In the song, 16 Tons, the singer claims on the day he was born he loaded “16 tons of number nine coal.” What does “number nine” mean? Does it designate quality, or size of lumps, or what?
I did a Google search.
Number Nine Coal is also used in the songs:
“Nine Pound Hammer”
That nine pound hammer that killed John Henry
Ain’t a gonna kill me, ain’t a gonna kill me.
And when I’m long gone just carve my tombstone
Out of number nine coal, out of number nine coal.
“Coal Tattoo”
I’ve got no house and I got no job, just got a worried soul
And a blue tattoo on the side of my head left by the number nine coal. Left by the number nine coal.
It is referred to here
an online geology article
Another web referrence is here FRANK GATSKI article
There are a few more referrences to a number nine coal camp/mine but I have no idea what it means.
This is perplexing indeed. Anyone out there have the answer?
I believe that it is a mine number like XYZ Coal Company Mine No.9.
http://members.fortunecity.com/folkfred/sixteen2.html and http://members.fortunecity.com/folkfred/sixteen.html describes a disputed origin of the original song.
16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford is one of my favorite songs along with another great mining song Big, Bad John by Jimmy Dean.
My first thought was that it referred to the size of the coal. However, this fact sheet from the Australian Coal Association suggests that coal is classified by its degree of metamorphism. There’s no mention of size.
Neither of these links makes any statement concerning the origin/definition of the “number nine coal.” In fact, the first says it was originally, “number four coal.”
But yes, the song is a great one. It’s still affecting and powerful to this day.
The sites listed were listed mainly as a little off topic jaunt.
I was interested in the “number four coal” reference actually. I wasn’t complaining about your post. I hope it wasn’t taken that way. 
After Googling “no.9 coal”, it appears that it’s probably a type of coal. :o
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002NC/finalprogram/abstract_32747.htm
It appears in both of these that the no.9 is referencing the mine or particular vein of coal. This is analogous to the geology article I linked to above.
There seems to be a more substantial and significant reference here though, based on its use in more than one song of woe concerning coal mining.
http://www.msha.gov/FATALS/2003/Overviews/FO2003-C28.pdf
Look at all the No. references in the above as well as the below link:
http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/h015.htm
Both chock full of No.'s, but I believe that the song must be referring to coal from a particularly numbered coal seam. I think. 
:o
It’s referring to the coal seam in the State of Kentucky, not the “degree of metamorphosis” (also known as “rank”), nor the size, nor the Btu content, nor anything else except possibly a mine, as mine names and seam names sort of blur when you’re in that region. Another popular number is “Pittsburg #8 seam”, which is sometimes called “#8 coal”.
Coal seams go by a variety of names and numerical designations - in Western Kentucky, there’s also a Number 10, 11, 12, 13…13 is nearest the surface. Sometimes the numbers make no apparent sense, and you will get 1, 2, 5, 3, 7, 4, in that order from shallowest to deepest. Sometimes they have Quaint Olde names.
I work with this stuff on a daily basis, and I’ve also answered this question on here at least a couple of times before.
had to know Una would have the answer to this one!
Here - the KGS has a diagram of where Number 9 coal lies and some more information about it.
Hey, long time no see, entropy!
Hey, Coalgoddess!
I don’t post on the boards often, but I read them all the time.
The references to the “number nine coal” in the three songs above (post #2) infer to me that either this coal was a particularly difficult type of coal to mine, or the number nine coal vein was an infamously dangerous or brutal vein. I am only guessing though, based on those song lyrics.
Merle Travis seems to be the first to use the number nine coal in a song in the two songs, “16 Tons” and “Nine Pound Hammer,” both written in 1946 [http://www.ernieford.com/Sixteen%20Tons.htm] . Billy Ed Wheeler uses it later in his “Coal Tattoo,” 1963 [http://users2.ev1.net/~smyth/linernotes/trio_comp/recordings/CDP28498Disk4.htm].
Interestingly, “Nine Pound Hammer” was a folk song about the railroad prior to Merle Traivis’ rewriting it and changing it into a coal miner ballad [http://www.dylanchords.com/38_toom/doorway.htm]. None of the other lyrics for this song online include the bit about the “number nine coal” tombstone until after Merle Travis’ version.
In another recording of “16 tons”, by George Davis the “number nine coal” is named the “number four coal.” Davis claims to have written the song in the 1930’s, prior to Travis’ version [http://members.fortunecity.com/folkfred/sixteen2.html].
It seems that Merle Travis, who was from Kentucky, (
Una Persson, although George Davis was also from Kentucky) is the originator of the “number nine coal” representing some sort of especially heinous coal. The popularity of his songs probably influenced the later Billy Ed Wheeler, who was from West Virginia, or maybe Wheeler’s documented travels in the Kentucky area [http://users2.ev1.net/~smyth/linernotes/personel/WheelerBillyEdd.htm] influenced his use of the Kentucky-local “number nine coal.”
Una Persson,
I read the info you provided about the Springfield (W. Ky. No. 9) Coal. Not a miner myself (shocking, I know), I am wondering if the description of this particular vein is indicative of a tougher than normal mining situation and if this would lead to the mythical toughness of the “number nine coal” and the miners that mine it.
Specifically the following:
“coal is usually overlain by an immediate roof of hard, black shale (miners’ “slate”), which commonly contains “slips,” a miners’ term for slickensides … probably the single most common geologic obstacle encountered during mining of the Springfield coal”
“In some areas, the coal itself may contain very hard, brown carbonate masses called “coal balls.” … They can be a significant nuisance to mining, since they can stop a continuous miner and cause excessive wear on bits.”
“Rotated and deformed bedding formed by ancient failures of channel margins, called “paleoslumps,” is also common. … Because of the deformed and high angle of bedding, such features are very
difficult to support underground”
“Springfield commonly rests on a well-developed underclay … Floor heave has been documented where the underclay is thick”
OK, we know what it is. Now there is the question of Why? What difference does it make any difference to me as the operator of a steam generating plant (hypothetical of course) whether I use #9 or #8? I assume the coal from the two mines is different and contains different amounts of things like sulphur. Your post makes it look like I can’t tell anything much about the coal based on that number.
So are the coal miners just using trade jargon for the hell of it?
The short answer is, probably not. Number 9 seam coal is not known in my industry experience and historical background to be any more or less difficult, dangerous, or especially nasty to mine than any other coals. In the Kentucky region, Central Appalachian, and Northern Appalachian region, all of the conditions you note above are found in most seams and mines, and some are quite a bit nastier, looking at my #9 info here, than that. Shoot, when I was down in Mexico working as a consultant at a coal mine last month we saw all of the same conditions, excepting “coal balls” (as those were not liable to form given the morphology). Western US coal does not typically suffer from the same conditions, but then at the time the song was written and popular, Western coal production was a tiny fraction of Eastern Appalachian production.
Underground coal mining at the time was a rough, tough, nasty, deadly business no matter what seam and what mine you were in. Since I know of no real thing that made the Number 9 seam especially worse than any other, I have to guess the choosing of the seam is coincidental. It could be that the artist had a family Member(s) or acquaintence(s) who worked that particular seam.
Eiyyy…I teach a course on this that lasts up to five days. I think I’ll stick to a 5-minute answer, since no one will even remember it tomorrow anyhow.
What I mean is that the number itself is not important unless you know the context of the use. Different seams do have different properties, sometimes substantially different. Within a particular coal bed or coal region (thinking Eastern US/Appalachian, mind you) the primary differences between, say, hypothetical seam X and seam Y are most likely to be:
- Percentage of rock and waste in the coal (from the ceiling, floor, and rocky/boney seams that cross the coal)
- Sulfur content (largely, in the East, a result of iron pyrites)
- Moisture content (largely, in the East, a result of the bed and ground conditions).
Traditionally (thinking pre-1980), in many instances, however, it’s not the rock and debris directly that tells a plant operator they don’t want one coal over another from within a specific bed, it’s the cost. And a thinner, rockier bed is much, much more expensive and troublesome to mine than a thin bed. Below 4 feet thick and the difficulty goes up on a sharp curve, as does the cost. From an indirect standpoint, the cost also goes up if the mine has a rock and moisture specifications to meet (such as, no more than 15% rock/waste and no more than 10% moisture), in which case coal cleaning and drying may be needed.
Nowadays, the equation is much, much more complicated, taking into account everything from fuel-bound nitrogen to mercury content. Note as well I’m talking about the decision between two similar coals in the same bed, just in different seams. Comparing different coals, different beds, different mines, etc. is much more complicated and is what I usually get paid to do.
The seams are often numbered by geologists who found the beds. They do core drilling and a lithographic stratification, and usually number the beds from bottom to top. Because beds can “flow” into one another, or seams can “dry up” and return a kilometer or so away, sometimes the numbers go out of order. Depending on the rock formations it can be somewhat complicated. Coal miners don’t like “complicated”, so those beds are likely to sit in that big pile of “not economically recoverable” reserves we have.