170 



Mr. Dunn on the Edge Seams of Mid-Lothian. 



niches are cut in the Coal seat with every here and there a passing 

 place. Their lights consist of small oil lamps hooked into the front of 

 their caps ; their dress the coarsest woollen, and they generally use a 

 very short stick as a steadier to their precarious footing. 



The collier has for hewing, bearing to the main level, filling into the 

 rail-road tubs, and conveying to the shaft bottom, a distance of about 

 500 or 600 yards, great Coal, 3s. 4id. per ton, and small Coal, Is. per 



ton. 



As the wheel carriages are confined to the level of the Coal pit bot- 

 tom, the Coals have thus to be borne from the engine pit levels, as well 

 as from the rise workings, between which points is comprised a distance 

 of 150 yards, as shewn in the annexed plan. 



PLAN OF THK WORKINGS LOOKING FROM DIP TO RISE. 



In this manner 80 to 100 tons per day are regularly worked, the 

 great Coal selling for 7s. 9d., and the small 25. 6d. per ton, nearly all 

 the former being led in carts to Edinburgh. 



The bearing system so peculiar to the Coal Mining of Scotland, seems 

 to have originated in the working of these Edge Seams, and when the 

 difficulty of applying any other means comes to be considered, necessity 

 would appear to plead strongly for such a practice, especially at a period 



