Abstract: A bucket is disclosed for both chipping coal from a coal seam and for removing the coal from the seam. The bucket is arranged for flexible coupling to preceding and succeeding buckets to form a continuous train for rotation through a coal tunnel. Along the side of each bucket there is mounted a cutting blade for dislodging the coal. A ramp on the side of the bucket serves to scoop the dislodged coal into the bucket. When the bucket emerges from the mine tunnel the bottom of the bucket falls away and the coal is unloaded directly into waiting hoppers.

Abstract: A coal mining technique is disclosed whereby the coal, which is to be removed from horizontal seams, is cut from the inside of the seam first, thereby allowing the earth around the seam to collapse behind the cutting blades. In one embodiment, a tunnel is bored into the seam from a front surface of the hill. The tunnel is constructed into a "U" shape such that both an entrance and an exit hole are laterally displaced along the front surface of a hill. A chain drive having rotating cutters spaced therealong is drawn through the tunnel by a motor located outside the tunnel. The motor provides continuous outward pressure on the chain, causing the blades to rotate, thereby cutting the coal from the inside back wall of the tunnel. Buckets mounted along the chain serve to remove the coal from the tunnel. When rotating blades are not used, cutters may be mounted on the outside of the buckets to chip the coal from the seam.