eventy-horse-power Ganges
river-steamer can, in one hour, tell legends of the Sandheads and the
James and Mary shoal sufficient to fill half a _Pioneer_, but a couple
of days spent on, above, and in a coal-mine yields more mixed
information than two engineers and three captains. It is hopeless to
pretend to understand it all.

When your host says, "Ah, such an one is a thundering good
fault-reader!" you smile hazily, and by way of keeping up the
conversation, adventure on the statement that fault-reading and
palmistry are very popular amusements. Then men explain.

Every one knows that coal-strata, in common with women, horses, and
official superiors, have "faults" caused by some colic of the earth in
the days when things were settling into their places. A coal-seam is
suddenly sliced off as a pencil is cut through with one slanting blow of
the penknife, and one-half is either pushed up or pushed down any number
of feet. The miners work the seam till they come to this break-off, and
then call for an expert to "read the fault." It is sometimes very hard
to discover whether the sliced-off seam has gone up or down.
Theoretically, the end of the broken piece should show the direction.
Practically its indications are not always clear. Then a good
"fault-reader," who must more than know geology, is a useful man, and is
much prized; for the Giridih fields are full of faults and "dykes."
Tongues of what was once molten lava thrust themselves sheer into the
coal, and the disgusted miner finds that for about twenty feet on each
side of the tongue all coal has been burnt away.

The head of the mine is supposed to foresee these things and more. He
can tell you, without looking at the map, what is the geological
formation of any thousand square miles of India; he knows as much about
brickwork and the building of houses, arches, and shafts as an average
P. W. D. man; he has not only to know the intestines of a pumping or
winding engine, but must be able to take them to pieces with his own
hands, indicate on the spot such parts as need repair, and make drawings
of anything that requires renewal; he knows how to lay out and build
railways with a grade of one in twenty-seven; he has to carry, in his
head all the signals and points between and over which his locomotive
engines work; he must be an electrician capable of controlling the
apparatus that fires the dynamite charges in the pits, and must
thoroughly understand boring operatio