109 Coal Pits (Yama) in the Old Days (Mangoku: Coal Sifter in the Old Days)

The coal dressing machine was not known nor used in the pit in those days. The loaded mine cars wound up from underground were sent to the trestle and unloaded by surface transport men, dumping the coal on a screen for separating lump coal from slack called a mangoku.
Female day laborers each separated lump coal from refuse and scooped it into coal transport tubs with an ebu (bamboo winnow). They had a pony draw and carry the tubs to the nearest station to transfer the coal to railway coal cars (The capacity of a coal car was 6 or 8 tons at that time).
The mangoku was 5 or 6 feet wide and about 12 feet long, and made up of round iron bars 5/8 inch in diameter lined side by side like a grille, through which slack coal was sifted. However, it was inclined at an angle of about 60 degrees to the ground.
(A handle bar to open and close the side door of the mine car was made of an iron bar 1 inch in diameter, which pierced through the front and rear panels of the mine car so that the transport man could open the side door with it from the rear. Additionally, mine cars with a side door were useless at a curve in a main slope, where guide rails and rollers (surase) were fixed, and mine cars with a door opening upwards on the top were used in such a slope. A simple tippler [daruma: device to unload a mine car] was used on trestles in the end of the Meiji era.)