PROGRESS OF INVENTION AND DEVELOPMENT.
Previous to 1660 the transportation or conveyance of coal, both above and below ground, was done by hand or by horse-power, and for a long subsequent period much of the conveyance was done in the same manner. Women and girls generally conveyed the coals to the surface, and horses, mules, or asses carried them to the consumers in sacks, and still more subse quently in carts. But during 1660 wooden rails and trams were first used above ground at the mines, and about the same time the steel-mill was introduced for the purpose of lighting gaseous mines.
Rails were not used under ground until about 1777, when they first com menced to take the place of sledges or " coaves," which, however, they have not yet entirely displaced in this country, since the sledges or coaves were much in use in the South as late as 1860. In 1790, cast rails were first used, and wrought-iron rails in 1815; from this date improvements made rapid progress.
Coal gas was made use of practically, in England, for light in 1798 or 1800. Steamboats were first introduced there in 1812, though in use in America since 1790, when Fitch made his first trip on the Delaware.
Steam-power appears to have been used to a limited extent at collieries in 1714, but was not generally or perhaps much in use until 1800. The first locomotive was made by Trevithick and Vivian, who were Cornish men, in 1804, and was used on Merthyr Tydvil Railroad in South Wales.
Stephenson's first improved locomotive was put in use in 1814, but was not used on public railways until 1825, when the Stockton & Darlington line was opened. The Stephenson and Davy safety-lamps, for use in fiery or gaseous mines, were invented or perfected for use in 1815; and from this date the development or increase of the English coal-trade has been very great.
The improvement in mining and ventilation has also kept pace with the invention and demands of the times. Formerly, coal was dug in open pits along the outcrops of the seams. Deeper pits were subsequently sunk to water-level, or drifts were driven horizontally on the coal, and the coal conveyed to the surface on the backs of women or girls; but no system or order of mining or ventilation was pursued. We presume the mode gene
rally pursued in the Southern States to be a pretty correct model of the old English, since both were conducted on primitive principles.
On the introduction of steam machinery and the consequent opening of deeper and comparatively extensive mines, improvements became necessary, and the "pillar and stall" and a system of natural ventilation was first adopted. This mode is, or was, much the same as that now in use at the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania. But by this mode of mining from one fourth to one-third of the coal was lost, from the inability to secure the coal in the pillars by "robbing," in consequence of the crushing weight of the top causing an abandonment of the "face," or by the "creeping" of the bottom preventing access.
It may be difficult to devise a better system of mining for the steep veins of the anthracite regions, though the present mode is susceptible of much improvement. But in the flat seams or low basins of England there were both the means and the want of improvement. The mines were deep and gaseous, and the seams generally thin and comparatively unproductive: therefore an improved system of ventilation was demanded, and it became a matter of importance in the economy of mining to produce as much coal as possible from a given area.
In this connection we cannot give a detailed description of the various modes of mining and ventilating as adopted at different times in the English mines, from the "pillar and stall" and the "board and pillar" to the "board and wall," or the "long wall," as now generally in use, or the modes of splitting and crossing the air, as now used. We shall refer to those subjects under their appropriate heads. But, to give a concise history of the progress of the times, we may state the result of the improvement in mining has been a saving of one-third more coal than could be obtained by the old mode or that now generally in use in this country; while the improvements in ventilation enable them, and also ourselves, to course from 40,000 to 150,000 cubic feet of air* per minute through the mine, when we could only force from 1000 to 10,000 feet by and natural processes.