236 THE ANNUAL EXCURSION. 



heaped it up around the headlands of their quarry as an ill-fated 

 legacy to their successors, and the present company have had 

 for many years this incubus of dead work to contend with, some 

 evidence of which is still to be seen at the far end of the 

 quarries. 



Until the last few years the mode of working was to erect 

 papet heads, or projecting wooden frames, on the cliff of the 

 rock, supporting huge wooden cranes, and by means of iron 

 chains passing over these, steam power hoisted up the slate rock 

 and rubble from the pit below. Two papet heads of an improved 

 character, worked with steel ropes instead of cumbrous iron 

 chains, are still used ; but the future developing of the quarries 

 is to be seen at the far end, on the western side, where one 

 steam engine hauls up an inclined plane, in trucks, the slate 

 rock and rubble produced from four terraces or galleries. Of 

 these the two upper galleries are taking off the tops or over- 

 burthen covering the slate bed, and also the deposited rubble 

 left us by our predecessors, and will be met by corresponding 

 galleries now being worked on the eastern side, thus surrounding 

 the quarries, while the two lower galleries are commencing to 

 work the permanent slate bed. When this system of galleries is 

 fully developed to the bottom of the quarries, the slate pro- 

 duction will be largely increased, as we are at present only 

 producing slate from the top and bottom of our slate bed, and 

 the gallery system will ensure greater safety to our men, and 

 less risk of serious slides, or landslips. 



The quarries and rubble heaps cover some twenty-five acres 

 of land. The length of the quarry being on its western side 

 about l,-'}00 feet, and the depth about 400 feet. At present 

 about 420 hands are employed. In the past three years more 

 than one million tons of slate rock and rubble have been taken 

 out of the pit. The indications of the slate bed, at the far end, 

 lead the company to expect that these quarries are still in their 

 infancy, as a most productive vein is found underlying the 

 quarries at their greatest depth. 



Query. — Is the name"^' De la Bole of Norman French 

 extraction, or is the local nomenclature Dinabole the most 



* In reply to this query it is to be observed that the name is older than the 

 Norman conquest. At that time it appears as " Deliau " compounded with 

 " Boll." See further particulars in a final note appended to this excursion 

 account. 



