Looks fairly terrifying don't you think ?

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Konigin Luise Mines.
These mines are situated near to the village of Zabrze
Principal seam of coal is called the Schuckmann Flotz; it ranges from 19 feet to 26 feet in thickness, and at the Von Krug shaft, where the writer saw it in work, its thickness was 23 feet.

The miners have to rapport themselves upon ladders, and the roof is sustained by means of long timber and lofting.
Grim is the appearance of these gigantic stalls, rilled with a forest of pine trees, through which are scarcely seen the dim lights of the pitmen mounted high aloft, where they ply their perilous craft.

Scale is obviously not one of the artist's talents. Unless they're all midgets anyway...

Indeed, holding a ruler against the screen it does imply the miners are about 3ft tall.

Checking back at the minutes of the meeting

Mr C G Greenwell Esq in the chair was heard to say "I would hazard that Mr Galloway is pulling our plonkers with that diagram, is the mine run by midgets or what ?"

Mr Galloway apologised profusely stating the dog had eaten the original and he had knocked that up in a hurry just before the meeting.

The meeting then broke for port and cigars.

Maybe they were children? Or hobbits? 🙂

the dog had eaten the original

Bo**ocks. That excuse doesn't work now and didn't work then.

Reminds me more of the kind of scale you get in the big Ffestiniog slate mines.The ladders used to inspect the ceiling in these huge chambers are a quite something! 😢

Really does look something like that, but without the wooden props

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This seems like the perfect place to show this postcard i scanned the other day, taken in a Polish Coal mine at Katowice.

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Not 1870 but the propping techniques obviously hadn't changed much by 1929.

Interesting photo!

Still think Mr Galloway got confused in the dark and he was actually in a slate mine 🙂

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And yet in South Staffs. they worked the Ten Yard Seam i.e. 30 feet of coal.

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And yet in South Staffs. they worked the Ten Yard Seam i.e. 30 feet of coal.

Would that have been worked en bloc or would it be split say into separate levels with some of the coal left?

Appears the 10 yard seam was not one solid seam

http://www.blackcountrysociety.co.uk/articles/mining2.htm 

The same seam extends through the Warwickshire coalfield,were its also called the Warwickshire Thick Coal,
5m were worked in Dawmill,with coal above.

One of the boy`s on the Welshcoalmines worked in many of these Collieries in the area since moving up in the late 40`s,reckoned the older Miner`s worked the full seam in places,either adopting a bench method,were the seam was worked in stages,or splitting the seam,holding coal up as the stall was driven to its distance,then poling the top coal down on retreat.
But like most seams,thickness`s vary from area to area,and the muck thickness`s between also differ,were in some area`s 2 or more seams come together,in other area`s the thickness`s of muck between make it not an option to work together.
From boreholes back in the 70`s,this Thick Coal extends down through Oxfordshire and possibly Berkshire,but its depth makes it impossible to work conventionally,but a good source for coal gasification.

Well it's artists init. I do art too, I think it's great. Some of the early photos of Snowdonia & The highlands had SLIGHTLY (operative word) exaggerated landscape features.

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Lookis like a dig were doing at Alderley :lol:

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Where do you get the hobbits from Edd ? :lol:

They seem to find us :lol:

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