120 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA. 
light. Ihave given considerable attention in the past thirty 
years, to the difficulties encountered in conveying the 
“medium dip” coal from the “room breast” to daylight; 
twice in this period I have tried to solve the problem, by 
devoting several months to the examination of the meth- 
ods used in the “medium dip” seams of England, Scotland, 
and Wales. Ialso made a further effort on the Continent, 
but my knowledge of German and French was so limited, 
as to prevent my discussing the matter satisfactorily with 
the managers in charge of the works. As the result of 
these efforts I have been brought to suggest and recommend 
some (at least to me), new methods, though not an entire 
“cut and dried” solution of this problem, ready to apply to 
our Cahaba seams. 
The trams or mine cars used in Europe are, in nearly 
every case, smailer than ours; the reason for making them 
go, in most cases, is an effort to reduce the enormous first 
cost of their deep shafts, by having a small shaft area, thus 
leaving but a small space for their mine cars or cages and 
pumpway; their small mine cars also suit the large number 
of boys they have employed in their mines. It would be 
bad policy for us to adopt their small cars in the Cahaba 
Field, as we have no very deep pits to sink, and our per- 
centage of boys employed is very much smaller than theirs, 
also our miners are accustomed to handling one ton cars, or 
cars having a capacity approaching a ton. I have also ex- 
amined the methods of mining the “medium dip” in other 
places where opportunity offered, finally arriving at the 
conclusion that our best policy is tu hold on to our one 
ton cars, and work the “medium dip” seams horizontally. 
The most improved method of tramming and removing 
the “medium dip” coal, that has come under my observation, 
is that mostly used in the county of Lancashire, England. 
The diagram opposite is the ground plan showing endless 
wire rope haulage, and section of it, and I shali designate it 
as the “Lancashire Method.” 
It must be borne in mind, however, that in that county 
the system of “underground wire rope haulage” is in almost 
universal use. This “Lancashire method,” is an application 
of the “endless wire rope haulage”; the slope is double 
