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I realise that I should know the answer to this, but...

I've been looking at the accounts of the Countess Waldegrave's collieries at
Radstock in Somerset and I'm trying to make some sense of the output figures
which use a number of terms that I'm not too sure about..

Accounts prepared by George Greenwell in the 1850s refer to "skreened" and
"brush" coal. I presume that "skreened" is larger coal that had passed over
the screens, but what is "brush"?

Throughout the 1860s the accounts prepared by James McMurtrie give sales
figures for "round coal" and "small coal", but only output figures for the
round coal. As a result, the total annual sales exceed the output by about
20,000 tons. What is the precise definition of these types of coal and can
anyone suggest why the output figures ignore the small coal?


From 1874 (apparently at the suggestion of the accountants) the problem
disappears, as the total output is given, divided into that from the upper
and lower series of seams.

Keith Ramsey