MINING. 121 
tracked, the endless rope ascending up the middle of one 
track and going down the middle of the other. The room 
roads connecting with the slope on each side, are opposite 
each other; and in both tracks there are level spaces oppo- 
site the room entrances, to facilitate the pushing the mine 
car under the rope towards or from either track. 
The method of hitching the mine car to the wire rope is 
by means of two chains (one at each end of the car) re- 
sembling our trace chains, only with shorter links is the 
hitch to the rope is made in the same time (about one 
second), that the otherend of the chain is hooked to the end 
of the mine car. In hitching to the wire rope they give the 
end of the chain a sharp swing around the rope, and after 
the hook has made two rounds, they catch the hook with 
the other hand and put it over the chain. When 
the slope is made down the “dip,” then full cars are 
hitched to the ascending rope, but when the slope is made 
up the rise of the coal, then the full cars are hitched to the 
descending rope. The system is used for lowering loaded 
cars to a lower gangway, and for hoisting them to a higher 
gangway, and it works well at either, and by this method in 
circumstances that suit it, coal can be conveyed a given dis- 
tance underground at less cost than by any other appliance. 
The Lancashire method just suits their mine cars; their 
endless ropes have a continuous steady motion of 1 1-4 to 
2 1-2 miles an hour without stopping the whole day; every 
miner is trained and able to push his car under the rope, 
and have it under way, without interfering with the car 
following after it. 
Oar cars are so much heavier than theirs that it would 
probably be impossible for one man to push them under the 
rope and hitch them quickly enough to keep them out of 
the way of the following cars. Iam uncertain about the 
possibility of using the above described method with one 
of our one ton cars, so shall leave it to time, or some of our 
enterprising mine operators to decide its feasibility with 
the mine cars are now in use here. 
An>ther system of mining the ‘‘medium dip” seams, or, 
more correctly, a combivation of different and various 
methods now in successful operationin many old established 
