Coal and the coal mines

by Homer Greene

Separator. A machine for picking slate.

Shaft. A vertical entrance into a mine.

Sheave. The wheel in the head-frame that supports the winding rope.

Shift. The time during which a miner or laborer works continuously, alternating with some other similar period.

Shute. A narrow passageway through which coal descends by gravity from the foot of the breast to the gangway; an inclined trough, in a breaker, down which coal slides by gravity.

Single entry. One of the systems by which bituminous mines are entered.

Slack. The dirt from bituminous coal.

Slate picker. A boy who picks slate from coal. A machine used for the same purpose.

Slope. An entrance to a mine driven down through an inclined coal seam. Inside slope: a passage in the mine driven down through the seam, by which to bring coal up from a lower level.

Slope carriage. A platform on wheels on which cars are raised and lowered in steep slopes.