TEW : EXTENSION OF MINING OPERATIONS. 
95 
to finding" the salt rock on this coast, and if so, its importance 
cannot be over-rated. 
Mr. Bradley, whom we have to thank for the development of 
coal at Aketon Hall, thinks it may interest this Society to know 
that ironstone ore has been found at Dig'by, in Lincolnshire, ad- 
joining the Great Northern and (heat Eastern Railways, and 
within 20 miles of the coast where it was supposed to exist. This 
ironstone being- almost equi-distant (about 20 miles) from the sea 
and the Nottinghamshire coal field, will doubtless become a source 
of immense advantage to the towns and districts of the East Coast 
and of WeM Yorkshire. 
On the 27th August, 1870, a little to the West of Pontefract. 
Messrs Ellison and Broadbent opened a new shaft at Syndale, 
and called it by the name of the " Whitwell Main Colliery." 
The shaft, commenced on the 2nd February, 1869, was com- 
pleted to the coal on the 19th August, at a depth of 228^ yards, 
and in rapidity of sinkinof, has scarcely a parallel. The beds of coal 
passed through, are the Shale Coal, 3 feet thick, and the Stanley 
Main coal, 7 feet thick. 
On the 1st Dec, 1870, Messrs. Henry Brig-gs, Son & Co. 
(Limited) of Normanton, raised from their new pit to the surface, 
and screened and made ready for sale 1,000 tons of coal. The 
seam from which this tonnage was raised is the Stanley Main, 
to which three shafts are sunk. One shaft is used for pumping 
purposes, the other as an upcast, and the third is utilized as a 
downcast shaft and for coal drawing-. This shaft is 12 feet in 
diameter, filled up with a pair of 18 -inch cylinders, made by Messrs. 
Davy and Brothers of Sheffield. The cages are single decked, and 
carry two tubs of 10-cwt. each. This seam of coal is worked 
upon the long'-wall system with banks of 30 yards in length, and 
single shifts. 
The shaft used as the upcast shaft is 8-feet in diameter, and 
supplies to the workings 70,000 to 80,000 cubic feet of air per 
minute. 
