THE COLLIERY MANAGER'S HANDBOOK A COMPREHENSIVE TREATISE ON THE LAYING- DESIGNED AS A BOOK OF REFERENCE FOR COLLIERY MANAGERS AND FOR THE USE OF COAL-MINING STUDENTS PREPARING MINING ENGINEER AND SURVEYOR, MEMBER OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND OF THE SOUTH WALES INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS With nearly 500 Plans, Diagrams, and other Illustrations CROSBY LOCKWOOD AND SON 7, STATIONERS' HALL COURT, LUDGATE HILL 1891 [All rights reserved] PREFACE. EVEN a slight acquaintance with the duties and responsibilities of a Colliery Manager will lead to the conclusion that he had need be almost omniscient within his own province. Besides his responsibility for satisfactory results in the openingout and working of a colliery, under the ever-varying conditions of coal-mining enterprise, there rests upon him a heavy legal as well as moral responsibility which no true man would wish to shirk, and in the discharge of which he has to prepare for that which happens more often, perhaps, in his career than in that of most professional men-viz., the unexpected. It becomes him, therefore, to fit himself beforehand in every possible way for the discharge of his onerous duties. In so doing he will have to acquire the rudiments of Geology, Chemistry, and Electrical Engineering; a good deal more than the rudiments of Mechanical Engineering, Surveying, and Plan-making; and to make himself master of the mysteries. comprised in the comprehensive terms Practical Mining and Ventilation. Further, he must be thoroughly versed in the obligations imposed upon him and his subordinates by the Acts of Parliament bearing on the subject of Coal Mining, and by the Special Rules in force in any given district. The Author is well aware, after twenty years' experience, that the best and indeed the only satisfactory preparation for the efficient discharge of the duties of the Colliery Manager is that which is to be gained in the laborious school of experience; but he knows also that the wise use of a carefully prepared and comprehensive handbook-such as he ventures to believe the volume now in the reader's hand will be found to be-would have been to him an incalculable boon in the earlier years of his course, and hardly less so subsequently as a book |