Taken from The History, Topography, and Directory of the County Palatine of Durham by Francis Whellan. Second edition published in 1894.

In no respect do collieries differ more from each other than in the quantities of water which they encounter, either in the winning or in the subsequent working of their mineral.

Up to the beginning of the present century there were many districts in which comparatively shallow collieries were drained by means of audit levels, or soughs often driven for a long distance from lower ground ; but in proportion as these superficial workings have become exhausted, it has become necessary to follow the seams to greater depths, and there are but few hilly regions left where some of the works still enjoy the advantages of frec drainage.

Before the practical introduction of the steam-engine the modes of removing the water from the under-level excavations were by the application of horse-power, or of water-wheels to an endless chain with buckets, to drawing pumps, to the rag-and-chain, or to winding of the water in barrels or ox-skins. Agricola gives us, in 1550, an accurate description, with drawings, of many varieties of apparatus worked by treadwheels, by horse-gins, or by water-wheels of 15 to 30 feet in diameter, which show that very little advance was made between the period of his observations and the commencement of the eighteenth century. Even until late years many of our mines still laboured under the same disadvantage as of old in their pump work, viz., that it was supposed to be necessary to restrict the height of a lift of pumps to the 32 feet through which water can be raised by atmospheric pressure. The contrivances before mentioned served their purpose as long as the pits were shallow, but their difficulties increased rapidly with depth, repairs were constantly needed, and, when a joint pin gave way, the whole set of chains and buckets fell to the bottom with a most tremendous crash, splintering every bucket to pieces.

To attempt a description of a portion only of the different improvements in the appliances for pumping purposes would be an endless task. Some of the pumping engines now in use at some of the principal collieries are worked by electricity, and are capable of raising over 600 gallons per minute, whilst some steam-pumps are of much greater capacity.