Hewing coal with a pick

The hewer lay on his side in a seam about a metre high, worked the coal loose with a short pick and filled tubs by hand. Machine cutting spread slowly in Britain, from under two percent of output in 1900 to thirty-eight percent by 1932, and the shearer loader settled the question, cutting half of British coal by 1966 and eighty percent by 1977. The pick did not go because a machine hewed better, it went because the shearer, the powered roof support and the armoured conveyor made a face that no gang of hewers could match on tonnage. Men stayed underground to advance the supports, read the roof, deal with faults, water and gas, and hand mining continues in small pits in India, China and Colombia, largely outside any safety regime.