Coal mining

Coal mining

Damps

Damps is a collective name given to all gases other than air found in coal mines in Great Britain. The chief pollutants are carbon dioxide and methane, known as blackdamp and firedamp respectively.

Coal mining

Coal mining terms

This is a partial glossary of common coal mining terms used in the United Kingdom. Some words were in use throughout the coalfields, some are historic and others are local to the different British coalfields.

Coal mining, Greater Manchester

Fairbottom Bobs

Fairbottom Bobs, an 18th-century Newcomen-type beam engine, was used to pump water from a coal pit near Ashton-under-Lyne, is probably the world’s second-oldest surviving steam engine.

Coal mining, Greater Manchester

Edward Ormerod

English mining engineer and inventor who worked at Gibfield Colliery in Atherton, Lancashire where he devised and tested his safety device, the Ormerod safety link or detaching hook.

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