, See Gash.

GUY ROPE, A stay rope.

HAG, A cut; a notch.

To HAG, To cut as with an axe; to cut down the coal with the pick.

HALF-AND-HALF-PLANE, or HALF-END-HALF-PLANE, In a direction midway between plane course and end course.

HALF-BLINDED. Two ends driven off a plane, one on each . side and not opposite each other by half their width are said to be half-blinded.

HALF EDGE SEAMS, Highly inclined seams; seams lying at an inclination of 1 in 1.

HAMMER, BORING, A light hammer used for striking the jumper in boring.

HAMMER, DOUBLE-HANDED, A heavy hammer used for striking the jumper in boring.

HAND-FILLED COAL, Bound coal which has been filled by the miner entirely by hand.

HAND-PICKED COAL, Coal from which all stones and inferior coal have been picked out by hand; large lumps.

HANG, or HING, Slope, inclination.

HANGER, The hook of a miner's lamp.

HANGING COAL, Coal undercut and ready to fall.

HANGING ITS WATER, The bucket failing to pump on account of a faulty clack, or air between the bucket and the clack, the column of water above the bucket being sufficient to prevent the opening of the bucket lids.

HANGING-SCAFFOLD, A movable platform in a shaft attached to the winding rope or the crane rope.

HANGING-SETS, Logs of wood to which cribs are suspended in working through soft strata.

HARP, A sparred shovel used in the East of Scotland for filling coal. See Fig 12

To HARRIE, or HERRIE, To rob ; to harrie pillars is to take what coal can conveniently be got without attempting to systematically remove the whole.

HASSON, or HASSING, A vertical gutter between water rings in a shaft; formerly a gauton, which see.

HASSON DEAL, A cover for a hasson.

HAT, SINKERS', An oilskin or leather hat used for working among falling water

HAULAGE, The transit of mineral by horses or by mechanical means.

HAURL, A claut; a scraper.

HEAD-COAL, Formerly, the stratum of a coal seam next the roof. More usually now, the top portion of a coal seam when left unworked, either permanently, or to be afterwards taken down; the top coal on a loaded waggon.

HEADING, A drift or roadway going towards the rise of the strata.

HEADS, or HEADING, Large top coal on a loaded hutch.

HEAP, A great deal.

To HEAP, To load ; to fill above the lip or top.

HEARTH, See Calcining hearth.

HEART-JOINT, A particular form of attachment joint between the bucket rod and the foot rod. See Fig. 13.

HEAVILY-WATERED, A colliery is said to be heavily watered when the escape of water from the strata into the shaft or workings is abundant, requiring powerful pumping machinery.

HEDGEHOG, A broken strand or single wire of a rope torn out while the rope is in motion, and drawn up into a knot or bundle on the rope.

HEMP ROPE, Pit ropes made of hemp or manilla, those chiefly used being round ropes for cranes, flat ropes for winding.

HEUGH, A place where coal or other mineral is worked ; a pit or shaft.

HEWER, A miner ; a pickman.

HIGH DOORS, An upper landing in a shaft.

HILL, The surface at a pit.

HILL-CLERK, The person who weighs the mineral despatched, whether at the pit or depot connected therewith.

HILLMAN, or HILLSMAN, A pitheadman; a coal salesman.

HILL-SALE, Sale at the pithead in carts, as distinguished from despatch in railway waggons.

HINGING COAL, Coal lying at a moderately high inclination.

HITCH, A fault or dislocation of the strata.

HOGGAR, A leather or canvas delivery pipe at the top of a sinking set of pumps.

HOIST, The arrangement for raising coal in bing from the level of the bing to the top of the scree.

To HOLE, To cut in under or -above a seam preparatory to dislodging it from its bed.

HOLING, The cutting so made.

HOOKER-ON, A bottomer; a man who puts hutches on the cage, i.e., hooks hutches to the rope.

HOOP, A bucket ring.

HORNY, An inferior kind of gas coal, the pieces of which rattle with a sound suggestive of horns.

HORSE, A vein of rock intersecting a coal seam.

HORSE, A seat suspended from a crane rope in a shaft.

HORSE-ENGINE or HORSE-GIN, A machine driven by horsepower for raising mineral. See Fig. 14.

HORSE-PLATFORM, The switches and crossing used with the rails of a horse road.

HORSE-ROAD, A roadway in which the haulage is done by horses.

HOSE, A rope shackle ; an iron clasp at the end of a rope.

To HOVE, To heave or rise up, as the floor of a working.

To HOWK, To dig or hew ; e.g., To howk coals.

H-PIECE, An H-shaped .casting forming the bottom portion of a plunger pump, and in which the lowest clack is set.

HUMPHED COAL, Coal altered by contact with whin; inferior coal.

To HUNKER, To sit on the heels.

HURDLE-SCREEN, A curtain or screen hung in a roadway to divert the air current upward, and so free a hole in the roof of gas.

HURLEY, A box on wheels ; a hutch.

HURRY, A scree.

HURRY GUM, Dross passed through a hurry.

HUTCH, A small wagon for conveying mineral; a hurley, whirley, or tub. See Fig. 15.

HUTCH CLEADING, The wood comprising the bottom, side, and end boards of a hutch.

HUTCH MOUNTING, The iron work on the frame and box of a wooden hutch.

HUTCH ROAD, A hutch railway.

IDLE, Not working.

ILL AIR, Noxious gas, as from underground fires or choke damp; a stagnant state of the atmosphere underground.

INCLINE, A roadway towards the rise of the strata down which mineral is brought by a self-acting arrangement with a rope or chain ; an inclined roadway along which mineral is conveyed by mechanical means.

INCLINE-BOGIE, A wheeled carriage for inclines, constructed so that hutches can be run on it level and be conveyed up and down.

INDICATOR, An apparatus marking in the engine room the position of the load in the shaft.

INGAUN E'E (INGOING-EYE), A drift or mine starting from the surface of the ground; also the end of the mine at the surface.

INTAKE, The road by which the fresh air enters the workings.

INWAN, Inwards.

IRONSTONE, A stratum containing iron in combination with carbonaceous and argillaceous matter.

ISH (a law term), Issue or termination of a lease.

JACK, A narrow dyke usually of igneous rock ; a whin gaw.

JACK-ROLL, A geared windlass.

JIGGER, An apparatus for attaching hutches to a haulage rope, which holds by twisting or biting the rope. See Fig. 16.

JOCK, An iron rod, usually pronged, attached to the hinder end of a train of hutches or waggons being drawn up an incline, to stop their descent in the event of the rope breaking.

JOINTS, Lines of cleavage in a seam.

JOINTY, Having a large number of extra wide joints or lines of cleavage.

JOURNAL, A statement of strata passed through in a borehole.

JOUG, or JUGG, An iron collar fastened by a short chain to a wall and said to have been put round the neck of disobedient miners in old times as a punishment.

JUMPER, A percussive drill or boring chisel. For boring in hard rocks they are short and impelled by blows from a single-or double-hand hammer, and for boring in soft rocks or coal they are usually long and worked by hand, and called Kirners.

To JUMP, To bore by hand.

JUMPING-SWITCH, A self-acting switch, so arranged that the hutches jump through a small vertical distance.

JUSTICEMAN, One who checks on behalf of the miners the weight of mineral sent by them out of the pit.

KAIN COAL, Produce of the mine by way of whole or part payment of rent.

KEPS, Movable support for the cage at the pit mouth; shuts.

KETTLE, A cylindrical or barrel-shaped iron or wooden vessel used to raise materials in shaft sinking.

KICKER, The reversing gear of some direct-acting steam and hydraulic pumps.

KILN-EYE, The opening at the bottom of a draw Kiln.

KINGLE (Sometimes called KENNEL), Very hard or indurated sandstone.

KINK, A twist in a rope; a doubling and interlocking of several links in a chain.

KIRNER, A hand jumper.

KIRNING, Boring with a hand jumper or kirner.

KITTLE, Dangerous; risky.

LAIGH DOORS, See low doors.

LAIGH LEVEL, See low level

LAIGH LIFT, See low lift.

LAMP, The common miner's lamp consists of a reservoir for holding oil; a "stroup" or spout for the wick; and a " hanger " or hook for carrying by or fixing to the cap

LAMP-ROOM, A room at the pithead where safety lamps are tested, repaired, cleaned, and trimmed.

LAMP-STATION, A cabin underground where safety lamps may be opened and trimmed ; a place past which no naked lights must be taken.

To LAND, To deliver at the surface.

LANDING, A stopping place for a cage in a shaft or at the surface or for a train on an incline or dook.

LANDING-BOX, The box into which a pump delivers water.

LAND SALE, Sale of coal at the pit in carts as distinguished from disposal by sea.

The LAVE, The rest, the remainder.

To LAVE, To raise water out of a hole with a shovel or the hands.

LAY-DAYS, See lie time.

LAZY-KILN, A limekiln in which the whole contents are calcined and afterwards removed before refilling.

To LEAD, To convey ; to cart.

LEADER, A carter.

LEADER, One who conducts the putting down of a bore-hole.

LEADING PLACE, A working place in advance of the others, such as a heading or a level.

LEG, In underground working, one of the two upright timbers supporting the horizontal piece or crown in a set of gears.See Fig. 8.

LEIP, See Lipe.

LEVEL, A drift or roadway along the strike of the strata i.e., at right angles to the line of dip and rise. See also Water level.

LEVEL-COURSE, In the direction of the strike of the strata, or at right angles to the dip and rise.

LEVEL-FREE, Drained by a water level.

LEVEL STONES, Stones on the surface of the ground indicating the direction of old levels underground.

LEVER, A pole resting on a trestle as a fulcrum, and by which rods are worked in boring.

LICHT-COAL, Candle coal; gas coal, which see.

LID, The cover or flap of a valve; a flat piece of wood on the top of a prop.

LIE, Line or direction, as the lie of a fault; inclination, as the lie of the metals.

LIE! OR LIE UP! A command to stop addressed to a drawer, who is approaching with his hutch.

LIE-DAYS, See lie time.

LIE-KEY, A tool on which boring rods are hung when being raised or lowered in a bore hole.

LIE-TIME, or LYING-TIME, The time for making up accounts preceding each pay day in which work has been done, but payment for which has to remain or lie over till next pay day.

LIFT, A slice or cut taken off a pillar in stooping.

LIFT, A set of pumps from the suction to the delivery box : the uppermost set is called the top lift, the lowest the bottom or laigh lift.

LIFTING SET, A bucket pump.

LIME-COAL, Small coal used, for lime burning, being one of the grades into which the produce of coal pits in the east of Scotland was in former times divided.

LIME CRAIG, Limestone rock in situ; the face of a limestone quarry.

LIME-KILN, A furnace in which limestone is calcined.

LIMESHELLS, Calcined limestone.

LIFE, LYPE, or LEIP, A small hitch or irregularity in the joints of a seam, the joints being usually glazed.

LIPEY, Intersected by small hitches or irregular and glazed joints.

LIVER ROCK, Homogeneous sandstone devoid of planes of stratification.

LOAD, An old measure of weight for coal.

LOCKING, A split pin.

LODGE, A cabin at the pithead for workmen

LODGMENT, A reservoir or storage place underground for water for convenience of pumping.

LODGMENT-LEVEL, A room driven level course at a short distance to the dip of a pit and used for storage of water.

LOFTING, or LAFTING, Wood filling up vacant space on top of crowns or gears.

LONGWALL, A system of mining by complete excavation at one working.

LORDSHIP, A mineral property.

LORDSHIP, Rate per ton or other measure paid to the proprietor of minerals ; royalty, which see.

LOUP, Slip or fault.

LOUSE, (Loose), Not firm,

LOW DOORS, The lowest of two or more landings in a shaft.

LOWE, Flame.

LOWER-LEAF, The lower portion of a seam which is worked in two sections or leaves.

LOW LEVEL, or LAIGH LEVEL, The drift running level course which is furthest to the dip.

LOW LIFT, or LAIGH LIFT, The lowest set in a system of pumps.

To LOWSE, To cease working. The pit's lousedwork has ceased for the day.

LUM, A chimney; when the roof of a working falls to a great height in a conical form it is said to be lummed.

LUNCART, or LUNKER, A lenticular mass, nodule, or ball.

LYE, A siding.

LYING-PIPES, The horizontal pipes in a lodgment.

LYING-SHAFT, The shaft of an engine on the end of which the tumbling crank is fixed.

LYING-TIME, See Lie time.

LYPE, See Lipe.

MAGGIE, An inferior and sandy part of ironstone; inferior or stony coal.

MAGGIE-BLAES, An inferior sulphurous ironstone.

MAIDEN FIELD, An unbroken or unworked mineral property.

MAIDENS, See Mingles.

MAIN ROPE, In the tail-rope system of haulage, the rope which hauls the full hutches.

MANAGER, The person in charge of a colliery.

MAN-DOOR, A small trap door on a travelling road.

MAN-HOLE, A refuge place at the side of an incline, engine road, or horse road; an opening into a steam boiler.

MARBLE BAND, Musselband ironstone.

MARCH, A boundary line or limit of working. It may be a hedge, a wall, or other line on the surface, or the line of a slip in the strata, or an imaginary line.

MARCH PLACE, The room or drift next the march.

MARCH STONES, Stones set at intervals on the surface to indicate the line of march; boundary stones.

MARL, Argillaceous limestone.

MASH, A double-hand hammer for breaking coal, setting up props, &c.

MEASURING DAY, The day when the manager or other official measures the amount of work done.

MEETINGS, The point in a shaft where the cages meet. When coal was raised in creels or corves the shaft was bulged at the meetings.

MELL, A large mallet; a forehammer.

MEN ON! A brief expression to indicate that men are in the cage to be raised or lowered in the shaft.

METAL, Cast iron.

METAL, Hard rock; whin.

METALS, General name for the strata in which minerals occur.

METALS, Cast-iron hutch rails.

METT, An old measure of capacity for coals.

MID DOORS, The middle one of three landing places in a shaft.

MID-WALL, A close wooden partition dividing a shaft into compartments.

MID WORKING, See mid doors.

MINE, The underground works of a colliery or metalliferous working.

MINE, A drift or roadway from the surface into the workings of a seam, either level or on the slope of the seam

MINE, A drift in rock, usually qualified thusstone mine, cross-cut mine.

MINE DUST, The riddlings of calcined ironstone.

MINE MOUTH, The point where a mine leaves the surface of the ground and enters underground; an ingoing eye.

MINER, A person who digs mineral other than coal. A collier digs coals ; a miner digs other minerals ; but the term miner is also used to denote any one who digs underground.

MINERAL BORER, See Borer.

MINGLES, Iron frames or standards carrying pillow blocks of pithead pulleys.

MISTRESS, A cover for sinkers in a wet shaft; a cover for a sinker's lamp.

To MOAT, To puddle; to cover up the mouth of a pit or other opening so as to exclude air in the event of an underground fire.

MONKEY, An appliance for mechanically gripping or letting go the rope in rope haulage. For one form of monkey See Fig 15.

MORED, or MOORED, See Smored.

MOUTH, The opening of a mine into daylight; an ingoing eye.

MOUTH-PLATE, A cast-iron plate with raised ridge to direct hutch wheels from plates to rails; the switch plate of cast-iron hutch rails.

MOUTH-PLATE, An iron plate over the mouth of a borehole.

MUCK, Rubbish ; soft useless material.

MUSSELBAND IRONSTONE, Ironstone with many shells (popularly termed mussel shells) imbedded.

MUZZLE, A clasp with pin and cutter for connecting chains to rings and hasps. See Fig. 17.

NAKED LIGHT, An unprotected light ; an ordinary lamp or candle.

NATCH, A small hitch or dislocation.

NATCH, The junction of two rails where through improper laying the two are not on the same level or line.

NECK LEATHERS, Washers fixed on the top of bucket or clack lids, to prevent their being cut by the bucket spear or clack bridge.

NEEDLE, A thin copper rod kept in a shot hole while it is being tamped, and afterwards withdrawn, the fuse being inserted in the hole it leaves.

NEEDLES, Beams laid across a shaft at a landing to support the cage ; buntons.

NET, Strapping used for lowering or raising horses in shafts.

NIGHT-SHIFT, A relay of workmen employed at night.

NIP OUT, A check out ; a want, which see.

NOSE, A point ; a projecting angle of coal or other mineral.

NOTICE-BOARD, Board on which printed or written notices are posted.

NUG, The dull sound caused by breaking of subsiding strata.

NUTS, Pieces of coal which have passed through a scree under 2 in. wide between the bars and over another scree with a smaller space between the bars.

OFFTAKE-JOINT, A heart joint or other connecting joint. See Fig. 13.

OFFTAKES, Deductions from workmen's wages for house rent, fire coal, &c.

OFFTAKE DRIFT, or OFFTAKE LEVEL, A water level driven from the surface to a point in a pumping shaft where the water is delivered.

OIL SHALE, Bituminous shale yielding oil on distillation.

OLD MAN, An iron apron attachment of pump rods to bell crank, used with travelling sets of pumps and rods in shaft sinking. See Fig. 3.

OLD MAN, A rocking centre to guide pump rods at an angle. See Fig. 18.

OLD WASTE, Old or abandoned workings.

ON AIR, A pump is said to be on air when a portion of air is drawn at each stroke.

ONCOST, All charges for labour in getting mineral other than the miners' wages ; payment to the collier in addition to the rate per ton.

ONCOSTMEN, All workmen other than miners paid by days' wages.

ON END, In a direction at right angles to, or facing, the end or secondary joints.

ON PLANE, In a direction at right angles to, or facing, the plane or main joints.

OPENCAST, A working where the overlying strata are removed ; a quarry.

OPENCASTING, Holing above the seam; working as a quarry.

To OPEN-OUT, To commence longwall working.

OPENSET, A cundie or unfilled space between pack walls.

O PLATE, A cast-iron plate with a circular ridge on which hutches are turned at junction of roads.

ORRA MAN, A spare hand.

OUTBURST, The outcrop.

OUTBURST, A sudden accession of water or fire-damp.

OUTCROP, The place where a seam or stratum comes to the surface of the ground, or so near it as to have no covering of hard strata.

OUTPUT, The quantity of mineral raised in any period, say a
day.

OUTPUTS, Quantities of mineral raised as distinguished from quantities sold.

OUTWAN, Outwards.

OVERCAST, The higher of two air courses at an air crossing.

OVERLAY, The material above the rock in a quarry; the tirring.

OVERSMAN, A person subordinate to the manager, in charge of underground operations

OVERWEIGHT, Excess weight of disposals over outputs

To OVERWIND, To raise a cage up to or over the pithead pulleys.

OXTER, The armpit; a corner at re-entering angle in a coal face.

PACKWALL, A wall or building put up to support the roof where mineral has been extracted by the longwall method of working.

PAIL, A water bucket.

To PAIL, To lift water by means of a pail or bucket.

PAN-COAL, or PAN-WOOD, Small coal suitable for use at salt works (salt pans).

PANEL WORKINGS, Districts of workings isolated by barriers of solid mineral.

PARLIAMENTARY PIT, An outlet pit required by statute.

PARROT COAL, Gas coal; sometimes applied to gas coal when of inferior quality.

PART, A working place.

PARTING, A natural division of a seam into layers; a plane of stratification; a very thin stratum of stone or daugh in a seam.

PARTING, The manner in which a seam parts from its roof or pavement; it is a bad parting when they do not separate readily, a good parting when they do.

PASS-COCKS, Cocks or valves fitted to passing pipes.

PASSING-PIPES, Pipes led from the rising main of a pump to the lodgment with a branch led in between the clacks to permit of the column being emptied or water passed into the casing. When fitted with a float valve at the lower end, they serve to prevent the pump getting on air.

PASSING WATER, When a pump bucket is worn, or otherwise not tight, it is said to be passing water.

PAT-COAL, The bottom coal sunk through in a shaft.

PATENT (a term used in leases), Open; unobstructed.

PAT-KILN, a pot-shaped lazy kiln.

PAVEMENT, The floor of a seam.
PAY-BILL, or PAY-SHEET, A statement shewing details of workmen's wages for a stated period, usually a fortnight.

PEACOCK COAL, Similar to eenie coal, which see.

PEAS, Coal a grade smaller than nuts, and from which the gum has been separated.

To PEEL, See Pool.

PEERIE, A tool for taking out dimples in bore-hole tubes.

PELT, Coally stone associated with a coal seam.

PEN, In longwall working, a narrow airway, more particularly an airway formed along the solid coal; a covered-in water drain.

PICK, A tool used by the miner for digging coal.

PICKER, A pin used to trim the wick of an oil lamp.

PICKER, See Crawpicker.

PICKLING, The falling of particles from a soft roof about to collapse.

PlCKMAN, A man who digs coal with a pick; a hewer; a miner.

PICKING TABLE, A table, revolving or otherwise, on which mineral is tipped and sorted.

PIECE, Food taken by a workman to his work.

PIECE-TIME, Meal time.

PIECE-WORK, Work paid by results as distinguished from work paid by days' wages.

PIERCING-SHOT, A shot in thereof or brushing designed to bring down an increasing thickness of stone.

PILE OF PIPES, A set or column of pipes.

PILLAR, A block of mineral left unworked for the support of the roof; an artificial support to the roof formed of wood or stone.

PILLAR AND STALL, See Stoop and Room.

PILLAR-WORKING, The process of removing the pillars or stoops in a stoop-and-room working.

PIN, A tally. Pins were formerly made by the miners themselves, each miner's pins having a distinguishing device, initial, or number.

PINCH, A crowbar.

PINION, The small wheel of tooth-and-pinion gearing.

PIRN, A disc on which flat ropes are wound, having spokes or arms to prevent the rope slipping off.

PIT, A vertical shaft; the workings connected with a shaft.

PIT-BANK, The surface of the ground at the mouth of a pit.

PIT-BARRING, Wooden lining of a shaft.

PIT-BOTTOM, The bottom or lowest landing in a shaft.

PIT-HEAD, The landing at the top of a shaft.

PIT-HEAD FRAME, The framing at the top of a shaft supporting pit pulleys.

PITHEADMAN, The man in charge of the unloading of the cages and weighing of the mineral at a pithead.

PIT-MOUTH, The surface of the ground at the top of a shaft.

PIT PUMPS, Pumps used in a shaft.

PITTING, Proving minerals near the outcrop by means of shallow pits.

PIT RAILS, Hutch rails for use at a pit.

PIT WRIGHT, An engineer who attends to pit pumps, &c.

PIT WOOD, Wood used for supporting the roof; propwood.

PLACE, A room in stoop-and-room workings; a length of face assigned to each miner.

PLAIN SHALE, Oil shale not foliated.

PLAN, A map ; a method.

PLANE, A working room driven at right angles to or facing the plane joints.

PLANE-COURSE, or ON PLANE, In the direction facing the plane joints.

PLANT, The machinery and fittings about a colliery.

PLATE-NAILS, Nails used to attach flanged rails to sleepers.

PLATE-RAILS, Flat cast iron rails with a flange on one side.

PLATES, Flat cast iron or malleable iron sheets or plates laid at the pitbottom and pithead or other platform to enable the hutches to be easily turned and moved about.

PLATFORM, The rails forming the parting of two hutch roads.

PLIES, Successive thin beds of the same rock, usually sandstone, separated by very thin partings.

PLODDING, Uncertain; irregular; e.g., a plodding band or seam of ironstone.

PLUNGER, A pump ram,

POLICEMAN, A movable guard over or round a pitmouth or at mid-workings; safety gates.

POLING, Lofting which see; building road sides in long-wall workings with old propwood and the debris from the working where the latter is soft.

To POOL, or PUIL, To hole.

POOLING, or PUILING, Holing; under-cutting.

PORTING-BOLT, In setting shaft pumps, a bolt used for bringing the bolt holes of two separate pipes opposite each other.

POST AND STALL, The system of working now termed stoop and room.

POST, A thick bed, as of limestone or sandstone.

POT-BOTTOM, A circular mass, usually in the roof, and composed of the same material as the roof-stone, but separated therefrom by a coaly or glazed parting.

POT-COAL, See pat coal.

POT-KILN, See pat-kiln.

POURIE, (pronounced poorie) A small oil can with a spout from which oil is poured to lubricate machinery.

To PRICK, To pierce through with the point of a pick.

PRICKING, A thin stratum suitable for holing in.

PROFITS, See bonnets.

PROUD, Not cohesive; coal is said to be of a proud nature when it bursts off the working face.

To PROVE, To test the nature of a mineral field by boring or otherwise.

PLUG AND FEATHERS, An appliance for wedging mineral, consisting of a long wedge and two strips of iron, much used for mining in rock before the introduction of gunpowder. A drill hole having been made the plug and feathers were inserted and the plug driven by hammers between the feathers till -the rock was split.

PLUGGING, Blasting by means of plug shots.

PLUG-SHOT, A charge in a small hole to break up a stone of moderate size.

PLUMP-HOLE, A hole at the surface caused by the working of mineral underneath ; a sit.

PLUNGER, The ram or solid piston of a force pump.

PLUNGER-CASING, The cast-iron casing in which a plunger works

PLUNGER LIFT, A pump and column of pipes attached, raising water by means of a ram or piston.

POUNDAGE, Interest sometimes paid for money advanced before pay day.

PRICKER, A boring needle.

PUDDOCK, Cast-iron plate forming the crossing of flanged hutch rails.

PUG-ENGINE, A small locomotive engine.

PUGS, A stratum of hard coal in a free coal seam, e.g., in the Main coal seam of Lanarkshire.

PULLEY, A grooved wheel.

PULLEY-BRAE, A self-acting incline.

The PULLEYS, The whorls ; the pithead pulleys.

PUMPER, A person who works a hand pump.

PUMP RODS, The rods of wood or iron by means of which the power is conveyed from an engine or other actuating machine to a pump.

PUMP-ROD PLATES, Spear plates; strips or plates of iron bolted to wooden pump rods at the joints for the purpose of making the connection.

PUTTER, A man or boy who assists a drawer to take his hutch along a difficult part of a drawing road.

QUARRY, An excavation of mineral from the surface of the ground, the earth and other soft strata above it being removed.

QUARRYMAN, or QUARRIER, A person who works mineral in a quarry.

QUARRYMASTER, The owner of a quarry.

RACE, or RAKE, A set or train of hutches coupled together.

To RACK, To stretch.

RACKINGS, See Corner rackings.

RAGGLING, A channel cut in the side of a mine and covered with boarding to serve as an airway.

RAGG-WHEEL, A spur wheel. A wheel with projecting pins on the rim to fit into the links of a chain.

RAGSTONE, Dark hard sandstone ; indurated sandstone.

RAM, A pump plunger.

RANCE, Along narrow pillar or stoop. A prop set against the coal face when it is undermined, for the purpose of keeping it up.

RANGE, A row, as of pillars.

RANGING, Searching for minerals by means of shallow pits across the outcrops.

RATTLEHEAD, A suction pipe.

RATTLER, Inferior gas coal; sandy shale.

RAW, Uncalcined, e.g., raw ironstone.

RECEIVING-CLACK, The bottom clack or valve in a pumping set.

REDD, Debris; rubbish.

To REDD, To clear away.

REDD BING, A debris heap.

REDDSMAN, A man who clears falls in the mineral workings.

REED, Joints ; cleavage planes.

REEK, Smoke.

REEL, A drum or frame on which winding or haulage ropes are coiled.

REGULATOR, A frame with a movable slide for regulating an air-current; the shutter of a fan.

RENT, Landlord's revenue, which on minerals is usually a fixed annual sum, or, in his option, a rate per ton or per acre worked, the annual amount of which is preferred when it exceeds the fixed rent.

RESERVED COAL, Coal not included in, but reserved from a lease, such as coal under buildings.

RETURN, or RETURN AIR COURSE, The roadway by which the air is conveyed from the working faces to the upcast.

RETURN AIR, The outward ventilating current.

RHUMS, Bituminous shale ; inferior shale.

RIB, A wall of solid coal or other mineral.

RIB, A thin stratum, as of stone in a seam of coal.

RIB SIDE, The edge of solid mineral left by a longwall working. In longwall working, if one face or wall is considerably in advance of the next it is said to have a rib-side.

RIB-ROAD, A road formed along the rib side.

RICKETY, A ratchet brace.

RIDDLE, A sieve for separating large mineral from small.

RIDDLINGS, The material which passes through a riddle.

To RIDE, To go up or down the shaft on a cage ; to travel in a hutch.

To RIDE THE TOW, To slip down the shaft rope.

To RIMLE, To probe or stir.

RIMLER, A probing tool.

RING, A channel cut round a shaft to catch the water and lead it to the dip end or to the hasson.

To RIP, To brush; to take down part of the roof or lift part of the pavement, in order to heighten a road.

RIPPING, In longwall working, second brushing, rendered necessary by subsidence of the roof.

The RISE, Towards the outcrop; in the upward direction of the strata.

RISE-DOORS, The entrance from a shaft into upper workings.

RISE-LEVEL, The upper of two parallel level roads.

RISE-ROAD, A road driven up-hill.

RISE-WORKINGS, Workings above the level of the seam at the pit bottom.

RISING COLUMN, Delivery pipes of a ram or plunger pump.

RHONE, A wooden channel for conveying water.

RHONES, A line of wooden boxes for conveying air.

ROAD, A. passage in an underground working; a working place ; a way by which mineral is got out.

ROADHEAD, In longwall, the end of a road at the working face.

ROADSMAN, or REDDSMAN, An underground official who attends to roads, laying rails, &c.

ROBBING PILLARS, Reducing the size of pillars; taking as much as possible off pillars, leaving only what is deemed sufficient to support thereof.

ROCK, Sandstone.

ROCKHEAD, In boring or sinking, the top of hard strata next the surface.

ROCKING CENTRE, A radius bar; an old man. See Fig. 18.

RODS. See Pump Rods.

ROLL. See Row.

ROLLER, A small cylinder of wood, iron, or steel, revolving on a spindle, for bearing up and guiding ropes or chains in motion.

ROOF, The stratum above a seam or working.

ROOF-COAL, Part of a seam of coal left on for a roof.

ROOF-STONE, The stone immediately above a seam ; in Long-wall, the stratum of stone above the brushing.

ROOM, A working place in stoop-and-room workings.

ROOM AND RANCE, A system of working with long narrow pillars; less usually a system of working with extra large pillars and narrow rooms.

ROSE, The perforated nozzle of a water pipe.

ROUGH COAL, A name sometimes given to free coal when associated with gas coal or splint coal.

ROUND COAL, Coal after the dross has been separated from it.

ROUND-REE, A space round the pit bottom where the bearers stocked the coal as they carried it from the working faces until they had collected a creel-full.

ROW, A ridge in the roof or pavement.

ROYALTY, Lordship ; payment to the proprietor for mineral worked; may be (1) a rate per ton of mineral worked or sold; (2) a rate per acre worked; (3) a rate per acre worked, with an addition to or reduction from the rate if the seam be above or below a certain thickness ; or (4) a fractional part of the selling price.

RUBBERS, Pieces of wood for pump rods to slide on, or for . hutches to rub on in going round sharp curves.

RUN, A journey.

To RUN BACK WATER, To allow the water from a set of pumps to run back and be pumped up again in order to keep it from going "on air" while the others are at work.

To RUN A MINE, To cut or drive a mine.

To RUN THE TOW, To cause the cages to traverse the shaft preparatory to allowing men to descend.

RUNNER, A man or boy who goes with a train of hutches in mechanical haulage.

RUNNING-SAND, Quicksand.

SADDLEBACK, Roll or undulation in the roof or pavement of a seam.

SAFETY-CAGE, A cage with catching arrangement which comes into action if the winding rope breaks.

SAFETY-HOOK, A hook for detaching the pit rope from the cage in the case of an overwind.

SAFETY-CHAIN, A chain connecting the first and last hutches of a train to prevent separation if a coupling breaks.

SAFETY-GATES, A movable framework or fence at the surface or mid-workings to prevent any one falling into the shaft.

SAMPLE-CUTTER, A steel tube with teeth at the end for cutting cores of mineral in boring.

SAND-DYKE, A wall of sand or gravel.

SCABBIT PARTING, A rough parting.

SCAD, The reflection of a light.

SCAD, A piece of imperfectly-burned lime.

SAFETY LAMP, A lamp in which the flame is isolated by wire gauze.

SCAFFOLD, Any wooden erection on which men may work. See also Hanging scaffold.

SCALE, or SKAIL, A quantity of air allowed to take a short cut to rejoin the main current; air finding its way into the return air-course by other than the designed way.

SCAUM, A film.

SCLAFFERY, Liable to break off in thin fragments, as the roof of a working.

SCLIT, or SCLUTT, Coaly blaes, or slaty coal.

SCOBBED, A hutch of mineral is scobbed when large pieces are laid over the corners to give the appearance of the hutch being full, when there is in reality little material in it

SCOTCH-GAUZE LAMP, A safety lamp used in Scotland, the top of the lamp being wholly of wire gauze.

SCREE, Bars arranged on a slope and slightly apart (usually from 1 in. to 1 1/2in.) over which coal is passed to free it from dross.

SCREE BARS, Bars of which a scree is constructed.

SCREE-PLATE, An iron plate at the foot of a scree on which screed coal is discharged.

SCREEN, See Scree.

SCREEN, A substitute for a trap door, made of tarred canvas.

SCREEN-CLOTH, Tarred canvas. Brattice cloth.

To SCUTCH, To shear down.

SCREW KEY, A spanner.

SEA-COAL, Coal, which in early times was worked on the sea shore; coal as distinguished from wood charcoal; coal carried by sea; coal seaward of low-water mark belonging to the Crown.

SEAM, A bed or stratum.

SEAT, The foundation or framework on which a structure rests, e.g., engine seat, cage seat.

SECOND WORKING, Back working ; removing pillars.

SECTION, A division of the workings

SECTION, The details of strata composing a seam or working. See Fig. 19.

SEEP, SEEPING, SIPING, An almost imperceptible run of water.

To SEEP, To ooze; to percolate.

SEIZING, The lashing of a chain or rope round anything that is being lifted.

SELF-ACTING INCLINE, An inclined roadway down which mineral is run by means of a rope over a pulley or drum at the top, the weight of the loaded hutches in their descent being sufficient to draw up the empty ones which are attached to the other end of the rope.

SERVICE-RAILS, Rails used for a temporary purpose.

SERVICE-ROAD, A temporary road.

SET, A race or train of hutches ; a lift of pumps.

To SET, To harden or consolidate, e.g. lime or cement.

To SET, To let by contract.

To SET, To place in position.

SETTLE-BOARDS, See Shuts.

SHAFT, A vertical pit.

SHAFT, The wooden handle of a hammer, pick, shovel, &c.

SHALE, Oil shale. This term is not now used in the strict geological sense as signifying argillaceous rock, but is applied to shale yielding oil on distillation.

SHANGIE, A ring of straw or hemp put round a jumper in boring to prevent the water in the bore-hole from squirting up.

SHANK, A shaft.

To SHANK, See to sink.

SHANKER, A pit sinker.

SHARP, Quick; gas is sharp when at its most explosive point.

SHEARING, Wall cutting. The vertical cut which a miner makes in the coal preparatory to wedging or blasting it down.

SHEARS, Legs ; poles carrying a pulley for a crane rope.

SHEATHING DEALS, Deals nailed to cribs all round a shaft to preserve the cribs from injury and make the sides of the shaft smooth.

SHEETING DEALS, Deals used as bedding joints in cribbing.

SHEETING PILES, Short piles driven down in front of wooden barring when sinking in soft material.

SHELL, See Bucket Shell

SHIFT, A change, as of clothing.

SHIFT, A day's work; the pit's workmen.
Day or Fore Shift, The relay of workmen engaged during the day, or first period of the twenty-four hours.
Night or Back Shift, The second relay of workmen in the twenty-four hours.
Single Shift, One relay of workmen in twenty-four hours.
Double Shift, Two relays of workmen in twenty-four hours.
Three Shifts, Three relays of workmen in twenty-four hours.

On SHIFT, A workman or working place is said to be on shift, or on shift wages when the work is not let under contract, but paid for by days wages.

SHIFT WAGES, Days' wages.

SHIVERY, Easily broken or split up ; fissile.

SHOE, The cage fitting which embraces the guides.

SHORTS, Term applied to the amount that the sum of Lordships in one year is under the minimum or fixed rent payable.

SHOT, A blast of gunpowder, or other explosive.

SHOT FIRER, The person appointed to fire shots in fiery workings.

SHUTS, Movable or hinged supports for the cage at a pithead.

SHUTTER, A regulator, as in a Guibal fan.

SCHISTUS, Argillaceous shale ; blaes.

SIDE-ROAD, A subsidiary road off a main road; a branch road.

SIDE-RODS, Rods connected, one on each side, to crossheads.

SIGNAL-BELL, or HAMMER, A bell or other appliance for signalling in shafts or haulage roads.

SIGNAL-WIRE, Thin wire strand used for operating signal hammers and bells.

SINK, A pit or shaft.

To SINK, To make a pit or shaft.

SINKER, One who sinks shafts.

SINKMAN, Old form of sinker.

SINKING-BOGIE, A wheeled platform to cover a sinking pit while the kettle is being emptied at the top.

SIPHON, A line of pipes so arranged as to discharge water by siphon action.

SIT, A collapse of pillars in a stoop-and-room working; a crush

SIT, A subsidence of the surface caused by the removal of mineral under it.

SKATING-DEALS. See Sliding Deals.

SKEW, A lype, or small hitch.

SKIFFIE, A slype or small hutch.

SKIN-FOR-SKIN, As close as practicable. Gears or props set up so close as to be touching each other are said to be skin for skin.

SKIP, A basket for raising coal in a shaft; a corf.

SLAKE, A glutinous silt adhering to the sides of deep boreholes especially in passing through fine sandstone.

SLANT-ROAD, See Slope Road.

SLACK, Not.busy.

SLACK, Not tight.

SLATYBAND IRONSTONE, A variety of blackband ironstone.

SLIDES, Runners or rails of wood to keep the cage in place in a shaft. When not of wood they are usually termed guides.

SLIDING-DEALS, Deals fixed in a sloping direction at the mouth of a sinking pit to bring the landing stage close to the sinking kettle.

SLIDING-SUCTION, A suction pipe capable of being lengthened by telescope arrangement.

SLING-CHAIN, A chain by which pump pipes are slung; a chain connecting the bracehead and lever in boring. SLINK, A wide clayey joint; a stage.

SLIP, A fault; a hitch.

SLIP-DYKE, A whin dyke accompanied by a dislocation of the strata ; a fault.

SLOPE-DOOK, A dook driven, not direct to the dip, but at an angle less than a right angle with level course.

SLOPE-HEADING, A heading driven not direct to the rise.

SLOPE-ROAD, A road driven at an angle less than a right angle with level course

SLOPING PUMP, A hand pump laid on the slope of the strata to drain dip workings.

SLUDGE, Soft mud.

SLUDGE-PUMP, A hand pump with a pocket bucket and no clack, for short lifts.

SLUDGE-PUMP, or SLUDGER, A pump used by mineral borers.

SLYPE, A sled for drawing coal along the wall face where the distance between the roads is great, or, in some steep workings, to convey the mineral from the face to the level road, formerly used in some places to convey the coal from the face to the pit bottom.

SMIDDY-COAL, Smithy coal.

SMOKED, Obstructed with rubbish or mud; silted up.

SNAB, The brow of a steep road ; a short and steep part of an incline.

SNECKS, Points at the crossing of a hutch-road; shuts at a pithead.

SNIBBLE, A sprag or drag for hutches or waggons.

SNORE-HOLES, The holes in the end of a suction pipe.

SNORE PIECE, or SNORE-PIPE, A suction pipe.

SNOTTER, The snuff or burnt wick on a lamp or candle.

SOFT AIR, A stagnant state of the ventilation.

SOLE, A flat piece of wood on which props are set when the pavement is soft.

SOLE PLATE, The plate on which parts of a machine rest.

The SOLID, The unbroken or unworked coal.

SOLID WATER, Water sufficient to fill the pump barrel at each stroke.

SOLID WORKINGS, In stoop and room, the first working or formation of the coal into pillars.

To SOUR, To soften; to macerate. Water on a fireclay holing causes it to sour.

SOWBACK, A ridge on roof or pavement.

SOW-KILN, A lazy kiln, which see.

SPARE-HAND, A person who does odd jobs.

SPARRY-COAL, Coal, the backs or joints of which are filled with carbonate of lime.

SPEAR, See sword.

SPEAR PLATES, Plates of iron bolted to pump rods at the joints, for the purpose of making the connection.

SPEARS, Pump rods.

SPELL, A turn of work.

SPIKING-CRIB, A ring of wood in a shaft to which the deals composing the wooden tubbing are fixed by means of spikes or tree nails.

SPLINT COAL, Hard grey coal with a slatey structure and uneven cross fracture and which burns without caking.

SPLIT, A room or end driven through a pillar

SPLIT, A portion of the ventilating current.

To SPLIT THE AIR, To divide the ventilating current.

SPOUT-MOUTH, A place on a level road where the material from a spout road is filled into the hutches.

SPOUT-ROAD, A cundie. A road so steep that the mineral slides down of itself to a level.

SPRAG, A rod put into waggon or hutch wheels to act as a drag; a snibble ; a strut against the coal-face.

SPRING-DOG, A spring hook used on a winding or haulage rope.

SPUR, or SPURRING, A support to the holed coal; a portion of the holing left unholed to support the coal till the rest of the holing is completed.

SQUIB, A straw or tube of paper filled with gunpowder for firing a shot.

STAGE, A narrow whin dyke or gaw, more particularly where the material of which the dyke is composed is soft.

STAIR-PIT, A pit in which there is a stair or ladders. An escape pit.

STALK, A boiler chimney.

STAMP, A hole or mark in the roof of a working from which measurements may be taken.

STANCE, A platform on, which the men stand when working the lever in mineral boring.

STANDING, Not in operation.

STAPPING, A mode of wedging down coal across the working face.

STEAM-JET, A jet of steam discharging in an upcast shaft to produce ventilation.

To STEG, To stop or retard.

To STEG THE CLEEK, To retard or stop the winding; to stop the work.

STEMMER, A tamping rod.

STEMMING, Tamping.

STENT, Taut.

STENTING-BOGIE, A wheeled waggon or bogie carrying a pulley round which the haulage rope is passed, tension of the haulage rope being secured by the bogie being pulled in the opposite direction by a heavy weight.

STEP, A hitch or dislocation of the strata.

STERLIE, A drum or wheel on a self-acting incline.

STIFF, Dense; tough, e.g., stiff day.

STERNY, Rough; coarse grained or crystalline, e.g., sterny limestone.

STEY, Steep; highly inclined.

STIFLE, Noxious gas resulting from an underground fire.

STONEHEAD, Rockhead, which see.

STONE MINE, A mine driven in barren strata.

STOOK AND COIL, or STOOK AND FEATHERS A mode of wedging rocks. See, Plug and Feathers

STOOL-PIPE, STOOL-PIECE. The pipe on which a column of pipes rests.

STOOP, A pillar.

STOOP AND ROOM, PILLAR AND STALL, or POST AND STALL, A system of working by which mineral is extracted from its bed in a series of galleries or rooms leaving pillars or stoops to support the roof:

STOOP AND THIRL, Old name for stoop and room.

STOOPED, The pillars or stoops extracted.

STOOPED WASTE, Stoop and room workings where the pillars have been worked out.

STOOPING, The process of extracting stoops.

STOPPING, A wall of rubbish, brick, deals, or brattice cloth to direct the ventilating current

STOUR, Dust

To STOW, To fill up with debris.

STOWAGE, or STOWING, In longwall, the. space from which the mineral has been extracted and which has been filled with debris.

STOW ROAD, An abandoned road in which debris is stowed.

STRAIT, Narrow ; in the solid.

STRAP, A plank supported at each end to uphold the roof strata.

STRAW, or STRAE, a fuse composed of a straw filled with gunpowder.

STREEK, STREAK, or STRETCH, The strike; level course.

STRIKE-BOARD OR STRIKE-TREE, A board at the top of a sinking pit on which the sinking barrel is tipped. Formerly the beam or plank:at the pit-top on which the creels were landed.

STRONG, Hard; not easily broken, e.g., strong coal, strong blaes.

STROUP, A spout.

STRUM, Safety fuse.

STUDY, An anvil.

To STUGG, To take down coal with the pick only.

STUFFING-BOX, A box packed with hemp or other material through which rams or rods work.

STYTHE, The smell of spontaneous combustion ; chokedamp; afterdamp.

SUB, SUBSIST, or SUBSISTENCE, Payment of wages to account.

SUBLEASE, A lease to a third party by one who is a lessee.

To SUBLET, To SUBSET, To let by a leaseholder

SUCTION, or SUCTION PIPE, The tail pipe of a pump; that part of a pump where the water enters.

SUMP, A space in the bottom of a shaft for holding water.

SUMPER, or SUMPING-SHOT, A shot for breaking up the bottom or floor.

SUMPING, Cutting down into the floor, or, in sinking, cutting down at the lowest part of the shaft.

SURFACE, The top of the ground; the soil, clay, &c., on the top of strata,

SURFACE BREAK, The disturbance or sinking of the strata reaching to the surface which is consequent on the working of coal by longwall, or the extraction of stoops in stoop-and-room working.

SURFACE DAMAGES, Ground occupied and damaged by colliery operations ; the compensation payable for such.

SURFACE WATER, Water running into underground workings from the surface of the ground.

SWALLOW. See Row.

SWARF, A tool for widening bore-holes.

SWIPE, A crossing switch.

SWORD, A rod connecting a pump bucket with the foot rod.

TABLE, A platform or plate on which coals are screed and picked.

TACK, A lease.

TACKSMAN, A lessee.

To TAIGLE THE CLEEK, To interfere with the working of the pit.

TAIL, The end or edge, as of water.

TAILCHAIN, A chain by which a horse hauls hutches or waggons. Putters in former times also used a tailchain.

TAIL OF LEVEL, The delivery end of a water level.

TAIL OF WATER, The edge of standing water in workings. TAIL-PIPE, The suction pipe of a pump.

TAIL-ROPE, The rope in the tail-rope system of haulage for pulling back the main rope and empty hutches.

TAIL-ROPE HAULAGE, A system of rope haulage by which the full hutches, with the tail rope attached behind, are drawn by a main rope passing over a drum, and the empty hutches, with main rope attached, are drawn back again by the tail rope passing over another drum.

TALLY, A pin or token sent up by the miner with his hutch of mineral.

TEASER, An iron rod for stirring a boiler furnace.

TEETHED, Having a serrated or teeth-like appearance. Miners speak of their coal face being teethed or on teeth when it is advancing half end half plane.

THEATS, A horse's draw-chains.

THIMBLE, The ring or collar which slips over a heart joint. See Fig. 13.

THIRL, or THIRLING, A drift connecting two rooms; an end.

To THIRL, To cut through ; to make a connection.

THROUGHER, A room driven between two levels or main-roads for ventilation; an end.

THROW, A fault or dislocation in strata.

TICKET, An old measure for coals. The Campbeltown ticket was about 300 lbs. Weight.

TILL, or TILLS, Homogeneous fire-clay or blaes ; boulder clay.

TIP, The place where waggons are tilted up on a debris or other heap.

TIPPER, A tumbler.

TIRR, or TIRRING, The covering on rock in a quarry.

To TlRR, To remove the covering from the rock in a quarry. When a seam is holed in material above it, it is sometimes said to be tirred.

TOOM, Empty.

TOP COAL, The uppermost of two or more divisions of a seam of coal.

TOP-PLY, TOP-LEAF, or TOPS, The upper division of a seam.

TOP-ROD, The rod connecting the uppermost pump rod to the bellcrank.

TOP-WATER, Water flowing into a higher lodgment.

TOW, The winding rope, which before the introduction of iron or steel ropes was made of hemp or tow.

TRAILER, A jock, which see.

TRAIN, A race or set of hutches or waggons, being the number that the circumstances allow to be hauled at once.

TRAMMER, A drawer.

TRAM, A wheeled carriage ; a bogie.

TRAMS, The shafts of a cart or barrow. The side pieces of the frame of a hutch or waggon.

TRAM-PLATES, Cast-iron flanged rails or plates for cart roads.

TRAM-RAILS, Flanged rails for hutch roads.

TRAM-ROAD, A road laid with cast-iron flanged rails, usually for carts.

TRAMP, A foot plate.

TRAP-DOOR, A door in an underground road for directing the ventilating current.

TRAPPER, A boy who opens and shuts a trap-door.

TRAPS, Short ladders in a shaft.

TRAVEL, The length of stroke of a pump.

TRAVELLING- ROAD, A road near an-engine, haulage road for men to travel in ; a road for men only.

TREE, A prop.

TREED, Supported by props.

TRESS, A trestle; the fulcrum for the lever used in boring.

TRIANGLE, A three-legged derrick for hoisting rods in boring.

TRIG, A piece of wood laid, in front of a waggon wheel to stop its motion.

To TRIM, To arrange by hand the coals on a truck while being loaded; to clean lamps.

TRIMMER, One who arranges coal in waggons while being loaded; one who cleans lamps.

TRIPING, Now usually coal as it comes from the miner; formerly, and in some cases still, coal from which the large lumps have been separated. Where the latter meaning is given to the word, coal as it comes from the miner is distinguished by the term cleek coal.

TROUBLE, A general name given to faults or hitches ; a roll in roof or pavement, or both, forming a partial want.

TROUGH, A hollow or undulation in a mineral field, or in a mineral working.

TROW, or TROWS, A channel made of wood for conveying water.

TROWHOLE, or TROWROAD, A cundie; a steep road, down which mineral is shot instead of being loaded in hutches.

TRUCK, A waggon.

TRUMPETING. See Haggling.

TUB, A hutch; a box.

TUBBING, The watertight lining of a shaft, formerly wood, now chiefly cast-iron.

TUBBING-DEALS, Deals put behind tubbing in a shaft.

TUBING, Sheet-iron lining of a bore-hole.

TUMBLER, Tipping apparatus for tubs or waggons.

TUMBLING-CRANK, A crank on the end of the pumping shaft for giving reciprocating motion.

TUMBLING-TOM, Tipping apparatus for hutches.

TUMPHY, Coaly fire-clay.

TURN, A curved rail; the arrangement of rails, sleepers and pulleys at a curve on a haulage road.

UNDERCAST, The lower of two air courses at an air crossing.

UNDER-DIP COALS, Coal under the level of the bottom of the engine pit.

UNDERLIE, The angle of slope of the veize of a slip.

UPCAST, The pit by which the ventilating current returns to the surface.

UPPER-LEAF, The upper portion of a seam which is separated by a parting into two portions.

UPSET, A short working place driven to the rise.

UPTHROW, A slip or hitch throwing a seam to a higher level.

UPSTANDING, A term applied to stoop and room workings to denote that the pillars are in a sound condition, and the roof not fallen.

UP STOOP, A working room is up stoop or in stoop when its length is equal to the side of the pillar to be formed.

VEAL, or VOUN, A water box or chest, usually on wheels, for removing water.

VEALING, or VOUNING, Chesting; getting out water by means of veals.

VEIZE, VEES, VISE, The line of fracture of a fault or hitch.

VEES. See Weese.

VENT, A chimney ; a return airway.

To VENT, To have room to pass away.

VERNIER COMPASS, A mining compass for measuring angles without the use of the magnetic needle.

VIRGIN FIELD, A mineral field untouched or solid.

To WAFF, or WAFT, To fan out. Fire-damp was formerly expelled from the working rooms by wafting.

WAGGON, A truck.

WAGGON, A measure of weight equal to 24 cwt; Coal sold for delivery in carts is usually sold by the waggon of 24 cwt.

WAGGONER, A man in charge of a horse who arranges railway trucks in pit sidings.

WALL, The working face in long-wall working. In former times the working place in a stoop-and-room working ;was also called the coal-wall.

WALL-COAL, Breast coal; the middle division of three in a seam, the other two being termed top coal and ground coal.

WALL CUTTING, Side cutting or shearing the solid coal in opening out working places; trimming the sides of a sinking pit.

WALL-FACE, The face of the coal wall; the working face.

WALLING, The built sides of a shaft.

WALL-PLATE, Vertical strips of wood supporting the ends of the buntons in a wood-lined shaft.

WANDERING COAL, A coal seam that exists only over a small area ; an irregular seam of coal.

WANT, Barren ground; an interruption of a seam unaccompanied by a slip. A want when encountered has often the appearance of the roof and pavement being met.

WARNING, Notice, given or received, of a workman leaving his employment.

WARPED, Irregularly bedded, or plicated.

WASHING MACHINE, A machine for separating dirt from small coal by means of water.

WASTE, Cotton refuse for cleaning machinery.

WASTE, Workings; in long-wall, the space from which mineral has been extracted; in stoop-and-room, the area formed into pillars. The area from which the pillars have been removed is called stooped waste.

WASTINGS, Workings.

WASTE-ROOM, An abandoned working place.

WASTE-WATER, Water from old workings.

WATER-BALANCE, An arrangement by which a descending tank of water raises mineral in a shaft by a rope passed over a pulley. Sometimes used where water is abundant and can be run off at the pit bottom by means of a day-level.

WATER BARREL, A barrel for drawing water in sinking pits.

WATER BLAST, The violent escape of confined air up through water in a shaft; the discharge of water down a shaft to produce or quicken ventilation.

WATER-ENGINE, An engine used exclusively for pumping water.

WATER-GAUGE, A U-shaped glass tube for measuring the difference of pressure between the intake and return air; an indicator showing the quantity of water in a steam boiler; a notched board for measuring flow of water.

WATER-GIN, A gin actuated by a water wheel. See Fig. 20.

WATER-LEVEL, A mine driven from the surface by which workings above its level are drained ; a road driven on the strike of a seam to carry off water.

WATER-MACHINE, A pump or other appliance actuated by a water wheel for raising water.

WATER-RING, A channel cut around a shaft for carrying all the water to the dip end or to the hasson,

WATER-WAY, A mine for water.

WATER-WAY, The area in a clack or bucket for the passage of water.

WAY-END, The inner extremity of the wooden railways formerly used in mines.

WAYLEAVE, A right-of-way granted by a proprietor for the passage through his lands of mineral from other lands.

WEB, The plane, which see.

WEESE, An iron joint-ring, covered with flannel, and tarred or tallowed, for insertion between pump pipes.

WEIGHS, A weigh-bridge; a waggon-weighing machine.

WEIGHT, The pressure of the upper strata on the coal face, by which, if the working is systematically carried on, the excavating of the mineral is facilitated.

WEDGING-CRIB, A ring of wood or iron bedded on rock in a shaft, and on which tubbing rests, the escape of water under it being prevented by the space behind it being filled with pieces of wood inserted endways, and tightly wedged with wooden wedges.

WET-RODS, Pump rods inside the pipes in a bucket lift.

WHEEL-TREE, A prop to which the pulley on a short self-acting incline is fastened.

WHEEL-BRAE, A self-acting incline ; a cousie.

WHEEL-MAN, The man who attends to the wheel or drum at an incline.

WHIN, Greenstone ; trap rock; igneous rock.

WHIN-DYKE, A dyke or wall of igneous rock.

WHIN-FLOAT, An intruded bed, or overflow on the surface, of igneous rock

WHIN-GAW, A narrow dyke of whin.

WHIRLEY, A hutch, hurley, or tub.

WHITE-DAMP, Carbonic oxide.

WHITE HORSE, Intruded white trap in a coal seam.

WHITE ROPE, Gaskin; hemp packing.

WHORLS, Pithead pulleys.

WHORLED, The cage is said to be whorled when it is drawn up to or over the pulleys.

WILD-COAL, A thin seam of inferior coal.

WILD-FIRE, Fire-clamp.

To WIN, To have the command of or be in a position to work. A seam is said to be icon when a pit is sunk, or a mine driven to it, and the pit or mine is said to win all to the rise of the level.

To WIN OUT, To widen out, as where longwall working is being commenced.

WINNING, A pit and its associated fittings and machinery.

WINCH, A crab; a crane.

To WIND (pronounced wynd), To draw up the pit rope.

WINDING, Raising-mineral in a shaft.

WIND-BORE, A suction pipe.

WINDLASS, A rope roll or drum with handles, now used in sinking shallow pits, and formerly used in winding from shallow pits.

WING, The point plate of a tram crossing.

WING BORE, A side or flank bore in a working place approaching old workings.

WINGED PILLARS, Pillars which have been reduced in size.

WORKING, Name given to the whole strata excavated in working a seam. See Fig. 19.

WORKING, Making a noise before falling down, such as holed coal at the face, or unsupported roof strata.

WORKING-BARREL, That part of a pump in which the bucket moves.

WORKING PLACE, WORKING FACE, The place where the miner is excavating the mineral

WORKING RATE, The rate per ton paid to a miner.

WORKINGS, Excavations; places from which mineral has been worked; the area within which excavations have been made.

WRECK, A break-down, as in a shaft or on an incline.

WUMBLE or WIMBLE, A borer's tool

WYPER-SHAFT, A rocking shaft usually actuated by the eccentric rod of a steam engine, and giving motion to the slide valve.

To YOKE, To resume work.

YOLK COAL, or YOLKS, Free or soft coal.

 

Last Updated 24th August 2008