How is coal gathered?

Answer 1

In the past, Native American Indians picked coal from river banks such as along the Monongahela River in SW Pennsylvania. The banks were steep in some places, and the rich vein of bituminous coal just "fell" out of the banks. In fact, the name Monongahela refers to falling banks. Indians were first to know that coal could be burned. They also scooped up petroleum that formed in puddles on the ground where it had seeped out from underneath. They knew oil healed skin wounds and rashes (hence Whites made petroleum jelly in the 1800s-- what we know as Vaseline today.

From "falling banks" where coal tumbled out, Whites could see coal seams going back into the cliffs. They dug with shovels and used slope mines to access the coal. Slope mines were either straight __ tunnels, or \ downward sloping. They soon found that coal mine roofs can fall. So they cut timber to hold up slate and coal.

In direct tunnel mining, it started off as a narrow opening that formed a tunnel straight in. ___ Miners used pickaxes and shovels to dig the coal out. They brought in donkeys to pull out carts laden with coal. They brought in birds in cages-- if a bird died, they knew to get out or odorless, colorless methane gas could kill the men. As long as it was safe, men followed the coal veins. Instead of timber in deeper mine sections, they left pillars of coal to hold up mine roofs. Coal pillars could stay until they mined out deeper sections. Mines were also cut with low roofs. So men were either bent over or crawled. Every once in a while, they'd dig out a chamber high enough for a man to stand. Eventually, miners laid railroaf tracks and used small "cars" to bring up men or coal, and take men back down again.

Other mines were vertical. A vertical shaft was drilled (much like oil was drilled after 1880). An elevator was put in to carry men down. A coal tipple with a conveyor belt brought coal from the deep recesses of the mine, up through the levels, and out onto the Tipple. In SW PA, WV, Ohio, Indiana, and KY, vertical shaft mining brought up many hundreds of tons of coal that men spent 3-shifts a day digging out of a mine.

In slope mining, tunnel mining, and vertical shaft mining, coal companies pushed the men to bring out every chunk or sliver of coal they could find. This turned into longwall mining, where a manmade wall was stripped of coal. Coal mines became mazes of tunnels, shafts, and stripped walls. In these mazes, an empty chamber on one side might have a tunnel on the other side -- and without warning, methane could build up in a once-used area. As men blasted using TNT (1800s through 1940s), blasting could set off an explosion from hitting a methane pocket. As well, mines have sources of groundwater leaking in constantly. Old mines often had chambers that filled with water, and one strike on the other side could unleash a flood within the mine.

On all of these mines, often coal could not easily be separated from clay in which it had formed. These chunks were carted out to a refuse pile outside the mine. Poor folks often trespassed to pick out coal to take home for heating or cooking. Homeless men (beggars) often lit a fire near the refuse and slept there. Sometimes, their made fires made an entire refuse heap start to burn. As well, these refuse heaps created an internal heat that could make the pile combust from within. Combustion fires would burn until all the coal burned off. This is how they discovered they could use the by-product of the burning. They called it "reddog" because of its red, pink, purple coloring. Reddog is a hard, often brittle type of "clinkers", like what would be in a coal furnace after the coal burned. Reddog could be used on rural roads as road covering (instead of driving on mud that could make deep trenches from tires). Reddog was used up through the 1970s on roads.

One other time of mining is surface mining. We know bituminous coal seams occur throughout the Pittsburgh Plateau (geology area). So men can bring in heavy equipment and dig out cliffs until they've stripped out all the coal and rocks.

The Mine Reclamation Act provided that mine companies must cover over old mines. They make parks or large hills.... and pretend a mine was never there.

Surface mining is still used. Shaft mining is still used. Many older mines are still used, too, but all have been automated. Most miners are out of work, with smaller shifts manned by fewer men.