Most of the industries of Britain are in the North or North Midlands. In these parts, you will remember, we are mainly away from the better agricultural districts. The smiling fertile cornfields and rich lowland meadows are replaced by bleak uplands with stone walls and few trees. [Sidenote: 9. Colliers’ houses.] Here is a row of cottages where dwell colliers of the north of England. What a contrast with the homes of the agricultural labourers which we saw in the last lecture! And yet the colliers who work in the coal mines are much better paid than the labourers on the farms. [Sidenote: 10. View of Colliery above ground.] This is a coal mine, or, as it is called, a colliery. Here is the chimney of the pumping station which lifts water from the mine, lest it should be flooded by underground springs. The same engine is used to raise the coal to the surface. [Sidenote: 11. The Pit-mouth.] Next we come into the yard of the colliery, to the pit-mouth itself. These colliers have done their spell of work, and have just come to the surface again, all blackened and grimy with coal dust. Each of them holds a small lamp of a special kind. It is so made that the flame cannot pass out, even though the lamp be upset. The object is to prevent explosions of the coal gas which is often disengaged in the mine. Occasionally the colliers are careless and open the lamps, and as a consequence we sometimes hear of a terrible explosion with great loss of life. [Sidenote: 12. In the Cage.] [Sidenote: 13. At work on a four-foot Seam.] [Sidenote: 14. Levelling in a Coal Mine.] This is the cage ascending to the surface, bringing miners begrimed with coal dust, and each carrying his lamp and his can of liquid needed for drink in the depths of the earth, because the heat is there great, and there is much perspiration from labour. Next we see the actual working of the mine. The roof is supported by timbers, which are now brought to Britain from foreign countries in great quantity, because Britain is so populous that men cannot afford the space for the forests in which to grow the wood needed for the mines. Note the vertical thickness of the coal. It is to this that the towering forest of former times has been compressed in its ruin. Here with his lamp hung to one of the posts is the miner, stripped to his work, using his pickaxe to detach the lumps of coal. And here, finally, with the seam of coal more plainly visible than in the darker corner we have just left, are miners occupied in levelling, and so guiding the course of the tunnel. The coal is taken in trucks from the face where it is worked to the foot of the shaft, and thence raised to the surface.