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BANKSWOMAN (S. & N. W., S., L.). A female employed at bank (1) to pick the stones from and to clean the coals for the market.

BANK TO BANK. A period occupied by a collier between leaving the bank (1) and returning to same. A shift.

BANNOCK (Sh.). Brownish grey clay suitable for making into firebricks.

BANNOCK (S. S.). To hole on the top of a seam.

BANT (D.). A certain number of men, usually three or four, who in former times, prior to the introduction of cages and conductors, used to ride up and down in a pit-shaft, sitting in short loose pieces of chain attached to a hemp rope in a cluster, with their knees pointing inwards toward the centre of the shaft. There were usually two bants, the lower or bottom bant which was composed of men, and the upper or foaley bant which was made up of a cluster of lads fastened a few feet above the heads of the men. There was only one rope used for raising and lowering men; the second was a chain, which was sent up empty, or without anything attached to it, when men were descending, and vice versâ.

When the bant was used, at some collieries the winding-ropes or rather chains were pulled close up to the sides of the shaft, and the man-rope drum (1) was put in gear, the bant working over a third pulley in the pit frame. See Hold out! and Tucklers.

BAR. A length of timber placed horizontally for supporting the roof. In some cases bars of wrought iron, about 3" x 1" x 5', are used.

BARE. To strip or cut by the side of a fault, boundary hollows, &c.

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BARFE SATURDAY (N.) The word barfe off. The Saturday upon which wages are not paid.

BARGAIN-WORK (N.). Underground work done by contract, e. g. heading, road laying, &c.

BARING. 1. The surface soil and useless strata overlying a seam of coal, clay, ironstone, &c., which is being worked by open-hole, which has to be removed or bared preparatory to working the mineral.

2. (Y.) Holing, which see.

3. (Y.) Using a stout iron bar to get the Cleveland ironstone down, after blasting.

BARITELS (F.). See Horse-gin.

BAROMETER HOLIDAY (D.). Any day on which, owing to the very low state of the barometer (for instance, when it sinks below say 29 inches), much firedamp may naturally be expected to be given off in the mine, causing risk of explosion, no work is carried on underground.

BARREN GROUND. Strata unproductive of seams of coal, &c., of a workable thickness.

BARRIER. A solid block or rib of coal, &c., left unworked between two collieries or mines for security against accidents arising from the influx of water from one to another; in width often as much as 100 yards.

BARRIER SYSTEM (N.). The most modern and approved method of working a colliery by pillar and stall, where solid ribs or barriers of coal are left in between a set or series of working places; the width of such barriers being from 40 to 50 yards. See plan, Fig. 10. BARRING. 1. The timbers in the workings for keeping up the roof.

2. (S.) The timber walling or casing of pit-shafts.

BARROW-MAN. One who, in former times, used to convey coals underground in a wheelbarrow from the working places to the rolley-ways.

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BARROW-WAY (N.). The underground roads along which the barrow-men worked.

BASH (S. W.). To fill with rubbish the spaces from which the coal has been worked away.

Fig. 11.

a, Coal Measures. b, Millstone Grit.

c, Carbonaceous Limestone.

BASIN. A coal-field having some resemblance in form to that of a basin. The Forest of Dean coal

field is perhaps the most perfectly basin-shaped one in Great Britain. See diagram, Fig. 11.

BASKET (L.). A measure of weight =2 cwt. occasionally used in East Lancashire.

BASKETS (S. S.). Shallow pans into which small is raked by fillers for loading into tubs.

BASS. Black carbonaceous shale.
BASSET. 1. Outcrop, which see.
2. Shallow or rise side of a working.

BASSET-EDGE. The actual outcrop or boundary of a seam, where it appears at the surface.

BAT (L., S. S.). See Baffle. Batting out gas was formerly a regular though unsafe thing to do.

BATE (S. S.). To excavate or cut away the floor of a mine.

BATE BARREL (Lei.). After drawing a number of barrels of water out of a sump, the first barrel that there is not sufficient water to fill is called the bate barrel.

BATE-WORK (N.). Short work.

BATT. See Bass.

BAUM-POTS (Y.). Calcareous nodules found in the shale forming the roof of the "Halifax Hard" coal

seam.

BAY. 1. An open space for a gobbin or waste between two packs in a long-wall working.

2. (L.) A board, which see.

BAYSHON (Som.). An air stopping, which see.

BEANS (N.). All coal which will pass say a halfinch screen or mesh.

BEARERS (S.). Women formerly employed to bear or carry coals out of the mines upon their backs in creels, for which they were paid from 18. to 1s. 2d. per day, finding their own creels and candles.

BEARING DOOR. A door placed for the purpose of directing and regulating the amount of ventilation passing through an entire district of the mine.

BEARING IN (S.). The depth or distance under, of the holing or kirving.

BEARING-UP PULLEY. A pulley wheel fixed in a frame and arranged to tighten up or take up the slack rope in endless rope haulage.

BEARING SYSTEM. The employment in former times of females to carry out upon their backs the produce of the mine.

BEARS (D.). Calcareous clay-ironstone in nodules.

BEATER. 1. (N.) An iron rod for stemming the hole preparatory to firing a shot.

2. (M.) A wooden mallet for consolidating, or making air-tight, the clay, when building wax walls or dams.

Fig. 12.

BECHE OF BITCH (N. E.). A hollow conical-headed iron rod for extricating boring rods from bore holes (1). See Fig. 12.

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