CHARGEMAN (M.). A man specially appointed by the manager to fire shots and to look after the blowers (2).

CHARGEUR (Belg.). A woman or girl who loads coal into trams in the mine.

CHARTER (M.). A price per ton paid to butties.
CHARTER MASTER. Head butty or contractor.
CHECK. A fault, which see.

CHECK-WEIGHMAN. A man appointed and paid by the colliers (1) to weigh the coals on reaching the surface. He must have been employed in the mine, and must not interfere with the ordinary weighman. CHEEK. A projecting mass of coal, &c.

CHEESES (D.). Clay ironstone in cheese-shaped nodules.

CHEMIST'S COAL (S.). An ancient term given to a particular kind of hard splint coal which used to be carried by women in their shifts or chemises out of the mines. The word chemise became changed into chemists. CHERKERS (F. D.). See Catheads.

CHERRY COAL. A soft, velvet-black, caking, bright resinous coal,

CHEST (S.). A tank or barrel in which water is drawn from the sump.

CHIMNEY. A spout or pit in the goaf of vertical coal-seams.

CHIMNEY WORK (M.). A system of working a great thickness of beds, or pins of clay ironstone, in patches or areas of from 10 to 30 yards square, and 18 or 20 feet in thickness. The bottom beds are first worked out, and then the higher ones, by the miners standing

CHINGLE (S.). Portion of the coal-seam used for stowing purposes.

CHINKS (S.). Holes in brattices.

CHITTER. 1. (L.) A seam of coal overlying another one at a short distance.

2. (D.) A thin band or pin of clay ironstone.

CHOCK. A square pillar constructed of short rectangular blocks of hard wood, for supporting the roof.

They are generally built upon a few inches of slack, or rubbish. See Fig. 39.

CHOGS (Y.). Blocks of wood for keeping pump-trees or other vertical pipes plumb. See Fig. 40.

CHOKE DAMP. See Black Damp.

CHOP (Som.). See Fault.

CHUMP. To drill a shot-hole by hand.

CHURNS (F. D.). Ironstone workings in cavernshaped excavations. A kind of rough chamber and pillar system of working.

CHUTE (Pa.). A bolt or thirl connecting a gangway with a heading.

CINDER COAL. Coal near to a trap or whin dyke, of altered nature, due to the heat of the lava.

CIRCLES (Ch.). Wavy, undulating lines of various colours frequently seen in the sides of shafts, on the pillars, faces, and roof of rock-salt mines. They vary from a few feet to a few yards across, and are caused by the form of the stratification of the rock salt, which is usually spheroidal, or wavy and undulating, being cut through or dressed to a plane.

CIRCLE SPOUTS. See Garland (1).

CLACK. The lower valve of a lifting or forcing set (1) of pumps, made something like a bucket, without the central rod.

CLACK-DOOR PIECE. A cast-iron pipe, having a doorway made in the side of it for giving access to the clack. The clack-door is an iron plate bolted to the door-piece.

CLAGGY. Sticky.

E.

CLAMS or CLAMMS. Strong iron clamps for firmly holding pipes, ropes, &c., in shafts, or on inclined planes.

CLANNY. A safety-lamp, the invention of one Dr. Clanny. First exhibited in Sunderland in the year 1813. The lower part of the lamp-top around the flame is constructed of a thick glass ring, above which is the wire gauze chimney. It is a lamp which gives a good light, and indicates freely the presence of firedamp, but is not so safe a lamp as some others.

CLAY. In mining language usually means tender shale, or indurated clay.

CLAY BAND (S. W.). Argillaceous ironstone in thin beds, very numerous in the lower coal measures.

CLAY DAM. 1. (M.) A stopping made of puddled and well-beaten clay, from 12 in. to 36 in. thick, and well rammed into the roof, floor, and sides of the excavation made to receive it.

2. A stopping consisting of two walls of stout planks placed 18 to 24 inches apart, and supported on the outsides by upright props; good strong clay well beaten and puddled into the space between the walls of planks forms a tolerably strong barrier against water pressure.

CLAY-HOG (M.). Kind of wash faults, or lows. See Fig. 70 (No. 2).

CLAYING. Lining a borehole (2) with clay, to keep the powder dry.

CLAYING IRON. See Bull (1).

1

CLAY-IRONSTONE. A dull brown or black compact form of siderite, with a variable mixture of clay, and usually also organic matter. Occurs in the carboniferous and other formations in the form of either nodules, where it has usually been deposited round some organic centre, or of beds interstratified with shales and coals.

CLEADING. Deal boarding for bratticing or lagging. CLEAN. 1. (N.) Free from firedamp or other noxious gases.

2. A coal-seam is said to be clean when it is free from dirt partings.

CLEANSER, or CLANSER. An iron tube or shell, with which the bore-meal is extracted from a bore-hole (1). CLEAR. See Clean,

CLEARERS (I.). Colliers who hole the coal, working at distances of say three or four yards apart along the face.

CLEAT. 1. Natural jointing of coal seams, with generally a north and south direction, irrespective of dip or strike.

2. (M.) A wooden wedge four or five inches square placed between the head of a puncheon and the underside of a bar or cap.

CLEATS (N.). A system of natural joints or fissures running through the great northern coal-field of Durham, &c., ranging N.N.W.

CLEAVINGS. Horizontal divisions of beds of coal, &c., or in the direction of the laminæ.