AMONG THE COAL MINERS. 213 



although a contrary notion prevails. The perils 

 incident to the sea are far greater ; and also many 

 industrial pursuits, such as the making of gunpow- 

 der, matches, pigments, etc., are more destructive 

 to life than coal mining. There have been in this 

 country only two very serious casualties : that of 

 the Avondale mine, and the more recent one at 

 Pittston. There are employed in the anthracite 

 region about thirty thousand miners, and the loss of 

 life from accidents incident to the business shows 

 but a very small percentage. It is the terrible 

 nature of the casualties, when they do occur, that 

 awakens such wide-spread sympathy, and causes 

 the occupation to be looked upon with dread. 



The masses of coal raised from the pits are car- 

 ried far above the opening of the excavation, and 

 thrown into the breaker, a ponderous iron machine, 

 which crushes them to fragments of various sizes ; 

 and then they fall into revolving cylindrical sieves, 

 the meshes of which determine the size of the 

 coal manufactured. In this manner, the " egg," 

 " nut," and " bean " coal are separated, each sieve 

 sifting out its appropriate size, and directing it into 

 different receptacles. At some of the mines one 

 thousand tons of coal are raised and broken in a 

 day, and the aggregate of the amount produced is 

 prodigious. The profits of the business, as con- 

 ducted at the mines, seem reasonable, as we were 



