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Painting of a Colliery This is a composition that focuses on workers within the landscape. The eye is drawn to a large piece of working machinery, left of center that includes a smoking chimney. Chains attach to structures right and left in the composition. The large left hand structure has a two level system of pulleys that glisten in the sunlight. The right hand structure is smaller, has an open door framing a figure, and a soft plume of smoke that comes from its chimney. A tall shaft with a circle pulley diagonally slants at its rear. Immediately in front of that structure a blue weighbridge frames a horse and wagon. The wagon appears to be carrying coal. Figures to the right of this shovel move more of the coal into wheelbarrows. In the foreground, several figures move to the left of the composition. In the center, a man leads two donkeys containing baskets of coal. Left of center, another man pushes a wheelbarrow of coal. Two horses are to his right, while another two - attached to a coal filled wagon - graze behind. Background The action of this illustration seems to follow a circular movement, from left to right and back again. Starting at the left, the large structures and machinery dominate. Our eye moves along the cable to the right, where a horse and wagon carry coal - coming from the smaller structure. Perhaps this is a cause and effect illustration. Workingmen, above the ground, load coal into baskets and wagons for transport. The large machinery in the middle ground overshadows the workers size and occupation. Mining coal had been a viable British industry even before the Industrial Revolution. As population increased, there was a greater demand for coal for domestic heating. Increased industrial activities - requiring steam-powered engines - demanded even greater amounts. Thomas Newcomen invented a steam engine to pump water out of underground mines in 1712. Atmospheric pressure moved the piston down the cylinder and steam from the boiler caused the piston to rise. A vacuum was created with the interaction of cold water and hot steam, and the piston was in full operation moving the counterweights up and down. Newcomen's engine was replaced with James Watt's steam engine later in the century. Watt's steam engine gradually replaced the natural power of the waterwheel. We found a prodigious large fire engine at work, draining the water from the pit; and adjoining to it a circular aperture of a tolerable diameter, filled with smoke. We were gently lowered bty the operation of six horses employed for that purpose, till we found ourselves at the end of about five minutes safely landed on solid ground, and with a huge fire burning on one side, to keep the air at the proper temperature.
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