Leg |
A woodend prop supporting one end of a cross timber |
| Level | See entry |
| Lignite Coal | Soft coal or brown coal the more recently deposited carboniferous materials often retains a wood like structure and forms a fuel with properties between peat and bituminous coal |
| Loader | Miner who shovels coal onto the conveyors along the longwall face or in the stalls |
| Longwall | A system of working a seam in which the whole seam is extracted leaving only pillars supporting the shafts and main roads. The long wall is often 300 or more feet long this system is used in thin (2.5 to 5 foot) coal seams |
| MaGinty | Three sheaves (wheels in a pully or block) over which a rope is passed to take a course like a a letter "M" the friction causes the ropw to slid with diffuculty used for lowering the loaded cars from the face down the steep roads |
| Man Hole | A refuge hole cut in the side of an entry as a place or refuge in case of run away trips |
| Measure | A series of rock strata having some common feature; a general term for the sedinmentrary rock within a coal field |
| Miner | A worker in a mine with a vaild certificate of competency as a miner |
| Mucker | One who shovels the bug dust or fine coal produced by the cutting machine clear of the face in longwall mining |
| Naked Light | A candle or any form of light that is not a safety lamp |
| Niggerhead | A hard concentrate of carbonate of iron found as boulders in seams of the Comox Coal Field |
| Nut Coal | Small coal that will pas through screens with openings that vary from one half to two inches |
| Open Cast | Coal mining on the surface of the ground: ie without any cover |
| Overcast | A passageway through which the ventilating current is carried over another road way |
| Overman | One who is in charge of the mine when the men are in it |
| Overwind | To hoist the cage over or into the headframe |
| Pack wall | A wall of stone or rubbish built at the side of raod ways to support the roof |
| Pea Coal | Small pieces of coal about one half to three quarters inch in size |
| Picking Table | A shaking or movable platform on which shale is hand picked from the coal; a sorting table |
| Pillar | A section of the coal seam left between stalls or rooms while the coal in the stalls is being extracted; pillars can be 30 to 50 feet in width ultimately as much of the pillar as possible is removed after the original stalls are worked out the size of the pillars was determined by the stability of the surrounding rock |
| Pillar and Room | A system of working by which solid clocks of coal are left on either side of the entries and the roofs where the coal is extracted to act as supports when the rooms are worked out the pillars are mined; used to mine thick coal seams sometimes called pillar and stall |
| Pit | Term for Colliery the coal coal mined in general |
| Pit Boss | Holder of a second class mining certificate and in charge of a shift in a particular mine; second to the manager in authority and deals with the day to day problems in the mines; an undermanager |
| Pit Head | The complex of buildings comprising the head frame and tipple of the mine the coal handling facilities at teh surface of the mine |
| Pit Prop | A round piece of timber used as a temporary support for the roof of the mine |
| Pop shot | A shot is a shallow hole in which only a small amount of explosive is used |
| Puncher or Punching Machine | An undercutting machine driven by compressed air that breaks the coal with a reciprocating action |
| Putter | The worker who drives the pony hauling loaded cars from the face to a gather point in the mine (term used in the North of England) |
| Regulator | A door in a mine with a shutter that can be opened or closed to vary the voulme of air in a section of the mine |
| Return Air | Air that has passed through the workings |
| Rib | The sides of a pillar or roadway |
| Room | A stall or working place where coal is mined |
| Safety Lamp | A lamp in which the flame is protected by fine mesh gauze so that a mixture of fire damp can be detected by its buring inside the lamp; generally used to detect the presences of dangerous gases in a the mine by the miner observing the color of the flame |
| Scab or Blackleg | A worker who works contrary to union order or during a strike |
| Scraper | A tool used to scrape the dirt from a borehole |
| Screenings | Device or system for separating coal into different sizes or grades for marketing |
| Seam | The deposit of coal in the strata |
| Seepage | Groundwater or runoff entering the mine workings and accumulating in the lower levels |
| Set of Timber | Usually three pieces of timber consisting of two legs and crosspieces used in supporting the roof of the mine along the haulage ways or other passage ways |
| Shaft | A vertical or nearly vertical hole in which men and material are hosied and through which air is drawn into the mine |
| Shift Boss | Miner in charge of a particular shifte.g afternoon shift under the pit boss in the hierarchy of mine supervision |
| Shooting | Blasting in a mine |
| Shot Lighter | A man appointed by the manager to fire shots in a section of the mine |
| Slack | Fine coal; the fine coal resulting from handling and degradation of soft coal |
| Slickenside | The polished face of a fault plane in the strata |
| Slope | A roadway driven to the dip of the seam as opposed to an incline |
| Sprag | A short wooden prop set at an angle to support the coal during the operation of holing a short piece of hardwood point at the ends to act as a brake when placed in the spokes of a car |
| Squeeze | The gradual downward thrust of the roof of the mine where the coal has been removed |
| Stall | A working compartment in a coal mine usually used in seams 6 feet or more in thickness (stalls would be aprox 14 feet wide) sometimes called a room |
| Stemming | The material usually clay or rock dust used to tamp shot holes when blasting |
| Strap | Pieces of wood usually 6 feet long 6 inches wide and 2 inches thick used as crosspieces in timbering over the props on a longwall face also used between the stringers and entries or levels also called lagging |
| Stope | Technique to mine underground ore bodies by creating rooms |
