RELICS OF ANCIENT MINERS

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 392, 12 November 1903, Page 3

RELICS OF ANCIENT MINERS

t«4as>—ttssjr MMevtir to «~9*asj» *tea4«»<t4 So»««ge& asasaV X«ew ■aawa-wwh, Arehaaologists are much interest**! fa a discovery just made in the Fife ©oal pit near Edinburgh. During operations by the Wemyss Coal company at an old disused' pit at the Blair burn, in order to prevent flooding, the overmen discovered a large number of miners' tools such as wera used some 300 years ago. The shovels are all made of wood, some of them feeing as good as the day they ware csade; the picks' and mells are iron, the pinches are wood with iron points. One of the operators tlint there are huge blocks of coal lying- about all cut out with the pick, so large an to puzzle the present day collier how the old miners aceemplished the task of cutting them out; the pick handles are of great thicklies*, approaching almost to the thickness of props used for support* ing the roof at the present time. There is a tradition that the did mine was flooded, causing the death of many of the miners, and the conditions of the mine and the fact of so many tools lying about the seats* point to the truth of the atorf,