COAL MINING. 347 
enough to admit of the hauling mules, the roof is ripped for a foot or 
18inches. The coal is not everywhere got by shafting; a favorite method 
of sinking is by opening slopes on a dip of 30 degrees. Slopes which 
do not exceed 100 yards in length, are as cheaply opened as perpen- 
dicular shafts, 100 feet in depth; the cost of sinking is greater in slopes, 
because of their greater length, but less costly machinery suffices for 
hoisting. Slopes are usually made 10 feet wide and 6 feet high, with 
a single track. A train of loaded cars, two or three in number, is 
raised ; an empty train is then sent back, and in this manner 500 tons 
a day of 9 hours is a fair average at a well-regulated mine; in the larger 
mines 600 or 700 tons constitute the daily output. The best mines, 
however, are being rapidly exhausted, but further southwest, on the line 
of direction of the swamp basins, new discoveries are rewarding the 
research of the mining adventurer, and many years must elapse before 
the day of complete exhaustion occurs. Owing to the increasing depth 
of the coal below the surface, in following up the basins along their line 
of dip, the newer mines are mainly shaft openings—slopes, as already 
stated, seldom exceeding 100 yards in length. 
The miners of this region are of mixed nationality, the Welsh 
being more numerous than others. In the mine of the Church Hill 
Coal Company, one of the largest in the valley, eight different European 
nationalities are represented underground, in the following order as to 
number: Welsh, French, Scotch, Italians, German, English, Irish, 
and Greeks. Ina large and well-regulated mine in this region as many 
as 200 to 250 men and boys are employed underground. Where 200 men 
are engaged digging coal, the average output of the men will reach 
600 tons per day. ‘This will require an underground force of 15 mule 
drivers, 10 to 12 road men, 5 or 6 trapper boys, 1 furnace man, 
1 cager, 2 or more pumpers or water bailers; while above ground 
3 or 4 topmen, 2 dumpers, 1 trimmer, 1 weighmaster, 2 engineers, 
1 hostler, and one general overseer or mining boss are required. It 
requires from 40 to 50 per cent. added to the cost of mining and loading 
to pay for the day-men, and other dead work of the mines, the cost of 
dead work being lessened or increased according to the varying circum- 
stances and conditions of mines. 
Four feet is the standard height of coal for which the miners are 
paid per ton for digging and loading. Above this thickness, no decrease 
in price is allowed, but for every 3 inches of decrease in thickness below 
