5 pit, which
was 240 feet deep, and found the seam was very thick, from 10 to 11
feet,
But not very solid block coal, having apparently been crushed.
The mines are all connected with wharves on the coast at Departure Bay
by a three-feet gauge railway; the lines around the mines were all in
fair order. The line is worked by small locomotives, six wheels coupled
and no truck, of the Baldwin Locomotive Company's manufacture, the load
handled by them being 15 cars, each containing 3-1/2 tons of coal, and
averaging in dead weight 1-3/4 tons each. The grade down to the port is
very steep, and the heaviest work for the engines is in taking the
empties back again.
"The coal is mined by white miners, who employ each of them a Chinese
labourer; they employ gunpowder for blasting purposes, chiefly Curtis &
Harvey's make, and use naked lights of oil. The miners are found in all
tools except their auger drills, which they all use, and which cost
some $30 each. Each miner has an allowance of one ton of coal per month
for his own use. There was a little drip at the foot of the shaft we
went down, but otherwise the mine was quite dry. The mode of unloading
the cars at the wharf was rather primitive, but at the same time simple
and ingenious. When the car has been weighed it is run forward by five
Chinamen to the end of the wharf, the front end of the car being hinged
at the top, with a catch opened by a lever, a short piece of track
sufficiently long for the car to stand upon is built projecting beyond
the wharf and over the hold of the vessel, this piece of track is laid
on a framework, which is hinged to the wharf in front so as to tip up
from behind, to it is attached a long wooden pole as a lever, round the
end of which is a rope, made fast to the wharf by a belaying pin; as
soon as the car is on the tipping track, the lever on the front end of
the car is knocked up so as to allow the coal to fall out, and the end
of the long wooden pole is allowed to rise slowly by the rope being
loosened, the coal then shoots out of the car.
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