In order to get a chamber from any of the large mining corporations, a miner must apply in person to the mining superintendent. He must come well recommended, or he must be known as a skillful, industrious, and temperate workman. The responsibility of driving a chamber properly is not a small one, and mining companies choose to take as little risk as possible in the selection of their men. Having accepted an applicant for a chamber, the company makes a contract with him, usually a verbal one, to pay him at a certain rate per ton or yard for the coal mined by him. The rate, though not wholly uniform, on account of the greater or less difficulty of cutting coal at the different collieries, is practically the same throughout an entire district. A miner working at full time and in a good seam will send out enough coal each month to amount, at the contract price, to $150. But his expenses for laborers’ wages, powder, oil, fuse, etc., will amount to $75 per month, leaving him a net income of $75 per month. The laborer is also paid according to the number of tons of coal sent out, and his wages will probably average $2 per day. It is not often in these days of thin seams that these rates of income are exceeded. And when the mines are in operation only a portion of the time, as is now often the case, these figures are seriously reduced. The subject of wages frequently has been under discussion between miners and operators, and the differences of opinion on it have been prolific of many strikes. By some corporations and at some collieries a sliding scale has been adopted. That is, the miner has been paid, not at a fixed rate, but at a rate which constantly adjusts itself to the market price of coal. The objection to this method is said to be that the great companies who practically control the anthracite coal business form syndicates, fix the market price of their coal for a certain period of time, and then limit the output of each member of the syndicate to a certain number of tons during that period.