Coalmining in New Zealand.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 May 1901, Page 610

Coalmining in New Zealand.

By Thomas McMahon

fUST now when the coalmining industry of this coloijy is claiming so much attention, both here and in many other parts of the world, a few words on the collier, his method of work, and his surroundings in general — by a collier — may not be out of place. Before proceeding further, let mo be candid and point out that everything this article contains is written without exaggeration, and with the strictest regard to veracity, my only motive being to lay befoi^e the reader the dangei's, difficulties, and hardships which beset a collier in New Zealand. Some years ago it fell to my lot to follow the occupation of a coal miner as a means of livelihood, and for a considerable time I was employed by the Westport Coal Company at Denniston, the unique spot where most of our best Coalbrookdale coal is obtained. Denniston, though situated on the fertile,

golden West Coast, completely belies the name of its locality, inasmuch as it is one of the most sterile, dreary patches on (rod's wide earth. A plateau that is completely devoid of vegetation, save a mongrel growth of herbage that no living creature can exist on, stretches away for miles on every side to the feet of surrounding mountains. This plateau, having for its soil a boggy kind of turf or peat that utterly defies anything in the shape of successful gardening, is so barren that it seems as if the very mineral wealth beneath had perished all nourishment on the surface. The vast field of coal, which lies under the plateau, can also be traced to the rLountains, which in many parts show outcrops of very tine seams, many of them as much as twenty feet in thickness. The little township of Denniston itself is about fourteen miles' journey from Westport, the coaling station, and looks out over the

Pacific Ocean from the 'outermost edge of the rising j ground at an elevation of fully two thousand feet, I daresay many people will be astonished to know that one of the finest pieces of engineering to be seen in the Southern Hemisphere is the Denniston incline. Words fail entirely to give anything like a correct idea as to what this wonderful bit of machinery is really like. Railway waggons are negotiated up and down what appears to be a perpendicular grade of at least a mile and a-half with astonishing ease and simplicity. A haulage system, controlled by hydraulic brakes, is in vogue, whereby the weight of the full waggon descending draws the ascending empty waggon up with the speed of an express train. In consequence of frequent accidents, the practice of riding on this steep declivity has been totally forbidden. However, when it wns ■ allowed (which was the case at

one time) I remember having the unpleasant experience of a rido up, and shall never forgot it. In starting the massive wire rope, nearly two inches in di« meter, it straightened itself

out of the serpent-like coils that were lying slack in front of the waggon till it grew taut on the connecting link with a sna/p ; there it stayed for a brief moment, then took a swift but gentle swerve. After that I felt the air go by with a rush, and the world seemed wheeling into space. Up and down the great rope swayed, and in some places, where the incline gullies, far ahead like a straight bar of iron, it appeared to be about fifty or sixty feet in the air. Sometimes the rushing noise of the air in my ears was drowned by a louder roaring as I shot across one of the many long trestleworks. Up ! up, I went with my head swimming, and the woi'ld still falling away like one of Jules Verne's characters till speed slackened off, and with a sigh of relief I stepped from the waggon on the level at the incline head. The waggons traverse two inclines of this description before they are met at what is

known as the tiphead, and filled by the small half-ton trucks that come direct from the mine. This is a brief description of the outer workings, bnt underground is wliei'e the real ingenuity and energy of coalmining begins. There we have a scene that affords abundant food for any writer who would picture hair-breadth escapes and thrilling adventure. Perhaps the following verse, all the more likely to have inspiration faithful to life, since I wrote it in the days when I was in the heat of the pursuit, will help to give some slight conception of what may be seen there : — " 0 who could limn a picture grim To depict the dark so ac scene, With shade and light, and coloured bright The blue gas streaks between ? A picture weird and grand and strange, Portrayed by master hand, To life drawn true for the world to view, In the eyes of the world to stand."

nels driven in the coal. The width of a bord is eighteen feet, a heading is only nine, and is regarded as the main drive. Bords are driven in the first instance at a distance of a chain apart, and lead off on both sides right and left from the heading or main drive. Stentings, or what are known as air ways, are in turn put through from bord to bord, and so on until the whole seam becomes practically honeycombed. Ultimately, when the seam is worked out in this way, the question of taking out the remaining blocks of coal or pillars ai-ises. Sometimes the roof will stand on nothing but timber until an acre or even more of pillars has been removed, then it slowly starts to crush. As the great weight of perhaps a solid mile of earth comes on them, the

props at first begin to give a light tick, which generally

increases till they begin to crack like revolver shots. After comes the crash as the whole mass caves iv with a roar like thunder, demolishing everything in its course, and taking perhaps another acre of solid pillars with it. For weeks before the collapse the colliers mostly run a terrible risk in endeavouring to get as much coal as possible before the roof caves in finally.

False alarms are frequent, aud twenty times a day, with his heart in his mouth, the excited miner, with a look in his face like a hunted rat, grasps his tools and runs, expecting to hear the dreaded rumble behind. His greatest danger here lies in his light going out, as it often does in the hurry of escaping. Of course if such a thing happens, and the fall is really taking place, he is doomed. Taking time to strike a match and relight, is altogether out of the question. It invariably takes weeks to recover the

bodies of men caught in this way, so great is the mass of earth enveloping them. When three or four seams lie directly one above the other, as is not unfrequontly tha case, the danger from this particular source is even greater than ever.

In coalmining, just as in other spheres of life, each and all have their various positions. There is the collier, who hows, blasts and fills. The recent introduction of the iron man — a machine to undermine and prepare the coal for blasting — has taken a good deal of arduous work off his hands.

Then there is the wheeler or trucker. He is the man who pushes the trucks along in low drives and other places inaccessible to horses. Some wheelers push the trucks with their hands, others with their heads. I have often seen men bald headed, patches of their hair having been worn oft' with pursuing this stupid practice.

Along with the wheeler and the collier there is the deputy, who examines/ the mine before the shift commences to see that it is all clear of gas. This individual has also other duties to perform, such as laying rails? cutting props to the right length, etc., etc.

Horse driving is another occupation. The driver takes the tracks through the mine in races, and deposits them in lay-bys, places similar to, and answering the same purpose as railway sidings. Here the trucks are received by the hangers-on, boys who attach the trucks to an endless rope, much on the cable car system. By this means then the coal goes forth to daylight and the world. It would take too much space to detail, so I have only named the most important stages in ■connection with the handling of the coal.

Considering that all this work has to be accomplished with the aid of only a small teapot-shaped oil lamp that hangs in the worker's cap, it is really wonderful that there is so little loss of life. Many fatal accidents, no doubt, occur from time to time, but in proportion to the dangers

incurred, the fatality list is comparatively small. Though the average wage of the qualified miuer is about ten shillings per day, taken as a whole his life is slavery in the highest degree. A man requires to be endowed with enormous physical strength to follow it, and unless he possesses the knowledge gained by long experience his pay will not be very remunerative.

The hours of toil, including the walk to and from work, give an average of some eleven hours a day, while the effects of excessive heat and damp have to be endured alternately. ' Often it is necessary, where the supply of air is insufficient, to work in a state of semi-nakedness. Men at work in these places sometimes suffer greatly, and even have to be carried out in a pitiful condition, gasping for breath. On the other hand, working in a dip drive with chasms in the roof that allow the surface water to come through will necessitate the constant use of -a pump to allow the work to proceed, and will usually keep the men in a drenched condition from starting time till knock off.

Dangers threaten at every point. Overhead hangs a roof that is none too safe, and is quite liable to drop between the scattered npright props at any moment, without the slightest warning. In this connection a thing that is very strange is how little concern the fall of a few tons of rock or coal — the roof may be composed of either — »ives an experienced collier, no matter in what close proximity it falls ; in fact, he regards it as a mere nothing. Added to this, there is the t,oal dust or a gas explosion ready to develop instantly, besides other innumerable dangers lurking at every corner-, such, for instance, as being caught in the darkness by runaway tracks. For the miner, who is the direct hewer of the coal, what is termed pillaring is really the most dangerous work. Bordsj or headings, are tun-