gathered round us; and few know the danger and hardship of the bold worker who risks his life to procure the coal.  The first step is to find out if there is coal.  This done, the next is to get at it, or, as it is termed, to win the coal.  The process is to sink a shaft, and this is alike dangerous, uncertain, and very costly.  The first attempt to sink a pit at Haswell in Durham was abandoned after an outlay of L60,000.  The sinkers had to pass through sand, under the magnesian limestone, where vast quantities of water lay stored, and though engines were erected that pumped out 26,700 tons of water per day, yet the flood remained the conqueror.  This amount seems incredible, but such is the fact.  At another colliery near Gateshead (Goose Colliery), 1000 gallons a minute, or 6000 tons of water per day, were pumped out, and only 300 tons of coal were brought up in the same time, and thus the water raised exceeded the coal twenty times.  The most astonishing undertaking in mining was the Dalton le Dale Pit, nine miles from Durham.  On the 1st June 1840 they pumped out 3285 gallons a minute.  Engines were erected which raised 93,000 gallons a minute from a depth of 90 fathoms or 540 feet, and this was done night and day.  The amount expended to reach the coal in this pit was L300,000.  Mr. Hall estimates the capital invested in the coal trade of the counties of Durham and Northumberland, including private railways, waggons, and docks for loading ships, at L13,000,000 sterling.

The great difficulty in working coal, should these upper seams fail, is not only the increase of cost in sinking further down, but the increased heat to be worked in.  At 2000 feet the mine will increase in heat 28 deg., at 4000, 57 deg.; to this must be added the constant temperature of 50 deg. 5’, so that at 2000 feet it would be 78 deg. 5’, and at 4000, 107 deg. 5’ Fahr.  By actual trial on July 17, 1857, in Duckingfield Pit, the temperature at 2249 feet was 75 deg. 5’.  From this it may be conceived in what great heat the men have to work, and the work is very hard.  One may fancy from this what can be endured, but it would be next to impossible to work in a greater temperature.  I can speak upon this from actual experience, as when down the Lady Londonderry Pit the temperature was 85 deg., and here the men worked naked.  Another great source of expense and anxiety lies in keeping up the roof, as, from the excessive pressure, the roof and floor are always inclined to come together, and props must therefore be used, and these in some pits cost as much as L1500 a year.  To digress for a moment, an amusing story is told of Grimaldi, the celebrated clown, when paying a visit to a coal-pit.  Having gone some way through the mine, a sudden noise, arising from the falling of coal from the roof, caused him to ask the reason of the noise.  “Hallo!” exclaimed Grimaldi, greatly terrified, “what’s that?” “Hech!” said his guide, “it’s only a wee bit of coal fallen down—­we have that three or four times a day.”  “Then I’ll thank you to ring for my basket, for I’ll stop no longer among the wee bits of falling coal.”  This “wee bit” was about three tons’ weight.  A large proportion of the sad accidents in coal-mines is caused by these falls of the roof, which give no warning, but suddenly come down and crush to death those who happen to be near.