SALTER — A CHRISTMAS LECTURE ON COAL. 
65 
to support the roof, and gradually driving the galleries or stalls 
forward, up the slope of the mine. 
The coals are brought down the galleries, which have each a tram- 
way laid in it, in small wheeled cars, which either carry the skips or 
are themselves detached from the train, hauled up, returned empty, 
and again wheeled up by the " putters," or boys employed for this 
purpose. Ponies generally draw the loaded cars in lines along the 
diphead level to the mouth of the drawing shaft ; and these ponies, 
sleek and well-fed, live in the warm mine and like it. They learn to 
hold their heads low, for there is never too much space in a coal 
gallery ; and if we would imitate them, we should escape many 
bumps through life. 
When all the galleries are cut, then they begin to thin the 
"posts" — and this is a work of some little danger. Not only is the 
roof inclined to come down on the miners' heads, but the floor often 
bulges up beneath their feet. Such a disturbance of the ground, 
arising from the gTeat pressure above, which forces do^vn the pillars 
into the clay beneath, is called a " creep." It has an odd effect on 
the buildings over the colliery. They begin to fall sideways out of 
the perpendicular; square windows take a lozenge shape ; doors, &c. 
will not open, being jammed at one corner. Ceilings fall, bit by bit, 
upon the inmates ; and altogether a " creep" produces unpleasant 
feelings for all concerned. But it cannot be helped — the black stores 
below are worth more than the buildings above ; and,, therefore, they 
must go the w^ay of all buildings. 
The process of thinning may begin at one corner, a, (the fiu'thest 
from the shaft,) before all the galleries are finished ; and when a good 
many of the "posts" are thinned as much as they wall bear, they extract 
even these, substituting wooden posts for coal ones. The space then 
looks Hke a forest of dead props, among which you may easily lose 
your way ; and, as these decay, dowTi comes the whole mass, slowly 
but surely, till the roof and floor meet in a broken irregular mass. 
The hollow space mth its ruin of shale and sandstone — of sound and 
decaying props, is then shut off from the other compartments of the 
mine. No ventilation is further given to that quarter, called a 
" goaf," and foul gas and tar-water, and every abomination, may 
collect there till time shall end. It is a sort of Tophet. 
There is another way of working, much used in thin seams and 
smaU collieries, and universally preferred in Scotland. It is " long 
wall" working. In this method the galleries are driven (as before 
from a dip head level) parallel to one another the full extent of the 
mine, but not near together, and the coal between the ways is then 
worked out bodily ; — small entries being made through the wall, and 
all the intermediate coal " got" out, enough only is left along the 
sides of the ways to ensue the safety of the latter. 
Our diagram shows a piece of this sort of work. {See j^. 66). 
The rubbish, (roof,floor, &c.,) which must be got out in the main ways 
with the fuel in thin seams of coal or ironstone, (for ironstone is got 
in almost every coal pit,) need not be taken away ; but is filled into 
VOL. IV. I 
