Coal, while one of the most valuable of our
minerals, is also one of the most abundant. The output in Stirlingshire
during 1879 was 967,855 tons – the collieries of the western district
producing 257,539 tons, and those of the eastern 710,316. Of ironstone
there was likewise raised in the western district 105,947 tons, and in
the eastern 2,819; making a total of 108,766 tons. The amount of
fire-clay raised, for the same period, was 8,219 tons; and of oil shale,
1,135. Throughout the county, there are at present 34 pits open, the
principal of which are in the districts of Bannockburn, Auchenbowie,
Denny, Lennoxtown, Kinnaird, Falkirk, Redding, and Slamannan; while the
number of men engaged over-all is stated to be about 1,800. As regards
the coal-fields of the world, although our own land does not contain the
largest amount of fossil fuel, its output is greater than that of any
other country. The extent of the coal-fields in Great Britain is said to
be 4,251 square miles; while the annual weight raised is now usually
estimated as equal to 35,000,000 of tons. The home consumption is stated
to be 23,000,000 of tons per annum and if coal costs the consumer an
average price of 7s. per ton, then 23,000,000 tons will be worth in all
over 8,000,000 pounds sterling. The total number of persons engaged in
the work of British collieries has been computed at from 160,000 to
180,000; and that the total capital thus employed is no less than
10,000,000 pounds.
The following short calculation will give
the results of all that can be conjectured as to the amount of
vegetation in coal: - Wood affords in general about 20 per cent, and
coal about 80 per cent, of charcoal. Apart, therefore, from the oxygen
and hydrogen, it must have required 4 tons of wood to yield the charcoal
which we find in 1 ton of coal. Let us then suppose a forest composed of
trees 60 feet high, that the trunk of each tree contains 80 cubic feet,
and the branches 40, making 120; the weight of such a tree, at 700
specific gravity, will be 2 1/4 tons; and allowing 130 trees to an acre,
we have 300 tons on that space. Further supposing the portion that falls
annually, leaves and wood, to be equal to one-thirtieth, we have 10 tons
of wood annually from an acre, which yields 2 tons of charcoal; and this
charcoal, with the addition of bitumen, forms 2 1/2 tons of coal. Now a
cubic yard of coal weighs almost exactly a ton; and a bed of coal, 1
acre in extent and 3 feet thick, will contain 4,840 tons. It follows,
therefore, that 1 acre of coal is equal to the produce of 1,940 acres
(i.e., 4,840 divided by 2 1/2) of forest; or, if the wood all grew on
the spot where its remains exist, the coal bed 3 feet thick, and 1 acre
in extent, must be the growth of 1,940 years.
It need not be said that the pit as a
workroom is peculiarly dangerous. The collier, in fact, must be seen
"holing," for the more than common difficulties and perils of
his trade to be fully understood. Flat on his side, or down on his
"hunkers," or knees, long and laboriously he pikes, working
out the block of coal from the wall or seam.
When Bruce, the traveller, returned from
Abyssinia to Kinnaird, he was greatly dissatisfied with the way in which
his collieries had been wrought. After some stormy disputes with the
lessees, he agreed to submit the matter to a committee of experienced
coal engineers, who accordingly met at Kinnaird, inspected the mines,
and made every endeavour to form an impartial judgment. Conversing one
day with those gentlemen, he challenged something which one of them said
respecting the condition of the mines; whereupon the engineer said,
"If you are not afraid, Mr. Bruce, go down and satisfy yourself on
the point by personal investigation." The word "afraid"
startled Bruce. "Afraid!" said he in his own peculiarly
commanding way; "Sir, do you think I should be afraid to go down
into my own mines?" At once he engaged to descend with them, the
following day, into the "Carse Pit;" and they as eagerly took
him at his word, having secretly determined to punish him for the
unreasonable way in which he had disputed many of their statements.
"He speaks of Nubian sands," quoth one to another that
evening; "We’ll show him something worse to-morrow, if I am not
mistaken." Next day, accordingly, Bruce appeared at the mouth of
the pit; and, after donning a suitable suit, went down with his corps of
engineers. The strata were not very thick at the best, and many of the
wastes were considerably crushed and fallen in. Walking underground was,
consequently, anything but pleasant; nevertheless, as the engineers had
arranged, in they went, up one waste and down another, leading the
adventurer such a dance as traveller never danced before. All the while
the engineers pretended to demonstrate to Bruce the conclusions at which
they had arrived. Sometimes the party would be stooping in rectangular
form; sometimes wading up to the ankles in wet coal mud; and at other
times reduced to crawling on their hands and knees for a quarter of a
mile. At one part, the engineers passed through an aperture barely wide
enough for themselves, who were men of moderate size, and cruelly narrow
for Bruce. He tried the passage, but stuck in it; and had to be
extricated by the head and shoulders. Again reaching the bottom of the
shaft, the figure which he presented is not to be described. Still, up
to the last, he maintained his usual composure, and only remarked that
he certainly was surprised at the dirtiness of the wastes.
The Snab pit at Kinneil, with a depth of
1200 feet, is one of the deepest shafts in Scotland. In that Bo’ness
district, both coal and ironstone abound; there being some seven or
eight principal seams of the former, one of which carried a thickness of
12 feet, and two seams of the latter which is black-band in character.
One of the most remarkable collieries in the country was wrought here
under water. The strata of coal being found to extend far out beneath
the firth, the colliers had the courage to work half-way across the
channel. A building, or moat as it was called, half-a mile from the
shore, and taking the form of a round quay, afforded an entrance into
the sea-pit, but, ultimately, an unusually high tide came which drowned
the whole of the miners.
Pits are apt to become all the more fiery
the deeper they are wrought; and, where the area excavated is extensive,
special statutory attention should be given to upcast and downcast
shafts. Never in the annals of our mining industry has there been havoc
to equal the appalling destruction of human life of which the last few
years have been witness. Colliers, considering the critical character of
their calling, are careless beyond all credence. They may be reasoned
with, fined, and even dismissed, for rashly flying in the face of rules
specially framed with the object of protecting life and property, but
all to no purpose. A manager of one of the largest of the Scotch
collieries once caught a miner filling his flask from a barrel of
gunpowder, while an oil-lamp with open flame hung from his bonnet. What,
however, from the enlightened provisions of modern science, and stricter
regard to the most ordinary chemical precautions, pit labour is ever
getting less and less perilous to the health and life. The Davy lamp, no
doubt, is in some measure to be thanked for the now comparative rarity
of explosions, such catastrophes generally having occurred from the
workman’s light coming into contact with inflammable air, or, in other
words, hydrogen gas. And a word with respect to the collier’s general
health. From his toil, so peculiarly chest-trying, it is easy to see why
he so rarely shows the "auld grey frostit head." With an
average life of only twenty-seven years, he is little short of a
phenomenon at fifty; and when found at that "patriarchal age,"
is generally a crouching invalid, emaciated and breathless. And the
diseases to which he is specially liable are those affecting the
respiratory organs. "Housemaid’s knee" – an acute
inflammation over the knee-pan – is a very painful and common sore
throughout his class; but the great hydra of the pit is asthma, with the
constant tendency to bronchitis in the winter season, and this ailment
not unfrequently ends in enlargement of the liver and dropsy.
"Black-spit" is another health-undermining, although not
mortal disease comparatively, reaching to such intensity at times that a
fluid like tar runs out of the throat. Yet this melanosis, strange to
say, seems preventive of other affections of the lungs. Consumption, for
example, is never heard of amongst colliers; and its absence from the
Hebridean poor has also been observed – people who are continually
inhaling a carbonaceous atmosphere from the peat-reek of their huts. The
tissue of the miner’s lungs appears most tenacious of the charcoal
deposits. Some years ago, on the occasion of a female body being
dissected in the neighbourhood of Falkirk, the surgeon who performed the
post-mortem operation could tell at once, from the blackness of the
lungs, that the woman in early life had been engaged underground,
although thirty years had elapsed from the day on which she left the
pit. And we have the same baneful dust ruining the health of the
moulders in our foundries. The late Dr. Graham, latterly master of the
Mint, on analyzing the lungs of a workman who had wrought at Carron for
about forty years, found even as much as a fourth of them pure charcoal.
When the oil lamp was abolished from the
mine, asthma and black spit were thought to have received their
death-blow. And the tallow now in use has certainly done away, to a
great extent, with the lamp-black deposits that have hitherto proved so
detrimental to collier vitality. It is, in fact, rare now to find any of
the younger pitmen afflicted with asthma, except where the disease may
be fairly considered hereditary; and further improvements in
pit-lighting are at present being contemplated.
A great deal of nonsense has, of late,
been written about the dusky heroes of the mine. Everywhere they have
been represented as a brutal, illiterate, and godless class; and it
cannot be denied that their conduct, so far from being the genuine
embodiment of every virtue, is still in a great measure rude, and
perhaps not quite up to the ordinary standard. Yet not so sweepingly can
they be written down either barbarians or vagabonds. The great bulk of
the men employed in our new collieries undoubtedly lead a most riotous
life. Nor is it surprising that we should there find so much of the
baser dross of humanity. To these young coal workings, all the unsettled
Irish of the country flocked; and whatever wealth of wild goodness may
be common to the hot-headed Hibernian, at his door assuredly lies, for
the most part, the notorious blackguardism of our mining hamlets. That
lower and degraded class too, are without exception itinerants. Never
certain of steady employment, they keep themselves in readiness to take
up their bed at any hour and walk. It would be well, therefore, if by
some arrangement the miner could be made to feel sure of permanent work
and a settled home. No doubt there are peculiar difficulties in the way.
Colliers, of all the "sons of toil," are specially apt to get
dissatisfied and restless. Many of the steadiest hands have to be
frequently shifted in their workings; and even sent at times into a
different pit. By-and-by their power of muscle fails them – their
thews and sinews get weakened and worn, and the poor fellows go about,
as it were, seeking their lost strength.
As we have already hinted, the general
enlightenment and self-respect of the workmen connected with our older
collieries are undisputable; while a growing intelligence throughout
their ranks is ever raising them in the scale of moral being. From
Garscadden, for example, sang David Wingate – himself "A weary
bon’d miner," and a poet born. To read his songs, "The Deil
in the Pit," "The Burn in the Glen," and "My Little
Wife," is as refreshing as a norland breeze.
On some occasions, the pit must be
wrought night and day; and this is managed by one set of men working the
day-shift, and another set the night-shift. The night-shift is always
regarded somewhat of a hardship by the men, but by a change of the sets
it is fairly distributed amongst them all. The wages, which are paid
according to piecework, vary considerably in different districts, and
are liable to fluctuation. In some cases the quantity of coal a man may
put out in a day is limited by mutual consent, or in accordance with a
rule of the Union; in others, the working hours are limited, each man
being allowed to put out as much as he can in the stated time and again,
there are collieries at which there is no limitation either as to time
or quantity. A century ago, the wages of miners, all serfs, was from 7s.
to 8s 4d. a-week. In those days candles were used in the pit, which were
supplied by the masters without charge. The average wage is at present
3s. 6d a-day. In 1851, the average was 2s. 6d.; and in 1854, it was 5s.
A gradual decline took place; and in 1858 the average was 3s; below
which sum it has not fallen, the figures for the six succeeding years
being respectively 3s. 6d., 4s., 4s. 6d., 5s. 6d., and 4s. 9d. From
these sums about 3d. a-day falls to be deducted for light, sharpening
tools, &c. In 1871 and 1872, the wages rose to 10s. a day; and a
man, with two boys, could then make as much as 20s. This was a rare and
luxurious period for the colliers; but the times were too good to last.
With the close of ’72 came a reverse; and wages gradually declined
until they reached the present average rate above stated. The relations
between the Stirlingshire miners and their employers have been little
disturbed by disputes as to work or wages. In the west of Scotland the
case has been different – strikes being of frequent occurrence. |