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THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

June 12, 1914.

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have to be found for the thinning of the measures
towards the north. It was a very remarkable fact that
the boring at Stodmarsh, which was only 1,000 ft.,
passed into the carboniferous limestone series, whereas
borings which had gone down 2,000 ft or 3,000 ft. had
never got into the carboniferous limestone at all.

On the motion of Mr. H. C. Peake, seconded by Mr.
T. H. Bailey, a cordial vote of thanks was passed to
the president and council of the Geological Society for
the use of their rooms.

Sir Henry Hall, in moving a hearty vote of thanks
to the president, said that he had proved himself one of
the most distinguished members of the institution since
its inauguration.

Mr. W. C. Blackett, in seconding, said they had
heard a good many prophecies about the Kent coalfield,
and he proposed to make two prophecies himself. His
prophecy with regard to the Kent coalfield was that in
About 20 years’ time everyone of the prophets who had
been prophesying that day would be found to be wrong;
and he had not the least doubt that if they dug out the
record of the Proceedings at that time and read all they
had said they would be heartily ashamed of a good deal
of it. He quite agreed with those gentlemen as to not
putting their faith in boreholes, and his advice to any
company that was going to put its capital into the Kent
coalfield would be to put no faith in anybody else’s bore-
hole but their own, and to put precious little in that.
The more boreholes they put down in the future, the
more they would add to the difficulties and confusion.
Then, in seconding the resolution, he would prophesy
that never again would they have a better president than
Sir William Garforth for courtesy, kindness, and con-
sideration, and his handling of all the subjects which
came before him.

The resolution was carried with applause.

The President, in responding to the vote of thanks,
said he did not deserve one-twentieth part of
what had been said, and when he compared it
with what he had done he felt very much ashamed. To
be engaged in exploration work or conducting difficult
borings—and they must have had difficulties in the Kent
coalfield — or doing many things in connection with
colliery work, were nothing to be compared with the
present ordeal. He would much rather go with an
exploring party through some mine, or conduct coal dust
experiments than have to respond to a vote of thanks of
that kind. They did know that they had to thank the
geologists for the work that had been carried out; they
could not possibly do without the mechanical or elec-
trical engineers, or without the chemist and the
physicist; and therefore of all the societies they had had
to deal with it did make him wonder why they should
have received opposition to the charter from the civil
engineers. He hoped, however, that in a short time the
civil engineers would alter their ideas about the insti-
tution being entitled to a charter.

The proceedings then terminated.

Annual Dinner.

In the evening, at the Hotel Cecil, the president, Sir
William Garforth, took the chair at the dinner held in
celebration of the 25th anniversary of the foundation of
the institution.

After the usual loyal toasts, Sir Hugh Bell, in pro-
posing “ Our Guests,” called attention to the import-
ance of the services rendered to the institution by such
men as Dr. Arber, Sir Thomas Ratcliffe-Ellis, Sir Henry
Cunynghame, Dr. Gow, Dr. Haldane, Sir Lees Knowles,
Mr. Ogilvie, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Oram, and Mr.
Redmayne. The toast was coupled with the name of
the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who worthily
followed his father in his interest in all things connected
with science.

Lord Crawtford, in response, said that the list of
societies represented among the guests showed how
widespread was the tribute to the occasion of the 25th
anniversary of the institution, including the Geological
Society of London, the Surveyors’ Institution, the Insti-
tute of Metals, the Institution of Electrical Engineers,
the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, the Mining
Association of Great Britain, the International Engi-
neering Congress (to be held next year), the Junior
Institution of Engineers, the Imperial College of
Science and Technology, the Society of Chemical Indus-
tries, the Midland Institution of Engineers, and other
allied societies. It was a tribute paid to the work
achieved by the institution in the past, and the
expression of the hope that that work might continue to
develop in the future.

Prof. Henry Louis, in proposing “ Kindred Societies,”
said that the many-sidedness of the mining engineer’s
work was such that there was really no branch of science
and technology which was foreign either to the founda-
tion or to the development of his art. Recent legisla-
tion had left the British mine manager so little time,
what with studying regulations and orders, what with
signing forms and report books, that he had barely time
to attend to the work of his pit, far less had he leisure
to study the developments of scientific research, and
their indebtedness was therefore all the greater to those
societies that presented them with the results of such
research. With respect to the pure science societies,

their debt was a very profound one. ' The masterly paper
from Dr. Arber showed how work in pure palseobotany
could be turned to the immense benefit and advantage of
the mining engineer in guiding him in his practical work.
He would quote another example. In the Philisophical
Transactions only a few days ago Mr. Rudge had pub-
lished the result of some recent investigations in which
he had shown that when dust, coal dust, mineral dust,
or any dust whatever, was carried along in an air
current the particles of dust by friction against each
other became electrified. Mr. Rudge had been carrying
on purely scientific experiments, and had no thought of
coal mines or coal miners in his head when making that
research; yet it might very well be that it would throw
a lurid light upon a great many of the difficulties with
which mining engineers had been struggling. It might
very well be that that hitherto unsuspected danger was
the cause of many an explosion which had puzzled them.
It might even prove that the very methods which had
been adopted for the prevention of coal dust explosions
would turn out to be a means of bringing such explo-
sions about. That piece of purely scientific work
opened up a vista of wholly unexpected danger. The
matter was of such supreme importance that he hoped
it would not be allowed to drop, but would be followed
up. Turning to the other group of kindred societies,
those which like themselves were engaged in technical
work, their debt to them was perhaps more obvious and
more evident, but it was a cause of mutual help. The
progress of any one of them tended to the well-being of
all, and that was true from the youngest to the oldest,
from institutions which occupied themselves only with
one small branch of engineering to institutions which
ranged over the whole field of engineering technology.
He commended that suggestion to the Institution of
Civil Engineers, the great parent engineering institution
of this country. They acknowledged gratefully their
debt to that great institution, and that it had main-
tained the high standard and high prestige of the British
engineer all the world over; but many thought that it
was perhaps abusing a little too much its parental
position.

Mr. W. Duddell (president of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers), in response, thought that a sharp
division of the societies into scientific and technical was
inadvisable. All who had anything to do with technical
societies and engineering societies should endeavour to
remember that engineers were largely responsible for,
and largely owed their success to, the work which had
been carried forward by the scientific investigator, and
should do their utmost not only to look after the tech-
nical side of engineering work, but also to keep an eye
upon, and hold out a helping hand to, the scientific
investigators who were working and developing new
results which might at any moment be of the utmost
value. He agreed with Prof. Louis that every step
taken to improve the status of any one society tended
to improve the status of all societies, and every such
attempt would have his most hearty support.

Sir Henry Cunynghame, in proposing the toast of
“ The Institution of Mining Engineers,” explained that
he no longer belonged to the Home Office staff, and the
credit of the legislation and administration of the Acts
could in no sense be claimed by him. He would not
criticise those Acts, but he might say, look what a grand
opportunity has been offered us by Prof. Louis this
evening I Imagine an electrified mass of coal dust pro-
ceeding at a tremendous pace through a mine, and with
a voltage of 200 volts, causing an explosion; and imagine
the joy of the officials of the Home Office in proposing a
rule that there should be lightning conductors placed
at intervals of 40 yds. apart in every mine, connected
together by a thoroughly sound certified copper cable.
As to the history of the institution, it had begun in a
small way; it had grown steadily; and it had aggregated
together, and he hoped would gather together more of
the isolated societies that existed, because in societies
like that, union was strength. The coal trade was in a
peculiar position, because it was one of the three great
trades in this country that enjoyed a practical monopoly
of the article they supplied, the other two being the
building and the carrying trades. The only way in
which the position of operatives could be improved
permanently was by the progress of invention, making
each man far more productive than he was before.
Invention was most tremendously stimulated by the
existence of institutions like the Mining Engineers. A
great deal was said about mining dangers, and he was
the last person, after 17 or 18 years spent in helping
to try to deal with them, to say a word that could in any
way be implied as minimising either the dangers or the
efforts of those who were endeavouring to prevent them,
but he did think there was a danger of the public being
unduly scared. Dangers must be faced with an equable
mind. They must be met, of course, by scientific cool-
ness and ingenuity, but there was no need really to get
sentimental about them or to make the fuss which was
often made. The immediate interest of the institution
was to be placed upon a proper footing by getting a
charter, and by having added to that charter the title
“ royal.” It was foolish to lay undue stress upon
titles, but “ royal ” had a peculiar signification. Out
of the three thousand members of the institution, pro-
bably a third carried on their business in foreign countries.
The use of the word “ royal ” in this country in
connection with an institution meant that it was first
class of its kind; if not the leading society of its kind,
it was at all events of the very highest standing, and
this fact was recognised in the colonies and abroad.
Therefore, he heard with a very great deal of pleasure the
generous speech of the president of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers. Reference had been made to the
attitude of the Institution of Civil Engineers. If it were
the proposition that no societies should get charters

because their objects were possibly covered by other
societies, he did not know where they would be. Very
few mining engineers had been on the council of the
Institution of Civil Engineers, and it might be better
for the prospects of both professions to divide the work of
the societies into two groups, and let them each carry
on their own particular branch of the subject, inter-
changing every good will and giving all the help it was
possible to afford. The engineering profession would
have a hard struggle in the future to hold their own
against the nations that were now making up leeway,
Germany and others, and the public could not do too
much to give them a good strong social position, and
at the same time to exact from their members such
examinations as would ensure their thorough efficiency.
Sir William Garforth, with whose name the toast was
coupled, had the peculiar type of the English mind; he
was a great organiser, and a great critic of inventions.
He was certainly one of the first to bring into mines
the safety apparatus for descending into dangerous
atmospheres. Sir William was the first man in York-
shire to try coal washing. He was also one of the first
men in this country to adopt the straight longwall
method of working. Lastly, he was one of the first in
this country to appreciate, and certainly the first to put
into practical operation, the idea of using inert, incom-
bustible dust, as a means of stopping colliery explosions,
and the first to give evidence about it before committees
of the House of Commons. That was a wonderfully
creditable effort for one man to have made! True, all
those things had paid. Why not? An invention which
was not only a good one but which paid into the bargain
was one that commended itself a good deal to his (Sir
Henry’s) judgment. Although he had ceased his official
connection with the Home Office, there was one branch
which was of interest to coal miners with which he was
still connected, viz., the experiments of the Explosions
Committee, whose sixth report would very shortly be
published, in fact, as soon as they could get certain
experiments completed which threw a very interesting
light on the labours they had already endeavoured to
carry out. A number of the men seemed to have
conceived the idea that putting that incombustible dust
in was likely to give them phthisis, and was dangerous
to health. The committee had investigated that at
considerable length, and had pointed out that there was
no evidence whatever of that being the case—none.
Nobody, at present, had brought forward the slightest
evidence to prove it. But so careful had they been upon
the matter that, with the assent of the Home Office and
the Government to find the necessary money, an invita-
tion had been made to that eminent scientist, Dr.
Haldane, again to make further investigations. In the
meantime one was justified in saying that anything like
danger of phthisis was really so purely imaginary at
present that no one need be deterred from, trying the
remedy at once in his mine. It was a great pity that the
men should get such an idea in their heads.

The President, in reply, said the institution was now
placed on a permanent foundation. Mining engineer-
ing was a kind of superstructure resting upon a founda-
tion of the old-fashioned methods of mining which had
taken centuries to perfect, and those practices had been
supplemented by the aid of mechanical engineers,
electrical engineers, the geologists, and the physicists.
They had produced individuals who, during the last year,
extracted 287 million tons of coal from a greater depth
from the coal face, a greater distance from the shaft,
and under greater restrictions than ever before. As to
the charter, they must look in the most friendly way
upon the action of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
In the same way that obstacles to a true policy tested
its vadidity, so the obstacle which had been placed in
their way had provoked replies to the objections of that
institution which he believed would help them very
considerably. They knew they could rely upon con-
sideration and upon justice being done by the Privy
Council, and he hoped it would be only a question of a
few months or a few weeks before they obtained the
charter. Though they had had that little disappoint-
ment, on the other hand they were delighted that the
Duke of Northumberland had been nominated as the
president of that institution for the ensuing year, and
had also undertaken to act as one- of the vice-presidents
of the International Congress to be held in London next
year, the other vice-president being his Grace the Duke
of Devonshire. With regard to that congress, they had
already received a guarantee fund of nearly £7,000 to
defray the expenses, which would be very heavy. He
wanted them not only to return the hospitality and the
kindness which they had received in Germany in 1910,
in Belgium in 1905, and in Erance in 1900, but to do
something more. The headquarters of the congress
were to be at the South Kensington Museum, where
they would be surrounded by all kinds of inventions
which formed the principles of the great inventions of
to-day.

An instrumental and vocal concert followed the
dinner.

The New Secretary.

Mr. Algernon Percy Augustus de Strzelecki, who has
just been appointed secretary of the Institution of Mining
Engineers, was born at Gateshead-on-Tyne on August 31,
1867. He is the youngest son of the late Erazm de
Strzelecki, a Polish political refugee, who came to
England after being intimately associated, with the
Hungarian war against Austria in 1849, in which he had
taken a most active part at the head of a company of
Polish lancers. Mr. Strzelecki served his time as a
locomotive engineer at the Gateshead works of the North-
Eastern Railway Company, and then took up. a com-
mercial career for a few years. In 1886, he joined the
staff of the executive council of the Royal Jubilee
Engineering and Mining Exhibition held in Newcastle-