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The Haig Colliery product brochure for the 1930's lists the following types
of coal :-

Best Large Coal / Cobbles / Treble Nuts / Washed Double Nuts / Washed Single
Nuts / Washed Small Coal / and Special Gas Coal.

Best of luck with the translation.
John Greasley

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Website : www.haigpit.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Edgehill E-Mail Service <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: Coal lump terms


> Apropos of this topic, (although a little off-beam.) I cannot provenance
> most of these terms, here they are...
>
> I have heard terms such as "lump" or "lumpen" (unsorted, as it comes out
of
> the pit); "crush" mixed sizes from the crushing mill; "ball" and "clod"
> (enormous lumps); "double(s)" (in common and widespread use, about the
size
> of your two fists together); "shale" (fine, flakey coal); "shingle,"
> "grass," "sand" and "gravel" (Tyneside, sea-coal in various states and
> sizes); "mud" is a term used by manufacturers of the finely-crushed
> coal-powder/water mix used for fuelling "liquid-coal" boilers.
>
> I believe that "paper" or "skin" is applied to shaly textured coals
> (actually a carbonaceous shale) which separated into thin cleavage
> fragments about the size of your hand. An inferior (and almost
un-burnable)
> grade taken as a perquisite by colliers for burning at home.
>
> Finally, a friend from Cumbria tells me that one particular grade was
> "Amber" - a weathered coal which broke into rounded lumps about the size
of
> a golfball (and a whole pile of fine bits). The 'amber' is a fine brown
> limonite glaze over the fracture surfaces. This was dug from a small
> surface working on private land, and was the original "pick-your-own" coal
> - for a small fee, you took away a bucket or barrow-load. The pit
developed
> into a shallow drift, now disused and occupied by badgers. The Amber is
> worked out, but there is still some coal in the seams.
>
> Subject: RE: Coal lump terms
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of SERVICE
> CULTUREL L'ARGENTIERE
> Sent: 20 June 2000 10:17
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Coal lump terms
>
>
>
> Dear Group
>
> I am translating a small coal-mining museum in Provence's panel notices
> into
> English, and am faced with some precise local technical terms in French
for
> different sizes of coal lumps, eg : "grelassons", "chatilles", "menus". I
> can guess from the French roughly how small each one is, but I would like
> to
> correlate them to some range of local dialect terms in English. I only
> know,
> from Lancashire, "slack", and "cobs".
>
> Can anyone offer me a few more similar terms for use, and thus improve on
> the usual awful translations one gets in tourist places?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Ian Cowburn
> Conservateur, Fournel Silver Mines
> F-05120 L'Argentière-la-Bessée
> tel +33 492 23 04 48
> fax +33 492 23 20 90
> mail : [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  exactly the same (passage/tunnel/gallery/corridor or
pit/mine/quarry/shaft
> or layer/seam/ strata or wagon/trolley/skip).
>
>
>
> ----------
>
>



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