. Off-hand sketches : a companion for the tourist and traveller over the Philadelphia, Pottsville, and Reading railroad . )y means of a common wind-lass. * As soon as the water became troublesome, wliich was usuallythe case after penetrating beyond thirty feet, the shaft was aban-doned, and another sunk, and the same simple process repeated. This mode, however, was soon superseded by drifts (or openingsabove water-level, running in with a surface sufficiently inclbaed todrain off the water). These would be opened at the heads of veinsupon the hillsides, and the coal brought out in wheel-barrow
. Off-hand sketches : a companion for the tourist and traveller over the Philadelphia, Pottsville, and Reading railroad . )y means of a common wind-lass. * As soon as the water became troublesome, wliich was usuallythe case after penetrating beyond thirty feet, the shaft was aban-doned, and another sunk, and the same simple process repeated. This mode, however, was soon superseded by drifts (or openingsabove water-level, running in with a surface sufficiently inclbaed todrain off the water). These would be opened at the heads of veinsupon the hillsides, and the coal brought out in wheel-barrows; but. FIGUnE 51. it was not until 1827 that railways were introduced into mines, andfrom that period until 1834 drifts were the only mode pursued formining coal. In the meantime, various experiments had been made for the useof shafts, the principal one of which was the substitution of horse-power and the gin, for the windlass, by which means the miners couldclear the water from the shaft with greater facility, and penetratesomewhat farther down on the veins. But with this great improve-ment, as it was then regarded, they were enabled to run down on thevein for but a comparatively short distance, and the coal was, ofcourse, inferior; for experience has since demonstrated that the cropof the coal is never equal to that taken out at lower depths, wherethe roof and jBoor have attained the regularity and hardness so neces-sary for effective labor and good coal. At the period to which we have alluded, there was a total and per-fect absence of every convenience which is now deemed necessary formin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookidoffhandsketc, bookyear1854
