Minims. MINHO (Span. Miño, anc. Minius), a river of Spain and Portugal, rises in the n.e. of Galicia, in lat. about 43° 20' n., long. about 7° 15' w. Its course is s. w. through the modern Spanish provinces of Lugo and Orense, after which, continuing its course, and forming the northern boundary of the Portuguese province of Minho, it falls into the Atlantic Ocean. Its length, exclusive of windings, is 130 m., and it is navigable for small craft 23 m. above its mouth. 1 66 MINIATURE-PAINTING, or the painting of portraits on a small scale, originated in the practice of embellishing manuscript books. See MANUSCRIPTS, ILLUMINATION OF. As the initial letters were written with red lead (Lat. minium), the art of illumination was expressed by the low-Latin verb miniare, and the term miniatura was applied to the small pictures introduced. After the invention of printing and engraving, this delicate art entered on a new phase; copies, in small dimensions, of celebrated pictures came to be in considerable request, and, in particular, there arose such a demand for miniatureportraits that a miniature, in popular language, is held to signify a very small portrait. Soon after their introduction, miniature-portraits were executed with very great skill in England. Holbein (b. 1498, d. 1554) painted exquisite miniatures, and having settled in London, his works had great influence in calling forth native talent. The works of Nicholas Hilliard (b. at Exeter 1547, d. 1619) are justly held in high estimation. Isaac Oliver (b. 1556, d. 1617) was employed by queen Elizabeth and most of the distinguished characters of the time; his works are remarkable for careful and elaborate execution; and his son, Peter Oliver, achieved even a higher reputation. Thomas Flatman (b. 1633, d. 1688) painted good miniatures. Samuel Cooper (b. London 1609, d. 1672), who was, with his brother Alexander, a pupil of his uncle, Hoskins, an artist of reputation, carried miniature-painting to high excellence. Cromwell and Milton sat to him he was employed by Charles II.-and obtained the highest patronage at the courts of France and in Holland. Till within these few years miniature-painting continued to be successfully cultivated in Britain; but it has received a severe check since photography was invented, and most of the artists of the present time who exercised their talents in this exquisite art have left it for other branches of painting. As to technical details, the early artists painted on vellum, and used body-colors, that is, colors mixed with white or other opaque pigments, and this practice was continued till a comparatively late period, when thin leaves of ivory, fixed on card-board with gum, were substituted. Many of the old miniature-painters worked with oil-colors on small plates of copper or silver. After ivory was substituted for vellum transparent colors were employed on faces, hands, and other delicate portions of the picture, the opaque colors being only used in draperies and the like; but during the present century, in which the art has been brought to the highest excellence, the practice has been to execute the entire work, with the exception of the high lights in white drapery, with transparent colors. In working the general practice is to draw the picture very faintly and delicately with a sable-hair pencil, using a neutral tint composed of cobalt and burned sienna. features are carefully made out in that way, and then the carnations, or flesh-tints, composed of pink, madder, and raw sienna, gradually introduced. The drapery and background should be freely washed in, and the whole work is then brought out by hatching, that is, by painting with lines or strokes, which the artist must accommodate to the forms, and which are diminished in size as the work progresses. Stippling, or dotting, was a method much employed, particularly in early times; but the latest masters of the art preferred hatching, and there are specimens by old masters, Perugino, for instance, executed in that manner. The MINIÉ, CLAUDE ÉTIENNE, b. Paris, 1810; entered the army as a volunteer, and served in Algeria during several campaigns. He was made capt. in 1849, and in 1852 was appointed by Napoleon III. superintendent of the school of ordnance at Vincennes. In 1858 he resigned this post, and was appointed by the Egyptian government to superintend a manufactory of arms and a school of gunnery at Cairo. His invention of the Minié rifle was made about 1833, and adopted by the French government. It was the first practical introduction of the principle of expansion in the manufacture of firearms, and gave to the bullet a precision and range previously unknown to gunnery. MIN'IM, the name of one of the notes in modern music, the value of which is the half of a semibreve. MINIMS (Lat. fratres minimi, least brethren), so called, in token of still greater humility, by contrast with the fratres minores, or lesser brethren of St. Francis of Assisi (q.v.), an order of the Roman Catholic church, founded by another St. Francis, a native of Paula, a small town of Calabria, about the middle of the 15th century. Francis had, as a boy, entered the Franciscan order; but the austerities of that rule failed to satisfy his ardor, and on his return from a pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi, he founded, in 1453, an association of hermits of St. Francis, who first lived in separate cells, but eventually were united in the conventual life in 1474, and established in several places in Calabria and Sicily. Francis was also invited into France by Louis XI., and founded houses of his order at Amboise and at Plessis-les-Tours. In Spain the brethren took the name of "Fathers of Victory," in memory of the recovery of Malaga from the Moors, which was ascribed to their prayers. It was not till very near the close of the life of Francis that he drew up the rule of his order. It is exceedingly austere, the brethren being debarred Mining. the use not only of meat, but of eggs, butter, cheese, and milk. Notwithstanding its severity, this institute attained considerable success; its houses, soon after the death of Francis (1502), numbering no fewer than 450. It has reckoned several distinguished scholars among its members; but in latter times the order has fallen into decay, being now limited to a few houses in Italy, the chief of which is at Rome. The superiors of convents in this order are called by the curious name of corrector, the general being styled generalis corrector. A corresponding order of females had its origin about the same time, but this order also has fallen into disuse. MINING is a general term for the underground operations by which the various metals and other minerals are procured. It has been practiced to some extent from_the remotest times, as is proved by the reference to it in the 28th chapter of the bock of Job. In its proper sense, the art was certainly known to the ancient Phenicians and Egyptians, and also to the Greeks and Romans. Mining operations were carried on in Britain by the latter at the time of the Roman conquest. After the Norman conquest, Jews, and, at a later time, Germans were largely employed in our mines. The introduction of gunpowder as a blasting material in 1620, led the way to many improvements in mining; so also did the introduction of powerful engines for pumping water, about the beginning of the 18th century. There are two principal methods of mining: one of which is adopted where the mineral occurs in veins or lodes, as copper and lead ore; and the other where the mineral occurs in more or less parallel beds, as coal. Mining in alluvial deposits is a third method, largely practiced in the gold regions of California and Australia, and includes the novel process of hydraulic mining." In mines like those of Cornwall and Devonshire, where most of the copper and tin of Great Britain, and also some of the lead, are obtained, the ores occur in veins filling cracks or fissures in the rocks. Such veins are termed lodes, to distinguish them from veins of quartz and other non-metallic minerals. Lodes are very irregular in size, and in the directions they take, though they usually follow one general line. A lode consists of a main or 66 champion" lode and branches, called feeders, shoots, and strings. Mineral veins sometimes extend for several miles through a country; but they expand and contract so much, and split up into so many branches, that it is perhaps uncertain whether the same lode has ever been traced for more than a mile. Veins seldom deviate more than 45 degrees from a perpendicular line, and descend to unknown depths. They penetrate alike stratified and unstratified rocks. Those veins which run e. and w. have been observed to be the most productive. Fig. 1 shows a section of a Cornish mine across the lodes 1, 1, 1, 1; a is the engineshaft, in which are the pumps and the ladders for ascent and descent; b, b are whim shafts for raising the ore, which is done by means of buckets. The adit, or day-level, is a long passage to which the water of the mine is pumped up and conveyed away. Some adits are made to traverse several mines. The great adit which drains the mines of Glennap and Redruth, in Cornwall, is 30 m. long. At c, c, c, are cross cuts, by which the workings on the different lodes are connected. A horizontal section in the direction of a lode would show the horizontal galleries, termed levels, which are driven upon the lode, and small upright shafts, called winces. Levels are generally about ten fathoms (60 ft.) apart. They are rarely perpendicular above each other, as they follow the inclination of the vein. In the section, the richer portions of the lode, termed bunches,' are shown Fig. 1.-Cross-section of a Cornish Mine. shaded; and where these have been removed, and their place filled with rubbish, angular fragments are represented. This is necessary to prevent the sides of workings from falling in. The bottom of the engine-shaft is the lowest portion of the mine. It is called the sump, and is the place where the water from the various levels and workings collects, in order to be pumped up to the adit. The galleries and shafts in an extensive mine are very numerous, making it altogether a very complicated affair. The shafts, however, have all distinct names, and the levels are known by their depth in fathoms, so that particular places are as easily found as streets in a town. The underground workings of the Consolidated mines, which are the largest in Cornwall, being a " Mining. conjunction of four mines, are 55,000 fathoms, or 63 m., in extent. In working out the lode between one level and another, the miner usually goes upwards, it being easier to throw down the ore than to raise it up. He works with the light of a candle, stuck with clay to the side of the mine. His tools are few-namely, a pick, a hammer, and some wedges where the vein is soft and friable; but it is generally hard enough to require blasting, in which case he uses a borer or jumper, and some smaller tools for cleaning and stemming the hole which is made. The ore is filled into wagons, and then drawn along the gallery to the shaft, to be raised to the surface in kibbles. A vein may be 30 or 40 ft. thick, and so poor in ore as not to be worth working; again, it may be only a few inches thick, and yet its richness may amply repay the labor of extracting it. Three or four feet may be taken as the average of several kinds of veins. In extensive mines, portions of the ore are here and there left in the lode, so as to furnish a steady supply when other parts are unproductive. These are called eyes, and when they are afterwards removed, the operation is termed picking out the eyes of the mine. The old plan of ascending and descending the mines by ladders, so destructive to the health of the miners, is still largely in use. The ladders are now about 25 ft. long, and set with a slope. There is a platform at the bottom of each called a sollar, with a manhole in it leading to the next ladder beneath. Some of the Cornish mines are half a mile deep, so that it takes the miner an hour to reach the surface after he is done with his work; most of the journey being accomplished on wet, slippery ladders. The bad effects of the fatigue so produced are augmented by the fact that the men come from a constant temperature of 80° or 90° F. below, to one of perhaps 30° or 40° on the surface. Dr. J. B. Sanderson states, as the result of recent inquiries, that 90° F. is the highest limit of temperature consistent with healthy labor in a mine. A great improvement on the ladder system is now in operation in several of the deep Cornish mines. It is a method first introduced into the deep mines of the Harz, and called the fahr-kunst. The plan of this “man-engine" is this. Two rods descend through the depth of the shaft, and upon these bracket-steps are fixed every 12 feet. The rods move up and down alternately through this distance by means of a reciprocating motion. If the miner wishes to ascend, he places himself on the lower step of the first rod, and is raised by the first movement of this rod to the level of the second step on the second rod, to which he now crosses. The next movement raises the second rod, and brings the second step up to the level of the third step of the first rod, to which he next crosses; and so, ascending stage by stage, he reaches the top. The descent is, of course, accomplished in the same way. Some of the Cornish pumping-engines are very large and powerful. The cylinder of one of the largest is 7 ft. 6 in. in diameter. With the expenditure of one bushel of coal, it can raise 100,000,000 lbs. weight one ft. high; this is called its "duty." It lifts nearly 800 gallons of water per minute, and its cost was about £8,000. In Cornwall the miners are divided into two classes: one of them called tributers, who take a two months' contract of a portion of the lode; the other called tutmen, who are employ ed in sinking shafts, driving levels, etc. A detailed analysis of one of the largest Cornish copper mines, published some years ago, shows that in that year it produced, in round numbers, 16,000 tons of ore, realizing £90,000, and yielding a net profit of about £16,000. It employed about 700 miners, 300 laborers, 300 boys, and 300 women and girls. The cost for coal was £1800; for malleable iron and steel, £1300; for foundry castings, £2,000; for ropes, £1000; for candles, £1800; for gunpowder, £2,000; and for timber, nearly £3,000. The last mines regulation acts were passed in 1872 (amended in 1875). See MINES IN LAW. Mining for Coal.-The minerals of the carboniferous formation, at least those which occur in beds or strata, as coal and clay ironstone, are mined, as has been already said, in a different way from metallic veins. Originally deposited in a horizontal position, they have been so altered by movements in the earth's crust, that they are rarely found so now. They are more generally found lying in a kind of basin or trough, with many minor undulations and dislocations. But however much twisted out of their original position, the different seams, more or less, preserve their parallelism, a fact of great service to the miner, since beds of shale, or other minerals, of a known distance from a coal seam, are often exposed when the coal itself is not, and so indicate where it may be found The great progress made of late years in the science of geology has made us so minutely acquainted with all the rock formations above and below the coal measures, that it is now a comparatively easy matter to determine whether, in any given spot, coal may or may not be found. Nevertheless, large sums are still occasionally, as they have in past times been very frequently, wasted in the fruitless search for coal, where the character of the rocks indicates formations far removed from coal-bearing strata. When there are good grounds for supposing that coal is likely to be found in any particular locality, before a pit is sunk the preliminary process of "boring" (q.v.) is resorted to, in order to determine whether it actually does exist there, and if in quantity sufficient to make the mining of it profitable. The usual mode of "winning" or reaching the coal is to sink a perpendicular shaft; but sometimes a level or cross-cut mine, and at other times an inclined plane or dook," is adopted. Before the introduction of pumping-engines, all coal-workings were drained by means of a level mine called a daylevel, driven from the lowest available point on the surface, and no coal could be wrought at a lower depth than this, because there were no means of removing the water. This When the shaft has been sunk to the necessary depth, a level passage, called the diphead, or main-level, is first driven on each side, which acts as a roadway or passage, and, at the same time, as a drain to conduct the water, which accumulates in the workings, by means of a gutter on one side, to the lodgment at the bottom of the shaft. level is the lowest limit of the workings in the direction of the dip, and from it the coal is worked out as far as is practicable along the rise of the strata. There are two principal methods of mining the coal. One is termed the "post-and-stall" or "stoop 66 and-room" system, and is used for thick seams; the other is called the "long-wall" system, and is adopted for seams under 4 ft. in thickness. In a mine wrought on the post-andstall plan, the coal is taken out in Me parallel spaces of say 15 ft. wide, intersected by a similar series of passages at right angles. Between these rooms, as they are called, "stoops" of coal, about 30 ft. each way, are left for the support of the "roof" of the seam. Larger stoops are left at the bottom of the shaft, in order to secure greater stability there. There is a modification of this plan adopted at Newcastle, called the "board-and-pillar" method, by which a certain number of the stoops or pillars are removed altogether, after which the roof falls in, and forms a mass of ruins, termed a "goaf." The long-wall system consists in extracting the entire seam of coal at the first working, the overlying strata being supported by the waste rock from the roof of the workings. It is necessary, however, to leave large stoops at the bottom of the shaft for its support, as in the stoopand-room method. In long-wall workings, roads of a proper height and width require to be made for communication with the different parts of the mine. The collier's usual mode of extracting the coal from its bed is this: With a light pick, he undercuts the coal-seam, technically termed "holing," for 2 or 3 ft. inwards, and then, by driving in wedges at the top of the seam, he breaks away the portion which has been holed. Blasting is occasionally, but not often resorted to. For the past ten years, machines, some for "holing" only, and others for both" holing" and hew Fig. 2.-Vertical Section of the Shaft of a Coal-pit, with ing down coal-seams, have been more a Detached Portion, showing a Miner at work on the Coal Seam. or less in use. They usually work with compressed air, but sometimes with steam or water. It is still premature, however, to express any decided opinion as to their efficiency as compared with hand-labor. The coal, when separated from its bed, is put on tubs or hutches, which are generally drawn by horses, but sometimes by engine-power, along the roads to the bottom of the shaft, and hoisted to the surface. The shaft is perhaps the most important portion of a coal-pit, and the principal parts of one are shown in fig. 2. The upper part shows the pit-head arrangements, the central part shows the force-pump, etc., and the lower part shows the pit-bottom arrangements. To make the section complete, the reader must imagine a great depth to intervene at the gaps A and B. There are four divisions in this shaft: the two center ones, a, a, are used for sending up and down the men and the coal; the one on the right side, b. Mining. contains the pump; and the remaining one on the left, c, is for withdrawing the vitiated air from the mine, and has usually a furnace at the bottom of it. In some pits a special. shaft is applied to the ventilation, for which mechanical contrivances, such as ventilating fans, are now also partially introduced. Since the dreadful accident at the Hartley Colliery, in January, 1862, caused by the beam of the engine breaking and closing up the shaft, an act of parliament has been passed making it imperative to have two shafts, or at least two outlets, to every coal-mine, as a means of escape, in case of an accident to one of them. The cages d, d, by which the colliers ascend and descend, are also used for raising the coal. They are merely square plats of timber, with rails across thom, for the convenience of running off and on the coal-hutches, e, and with a light iron frame, by which they are suspended to a flat wire-rope. On each cage there are iron clasps, which slide up and down on guide-rods. In the figure, two miners are shown standing on one cage at the bottom of the shaft, and the other is at the top, with a coal-hutch upon it. The accidents resulting from the raising and lowering of the cages are numerous; many of them happen by the carelessness of the engine-man in not stopping the cage when it reaches the mouth of the pit, and so allowing it to be upset by over-winding. Many accidents also happen from the rope breaking. To prevent this, numerous "safetycages" have been invented, most of which depend on the action of a spring, which is held in a certain position while the cage is suspended by the rope; but should the latter snap, the spring is suddenly relieved, and then grasping the guide-rods, prevents the cage from falling. Other safety cages act by levers and clutches, but it is still disputed whether there is, on the whole, a decided advantage in using any of them, since they are all liable to get out of order. The man-engine, although not used in British collieries, is adopted in several on the continent, and is certainly the safest way of putting up and down men in a pit. The steam-engine, E, works the pumps, in this case by a direct action, the pump-rods being attached to the piston-rod. The engine also winds up the cages, one of which ascends while the other descends-the barrel and other arrangements for which are shown in the figure. The proper ventilation of any mine, but especially of a coal mine, is of very great importance. It clears the mine of the dangerous gases, fire-damp and foul-damp, dries the subterranean roadways, and furnishes the miners with a supply of pure air. Some idea of the general mode of ventilating a mine will be obtained by referring to Fig. 2, where the arrows pointing downward indicate the downcast shaft, and the arrows pointing upward, the upcast one. A number of doors and stops secure the traveling of the current in a proper direction, so as to reach the furthest recesses of the mine. It then returns by the upcast shaft, where, as has been already stated, it is usual to keep a furnace burning, to aid in withdrawing the impure air. It is very difficult, however, to secure efficient ventilation through all the zigzag windings of a mine; bence the frequent and sometimes terrible explosions of fire-damp, or light carbureted hydrogen, which explodes when mixed with a certain proportion of atmospheric air; hence, also, the occasional accumulation of foul-damp (carbonic acid) in some pits, which suffocates any one breathing it. This deadly gas is always produced in large quantity by an explosion of fire-damp, and chokes many who have survived the violence of the explosion. Many collieries are so free of fire-damp, that the miners work with naked lights, but in others it is necessary to use the safety lamp (q.v.). Besides the already mentioned sources of accident, there is the sudden falling-in of pieces from the roof of the workings. The following summary, made up from H. M. inspector's returns, shows the number of lives lost, in proportion to the quantity of coal raised: Total tons of mineral raised in Great Britain for the year 1876. Average tons of mineral raised to each life lost. 148,989,385 933 159,688 To show the magnitude of some of the large coal-mines, it may be stated that the Hetton colliery, in Durham, yields 800,000 tons in the year, employs about 1000 men and 300 boys underground, and 300 people at the surface. The Monkwearmouth pit, near Newcastle, is 1900 ft. deep, and its face-workings are 2 m. from the bottom of the shaft. Rosebridge colliery, near Wigan, has the deepest shaft in England, being nearly 2,500 ft. deep. The sinking of some of the more difficult shafts has cost from £50,000 to £100,000 each. MINING. See APPENDIX. MINING CORPORATIONS, companies incorporated under national, state, or colonial law, to mine for the precious metals or other minerals. Such companies are sometimes permitted also to manufacture, or to do a milling or reduction business, in connection with mining; or to engage in transportation-as of coal from the mine to the market. Mining property is held by purchase and absolute ownership, or by lease. In the Dominion of Canada leases are granted by the queen, and a royalty on the yield paid to the government. The number of mining companies in the United States in good standing, reported on Jan. 1, 1881, was 212, divided as follows as to the location of the mines: California 37, Colorado 80, Montana 4, Dakotah 11, North Carolina 5, Nevada 31, Ari |