Hi list -
'The Compleat Collier : or The Whole Art of Sinking, Getting, and Working
Coal Mines, &c, especially about Sunderland and New-Castle' by JC, published
in 1708, includes the following :
"And whereas I speak of Corves, or baskets to put the Coals in, we must have
a Man (which is called the Corver) to make them.
He must have a good Quantity of young Hazle Rods, provided for that Purpose,
with young Plants, or Sippleings, as we here call them, of Oak, Ash or
Aller, of about three Inches thick, or better, for the Corf-Bow; we buy the
Rods by Bunch, each Bunch, containing about a Hundred Rods, at about
Six-pence per Bunch, and the Bows being better than two Yards long, for half
a Crown or three Shillings per Dozen or thereabouts.
Your Corver ought to be just to you, in keeping up your Corfe, for with
Working the Coals, being drawn pretty briskly up, the Corves are subject to
Clash and beat against the Shaft sides, and so beats down your Corfe dayly,
that if your Corves be not dayly beat up and mended; you may lose more than
one Inch dayly, which would bring down your Measure or Corfe, of fourteen or
fifteen Pecks, down to nine or ten Pecks, and so lose you a third of your
Measure, and cost of Working or Hewing, &c."
Alan.
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