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SAFETY LAMP. — (See Davy.)
SAGRE, or SEGGAR, CLAY. — Fire-clay argillaceous and siliceous shale used for making fire-bricks; it is usually the thill of a seam of coal; it abounds in stigmaria rootlets.
SAND. — "The sand" which is seen in Northumberland and Durham, is a stratum of soft sandstone underlying the magnesian limestone. When it contains much water, it wastes or falls away to a soft loose quicksand, and where, as in some instances the quantity of water to be contended with is very large, it sometimes presents difficulties in sinking through it which are almost insurmountable.
SCAFFOLD. — A wooden platform fixed accross a shaft. In the case of a permanently abandoned pit, where it is not filled up from the bottom, a scaffold is sometimes put in, a few fathoms from the top, above which the pit is filled up. As the wood decays in time, the scaffold falls in with its covering. Such scaffolds, if put in at all, should be secure domes, built with masonry on good foundations.
SCALE. — A scale of air is a portion allowed to escape through a door, or stopping, for the purpose of ventilating a waggon or rolley-way, &c.
SCALLOP, SKELP. — To use the pick in pulling down or hewing coal instead of kirving, nicking, and wedging, or bringing it down with powder, &c.
SCAMY POST. — Soft short jointy freestone, in very thin ayers, and much mixed with mica.
SCARES. — Thin layers of pyrites or spar, interstratified in coal seams, or similar layers of coal found in post or metal.
SCORE. — A standard number of tubs or corves of coal at each colliery, upon which the hewers' and putters' prices for working are paid, called the score price. It varies in different localities from 20 to 26 tubs. Thus on the Tyne, the score consists of 20; on the Wear, 21 ; and on the Tees, from 20 to 26 tubs, at different collieries.
SCORE PRICE. — (See Score.)
SCOTCH. — A piece of wood of triangular section with a handle to it placed on the rail before the front wheel of a waggon, or sct for the purpose of a gradual arrest of motion.
SCRAPER. — "A round iron rod about ¼ in. in diameter, and 3 feet long, turned up fiat at each end and used for cleaning the coal dust out of a drill hole." (Nicholson.) The scraper is used also for pushing loose powder into the hole when it is used in this state. The same precaution which is required in the case of the pricker, is ordered by the Mines Act, 1888, by the prohibition of steel or iron for this purpose.
SCUTTLE OR SCOOP. — Used for filling water from the face of a dip place, or sump into a water tub; it is usually made with wooden sides and back, and a thin sheet iron bottom. The sides, to the bottom of which, as well as to the bottom of the hack the sheet iron is nailed, are at the back end of the same depth as the back, and at the front end gradually curve up to the level of the top of the back. The top is also partly covered from the top of the back forwards, with wood, and in the middle of the back is an' iron handle; it may be made 20 inches long, 12 inches broad, and 6 inches deep at the back.
SEAM. — A bed of coal.
SEG. — To bend down, as a plank or balk does at its middle by superincumbent weight.
SELF-ACTING INCLINE. — (See Incline.)
SEPARATION. — Filling round coals only, the small being separated and cast back in the mine.
SET. — To fill a tub unfairly, the large coals being built up and left intentionally hollow in the tub or corf, and carefully filled over the top, the object being to get full payment for as small as possible a quantity of coals. This fraud can only be practised where the hewers are paid by measure; in place of which payment by weight is now, with a slight exception, the only legal mode. Also a train of tubs or waggons. Also a column of pumps.
SET OUT. — A tub or corf of coals filled insufficiently, and consequently forfeited.
SETTERS. — Large pieces of coal; so called by the landsale cartmen, from their use in piling or setting round the sides of their carts, to enable them to hold a larger quantity of coals than could otherwise be placed upon them ; the smaller coals being put in the centre.
SETTLE BOARDS or SADDLE BOARDS. — The portion of the heapstead at the top of the shaft, and between it and the skreens, covered with iron or metal sheets (see Flat Sheets.)
SHACKLE. — A turned bar of iron, the long, flattened and shaped ends of which are rivetted, or collared on, to the turned back and swelled end of a rope, forming at the end an eye by which it is attached to the cage chains, etc.; or to another rope, in which case there are two shackles; these ropes are said to be socketted. Also a horse shoe link, with a bolt through eyes at its open end.
SHAFT. — (See Pit.) — Also the handle of a pick, hack shovel, or maul.
SHAFT FRAME. — (See Heapstead.)
SHAFT PILLARS or SHAFT WALLS. — (See Holing About.)
SHAFT RENT. — (See Rent.)
SHAM DOOR. — (See Regulator.)
SHEAR LEGS. — (See Bore.) — Also two long legs of timber or iron (set over an engine-pit), over which is placed a crosshead or crowntree upon which, and at the bottom of one of the legs, is placed a strong sheave. The crab rope passes under the latter and over the former of these sheaves, and is used by means of the crab for lowering or raising spears or pumps, changing buckets, etc.
SHEATHING, SHEETING. — (See Tubbing.)
SHEAVE. — The wheel round which the rope of a selfacting inclined plane, or the tail rope of an engine plane runs; the speed at which the set upon the incline runs being regulated by a lever attached to a brake which acts upon a crib placed upon the sheave for the purpose; also a grooved wheel used in place of a roller to guide or alter the direction of a rope.
SHELL: BUCKET SHELL or CLACK SHELL. — A bucket or clack before it is grathed.
SHETH DOOR. — (See Door.)
SHETH STOPPING. — (See Coursing.)
SHETHS. — The ribs of a chaldron or other waggon.
SHIFT. — The time worked by a man, or set of men, at coal or other underground work. A shift is 8 hours long, except in sinking, where it is 4 hours. The payment for off-hand work, such as waste work, timbering, ridding, etc., is 3s. 0d. per shift of 8 hours ; for the sinker's shift of 4 hours it is 2s. 0d. (1849.) The sinker, however, generally returns at the end of 8 hours to another 4 hours' shift. When a colliery is worked by two sets of hewers, each working for 8 hours, one set following the other, the first set is called the fore-shift and the second the back-shift.
SHIFTERS. — Men paid by the day for doing shift work.
SHIFT-WORK. — Work paid for by the day or shift.
SHINGLY COALs. — (See Chinley Coal.)
SHIVERY POST. — (See Scamy.)
SHOOTING-FAST. — Blowing down coal with gunpowder, without nicking, by which the coals are produced in a very inferior condition.
SHORT WORKINGS or SHORTS. — (See Rent.)
SHOT. — The cartridge, or portion of gunpowder uscd in blasting. It is put into a cartridge made of brown paper by folding it round a shot stick. The cartridge is about 1 inch in diameter, and from 4 to 9 or 10 inches long, or longer if required. A pound of gunpowder will make 5 six inch shots.
SHOT STICK. — (See Shot.)
SHOW. — The pale blue "top," or lambent flame, which appears above the ordinary flame of a candle, when it is burning in an atmosphcre mixed with fire-damp. A mixture of carbonic acid with the fire-damp, occasions the colour of the "top" to be brown, and much longer and more distinct. When both the fire-damp and the air with which it is mixed are pure, the "top" is very faint; and great caution and care are required in making the examination. It is by the show upon the candle that the presence of fire-damp may be detected, but it is now the practice to make such examinations with a safety lamp.
SIDDLE. — The inclination of a seam of coal.
SIDE OVER. — To drive headways course across a pillar of coal in working the broken.
SIDE-WAVERS. — The loose sides of a drift or open-cast, which would if unsupported soon fall. It is best to remove them altogether. T hey generally occur when a crush is taking place.
SIDING. — A bye-way or passing place.
SINK. — To make a pit. (See Pit.)
SINKING SET. — (See Crab.)
SIPING. — A small issue of water without pressure.
SKIPPER. — The captain or master of a keel.
SKREEN. — A frame 4 or 5 feet wide, and 11 to 15 feet long, the upper side of which inclines from the heapstead to the top of the coal waggon; it is furnished with iron or metal bars placed at the distance of from to ¾ of an inch apart, upon which the coals are teemed as they are drawn out of the pit. The coals which pass over the skreen are sent away as best skreened coals ; and the small coal which passes through the bars falls into the duff box, from whence it is taken to the apparatus.
SKREEN MEN or SKREENERS. — Men who pass the coals over the skreens into the wagons, and clean them from stones, slates, brasses, &c. They should be paid in proportion to the quantity of dirt picked out from among the coals. Their wages are about 2s. 6d. to 2s. 8d. per day of 12 hours (1849.)
SLED or SLEDGE. — (See Barrowman.)
SLEEPER. — Tram and rolley-way sleepers are pieces of wood about 2½ to 3½ feet long, about 6 inches broad, and 2 or 2½ inches thick, for nailing train plates or bridge nails to, or chairs for edge or round-topped rolley-way rails. They are best made of larch.
SLIDES. — Upright rails, of wood or metal, fixed in a shaft for the purpose of guiding the cages, which have corresponding shoes or grooves attached to them. They are now frequently made of wire rope, passing through eyes attached to the cages. They are also made with round topped iron or steel railway rails partly clasped by jaws upon the cages: with these, two guides on one side of each cage are quite sufficient.
SLIDING DEALS or STRIKING DEALS. — Deals placed diagonally from the balk placed across the top of a sinking pit (upon the planking resting upon which and the edge of the shaft the sinking kibbles or tubs are landed), to or towards the wall side of the pit under the planking to guide the tubs on to the pit top.
SLIDING SCALE. — "A scale agreed to between masters and men by which wages are regulated according to the selling price of coals, or according to the amount realized on the sale of the coals ; also a scale whereby the hewer's tonnage or score price is regulated by the height of the seam " (Nicholson) ; or by the thickness of band.
SLINGS. — "Chains used for convenience in raising or lowering heavy weights." (Nicholson.)
SLIVER. — A thin lath, placed within two groves, cut lengthways for the purpose, in the edges of two planks, intended to be joined together for the purpose of making the joint air or water-tight.
SMALL COALS. — Coals that pass through the skreen bars before further separation.
SMALL LEADER. — A lad employed to put small coals to a stowboard.
SMART MONEY. — 5s. per week paid to men, and 2s. 6d. per week paid to lads, disabled by accident whilst at work in the pit.
SNAP. — "A small flat pointed pick used on the skreens for chipping off brasses, stone, or band from large coals." (Nicholson.)
SNORE-HOLES. — At the bottom of a set of pumps is a short piece called a wind-bore cast with round holes, through which the water passes, and through the clack to the bucket when raised in pumping. In a sinking pit these holes are plugged above the level, beyond which it is required that the water should not rise. When the level of the water is lowered to the top of the holes, the air "snores" at the top of the holes — whence the name.
SNOT. — The cauliflower top of a candle wick.
SOLE. — The part of a waggon or tub frame to which the bearings of the wheels are attached, and into which the sheths are inserted.
SOOTY COAL. — Dull, danty, soft coal often found near a hitch.
SPARE. — A piece of wood, 6 or 8 inches long, and 6 inches broad, cut from 1 inch Scotch deal, with one of the sides tapered off to the end; used for driving behind cribs or tubbing. A baff end being put in first behind the crib or tubbing, and next to the pit wall, and the spare driven between, in the manner of a wedge.
SPEAR PLATES. — (See Spears.)
SPEARS. — The rod of a pump. Spears are made of Memel, or Norway fir, or pitch pine, in lengths of about 40 feet, and joined together with spear plates, which are flat plates of forged iron, say 14 feet long, 4½ to 5½ in. broad, 1 to 1¼ in. thick in middle, and to in. thick at ends, and 10 bolts in each pair of plates, with cross bolts called clinch or clink bolts to keep the whole firmly bound and prevent stripping. Wet spears are those which, working within a column of pumps are constantly immersed in water; dry spears are those which pass down to the top of each set; in a forcing set, the whole of the spears are dry spears.
SPIGOT AND FAUCIT. — A description of pump joint in which each pump (or pipe) is cast with a cup or faucit end. The other or spigot end, being plain, for the purpose ot insertion into the cup, the joint being made tight by wedging between the inside of the cup and the spigot. It makes an excellent joint, but requires more putting together than a flanch joint, and is also much more difficult to break should it be necessary to do so.
SPILE WEDGES. — Half wedges. A course of these is driven into the packing behind a wedging crib after it has received as many full-sized wedges as can be driven in. (See Wedge.)
SPLINT. — Coarse grey-looking coal. It burns to white ashes; it is suitable for burning lime, and the better sorts are well adapted to steam purposes.
SPLIT. — To divide the current of air which has descended the down cast shaft into principal and subordinate currents for the purpose of supplying the various districts with distinct currents of fresh air.
SPRAGS. — Short props placed under the coal at the front of a kirving as a precaution against its premature fall
SPRING BEAMS. — Strong balks of timber placed on each side of the beam of a pumping engine at such a level as that if a breakage of the spears were to take place, the inner stroke of the engine would be arrested before the piston descended upon the cylinder bottom. The spring beams also extend beyond the engine-house to the outer end of the beam. The catch-pin (see Catch-pin) does not fall direct upon these balks, but upon others placed above them, which being sloped up at the underside towards the ends, form a spring which softens the fall.
SPRING HOOK. — (See Clippers.)
STAITHS. — "1709. From the state of the trade it was necessary to hold, from time to time, large stocks of coals. in order to give dispatch, to suit tides, and to meet other emergencies. Hence those extensive erections called Staiths, many of which remain to the present day." (Dunn, View of the Coal Trade, 1844.)
Very few of these now exist.
The term staith is now applied to the whole of the erections constructed for the shipment of coals, whether they be capable of being used as coal depots or not. The general principle upon which they are now constructed, consists in having a frame upon which the full waggon of coals rests, which is carried down or dropped to the deck of the vessel by the weight of the waggon, its motion being retarded by a balance weight, which is sufficient, after the coals have been discharged from the waggon by the off putter, to raise it up again to the level of the railway from which it descended. In some cases the waggon is not lowered down to the deck as above, but the coals are dropped through the bottom board into an open topped, but otherwise closed spout, with a slide at the bottom in the former case the staith is called a drop, and in the latter, a spout. The spout is often close-topped.
STAMP. — A hole made with the pick point in the coal in which the wedge is fixed be ore driving with the maul.
STANDAGE. — A portion of workings excavated on the dip side of an engine pit, as a reservoir for the mine water, during a suspension of the pumping engine from work. A drift, called an underlevel drift is driven perfectly level in the stone beneath the seam, between the lowest point of the standage and a point above the bottom of the sump; and a dam is placed in it containing a plug hole or screw valve, which is closed when the engine is stopped, and opened when pumping is resumed. A good standage is of the utmost importance to the well-being of a colliery.
STANDARD WEIGHT. — (See Average.)
STANDING BOBBY. — A fast shot. A shot which blows out the stemming only. It may arise from the shot being too light; or from having been insufficiently stemmed; or from the hole having been drilled too far; called also a blown out shot.
STANDING FIRE. — Where the solid coal has become ignited, and the only means of extinguishing it is by barring it off with air tight stoppings or dams, until the carbonic acid produced has destroyed all combustion; it is necessary to put a pipe into such dams, the pipe end being bent down under water to allow of the escape of gas, but not of the reentry of air. In South Staffordshire where "gob fire" is very common, it has been found by practice that the most effectual dam is made with sand.
STANDING SET. — In sinking with pumps when the sinking set has become of sufficient length, the top standing set is placed in a cistern which stands on a strong oak bunton or iron girder set across the pit, and pumps to bank the water delivered into it by the sinking sct continued downwards with the sinking.
STANDING SET BUNTON. — (See Standing Set.)
STANDING SET CISTERN. — (See Standing Set.)
STAPLE. — A small pit, sunk upwards or downwards, from one seam to another, or for the purpose of proving a slip dyke. A counterbalance staple is a small pit sunk from the surface for a balance weight to work in, in order to assist the winding engine by equalizing the weight of the ascending and descending ropes. The arrangement is as follows : — The rope to which the balance weight is attached is of such a length, that as the ascending and descending cages approach each other the balance weight, which consists of a very heavy chain, shall gradually, by resting on the bottom of the staple, relieve the winding engine of its weight, so that at meetings, when the ropes themselves balance each other, no influence shall be exerted by the balance weight. After meetings, the descending rope becomes heaviest, and the engine again winds up the balance weight to counteract its downward impulse, in the same manner as, by formerly unwinding it, the ascending rope was assisted. In the case of fiat ropes, the winding engines in a great measure possess a balancing power within themselves, by the ascending rope gradually increasing its coil, and the descending one diminishing it. A rope or chain equal in weight to the winding rope per fathom, and of suitable length, one end of which is attached to the bottom of one cage and one to the bottom of the other, with a parallel drum is a perfect balance weight. (See Rope Roll). A jack-head staple is sunk for the jack-head or high set of pumps to work in, when the pumping engine has a back beam.
STEAM JET. — A mode of ventilation invented by Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, and first applied to the ventilation of collieries by the late Mr. T. E. Forster, in 1848, by which an air current was produced by the escape of high pressure steam through small orifices; the mode of action being similar to that of the blast pipe in a locomotive engine.
STEEL MILL. — A contrivance used, before the invention of the safety lamp, to give light in foul places. "It is an instrument for striking light with flint and steel. A brass wheel about 5 inches diameter, with 52 teeth, works a pinion with 11 teeth ; on the axle of the latter is fixed a thin steel wheel from 5 to (3 inches in diameter. The wheels are placed in a light frame of iron, which is suspended by a leather belt round the neck of the person who plays the mill. Great velocity is given to the steel wheel by turning the handle of the toothed w heel and the sharp edge of a flint is applied to the circumference of the steel wheel, which immediately elicits an abundance of sparks, and emits a considerable light." (Buddle, First Report.) The steel mill was sail to be the invention of Spedding. The greatest confidence in its safety at one time existed ; but it was proved to have been misplaced, for to it, several explosions of gas were eventually traced.
STEM. — To tamp or fill up a drill hole in which the powder has been placed previous to blasting.
STEMMING. — Small coals or stones with which a drill hole is tamped (1849). By the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, the use for this purpose of coal or coal dust is prohibited. The use of siliceous stemming is dangerous, particularly in post or sandstone, where the hole is charged with loose powder.
STENTING. — An opening between a pair of headways or drifts, through which the air circulates until another is holed further in-bye. Stentings should be holed no more frequently than is rendered necessary by the quantity of gas issued in driving the drifts; because, as they require, on the holing of every new one that the last shall be permanently stopped by a stopping of brick or stone, the too frequent holing of stentings, by increasing the number of stoppings, not only adds to the expense, but increases the liability to loss of air, which at the best stoppings often escapes.
STICK. — To cease work in order to obtain an increase, or prevent a reduction of wages.
STOB AND FEATHER. — (See Fox Wedge.)
STOCK. — Colliery stock comprises the establishment of shafts, buildings, engines, waggons, horses, and materials of every description necessary to carry on a colliery. It is divided into —
1. — Dead Stock, which consists of such attachments to the freehold, as shafts, engine houses, and other buildings of brick or stone as (in the absence of agreement to the contrary) are the property of the lessor.
2. — Fixed Stock: this includes everything, except the foregoing, required to keep the colliery in a working state, such as engines, waggons, railway, tubs, tramway, ways, skreens, &c., and a proper working quantity of horses, bay, corn, timber, oil, nails, &c., &c.
3. — Movable Stock consists of what can be sold off the premises without prejudice to the working of the colliery being fully carried on; it can only comprise, therefore, 01(1 pumps, unnecessary engines, and useless materials of every description, and resting coals.
It is generally understood that horses, hay and corn, and all materials in store are comprehended in the term movable (or as it is termed "live") stock ; but why, if an engine is substituted for a dozen horses, and the work performed the same, the former should be called fixed, and the latter movable, it is not easy to say.
STONE DRIFT. — A drift in stone from seam to seam, or through a fault.
STONE HEAD. — The top of the solid strata.
STOOK. — A small block or pillar of coal left to support the headways course in taking off a jud or lift in pillar working. When the lift has been got, the stook ought if practicable to be removed.
STOPPING. — A wall built in any excavation for the purpose of conducting air further into the mine Stopping are built of brick or stone where required to be permanent, the windward side of the stopping being plastered carefully with lime. The best and cheapest stoppings are built of the stone which falls from the roof, when it is not too soft these should not be less than 4 feet thick. When of brick they may be 9 inches thick. Stone stoppings are superior to brick stoppings, in affording a better support to the roof. All are better for being stowed at the back side. Stoppings which are not required to be permanent, are put up with common brattice, plastered at the joints if necessary, or with brattice cloth. (See Brattice.)
STOW. — To put stones and rubbish from falls requiring removal, or from stone drifts, or from where it is taken up or taken down, &c., into places appointed for the purpose.
STOW-BOARD. — A board driven for the convenience of stowage.
STRIKE. — Wood-full. In former agreements between coalowners and workmen, it was stipulated that the specitied coal tubs should be filled "strike or wood-full."
Also, strike, a more general cessation from labour than implied by stick.
STRUM. — A cover containing small holes placed upon the end of a water pipe at which water enters, to prevent stone or other rubbish passing into the pipe, whereby the passage of the water might be obstructed.
STYTHE. — Carbonic acid gas, often found in old workings, and given off in most shallow mines.
SULPHUR. — A common expression among old miners for fire-damp.
SUMP. — (See Back-end.) Also, in driving a stone drift, or mn sinking a pit, that portion kept a yard or more in advance of the drift or pit, to enable the gunpowder or other explosive to act with greater advantage upon the parts left. The origin of the term has been in its application to the advanced part of a sinking pit, where the water accumulates, and where the bottom of the sinking set of pumps is placed.
Also, that portion of a pit, beneath the seam of coal or other bottom landing, where the water of the mine gathers in order to be pumped to the surface. Also, a small reservoir, cut by the side of a dip and wet place into which the water from the face of the place is conveyed by means of levels, or by bowling, and afterwards led or pumped by a hand or horse pump to some point whence it will flow to the shaft.
SURFEIT. — The pressure exercised by pent up gas of any kind easing itself off with some force, frequently rending the roof, sides, or floor of the seam ; this often takes place without any sudden outburst of gas.
SWEEP-PLATES, SWAPES. — Curved plates for laying barrow-way round a turn.
SWALLEY OR SWELLEY. — A gradual depression or dish in the strata. In the bottom of the dish the seam of coal is usually thicker.
SWING DOOR. — (See Door.)
SWITCH. — A movable pointed rail, by the turning of which a sct of tubs is diverted from the main to a branch way.
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