Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1895 — WORK OF BREAKERS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WORK OF BREAKERS.

METHODS OF PREPARING HARD COAL FOR MARKET. Calm Banka Where the Breei; Lada Drive Mules and Pick Slate—A Miner's Home and Its Dlamal Surround* inga—Everyday Life. « In the Anthracite Region. The original method of preparing anthracite coal for market was simply to direst It of slate and other impurities, and of fine coal and slack. It was passed over a chute with longitudinal bars about two inches apart, and all that passed over the bars was merchantable coal, and all that passed through them was rejected. There was, consequently, much coal deposited on the dirt banks, which, at the present time, Is considered of full value; also, much left in the mines as unmerchantable on account of its small size. The market would not accept any coal that would not pass for lump coal. After a number of years It was suggested that coal for household purposes ought to be broken at tho mines, and

purchasers paid 50 cents extra a ton for coal 'broken down to a size suitable for burning In grates. The coal, thus prepared, was known in the market as “ broken and screened,” and It commanded SO cents per ton more than lump coal. Finding this mode o f preparation receiving popular

favor, the system was extended. Screens were manufactured of Iron rods (subsequently of wire) with meshes of various dimensions, which assorted the coal into the sizes now known in commerce. This refinement of preparation, resorted to by the operators to captivate their customers, added greatly to the cost of the coal, for which they were not renumerated, and it cultivated a fastidious fancy for uniformity of size, which was lmpractible and of no advatage. Indeed the caprice of the

customers in the demand for different sizes of coal, and the fluctuations from one size to another in their preferences, have been a fruitful source of expense and annoyance to the operators ever since the introduction of tlio system. The first method of breaking coal on the pile with hammers was slow, wasteful, expensive and laborious. After being broken it was shoveled into barrows and dumped in to the cars. The coal was then hauled to landings with horses or mules on the railroad, dumped on the wharf, screened and assorted Into various sizes and deposited on a pile, ready to be wheeled into the boat. The whole process was crude, primitive, expensive and, compared with the present system, absurd. The matter of breaking and preparing the coal became the subject of great cogitation among the operators, and many Improvements were suggested, which finally resulted in the massive structure of wood and machinery, known then and to the present day as the “coal breaker." The machinery constituting the breaker is driven by steam engines, generally of 50 to 100 horse power, and consists of two or more cast Iron rollers with projecting teeth, revolving toward each other, through which the coal Is passed; and the coal,

thus broken, Is conducted into revolving screens, separating the different sizes and dropping the coal Into a set of chutes or bins. Here, at this stage, the boys pick the slate, rock and Impurities from the coal. Then the coal is transferred, by raising a gate, into the railway cars. Sufficient elevation above the railway to the dump chutes above the rollers is always secured to carry the coal by gravity through all the stages of preparation into the cars below. The cost of the average breaker runs from $75,000 to SIOO,OOO, and employes from 100 to 300 hands. Such is the modern coal breaker, which enables the operator to handle an amount of coal that was impossible before its adoption, some of the structures having a capacity of I.SOO tons per day. The coal breaker is now the conspicuous and striking feature of every colliery

In the anthracite coal regions, per cent of the coal used for dopaeatTc purposes Is now broken, assorted Into different sizes and cleansed by tbs coal breaker. ioW Upon all the culm or dirt banks of the breakers In the anthracite coal regions are employed boys who do the hauling of t!fte dirt from the top of the plane to the dumping board. The coal In the rough—slate and dirt—is brought from the mines, carried up a shaft to the top of the breaker, and then dumped down a chute. Here it is crushed Into the different sizes and goes to the slate-picking rooms, where the good coal is dumped into delivery chutes, and the slate, dirt and waste Is dumped Into cars, which are hoisted to the top of a plane. Here the boy with his mule hitches the car and drives out to the end of the railroad, where the dump is made. A large colliery will employ ten or twenty culm-bank boys, some having nothing more to do than to spray the cars as they come up over the piano landing. Others attend to the switches, drive the mules back on the return trips, and change the dumping board. As a rule, these boys are cheerful, healthy good fellows, and enjoy their work. In winter their work is very undesirable, the altitude at which they work being uncongenial for mild weather. They, however, build rough shanties on the banks and in severe weather tako refuge In them. In summer their merry voices can be heard in the distance as they sing and ride up in the air. On Saturday nights they como into the nearby towns and replenish their supply of tobacco and enjoy looking into the show windows. Sunday is their play day, and after attending service once are free for the balance of the day. Of late years these boys very seldom follow their fathor’s footsteps and work In the mines, but, later on, choose work that leads to a business or tradesman’s life. The culm bank boy is fast becoming a thing of the past, as tho more modern colliery equipments supply little locomotives to haul tho cars and one locomotivo does the work that ten culm bank boys can attend to. In the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania a miner's homo is tho smallest part of his possessions. In most cases, tho little houses aro owned by the Individual or corporation that operates the nearby colliery. Nearly all of the houses aro either one and a half or tWo stories high and contain very rarely moro than four rooms. Never

are they built of anything but wood and their llttj/e frames look lnslgulflcunt in contrast to the mammoth culm bunks that are always in close proximity, very often five or six of theso little houses are built near one another, then they go under the general name of a "patch.” These “patches" and solitary houses nro generally within easy walking distance of the colliery, and In very few localities, are they embraced in any borough or city. They stand distinctly alone and by their location and appearance become recognized at once by the stranger as the home of the miner. The immense culm banks always are near by, in mining settlements of any ago and are destined to be the future environs of any new settlement. The length of these culm banks varies from 200 yards to half a mile, and in height they creep up to the heavens as high as 400 and 500 feet. These banks are composed of little else than the refuse from preparing the coal, and thcro is computed to be 75,000,000 tons of this coal dirt in the anthracite region. So far, it is a total waste, all the experiments towards consuming it In some manner being of no avail. There was a plant established at Mahnnoy City to use these culm banks, by pressing the coal scraps into fuel bricks, but the expease was more than the mining of coal and after the plant had a thorough inspection by prominent experts and Inventors it was abandoned. Day after day, then, these black hills are growing larger and in many cases are forcing their way into the yards of the miners’ homes. It is not unfrcquent that landslides and settlements take place, often being attended with disaster. The man that can advance some theory 6r devise some plan by which these culm banks can be consumed, has at that moment made a colossal fortune. Until then, the miners will go dally hundreds of feet below the surface and bring to the breakers the rough coal, and the refuse will accumulate proportionately as the coal is mined. u t to

A CULM BANK BOY.

A COAL BREAKER.

A MINER'S HOME.