Upcast, upcast shaft :The upcast is the shaft by which the spent air is expelled after ventilating the mine workings. It may be considered a type of chimney. Upthrow :An upthrow fault has moved a seam to a higher level.
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Diameter of shaft twelve feet with wooden cage guides. ; Upcast shafts - 1930 ; Platt Pit 440 yards to the decking level, two deck cage, upcast shaft for both the Hesketh and Institute shafts. Diameter of the shaft – sixteen feet. ; Winstanley 240 yards to the decking Ievel, upcast shaft along with the Engine Pit for all the workings in the Middle Pit.
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Air was drawn down number 2 and split in two. The larger portion went north, circulated around the north-west workings for before returning to the upcast pit. The smaller part was led to the south, circulated around the south-western area for and then back to the upcast. The air from number 3 pit entered the workings associated with number 2 pit in the east and circulated around number 2 pit's south-eastern portion before finally reaching the upcast.
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A dislocation is spoken of as a downthrow or an upcast, according to the direction in which it is approached.
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The furnace was usually at the bottom of the upcast shaft which acted as a chimney, creating airflow throughout the workings.
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The following day, Tuesday 23 October, an underground engine at the upcast was adapted to assist the ventilation. The slide valve was removed and steam sent down. The escaping hot steam rising up the upcast drew the air around the mine in the same way that the furnaces would. By this means 70% of the normal air supply was restored and recovery work could commence.
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In collieries at that time air circulation was induced by a furnace at the base of the upcast pit. Hot air rising up the pit, as if up a chimney, drew the exhausted and contaminated air out of the galleries. Downcast pits let the fresh air in to replace it. The route the air took was carefully controlled by doors and partitions. At Blantyre pit, number 5 was the upcast shaft for pits 1, 2 and 3.
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Because mechanical ventilation was used (rather than the earlier furnace system), coal could be drawn up the upcast. In 1882 the Low Main and Shield Row coals were serviced by the Lamp shaft, in 1909 only the Brockwell coal was raised this way.
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Diameter of the shaft – sixteen feet with steel rope guides. ; Engine Pit 110 yards to the decking level, upcast shaft along with the Winstanley shaft for all the workings in the Middle pit. Diameter of the shaft – nine feet. ; Steam Raising Boilers Lancashire Boiler ; Middle Pit Range 15 Hand-fired.
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Originally sunk for ventilating Glynhebog drift mine, it was extended to a depth of to meet the workings at Cynheidre, providing an upcast. By 1960, the colliery employed 650 men producing 30,757 tons of coal. In 1962, shaft No.4 downcast was created next to shaft No.3, to a depth of .
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About 5 tons of coal were burnt per day in two out of three grates, each by . Air for the ell coal was drawn down pit number 1. At the base it split north and south then after passing around the respective parts of the workings it was led to the upcast pit.
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Rather, bwogero and the resulting upcast on the banks are a result of Ntusi residents digging down to the water table in order to bring water to the surface for their cattle to drink. Alternatively, or possibly secondarily, bwogero development may be a result of kaolin quarrying which was used as plaster.
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The colliery had two shafts only apart. The downcast shaft was used for access and coal extraction. The upcast shaft was provided with ropes and pulleys for use if the downcast was blocked. The shafts passed through four shallower "mines" that were not worked in 1885 before reaching the Dow, Five-Quarters and Trencherbone mines.
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The colliery was developed at a cost of £270,000 from 1889, by the Dowlais Iron Company, to feed a new steel works in Cardiff. Initially known as the Dowlais Cardiff Colliery, the two shafts were sunk to the Nine Feet coal seam at depths of 740 yards (South - upcast) and 753 yards (North - downcast).
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The colliery had three shafts. The downcast shaft, No 1 was deep and wound coal from the Florida seam. The upcast shaft No 2, wound coal from the Potato Delf and Wigan Four Foot seams and No 3 shaft was used for pumping. The Lyme Pit disaster occurred in February 1930 killing 13 men.
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Sinking continued and the predicted Four Foot and Yard seams were not found. The Six Foot seam was found at 247 yards and limited working started 26 September 1914. Sinking No 1 pit (the upcast shaft) started in July 1913 and terminated on reaching 156 yards at the Ten Foot seam in November 1914.
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Coalbrookdale Coalfield. Users.aston.ac.uk. Tuckies Red Clay and Coal Mine had two shafts; one was 7 ft in diameter and 195 ft deep and the other was 6 feet in diameter and 210 feet deep. The mine was ventilated by 'exhaust steam' from pipes in the upcast shaftSome Mining Incidents In The Broseley Field. Broseley.org.uk (11 October 1914).
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Unfortunately floods were common as water seeped into the pits. In 1835, one such flood occurred at Ladyshore. Mining in the affected pit ceased in 1884, but the shaft remained in use as the upcast ventilation shaft for the colliery. Eventually a tunnel was driven to Farnworth Bridge Pit, also owned by the Fletcher family, to dewater and ventilate the mines.
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The shaft was subsequently used as the upcast shaft by Wilson Wood Colliery. Haulage roads were driven from west to east along the strike of the coal which was worked up-dip by pillar and stall. In 1844 a drift was cut into the Four Foot seam. New Winning Pit was prone to flooding but firedamp was not a problem.
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The ditch at the point corresponding to the milecastle's north gate undergoes a slight change in profile in the bottom. Also, there is an gap in the upcast mound at the same point. These features indicate the existence of a causeway, later removed. There was also evidence of an equivalent causeway across the vallum, and gaps in the vallum mounds (also removed).
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Large temperature differences between the outside air and the flue gases can create a strong stack effect in chimneys for buildings using a fireplace for heating. Before the development of large volume fans, mines were ventilated using the stack effect. A downcast shaft allowed air into the mine. At the foot of the upcast shaft a furnace was kept continuously burning.
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One section was reserved for upcast ventilation provided by a furnace. The breaker was built directly on top of the mouth of the shaft, and coal was extracted by use of the room and pillar method. There was only one exit from the mine, namely, the shaft.Wolensky; Keating (2008) This practice had been banned in England, but was common for anthracite coal mines in the United States.
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On 24 December 1813 at 01:30 the colliery again exploded, this time with the loss of 9 men and 13 boys along with 12 horses. All the dead were in the headways by William Pit (the upcast pit). Those in the boards away from William Pit were saved. The reported the supposition that "the hydrogen took fire at the crane lamp, in the south headways".
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The firemen assured the workers all was well and ascended to sign reports and have breakfast. Having received these assurances the workforce went about their various tasks. At around 09:00 a blast was heard on the surface and flame and steam rushed up number 3 pit for a few minutes. Smoke was seen from the upcast pit and air came from number 2.
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Linnyshaw Colliery was the first of the Bridgewater Collieries' pits to have shafts exclusively sunk to access the deeper seams of the coalfield. It was sunk to 300 yards and accessed the Binn, Crombouke, Brassey and Seven Foot mines. Ventilation was initially by furnace at the bottom of the No. 2 upcast shaft. This was replaced by a fan made by Walker Brothers of Wigan.
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This activity generated cash which enabled a shaft to be sunk into the Bowen Seam in 1920. In 1921, two vertical shafts were commenced, a winding shaft to a depth of and an upcast shaft to a depth of . They were secured with a masonry collar and mounted with heavy headframe timbers set on the surface. A dam extending was constructed for the mine water supply.
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Aerial view of Ellesmere Colliery, 1947 or earlier Ellesmere Colliery was a coal mine in Walkden, Manchester, England. The pit was located on Manchester Road, a short distance south of Walkden town centre. There were three shafts on the colliery site, with a fourth upcast shaft located a distance to the NNW. No. 1 shaft was sunk to the Five Quarters mine at a depth of .
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The "Eastern District" is at the end of No 1 Right and this is where the explosion occurred. The mine was originally ventilated by return roads to the entrance and a furnace there. By the time of the explosion a new upcast shaft had been sunk over from the surface to the "Shaft district". A furnace at the foot of the shaft drove the ventilation.
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Bowburn Colliery Tub The third and most famous Bowburn Colliery was sunk in 1906 by Bell Bros. Ltd., using the 1840 shaft as the ventilation upcast shaft (and, later, for manriding). Its first coal was drawn in 1908. It merged with Tursdale colliery in 1931 and grew to be one of the largest in the Durham coalfield, working six seams and with over 2,500 employees in the 1950s.
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The tunnel sites also flooded regularly until Watt steam engines were introduced to operate pumps. Stoves were installed at the bottom of upcast pipes to overcome the problem of ventilation. Despite the death of Brindley in 1772, the first tunnel - which measured long - was completed in 1777. On opening, it overtook Norwood Tunnel on the Chesterfield Canal (also bored by Brindley) as the longest tunnel on Britain's canal network.
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Engine pit :The shaft where the pumping engine was located was often termed the "engine pit"; the second shaft sunk, during development, was termed the "bye pit". In practice the bye pit usually served as the upcast or air shaft. Engineer :In traditional terminology a mine engineer was a senior person responsible for all boilers and machinery and for supervision of the enginewrights. In Scotland an "engineer" referred to a surveyor.
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Moore, Robson and some engineers went down number 2 pit but were stopped by falls and afterdamp. The route to number 3 pit ("More's dook") appeared to be free of falls but was full of chokedamp. A brattice was constructed to divert the air passing from number 3 pit directly to the upcast, and by this means More's dook became passable by 22:00. Four survivors were found, all badly injured.
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On completion it became the coal-winding shaft, while the older Coity shaft was used for upcast air ventilation. In 1878, the main shaft was deepened to reach the Old Coal seam at . By 1908, Big Pit provided employment for 1,122 people, and by 1923 at peak, there were 1,399 men employed, producing: House Coal, Steam Coal, Ironstone and Fireclay; from the Horn, No. 2 Yard, Old Coal and Elled seams.
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A few moments later the cloud was sucked back down the downcast shaft as the air circulation re-established. Both main shafts were damaged by the explosion. The downcast (Busty) shaft suffered damage all the way to the surface, and then the casing between the pit top and the heapstead was blown down. The upcast (lamp) pit also suffered damage, but fortunately the fan was uninjured and continued to run.
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Later, an enquiry into the explosion was held at the nearby Norton Arms Public House, while at Staffords Assizes the Manager, Edwin Thompson, defended himself against a charge of manslaughter and was acquitted. In an effort to recover lost output, the Middle Pit shaft (formerly the Ragman) was deepened to the Hardmine seam in 1881, and a new upcast shaft to replace the Laura was sunk to the Cockshead seam.
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Home Office Report – Micklefield Colliery Explosion, 1896, p.4 Despite seven fatal accidents in nineteen years, Peckfield was considered by miners to be a safe mine.The Leeds Times, Deadly Damp, Saturday 2 May 1896 Ventilation was drawn through the seams by a Waddle fan at the top of the Upcast shaft, and had removed the eleven instances of small escapes of gas since 1891.Home Office Report – Micklefield Colliery Explosion, 1896, p.10 Men worked with picks by the light of tallow candles, whilst the undermanager and five deputies carried safety lamps.Home Office Report – Micklefield Colliery Explosion, 1896, p.4 The Downcast shaft was used to transport coal, supplies, and men, and only went to the Beeston Bed, a depth of 175 yards from the surface. The Upcast shaft was used to transport men and was sunk to both the Beeston and Black Bed, the latter being at a depth of 240 yards from the surface.Home Office Report – Micklefield Colliery Explosion, 1896, p.
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The Downcast shaft had an electric winder which had two 475 H.P. motors. The upcast shaft, which was for men and materials, had two single deck cages, each of which could hold two tubs. The winder had a 180 H.P. motor. Conveyor belts were installed; Wheldale then had the longest single conveyor belt in the world, about one mile in length. Gate roads were 30-inch belts, trunk conveyors were 36 inches in width.
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Although driven with height the pressure from above had closed it to as little as in places. Furthermore, water had collected in it for a distance of and reduced the air space to as little as . Ventilation was provided by a furnace near the upcast shaft on the Trencherbone seam. All air from the Trencherbone mine passed over this furnace, reliance being placed on mixing for reducing the possibility of an explosion.
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Although the shafts for the colliery had started to be sunk in 1899, the first coals were not drawn until 1910 due to passing through water-bearing strata. Two main pits were sunk: the North Shaft (downcast) and the South Shaft (upcast). Both of these reached down to the Hutton seam, at and respectively. The seams worked were Five Quarter, Seven Quarter, Main Coal, Low Main and the Hutton at the bottom.
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Depending on the type of mine and how the operation is run, brattices can be permanent (concrete or wood) or temporary (cloth). Temporary installations are also called curtains. Early collieries sometimes only had one pit which was divided by a brattice. A furnace was kept burning within the pit and the hot air rose up the one side of the brattice (the upcast side) drawing cold air down the other (the downcast side).
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Bwogero are wide scraped basins with surrounding upcast banks in the valley north of the male mound. Reid, who excavated the bwogero in 1991, estimated the volume of material removed in their creation at nearly 30,000 cubic meters. The valleys in and around Ntusi have high water tables and are thus damp or even marshy. Since there is no river at Ntusi, Sutton has argued that the bowgero were not designed earthworks.
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The Garth pit was used as the downcast shafts and the Oakwood as the upcast shafts to provide ventilation for the miners of both collieries. Oakwood, which also began work in 1864, had its pithead located to the west of the River Llynfi. Although not located in Garth, the Oakwood Pit explosion of 1872 which killed 11 repairers, included members of the Garth community. In 1908, at its peak, the Garth colliery had a workforce of 1,075.
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The name "Grim's Ditch" is Old English in origin. The Anglo-Saxon word dīc was pronounced "deek" in northern England and "deetch" in the south. The method of building this type of earthwork involved digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has resulted in the name dīc being given to either the trench or the bank, and this evolved into two words, ditch and dyke in modern British English.
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The Lamp pit was the upcast pit, that is the one up which the air passes. At the time of both disasters the ventilation was by induced draft provided by 30 (later 35) foot diameter fan. Coal was drawn up the Busty shaft from the Busty and Hutton seams in 1882. By 1909 only the Busty level was serviced directly: coal was lowered down a staple from the Towneley and down a drift from the Tilley.
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The company sank the deep mines of Howe Bridge Colliery in 1845. Three shafts were sunk to the Seven Feet mine, the Victoria pit where coal was wound at 447 feet, the Puffer for pumping water at 435 feet and the Volunteer, the upcast ventilation shaft. Howe Bridge Colliery was taken over by Manchester Collieries and closed in 1959. Gibfield Colliery's origins are in a shaft sunk to the Trencherbone mine in 1829 next to the Bolton and Leigh Railway line which opened in 1830.
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After closure, the headgears and other machinery at Marley Hill Colliery were scrapped and the buildings levelled. A hole was knocked into the wall of the square building which enclosed the top of the upcast shaft, and the rubble from the rest of the buildings tipped in to backfill it. This process having been completed, the building was demolished and a large concrete cap placed over the mouth of each shaft. There appear to be only two remaining buildings directly associated with the colliery.
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The site was on the edge of the Alyn Valley, between the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway (later the Great Western Railway's Birkenhead to London Paddington line), and the old main road between Wrexham and Chester. The Dennis' company United Westminster & Wrexham Collieries took four years to sink two deep shafts, the Dennis (downcast) and the Martin (upcast), located apart. It was one of the deepest coal mines in the Denbighshire coalfield, the Dennis shaft reaching a depth of about and the Martin shaft about .
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In Anglo-Saxon, the word dic already existed and was pronounced as dick in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or to the bank. Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench – though it once had raised banks as well.
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Francis Dukinfield Astley developed two collieries in the town, Dukinfield and Astley Deep Pit, and both had explosions killing many workers. Dukinfield Colliery (also known as Lakes Pit or Victoria Colliery) was owned by Astley's Dukinfield Colliery Company. The colliery had two shafts, the downcast was 1,020 feet deep to the Black mine (coal seam) and was connected to the upcast ventilation shaft. On 4 June 1867, 38 men and boys died of suffocation following an explosion caused by a faulty safety lamp and poor management.
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Abernant was developed by the National Coal Board as one of the West Wales "super pits" alongside Cynheidre Colliery in the Gwendraeth valley, an investment intend to keep economic coal mining a viable industry in the area. The £10million development began in 1954, with the sinking of two of the deepest shafts in the coalfield to allow access to the Peacock anthracite seam. The North (upcast) was and the South deep respectively. Two insets were also driven, No.3 at and No.4 at deep respectively.
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The Platt headgear Unfortunately, just as the company was recovering, it was beset by further misfortunes. In 1880, the oil distillery at Chatterley was destroyed by fire. In an effort to recover lost output, the Middle Pit shaft (formerly the Ragman) was deepened to the Hardmine seam in 1881, and a new upcast shaft to replace the Laura was sunk to the Cockshead seam. The latter shaft was completed in 1883 and named the Platt Pit after one of the Directors of the Company.
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The No.1 shaft was 10 feet in diameter and 155 yards deep and as the upcast. It was equipped with a Walker Paddle fan which produced about 55,000 cubic feet of air per minute at a water gauge of 3.125 inches. The No. 2 shaft was 13 feet in diameter and 212 yards deep and was the downcast and winding shaft for men and materials. The former Colliery has been regenerated to become the Mynydd Mawr Woodland Park - a mix of broadleaved woodland and grassland which is home to a diverse collection of wildlife.
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In 1888, production had increased to such an extent that the main winding shaft had reached its maximum capacity. The upcast shaft was then fitted out for coal winding and output continued to climb. By 1890, with output averaging 1000 tons per day, the underground haulage of coal from the North dip workings by ponies had become unsustainable and a 60HP electrically driven underground rope-haulage system - the first of its kind in the world - was installed near the downcast pit bottom to haul coal up the 1 in 12 roadway from the North workings.
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In Anglo-Saxon, the word dïc already existed and was pronounced "deek" in northern England and "deetch" in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name dïc was given to either the excavation or the bank, and evolved to both the words "dike"/"dyke" and "ditch". Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench, though it once had raised banks as well.
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On nationalisation in 1947, the National Coal Board took over the mine from the Blaenavon Co. Ltd, which employed 789 men. By 1970 the workforce numbered only 494, as operations had focused solely on the Garw seam, with a maximum thickness of only . The NCB agreed the development of a drift mine, which by 1973 meant that windings at Big Pit had ceased, with coal extracted close to the refurbished Black Lion coal washery. The Coity shaft was abandoned, with the Big Pit shaft used for upcast air ventilation and emergency extraction.
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Three mounds, ranging from 2 to 3 meters tall, are found within (Mounds I and II) and adjacent to Enclosure 2 (Mound III). Of note, Mound III is positioned such that the western ditch of Enclosure 2 was constructed to avoid it. The lack of an embankment for much of the ditch between Enclosures 1 and 2 suggests the upcast soil was used to create one or more of the mounds. A single ditch and bank originating at the northwest corner of Enclosure 2 runs in a northeasterly direction and terminates at the Katonga River.
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The Institute headgear Shortly after the sinking work began, the North Staffordshire Institute of Mining Engineers made a visit to the colliery, and to commemorate the occasion the Bellringer shaft was renamed the Institute. In 1874 the colliery company also started to widen and deepen an old shaft, originally sunk by Hugh Henshall Williamson in the 1850s and sited to the north-east of the Institute. This shaft was to act as the upcast for the Institute Pit and was named the Laura, after Mr Charles J. Homer's daughter. Both shafts were completed in 1876.
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Parsonage's two shafts were sunk to the Arley mine at and the depth including the sump was yards. They were in diameter and lined with brick. Sinking began in 1913 but was halted for two years in early 1914 because of the war. The colliery's winding houses were made of reinforced concrete and its headgear was tall with diameter pulley wheels. Markhams of Chesterfield supplied a winding engine with 40 inch diameter cylinders for the downcast shaft and W & J Galloway & Sons supplied the engine for the upcast shaft. Steam power was supplied by 12 Lancashire boilers.
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The upcast shaft was converted to supply air to Shirebrook’s workings for several years and this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The work involved in filling the downcast shaft, together with the removal of the baths, washery, screens etc. all took time and provided the opportunity for the local authority to have the remains given a preservation listing just as their demolition began in 1986. It then continued in a state of limbo for several more years until 1995 when the preservation group Friends of Pleasley Pit was formed and restoration work began.
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At first fires were burned at the bottom of the "upcast" shaft to create air currents and circulate air, but replaced by fans driven by steam engines. Protection for miners came with the invention of the Davy lamp and Geordie lamp, where any firedamp (or methane) burnt harmlessly within the lamp. It was achieved by preventing the combustion spreading from the light chamber to the outside air with either metal gauze or fine tubes, but the illumination from such lamps was very poor. Great efforts were made to develop better safe lamps, such as the Mueseler produced in the Belgian pits near Liège.
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The south current passed along the south level for to the southern extremity. It passed through the longwall workings there and returned via the older stoop and room workings before joining the north current return and passing up the upcast, number 5 pit. The inspectors report concluded "1 That the arrangements for the ventillation of this pit were sufficient, and that the quantity of air sent in was ample under ordinary conditions". Although the owners banned the men from opening lamps or from taking smoking materials below ground, several prosecutions had occurred for breaches of the rules.
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Looking towards the Lady Ha' tunnel entrance from the site of Ladyha Colliery. The other end of the tunnel is visible. Key to plan; 1 - Downcast shaft & winding engine house; 2 - upcast shaft and winding engine/cum pump house; 3 - engineer's and blacksmith's shops; 4 - winch house; 5 - store; 6 - office; 7 - boiler house and chimney; 8 - screening house; 9 - fan/compressor house; 10 - wagon traverser; 11 - underground band haulage. Ladyha no 2 pit was sunk in 1885 to a depth of and closed in May 1934, having struggled since its main customer, the Eglinton Iron Company, closed in 1928.
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Nook Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1866 in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery's first shaft was sunk to the Rams mine at 455 yards in 1866 by Astley and Tyldesley Coal and Salt Company to exploit the Middle Coal Measures of the Manchester Coalfield. The colliery expanded and eventually had five shafts and became one of the largest pits on the coalfield. No.2 upcast shaft was sunk in 1873 and deepened to the Arley mine, a hot mine where temperatures reached 100 Fahrenheit, at 935 yards.
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Andrew Knowles and Sons bought the underlease in 1852. The company developed the colliery by sinking new shafts on the east side of the canal in 1857 to access the Rams mine at 1,545 feet and the shafts on the west side of the canal were abandoned. As the coal was worked from coal seams that dipped at 1-in-3, Pendleton became the deepest coal mine in the country when the workings reached 3,600 feet where the temperature at the coal face reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Andrew Knowles and Sons relined the upcast shaft in 1872 reducing its diameter to 7 feet 2 inches, giving Pendleton the record for the narrowest shaft.
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By 1899, despite having encountered a 25 ft. fault and an extensive washout in the workings to the West, output was such that the winding capacity had been reached at the upcast shaft and it was decided to install a more powerful winder and boilers whilst at the same time replacing the old wooden headstock which was now in a poor condition. This work was carried out in 1900, with all production temporarily shifted to the downcast shaft by means of two shift working. The following year, owing to the very poor condition of the old timber frame, the headstock at the downcast shaft was also replaced, although this time it was pre-erected on the pit-top and then winched into position.
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R/V Endeavor Deployment of the rosette is from the deck of a research vessel. The instrument is lowered into the water in what is called the downcast to a determined depth or to a few meters above the ocean floor, generally at a rate of about 0.5 m/s. Most of the time a conducting wire cable is attached to the CTD frame connecting the CTD to an onboard computer, and allows instantaneous uploading and real time visualization of the collected data on the computer screen. The water column profile of the downcast is often used to determine the depths at which the rosette will be stopped on its way back to the surface (the upcast) to collect the water samples using the attached bottles.
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Pendlebury Colliery, usually called Wheatsheaf Colliery after the adjacent public house, was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1846 in Pendlebury near Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery, sunk in 1846, was owned by Andrew Knowles and Sons and had two ten foot diameter shafts 24 yards apart.> The colliery originally had pitch pine timber headgear and a winding engine supplied by John Musgrave & Sons of Bolton that operated until 1944. The colliery was ventilated by furnace until the 20th century when ventilation fans were installed. Wrought iron boilers to raise steam for powering pumps, air compressors and haulage were originally sited near the bottom of No.2 shaft, the upcast shaft.
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The Ellesmere locomotive, used at Howe Bridge from 1861 to 1957 Howe Bridge Colliery was a coal mine which was part of the Fletcher, Burrows and Company's collieries at Howe Bridge in Atherton, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The Fletchers owned several small pits which eventually became the Howe Bridge Collieries. In 1845 Howe Bridge Collieries owned by John Fletcher sank three deep shafts to the Seven Feet mine, the Victoria pit where coal was wound was sunk to 447 feet, the Puffer for pumping water to 435 feet and the Volunteer, the upcast ventilation shaft. These last three pits were taken over by Manchester Collieries, became part of the National Coal Board in 1947 and closed in 1959.
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The explosion manifested itself in a volume of flame and dust at the number two or downcast shaft, followed seconds later by a volume of flame from the upcast or number one shaft which set fire to the wooden sheds or headings above it. The sound of the explosion was heard in neighbouring Greenfield Colliery through a barrier of solid coal. In the Blantyre Colliery (where an estimated 216 men had lost their lives 10 years earlier) miners working that morning were temporarily blinded with the dust thrown up by the vibration of the explosion. An initial assessment of the damage by one of the managers revealed both compartments of No 1 shaft and one of the compartments of No 2 Pit were blocked by the cages used to lower the miners.
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In his report Haldane stated: Report to the Home Secretary on the Circumstances attending the Underground Fire at the Snaefell Lead Mine in the Month of May 1897, by C. Le Neve Foster, Esq., D.Sc., F.R.S., one of H.M. Inspectors of mines The reason for the continued presence of the gas in the lower parts of the mine was found during a further investigation by Sir Clement Le Neve Foster. Snaefell Mine consisted of a single working shaft mine, and in addition there was a wooden upcast shaft which followed the slope of Snaefell Mountain in order to assist ventilation. The current of air to this shaft, so as to clear the bottom (171 fathom) level, was arranged by closing of doors opening on to shafts from the higher levels.
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In the late 1940s, following nationalisation, a major development program was begun. Tubs were replaced by 3 ton mine-cars and on the surface, compact circuits were constructed, with fully automatic pneumatic systems controlling their movement and emptying. At the downcast shaft, a complete new pit-bottom and mine-car haulage system was constructed in the deeper 2nd Waterloo seam, with the shaft itself being deepened by driving up from below, whilst in the upcast pit-bottom, a compact mine-car circuit was constructed, with the coal now being transported almost to the shaft-side by powerful trunk conveyor belts. In 1951, the last face in the Top Hard seam finished, more than three miles traveling distance south of the pit bottom, but the main output from the downcast shaft had already moved to the Dunsil and 1st Waterloo seams.
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Cynheidre Colliery was a coal mine located in the Gwendraeth valley, in Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Opened in 1954, it closed in 1989. Cynheidre was developed by the National Coal Board as one of the West Wales "super pits" alongside Abernant Colliery in the River Amman valley, a post-World War II investment intended to keep economic coal mining a viable industry in the area. Created to exploit of deep lying anthracite seams, it was envisaged to eventually encompass the working of the drift mines at the Great Mountain Colliery and Pentremawr. Between 1954 and 1956, shafts No.1 (upcast ) and No.2 (downcast ) were sunk south of Pentremawr, to give economic access to the deeper lying extents of the anthracite seams which couldn't be worked economically by slant mining. In 1955, shaft No.3 was created.
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Given the length of the canal, however, modern surveyors suggest that the original engineers may not have been able to keep the canal at a constant level (due to surveying difficulties or lack of budget to excavate deeper). Natural barriers may therefore have been left in place to partition the canal into sections, maintaining the required depth of water, with goods transhipped or boats dragged across the barriers. They may also have been a deliberate precaution against the whole section drying out in summer. Upcast banks set well apart, as in this well-preserved section near Branston Booths, Lincolnshire, suggest a canal intended for navigationIt acts as a catchwater drain in parts, intercepting runoff from the higher ground to the west:Bond (2007: 166) evidence of seventeenth century improvements to form part of local drainage schemes has been identified, overlying material from the Roman period.
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It is (for unknown reasons) sometimes referred to locally as "the butterfly chambers" and fell out of use some time before the colliery closed, with one former Marley Hill miner recalling playing in it as a child. A new explosives store was built to replace it, this building being situated near the pit head baths. The land on which the original village and the pit itself stood (along with the site of the cokeworks, Andrews House Colliery and Bowes Bridge MPD) has lain empty since the colliery was demolished, although the foundations of a number of buildings, a few old concrete lamp-posts, some of the tub lines, and the concrete caps covering the backfilled shafts are still clearly visible. The upcast shaft is on top of the hill overlooking the yard of the Tanfield Railway, and the two caps covering the coal-drawing shafts can be found in a gully just to the north of it, hidden among the trees.
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The extracted coal was sent to the Chanois Mine, where adequate infrastructure existed, and the Notre-Dame mine served two purposes: pumping 7,000 tons of water per month and serving as the downcast shaft by which air entered the underground, the Sainte-Marie shaft, with its powerful ventilators, serving as the upcast shaft. In 1944, the battles for liberation brought about the stoppage of the pumps of the Éboulet shaft and the build-up of water in the galleries. In 1945, water pumping began again at the rate of 6,400 m³ per month, and coal extraction resumed. Upon the nationalization of French coal mines in 1946, under the provisional post-war government, initially led by Charles de Gaulle, Ronchamp Mining District was placed under the authority of Électricité de France (EDF), because it was too distant from the other large mining districts of France, and it included a major thermal power plant.
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When the shift had finished work on Saturday 8 May, all the doors on the higher levels should have been closed, so that the fresh air entering should have been sent through the bottom level of the mine. Initially Foster was at a loss to understand why with the aid of the closed doors the atmospheric current, which should have run into the bottom level, had not cleared the shaft so as to make descent below the 115 fathom level possible. On making another descent on 15 May Dr Le Neve Foster examined all levels as far down as the 74 fathom level, where he found that a doorway had been left wide open. This proved to him that the entire volume of clean air entering the mine turned away at the 74 fathom level, and through that and the levels above returned by the upcast shaft and vented back into the atmosphere.
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This shaft was deepened to 1,000 yards and a Koepe tower winder was built in 1961. The upcast ventilation shaft was No 3 pit sunk to 535 yards, it had a winding engine for winding men not coal. An electric power generating house was built in 1915 and a tall chimney for the boiler plant built in 1916. The Lancashire boilers were supplied by Galloways. In 1923 the Mosley Common, Nos 1, 2 and 5 pits employed 1,338 underground and 198 surface workers while Nos 3 and 4 pits employed 951 underground and 143 above ground. The colliery became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929 when Bridgewater Collieries joined the company. By 1933 while part of Manchester Collieries the combined total for the pits was 1,729 underground and 489 on the surface rising to 1,711 and 531 in 1940. In 1947, at nationalisation, Mosley Common Nos 1 & 2 pits employed 978 underground and 406 surface workers while No 4 pit employed a further 853 underground and 221 on the surface.
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Foster conducted further tests with mice which proved that things were much in the same condition; and it then seemed probable that the door at the 130 fathom level was open, allowing the air going down the main shaft to escape through this level to the succession of intermediate shafts which formed the upcast - without going to the lower levels at all. Foster was therefore of the opinion that this door should be closed if possible in order that the body of Robert Kelly could be brought up. Foster, Captain Kewley and Captain Reddicliffe, together with a party of miners, went down to the 115 fathom level, and before descending any further tested the air by lowering a tame rat in a cage, from platform to platform. Leaving most of the miners at the 115 fathom level, Captain Kewley, Captain Reddicliffe and Dr Foster proceeded further down the shaft and reached a level about above the body of Robert Kelly in safety and lowered the testing apparatus with its candle alight, where they could see the body of Kelly, lying in the position described by the Foxdale team during their previous descent.
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