Sunshine Lamp
The brightness of this lamp was equal to:
One Birthday Candle.

Carbide Lamp
The brightness of this lamp was equal to:
Ten Birthday Candles.

 

Coal Miner

Coal miners are people who dig tunnels, called mines, deep into the earth to find coal. If your great-grandfather was a miner, he did not have electric engines, drills, and cutting machines to help him do his work like today's miners. The early miners worked by hand, using picks and shovels and a little bit of dynamite. The miner's work was hard and the work days were long. The miner was paid for each wagon he could fill with coal. Each wagon held about seven tons of coal.

First the miner would drill several holes deep into the coal with a hand cranked drill called an auger. Next, he would put sticks of dynamite in the holes and wire them together so he could explode all the dynamite at once. When he was ready to set off the dynamite at once, the miner would yell: "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!" He would yell this three times before lighting the fuse. It was a warning, to the other miners, to take cover because there would be an explosion very soon.

The blast from the dynamite would loosen the coal from the wall of the mine and allow it to fall so the miners could shovel it into the wagons. When the wagons were full, they were pulled from the mine by horses and mules. The miner had to be very careful when he used his dynamite. If he used too much dynamite, he could create a big explosion that would cause the roof of the mine to cave in on top of him and the other miners.

Work in the mine was hard and dangerous, and the mine was cold and very often wet or even flooded. But maybe the worst thing about working in the mine was that there wasn't any light. It was black, coal black, not a speck of light from outside could come into the mine. The miner had a small lamp.The early lamps were called sunshine lamps and later ones were called carbide lamps. These lamps burned with an open flame like a candle. The miner hung his lamp on his cap. Mining coal was a dirty job. At the end of the day when the miner came out of the mine, he was covered from head to foot with coal dust. All that you could see were the whites of his eyes.