In England, along a stretch of the north-east coast which gently curves from Northumberland to the mouth of the river Tees, there was a spot, typical of many on that coast, where sea-coal collected richly and effortlessly. This coal was a coarse powder, clean and brilliant like particles of crushed jet; it seemed to bear little resemblance to the large, dirty lumps put onto the fire. Although it was coal, it was perfectly clean and it was silently deposited at high tide in a glittering carpet a kilometer long for the coal community to gather up.
The gear needed for sea-coaling expeditions was a curious and traditionally proven mixture which never varied from community to community along the entire north-east coastline. Sacks were essential to put the coal in, and string to tie the neck of each sack when it was full. A wooden rake was used to scrape the coal from the beach, and it was generally made from an old broom handle with a flat piece of wood nailed on at a slight reclining angle at the end. The only alternative to the rake was a flat piece of board held in the hand, which children and other workers of additional service crouched down to use. A flat, broad shovel, to lift the raked coal into the bags, completed the portable hardware.
But the most crucial item of equipment was a bicycle, a special kind of rusty stripped-down model which was the symbol of the sea-coaling craft. A lady's bike was no good because it lacked a crossbar and that was an essential element in transporting sea-coal. One full sack could be slung through the triangular format of a man’s bike, another over the crossbar and, sometimes, even a third on top of that. The beauty of this was that it not only enabled one to move the sea-coal from place to place, but the pressure of the metal bars against the full, wet sacks forced excess water out of the coal while it was being wheeled home. On a good day, the path to the beach was generally a double snail track of water that had been forced from each end of a trail of coal sacks.
1.The attraction of collecting sea-coal was that it （ ）.
2.The reason certain equipment was used was because （ ）.
3.To remove the coal from the beach, the children had to （ ）.
4.To carry three sacks of coal on a bicycle it was necessary to （ ）.
5.You could see where the coal had been transported from the beach by the（ ）.
