COAL MINES OF

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stopping, which prevents the air from passing,and drives it down the staple.

The shaft is a perpendicular drift, beingsometimes made semi-elliptical at the mouth bymeans of boards; a few yards down it becomesperfectly circular, and is in general from eightto ten feet in diameter. It is cased by stonewalling for about eighteen fathoms down, oruntil the stone work can rest upon solid rock,when it is continued by being cut through theconsolidated strata, and opens to the work-ings of the mine through strong arches. Ongetting to the bottom of a shaft the appear-ance is truly grotesque and dismal; ruggedroofs supported by pillars or walls left for thatpurpose, and just shown by the miserable lightof a miner’s low,* is all that exists for exami-nation.

In some parts the workings are very lowand narrow, compelling the miner to creepthrough them; in other parts they are suffi-ciently high for a person to walk erect, andare frequently enlarged by sinkings in of thestratum or shale above,- which is afterwards

* The low is locally a very small candle, which theminer fixes in a piece of soft clunch or clay, and carriesbetween his fingers, on his hat, or fixes on the coal, ac-cording to circumstances.