A LOST COAL SEAM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10416, 21 March 1912, Page 2

A LOST COAL SEAM.

TTS R ECO VERY. Miners, all the world ov(*r, are constantly forced to put their money and time into tho eoalo against Nature's capaciousness. Ten years ago, for oxamplo (says the ''Weekly Telegraph"), tho great Graigola coal seam at Clydach, in Glamorganshire, suddenly gave out. 'The Beam was no less, than five feet six inches in thickness, and the coal of splendid quality. What had happened was this: Thousands of years ago, when tho coal had been but recently formed and buried, a. frightful earthquake convulsed that part of the country, cracked, the whole seam in two, and shifted the two halves far apart, pushing ono up, and deeply burying the other.

This much the mining engineers could fica from tlio look of the rocks; but tho question was, " Whence had the rest of tho seam gone?" • The only thins; to be done was to calculate as nearly as possible vhere it lay, and mako a fresh boring to find it. Pluckilv tho mine-owners set to work. Tt meant spending thousands with a strong possibility of their labour and money being lost, alike. But they persevered. For two long years thev worked, and, just when hope was disappearing, they hit 011 the seam agnii\ on tho other side of the fault.

Tho long struggle to find coal in Kent was a costly and often disheartening piece of business. During fivo years, dating from 1897 to 1902, no less than a million pounds sterling was wagcrod by the Kent Colliery Company upon the knowledge) of its engineers and geologists.

For d-iys on cud 3ft- O'Driscoll and Sir Owen SliK'ko stood at the bottom of tho 1000 ft shaft and watched the steel drill slowly biting its way through tough rook strata, another hundred foot below them. Tnch by inch, and foot li.v foot, it« heon edges travelled downwards, and sample after sample of tho stuff brought up in its coil was examined.

At last the depth was reached at which tho Itrady borehole, made fourteen years before, bad shown indications of coal. Yet no coal was seen. Tho rock bewail to envo in, and the drill worked mere slowly than ever. Thursday, the day on which the coal was exnectcil to be reached, j>asi?od, and Kridav dratted slowlv away. At last the drill {rave a sudden plunge. Something Milt was below it. A few minutes and it was lifted, and in its hollow end lay a cylinder of coal 2ft ii: iciigl.h.