COAL MINING. 339 
Cages are provided with safety-catches or locks designed to hold the 
cage in the guides, and prevent it from falling in case the rope should 
break. On the top of the cage there is a cover of oak boards or sheet- 
iron to protect the workmen from falling stones, and in front of the 
shaft, at the landing on top, self-acting gates are placed, which are lifted 
out of the way by the ascending cage, and drop back as the cage is 
lowered, and guard the entrance of the shaft. Not more than ten per- 
sons at once are allowed by law to ascend or descend a shaft mine. 
Signaling arrangements are provided at all shafts, consisting of a bell or 
hammer, for the information of the hoisting engineer. When a loaded 
car is pushed on the cage at the bottom, the cager below raps once, 
signifying that coal is coming up; two raps are for the return of the 
cage, and three raps that men are about to be hoisted, when the engineer 
exercises more than ordinary care. The system of signaling is not 
uniform at mines, though it should be. The best signal arrangements 
in the State are in use at the Garfield shaft in Trumbull county. There 
is a bell on top and one at the bottom. When men are about to be 
hoisted the cager below raps three times, the engineer answers by one 
rap, and until this is done no person is allowed to step on the cage. 
After the miners, not more than ten in number, are safely on the cage, 
the cager knocks again, giving one rap; the engineer answers that he is 
about to start by one rap, and the men are carefully raised to day. 
This mine has also a good speaking tube, so that conversations can 
be held between the engineer and persons in the mine. All mines in 
which the human voice cannot be distinctly understood from the top to 
the bottom, should be provided with speaking tubes. 
LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY IN MINES. 
Improvements are constantly being made in mining, and hauling, 
and dumping coal, some of the more prominent of which deserves to be 
noticed. The mines of the Shawnee Valley Coal and Iron Company 
have been improved during the past year by the erection of a substantial 
hauling engine and wire rope. The mine is a drift, opened on the face 
of coal, and dips 30 feet in 3,000 feet. The engine cylinder is 12 inches 
diameter, and 20-inch stroke, built at Norwalk Iron Works, Con- 
necticut. 
The rope is #-inch Norway iron wire, 6,000 feet long. The coal is 
hauled about 3,000 feet, 24 cars per trip. The rope passes three 
