A historic method of moving excavated material out of a deep trench or shallow shaft before the widespread use of mechanical hoists. Miners cut a series of bench-like shelves into the rock wall at regular vertical intervals. Workers stood on each successive platform and shoveled the broken ore upward from one shelf to the next until it reached the surface.
Heard on the job
They worked the narrow vein down forty feet, throwing the high-grade ore up the shambles by shovel.