ten pounds of viscid glass on the end of a tube, blows | turing operations of refining, shot-making, red-lead and whirls, and blows and whirls again, until the hol- making, and white-lead making, or it is transformed lowed mass of glass suddenly flashes out into the form into the various forms of pipes, sheets, &c. Some of of a flat circular sheet. Or let it be Flint-glass; where, these operations of the lead-works are not less interestafter a mass of the semi-liquid material has been blown ing than those of the chemical works: let us instance hollow on the end of a tube, it is brought by a few the 'refining.' Nearly all lead contains a little silver; simple tools to the form of a goblet, decanter, wine- if the ratio be even so small as five ounces of silver to glass, or other vessel, in a way that almost baffles the eye a ton of lead, it will repay the process of refining; and and the comprehension of the most attentive observer. this refining is a delicate and beautiful process-in Or, lastly, if Bottle-glass be the form in which the which the silver, by its different chemical and mematerial is produced; we see the mode in which the chanical properties, is separated little by little from employment of cast-iron moulds is made to bear its the lead. If we take the still more curious process of share in the general routine of operations. shot-making, we see how the melted lead is dropped through the holes of a kind of colander-how it falls into water at the bottom of a pit (perhaps a deserted coal-pit), one or two hundred feet in depth,-how it here solidifies into small roundish drops-how these drops are first dried, and then sifted into different sizes Potteries, likewise, are very numerous in this busy district. They do not aim at the dainty and tasteful productions of the Copelands, the Mintons, and the Chamberlains, in other parts of England: their pots are to bear rough usage, and they are made roughly. There is clay in abundance near the Tyne and the Wear, fitted to make coarse pottery and earthenware; and this circumstance, coupled with the abundance of coal and of shipping, enables this northern district to beat Staffordshire out of the market in supplying coarse goods to Germany, Denmark, and other northern countries. The grinding, the mixing, the 'throwing,' the drying, the baking, the glazing,-all are effected on the same principle which distinguishes the manufacture elsewhere, but with a certain tinge of coarseness and cheapness. The chemical works of the Tyne are among the largest and most important establishments of the vicinity. They are found on both sides of the river -from Newcastle on the west, to Shields on the east; and their numerous chimneys tell of the extent and variety of the operations conducted therein. 'Chemical' is a word of wide significance, and indicates how large a number of substances may fittingly come under the notice of such manufacturers. Soda, potash, sulphuric acid, muriatic acid, nitric acid, chlorine, chloride of lime, alum, red lead,· all are chemicals,' in the manufacturer's acceptation of the term; and all are made largely on the banks of the Tyne. Some of these establishments are beautiful examples of scientific system, and present striking features. In the making of sulphuric acid, for instance, there are, in one establishment, leaden chambers employed, each two hundred feet in length, twenty in width, and twenty in height!-these are to contain the sulphurvapour which is to form the acid. There is, in the same works, a platinum crucible, or still, for boiling the acid, which cost as many guineas as it weighs ounces one thousand! The lead-works, again, are notable features. At Aldstone, several miles westward of Newcastle, there are extensive lead-mines, many of which belong to Greenwich Hospital: they are leased or farmed-out to individuals or companies, by whom the ore is raised and the metal separated from the impurities. The lead is sent to Newcastle in the form of 'pigs,' or oblong blocks; and here it is either exposed to the manufac how the well-formed shot are separated from the lame and halting, by setting them to run a race together down an inclined plane,-and how they are finally churned in a barrel, with a little black-lead, to give them an enticing polish. Or, if we watch the process of making white-lead, we have not only the means of seeing how vinegar will gradually convert the surface of a sheet of lead into white-lead; but we are incited to ask a question (which, however, is more easily asked than answered), why do women make the white-lead? it is not a particularly clean, nor a particularly lady-like series of operations; and yet it is said that the larger number of persons in the whitelead works at Newcastle are females. Nay, scandal has said, that, in the last generation, the bricklayers' labourers of Newcastle were women !—but this we will be polite enough to disbelieve. Oil-mills, where oil is obtained, by pressure, from linseed, hempseed, and rapeseed,-turpentine-works, where the rough substances, black and yellow resin, and the transparent oil of turpentine, are obtained by the distillation of the viscid turpentine which exudes from fir-trees,-starch-works, where starch is obtained from flour,-these are among the numberless manufacturing establishments of the vicinity. All such works require furnaces for carrying on the operations; and the abundant supply of coal in this district furnishes, as we have before remarked, a strong inducement to this localisation. The Tyne and its banks supply abundant indications of the mutual services rendered by land and water: the land gives freight to the ships, and the ships find a market for the produce of the land. If we mount any tolerably-elevated spot (and there are several such), and glance down the river, we shall see that there are staiths and wharfs and landing-piers belonging to most of the large manufacturing establishments. At the chemical works we see enormous heaps of 'waste,' consisting of earthy residue, which must be brought away from the buildings in some way or other, and which must not be thrown into the river. What, then, is to be done with it?-buy a piece of ground on purpose to contain it, until the wit of man can find out some way to bring it into use such has often been the case. It is a remarkable circumstance, that refuse-heaps have been accumulated along the banks of the Tyne, not only from the chemical works, but from another cause of a · wholly different kind; it arises thus :-The Tyne sends a much larger amount of cargo to the Thames than the Thames sends to the Tyne. The Tyne sends glass, pottery, chemicals, machinery, and, above all else, coals, in vast quantities, to London; and as the returncargoes are not of equal weight, the ships have to be ballasted with sand taken mostly from the bed of the Thames. When this sand-ballast has enabled the ship to be safely navigated to the Tyne, it has performed its work-it must be got rid of; but as it must not be thrown into the river, nothing remains but to pile it up on land; and as land is a valuable element in such a district, it must be bought for this purpose. Hence it is that, in some places, we see vast heaps of sand, two or three hundred feet high, near the river. A few years ago, a sea-side district was purchased, southward of South Shields, and a railway laid down from thence to the shipping-quays, expressly for removing the waste sand away from the river and its banks. There are persons who take up this curious branch of commerce, and who are paid by the shipowners so much per ton for all the sand-ballast which they take off the hands of the shipowners. the greater part of this coal-field, the various beds, or strata of the coal measures amount to upwards of eighty, consisting of alternating beds of coal, sandstone, and slate-clay. The aggregate thickness of the whole is about sixteen hundred feet-equal to nearly five times the height of St. Paul's Cathedral. The number of seams of coal which take part in this series is not exactly known, but is supposed to be twenty-five or thirty; lying at various depths, and separated by more or less numerous earthy beds. All these seams have particular names, and are known one from another by the colliers. The two most important are called High Main and Low Main: they are each about six feet in thickness; the latter lies three or four hundred feet below the former, and eight seams of lesser thickness intervene between them. Many of the seams are so thin that they cannot be worked; so that it is calculated the entire aggregate thickness of workable coal is about thirty feet. All calculations of the absolute available quantity of coal contained in this vast field are vague and indecisive. What is meant by the Tyne Collieries' is, the whole group of collieries, whether lying north or south of the Tyne, which ship their coals in that river. There are about thirty of these collieries in Northumberland, on the northern side of the river; and about twenty in the northern part of Durham, on the south side of the river: those in South Durham belong to the Wear, or to the Tees systems. Mr. Buddle, one of the most eminent of the coal-viewers of the north of England, estimated a few years ago, that the persons engaged underground' in the Tyne Collieries amounted in number to 8500, while the upperground' establish A PEEP AT THE COLLIERIES. Hitherto we have rambled in and around Newcastle, or have crept along the shores of the Tyne, watching its industry as we went. But now we have to department numbered 3500-making about 12,000 in the a little further from both town and river, and watch that vast system which eclipses everything else in the district-viz., the COLLIERIES. He who visits the Tyne, and knows nothing of the Collieries, knows little indeed. Coal is the life-blood (black blood though it may be) of the whole region. All the fortunes made here are either due at once to coal, or to something which coal has helped to bring into prosperity. The people, the ships, the town, the buildings-if we could follow the chain of cause and effect, we should see how closely coal is interwoven with the interests of all. Let us see what Geology has done for the district, in supplying an almost exhaustless abundance of coal. Of all the coal-fields in England (and there are many), that of Northumberland and Durham is the most important. It extends as far north as the river Coquet in Northumberland, and as far south as the river Tees. For the most part, it extends quite to the margin of the sea on the east; while on the west, it reaches about ten miles beyond a line drawn north and south through Newcastle. Throughout this district the coal strata ' dip' or descend towards the east, and crop out,' or ascend, towards the west. At one point, a particular seam, called the High Main, lies at a depth of nearly a thousand feet; while at other spots, the same seam rises nearly to the surface. Throughout whole. This agrees very nearly with Mr. Leifchild's estimate in 1841, and gives an average of about 240 persons to each colliery. The largest number at that time was at the Heaton Colliery (a little to the northeast of Newcastle), amounting to 481. The Tyne, Wear, and Tees Collieries, together, produce the vast quantity of five million tons of coals annually! It is curious to look at a map in which these collieries are laid down-such as that which accompanies the Report of the Childrens' Employment' Commissioners. The pits are dotted here and there on both sides of the river, being more and more thickly congregated as they approach nearer to the river's banks. These pits are about a hundred in number: two or more, in some cases, belonging to the same colliery. Not less curious is it to trace the dotted lines which mark the 'ways'-one of the most characteristic features in the coal districts. As the river Tyne is the great outlet for nearly all the coal derived from the Tyne collieries (notwithstanding the spread of the railway system), some means must be adopted for reaching the Tyne. But how is this to be effected? The colliery may be situated six or eight miles from the river, and the surface ground between the two may belong to other parties. Long before passenger-railways were heard of, railways or tramways were laid down to facilitate the carriage of coals in trucks from the pits to the river; and we find these tramways following the best route which lies open to them. Now it is obvious that some arrangement must be made with the landed proprietors in these matters; and in truth these arrangements are often a grave question to the coal-owners. Although the expense of the mining operations is so great-although the establishment of a first-rate colliery, with its machinery, horses, wagons, &c., amounts to a sum varying from £40,000 to £150,000 (the sinking of a single shaft having, in one instance, cost £40,000): -although the capital employed by the Tyne coalowners is estimated at a million and a half sterlingyet are the way-leaves,' or 'way-rents,' an additional feature beyond all these, without which not a ton of coal can be brought to market. On taking a glance round the surface of the country underlaid by the coal-seams (especially at night), we become cognizant of a fact which must excite regret in every thoughtful mind. An immense amount of coal is burned to waste, because it will not afford to pay freight to London. This consists of small coal, which, when taken out of the pit, is not shipped, but lies as an incumbrance at the pit's mouth; and these heaps have on many occasions caught fire. The establishment of numerous manufactures on the banks of the Tyne has, however, increased the facilities for using the small coal. The character of the pitmen, the nature of their labour, the relations between them and their employers -all are dependent, more or less, on the mode in which the coal is distributed under the surface of the ground. To these deep-lying coals, therefore, we must ask the reader to pay an imaginary visit. First, then, how to descend? We see a vertical hole, or pit, pitchy dark, and surmounted above by a windlass, or some other means of raising weights. Two men are about to descend. They make a loop in the lower end of a rope, and each man inserts one leg in this loop, the two clinging together in a strange sort of perilous brotherhood. The windlass to which the rope is attached is set to work, and the two men are lowered safely to the bottom of the pit. If the rope should break, or the loop become unfastened—but it is fearful to speculate on such ifs!' Each man holds the rope by one hand, while with a stick in the other he shields himself from inconvenient oscillations. Sometimes there are two ropes in one pit, one ascending and the other descending: the two human loads meeting each other half-way. In some pits there are more couples than one thus clinging to the rope at the same time; and then one feels almost tempted to liken them to onions strung to a rope. Many collieries have corves, or baskets, in which the men are raised and lowered. Another plan is by means of a large iron tub, which holds eight or ten persons; but in the most modern arrangement there are square iron cases, working in vertical grooves, and capable of accommodating either men and boys or tubs of coal. The ropes employed in this work are evidently important features in the arrangement. In some collieries they have a round rope, from five to six inches in circumference; in some, a flat rope, four or five inches wide, and formed of three or four strands, or smaller ropes plaited side by side; in a few instances, chains are used. Some of these ropes are of immense length, owing to the depth of the pits. The deepest, we believe, in England, is the Monkwearmouth pit, belonging to the Durham, as distinguished from the Northumberland collieries: its depth is 292 fathoms, or 1752 feet. Two ropes for this pit weigh about 12,000lb., and cost more than £500. Arrived at the bottom of a pit, what do the pitmen see-or rather what does a stranger see who makes the descent? Nothing, or nothing but 'darkness visible.' All vestige of daylight is effectually shut out, and it is long before he becomes accustomed to the light of the candles carried by the men; each one appears as a mere spark, a point of light in the midst of intense darkness; for the walls or surfaces around are too dark to reflect much of the light. By degrees, however, the eye accommodates itself to the strange scene; and men are seen to be moving about in galleries or long passages, working in positions which would seem fit to break the back of an ordinary workman; while boys and horses are seen to be aiding in bringing the coal to the mouth of the pit. Some of these horses go through the whole of their career without seeing the light of day they are born in the pit, reared in the pit, and die in the pit. A coal mine is not simply a pit, with coal at the bottom of it. The pit is merely an entrance, from the bottom of which passages run out in every direction, to a great distance. These passages are cut in a 'seam' of coal, and are a natural result of the mode of working the coal. of working the coal. If the whole of a seam of coal were worked away at once, the cavity left would be so large that the earthen roof, failing of support, would fall, burying all beneath it: there are portions left, therefore, called 'pillars,' to support the roof; and the self-interest of the coal-owner leads him to limit the size of these pillars as much as is consistent with safety. Passages lead between and around and among these pillars; and iron tramways or railways are laid along the passages, to afford facilities for moving the corves or tubs of coal from the workings to the vertical shaft. Mr. Holland, in his History of Fossil Fuel,' speaks of the timidity which often prevents persons from visiting these striking scenes, where the pitman pursues, "Howe'er the daylight smiles or night-storms rave, Or whether climbs the sun his noontide track, "But if courage," he remarks, "be required to enter a coal-mine at ordinary depths, it is in descending THE WORKING AND MANAGEMENT OF A COAL-MINE. In most of the collieries around Newcastle, the seams of coal vary from two and a half feet to six feet in thickness. The pitmen are obliged to adopt different modes of procedure, in respect to the thickness of the seam. In ordinary cases, the hewer cuts with his pick a horizontal line at the bottom of the seam, to an extent of twelve or eighteen inches in advance of him; and to this extent the coal is severed from the ground beneath. He then makes a few cuts upwards, to isolate the coal into huge blocks, which still adhere at the back and the top to the general mass. The driving in of a few wedges, or the application of gunpowder as a blast, soon brings down these blocks, in a more or less broken state. Where the seam is very thin, or where it occupies an inclined position, various modes are adopted, each calculated to surmount a particular kind of difficulty. Without troubling the reader with any extended or scientific details, the following will give him some notion of ventilating and lighting a coal-mine. The seams of coal, and the appertures where such seams have been, often give out carburetted hydrogen and other gases, which, when mixed with common air, become very explosive. Hence it is important to drive these gases out of the mine as quickly as possible; and this can only be effected by sending a constant current of air through the workings. A complete system, as now adopted at the best collieries, comprises the downcast-shaft, for the descent of fresh air; the upcast-shaft, for the ascent of vitiated air; wellplanned galleries, doors, and valves, throughout the whole of the mine; and a furnace at the bottom of the upcast-shaft to heat the ascending air, and make it ascend more rapidly. In some collieries the air is made to traverse an extent of thirty miles of galleries and passages! In former times the dangerous contaminated passages were lighted only by sparks struck from a small instrument called a 'steel-mill;' but the beautiful safety lamp-or 'Davy,' as the miners familiarly term it has superseded this. In this lamp, there is a lamp-flame surrounded by a wire-gauze having very fine meshes, through which the air must pass to feed the flame; if the air be inflammable, the flame is confined within the gauze envelope; for the iron wire cools the gas too much to permit the flame to exist on the outside of the gauze. If the lamp be properly tended, it is one of the most precious boons that science ever gave to industry; if it be neglected-as it often is by the miners-those explosions take place, which so frequently give rise to such fearful results. From some collieries the gas which constantly escapes is in enormous quantity; so much so, indeed, that an attempt was made a few years ago to employ the gas from the Wallsend Colliery for gas-lighting in the neighbourhood. Some of the larger collieries require a stock of nearly a thousand 'Davys,' for the efficient working of their pits. The relations between a coal-owner and his pitmen have a more commercial and extensive character than those between a manufacturer and his operatives. The pitmen are always engaged for a year, and a regular 'bond' is drawn up between them and their employer. This period of a year commences on the 5th of April. As the chief among the pitmen are paid by 'piece-work,' the details are very minute, in order that disputes should as much as possible be avoided. The coal is measured by corves or tubs, which vary in their capacity from 16 to 30 coal-pecks; and a score consists of 20 corves at the Tyne collieries, or 21 at those of the Wear; but as each colliery has its own 'score' and its own 'corves,' all the parties concerned understand each other. The bond is made between the owners on the one hand, and the principal pitmen on the other. The men are, by its provisions, engaged for twelve months to "hew, work, drive, fill, and put coals." The seam of coal is specified, and the price named for hewing a 'score' of coal from it. A price is then named for 'putting' or driving a score of tubs-so much for the first eighty yards, and so much additional for every further twenty yards. Beyond the stipulated rate of pay, the coal-owners in some collieries engage either to provide a house for each miner, or allow a certain addition to the wages. The putters are to provide themselves with "candles, grease, and soams :" candles to light them along the dark passages, grease for their trams or vehicles, and soams (short ropes) for forming harness to their trams. The coal-owners engage that the pitmen shall have the opportunity of earning, throughout the year, not less than a certain fixed sum of money per week; while on the other hand, the pitmen engage that they will always be ready to perform a certain minimum amount of work within a given period. The coal-owners aflix their signatures, and the pitmen more usually their 'marks,' to this bond; and thus the year's labours are planned and settled. The persons engaged in a colliery are subdivided into a greater number of classes than might perhaps be supposed; and generally speaking, the technical designations of these classes is more significant than is usually observable in other industrial occupations; but some of them sound strangely to the ears of the uninitiated. They are distinguished into the two great groups of underground' and 'upperground' establishments: the former engaged in the pit, and the latter in conducting the open-air arrangements. The chief of them are occupied in a way which may be illustrated in the following connected view. The hewer is the actual coal-digger. Whether the seam be so narrow that he can hardly creep into it on hands and knees, or whether it be tall enough for him to stand upright in, he is the responsible workman who loosens the coal from its bed: such a man often extricates six tons of coal in a day. Next to the hewers come the putters, who are divided into trams, headsmen, foals, and half-marrows. These are all children or youths; and the employment consists in pushing or dragging the coal from the workings to the passages where horses are able to be employed in the work the distance that a corve or basket of coal is dragged in this way averages about a hundred and fifty yards. When a boy drags or 'puts' a load by himself, he is designated a tram; when two boys of unequal age and strength assist each other, the elder is called a headsman, and the younger a foal,—the former receiving eightpence out of every shilling earned conjointly by the two; when two boys of about equal age and strength aid each other, both are called half-marrows, and divide the earnings equally between them. The weight of coal dragged by these various classes of putters varies from five to ten hundred-weight to each corve; and the distance walked in a day varies from seven to nine miles, to and fro, along the iron tramways of the mine. When the corves are 'put' to a particular place, where a crane is fixed, the crane-man or cranehoister manages the crane by which the corves are transferred from the tramway to the rolleys; and for keeping an account of the number so transferred. The corf is a wicker-work basket, containing from four to seven hundred-weights; the rolley is a wagon for transporting the corves from the crane to the shaft; and the rolleyway is a road or path sufficiently high for a horse to work along it with the rolley, and kept in repair by the rolleyway-men. The driver takes charge of the horse, which draws the rolley along the rolleyway. The on-setter is stationed at the bottom of the shaft, to hook and unhook the corves and tubs which have descended, or are about to ascend the shaft. Many of these strange designations for the pitmen find a place in the stories and songs of colliery districts songs which cannot be at all understood unless we know something of the peculiar vocabulary of the place. In one of these pitmen's songs, called the 'Collier's Rant,' relating to the vaunted exploits of a putter, we find the following two stanzas: "As me and my marrow was ganging to wark, We met with the devil, it was in the dark; I up with my pick, it being in the neit, I knock'd off his horns, likewise his club feet! As me and my marrow was putting the tram, Follow the horses," &c. Besides all the varieties of pitmen hitherto named, who are immediately instrumental in bringing the coal to the bottom of the shaft, there are other men and boys whose employments are in various ways subsidiary to them, such as the furnace-men, who attend to the furnace for ventilating the mine; the horse-keeper, who attends to the horses in the pit; the lamp-keeper, who has the care of the all-important 'Davy' lamps,a careless management of which has led to so many colliery accidents; the wasteman, who walks along all the wastes,' or deserted workings, to clear away stones and rubbish which may have fallen, and to attend especially to any obstructions in the ventilation; the shifter, who, as a kind of labourer, assists the wasteman; the switch-keepers, who attend to the switches, or passing-places in the subterraneous railways; the trappers, little boys who are stationed at traps or doors in various parts of the mine, which doors they are to open when corves of coal are about to pass, but to keep closed at all other times, as a means of forcing the current of air for ventilation to follow certain prescribed channels; the way-cleaners, who cleanse the rails of the mine from time to time, to remove all obstruction from coal-dust, &c.; and the wood and water leaders, who carry props and wood to various parts of the mine for the use of the men, and who also remove water from the horse-ways and other parts of the pit. There are, of course, superintending officers of the mine, who are responsible, to a certain extent, for the due performance of all the work. The chief of these is the viewer, a person usually of great trust and experience. At the opening of a new pit or seam, he makes himself thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the stratification, the thickness of the seam, the probable extent and direction, and other matters of a similar kind; and his great problem is to determine how to bring up a given quantity of coal to the light of day with the least expenditure of time and labour. He arranges the whole plan of working; and he imposes certain restrictions and fines for such hewing as may be deemed unfair or wasteful. It requires a combined exercise of firmness and tact on the part of the viewer, to keep clear of disputes with the pitmen. The under-viewer, as the name imports, is an assistant to the viewer in his important duties. The overman is the third in rank among the officers of the colliery; he is the real working overseer, requiring some brains and much activity: he has the charge of everything underground, locates the work-people, examines the ventilation, and keeps an account of all the proceedings. The back-overman is to the overman what the underviewer is to the viewer. The deputy sets props, lays tram-roads, arranges the boarding and timbers of the pit, and has a watchful eye on the general safety of the whole workings. The keeper inspects the workings of the hewers. The reader has here ample means of observing that colliers are not merely blackened-faced diggers and shovellers, who attack the coal wherever they meet with it, and roam about in a dark pit, to seek their coaly fortunes. All is pre-arranged and systematic: |