THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



421 



Photograph by J. Horgan, Jr. 



ONE OE THE LARGEST COAT, BREAKERS IN THE WORLD! KINGSTON, PA. 



The coal comes in at the rear of the breaker, on the top-story level. It wanders this way 

 and that, first down this story and then the next, finally reaching the bottom minus its slate 

 and dirt and separated into every size, from "broken" to "buckwheat." 



tempted to load too great a proportion of 

 slate, there is a "court-house" at every 

 breaker. The men are normally allowed 

 7 per cent for slate, but sometimes, when 

 in a hurry to get a car loaded, they throw 

 in a larger proportion of refuse. 



But they never know when one of their 

 cars is going into the "court-house." This 

 is a side track where an inspector ex- 

 amines the coal to see whether it is run- 

 ning to the proper percentages or not. If 

 he finds that the miner has loaded too 

 much slate, the latter is asked to take a 

 day off. Two or three offenses result in 

 a discharge. 



HANDLING BITUMINOUS COAL 



Handling bituminous coal after it 

 leaves the mine is a much simpler process. 

 Often it is sold as run-of-the-mine, in 

 which case the mine cars are simply run 

 up to the top of a building called the 

 tipple, tipped over, and their contents 



dumped into a chute that leads to the rail- 

 road cars on the track below. 



If it is not shipped as run-of-the-mine, 

 it is graded over a series of bar screens 

 into lump, nut, and slack, each grade 

 going into its own pocket ready to fall 

 by gravity into the railroad car. Some 

 of the bituminous tipples are large and 

 elaborate affairs, capable of separating 

 many thousands of tons of coal a day and 

 loading it ready for shipment. 



Were space at hand, one might tell of 

 the great culm banks that are being made 

 to give up their coal; of the coal being 

 dredged out of the rivers of the anthra- 

 cite region, which was deposited there 

 through decades of freshets and floods; 

 of the superstitions of the miners, as, for 

 instance, the dread of the white mule, 

 which is harmless if the miner detects its 

 ghostly approach, but certain to inflict a 

 mortal bite if it is able to steal no un- 

 observed. 



