THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

AND JOURNAL OF THE COAL AND (RON TRADES.

Vol. CV.

FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1913.

No. 2737.

THE INSTITUTION OF MINING ENGINEERS.

Fifty-Eighth General Meeting in London.

The fifty-eighth general meeting of the members of
the Institution of Mining Engineers was held in the
rooms of the Geological Society, Burlington House,
Piccadilly, on Thursday last, June 5. The president,
Dr. W. E. Garforth, LL.D , M.Inst.C.E., occupied the
chair, and among those present were :—Messrs. James
Lomax, G. E. Harris, A. L. Lovatt, Geo. Foster, J. T.
Pullon, E. A. Leybourne, J. Bryson, Thos. H. Mottram,
A. H. Heath, F. Lamplough, Wm. Maurice, A. Hassam,

F.	R. Simpson, Richard Prior Wandesford, T. W.
Mitchell, J. Balfour Sneddon, W. Wood, R. E. Ornsby,
E. D. Spencer, G. C. Greenwell, 0. Leach, Allan Greenwell,
R. Seymour Benson, J. Robinson, W. F. Wilkinson,
Sydney Smith, R. F. Young, W. D. Lloyd, Chas.
Stewart, W. Lamb, G. Preece, F. Eckersley, B. Dodd,
W. T. Anderson, Claude Simpson, W. B. Wilson,

G.	J. Williams, J. T. Middleton, J. J. Binns, H. E. B.
Daniell, F. W. Hardwick, Edwd. Wain, Robert Clive,
A. Muriel Hill, H. Mason, S. Walton-Brown, F. E.
Armstrong, G. Aldis, R. R. Simpson, W. Hutton-
Williams, T. C. Futers, F. Weeks, E. Southern, P.
Muschamp, Thos. H. Bailey, J. H. Marr, A. R. Sawyer,

H.	Stevenson, E. Seymour Wood, R. Wood, N. T.
Williams, J. Gibson, T. Johnston, Alex. Mackay, F.
Mein, G. T. Eagor, H. K. Scott, Fredk. P. Mills,
G. Stephen Corlett, G. 0. Leach, H. Ingold, S. Tate,
J. Wrightson, G. W. Bousfield, J. 0. Ridley, A.
Richards, H. Morley, Granville Poole, R. Nelson, R. H.
Longbotham, R. H. Haggie, H. Jeans, Wm. Hill, Mark
Fryar, John W. McTrusty, L. T. Linley, 0. W. Eames,
Wm. Carr, H. Peake, John Cadman, W. R. Dakers, D.
A. Louis, L. 0. Hodges, G. Dixon, 0. E. Leach, M.
Fryar, jun., 0. Stirling, A. M. Henshaw, J. Henshaw,
A. L. Mann, W. C. Knight, Jas. Nelson, W. H.
Trewartha-James, Sir Thomas Holland, Sir Henry Hall,
and J. B. Simpson.

The President announced that the council had had
under consideration the question of raising a capital
fund of £15,000 to meet the increased cost incurred by
the removal of the offices of the institution from
Newcastle to London, and active steps were now being
taken to raise that fund. The twenty-fourth annual
general meeting of the members would be held in
Manchester on September 24, 25 and 26, an invitation
having been received from the president and council of
the Manchester Geological and Mining Society to hold
the meeting in that city.

Continuing, the president said that some of the most
experienced members, who had been very good contri-
butors in the past in the way of preparing papers, had
had their time fully occupied, so that there had been a
doabt as to getting papers for the present meeting.

The following papers were then read:—“ Recent
Methods of the Application of Stonedust in Mines,” by
W. E. Garforth, LL.D., M.Inst.C.E.,* and “The
Reopening of Norton Colliery with Self-contained
Breathing Apparatus after an Explosion,” by J. R. L.
Allot t.*

Recovery Work in North Staffordshire

On the motion of the President, a very hearty vote
of thanks was accorded by acclamation to Mr. Allott,
the discussion of whose paper was taken first.

Mr. A. M. Henshaw (Talk-o’-th’-Hill) said that the
complete success of the work reflected the highest
credit on the men of the brigades, their leaders, and
their trainer at the central station at Stoke-on-Trent.
Many of the men had given proof of their skill, caution
and courage at other fires and explosions, and it was
the confidence that could be placed in them and the
confidence of the men in themselves and their apparatus
that justified the scheme. The Cockshead seam had
been worked in the north-eastern part of the coalfield
over many miles for several generations, but this was
the first instance of gob-fire in the locality. He had
had a similar experience of a fire which continued to

* Abstracts of these papers appeared in last week’s
Colliery Guardian.

burn for five years in spite of apparently perfect stop-
pings and partial flooding. He had learnt to regard the
reopening of a built-up gob-fire as a risky proceeding,
and in a seam liable to spontaneous combustion connec-
tions to an old goaf and access of air should be avoided,
even where no previous heating had taken place. After
the explosion the shafts were sealed with sand at the
top, until analyses of the air drawn from below the seals
appeared to show that combustion had ceased. The
same course was pursued at the Jamage Colliery two
months previously. In such case the reopening was
successful, but he was not completely satisfied that
samples so taken represented the condition of the atmo-
sphere in the workings. At the moment the shafts were
closed, the conditions underground varied in different
places from air to firedamp, gobstink and firedamp. Evenif
the sealing were perfect he doubted whether the diffusion
of the gases was so complete that in a w^ek or two the
gases at the top of the shaft were the same in composi-
tion as in the workings, and particularly in the critical
part where the fire occurred. If there were the slightest
circulation of air in the shafts, and by reason of the
separation doors at the bottom having been destroyed
short-circuiting resulted, samples and analyses were
certainly not to be relied upon. In the Norton case he
questioned whether the last sample taken before reopen-
ing represented the state of things in the neighbourhood
of the gob fire some hundreds of yards down the engine
plane. He also questioned whether the analysis taken at
the top of the dip represented the conditions at the fire.
Did the law of the diffusion of gases operate under the
circumstances so that the analyses taken at the top of
the pit or at the top of the dip really gave reliable data
as to the atmosphere at the fire below.

Prof. John Cadman said that the magnitude and
importance of a mine explosion was generally gauged
by the number of lives lost, and an official investigation
and enquiry was usually dependent upon such details.
Were it not for the present paper the great explosion and
the circumstances connected with it would have passed
unnoticed, except perhaps for the short record which
Mr. Johnstone’s Blue Book would have contained. The
Norton explosion might be classified amongst the great
explosions of modern times, and its origin was wrapped
in mystery. The paper was of the utmost value. For
the first time in the history of British mining it gave a
record of unparalleled interest of the reopening of a mine
by means of self-contained breathing apparatus. The
author was to be congratulated on the way in which the
difficult operations had been undertaken. But for his
military precision a very different story would have
been the result. The successful way in which the
author kept the Cockshead area flooded with that
atmosphere was an engineering feat of no small magni-
tude. He was glad the author had drawn attention to
the discovery that too little oxygen was being supplied
to the men. It had been the policy of several rescue
stations to cut down the supply in spite of the advice
and warning of Dr. Haldane and the confirmation by
practical demonstration by the South Midland Coal-
owners’ Mine Rescue Committee. For active rescue
work a supply of less than 2 litres of O2 per minute was
absolutely dangerous. He drew attention to the varia-
tion in atmospheric temperature which occurred during
the preliminary opening. When the rescue operations
were being carried out, a team returned to the surface
during the first night and reported that smoke was
issuing into the downcast shaft. On examination it was
found that the smoke was due to a circulation of air or
atmosphere which was taking place between the down-
cast and the upcast, some of the upcast air leaking into
the downcast, which had become cooled down during
the night, and depositing a mist which appeared like
smoke. That was an important point to place on record
because similar conditions were likely to recur. When
it was borne in mind that the nose was not available on
such occasions, points of that sort were useful.

Mr. John Gerrard (H.M. inspector of mines) said
that considering the magnificent woyk he had done in
the long reopening arrangements, the modesty of the

author was marvellous. He had had to take part in
explorations in which breathing apparatus had been
used, and he had again and again seen what admirable
apparatus it was. He was glad the miners in Lancashire
were relying upon the apparatus which had done such
good work at Norton Colliery. He asked the author if he
took a record of any high temperatures that the men
worked in during the operations.

Mr. E. B. Wain said the paper marked a distinct
departure in the use of apparatus. He referred to the
examination of 25 minutes made by Mr. Lovatt, as
recorded in the paper, and said it was little short of.
marvellous that such great care should have been
exercised, and that such minute details should have
been given. The same care in regard to minute details
appeared to have been exercised all through the work,
and mining engineers in North Staffordshire particu-
larly were proud of the work that their rescue men had
been able to do after such a comparatively short
training. There were only two sets of men available
whose training had been completed, but there were
enough men in the district at the outset who had had
six months’ experience in the work, and it had opened
the eyes, he thought, not only of engineers in their own
district, but of the world in regard to the possibilities
connected with the use of that class of apparatus for
salvage work. It was a matter of regret to many
mining engineers to find that the recent regulations
had forbidden the use of wood blocks for pit stoppings.
They had been largely used in some colliery districts
for many years; and particularly in mines where there
was a tendency to squeeze they had been found much
more valuable and reliable for air stoppings than either
brickwork or masonry.

Mr. Hugh Johnstone (H.M. inspector of mines)
thought the record that the author had placed before
the institution showed that, with that organisation and
with proper care, splendid work could be done at, a
minimum risk. He had very great pleasure indeed in
endorsing all that Dr. Cadman had said with regard to
the magnificent organisation with which the work was
carried out by the author. The exercise of such care
was, to his mind, absolutely essential in such opera-
tions. Another point to which he wished to call attention
was that it used to be said that it was impossible that
really good and efficient work could be done under-
ground by men wearing such cumbersome apparatus.
He saw all the stoppings, to which the author had
referred, while they were being built and after they
were built, and he had no hesitation in saying that those
stoppings as erected would have been a credit to the
men who erected them had they been done in daylight
and without the use of the apparatus.

Mr. W. C. Blackett said the paper, in his opinion,
described the only legitimate way in which the appa-
ratus ought to be used, and a contrast had been
established between the discipline and control used in
connection with the apparatus as compared with the
exaggerated ideas that had been allowed to prevail in
many quarters as to the use of the apparatus for years
past. If the breathing apparatus had been introduced
to the mining world in a modest way, with practical
results well controlled and disciplined, and the users of
it had not been allowed to go into undefined areas, he
thought the reception the apparatus would have received
would have been a much better one, and it would have
been more fairly dealt with than had been the case.
The absurd and exaggerated views which had been
allowed to attach to it, especially in the public mind,
had tended towards the prevention of its use, and had
done away with the need of enforcing its use so rapidly
as should have been the case. Mr. Henshaw’s remarks
were particularly practical. It had always appeared to
him that in a case of that kind one of the most useful
expedients that could be employed was to try and
circulate the air in the shut-off area. He did not mean
to suggest that fresh air should be circulated in an area
of that kind—that would be absurd—but by circulating
the contents of the area the process that the engineer
wished to adopt would be expedited, *and very much