The heights of the room was determined by the thickness of the coal seam which was, in Indiana, Jefferson and Armstrong counties, an average of 32" to the six feet found at Iselin and parts of Lucerne. Many laborers were required in the preliminary stages, including a special "rock man" called in to blast down enough rock to attain the desired height in the main entry. "Rooms," about 24 feet wide, were made at regular intervals. The "main entry," often compared to a main street, dominated the layout, while other entries were dug parallel to the main at regular intervals.These parallel entries were connected at right angles with cross entries somewhat like side streets. Wearing a "Sunshine" lamp, which burned a paraffin-like substance, or later, a carbide lamp for illumination, the old-time miner worked in the equivalent of an underground city. The unraveling of some of this mystery begins with a glimpse into a coal mine of a generation ago. Among the lists, the terms "spragger," "trapper," "dock boss," and many others stand out from the neatly lined sheets to baffle the modern reader. Many of the men named in the books are long forgotten, while others Left behind sons and grandsons who, in their turn, helped make Indiana County one of Pennsylvania's largest coal producers.Across from each man's name is written his particular job in or around the mines, and most, in these days of continuous mining machines and gigantic power plants, are as puzzling as words from another planet.
One or two, stamped with dates from the turn of the century, have on their pages, in an elaborate handwriting of the kind no longer taught, the names of miners and a record of their employment over a period of several months. These books, most still bearing a fine film of coal dust, sum up, in brief notes and columns of figures, clues to both the history of the company and of mining in Indiana County. Among the shelves of solemn-looking, leather-bound record books stored at the R&P Coal Company's Church Street offices are several volumes dating to 1881, the year the firm was founded.
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