July 10, 1914.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

87

DEWSBURY CORPORATION ELECTRICITY WORKS.

enders are invited for the supply and
delivery of STEAM COAL for the Electricity Works. Bradford-road,
Dewsbury, for nine or twelve months. Quantity required 3,500 or 4.500 tons.

Specification and form of tender in duplicate may be obtained from the

undersigned, and must be returned not later than July 18th, addressed to
the Chairman, Electricity and Tramways Committee, 93. Bradford-road,
Dewsbury.

' The Corporation do not bind themselves to accept the lowest or any tender.

July 7, 1914.	B. H. CAMPION.

Borough Electrical Engineer.

.TUBES AND FITTINGS? iron and steel

Tubes for Gas, Water, Steam, and Compressed Air.

Electric Tramway Poles, Pit Props, High Pressure Steam Mains, &c.
JOHN SPENCER LTD., Globe Tube Works, Wednesbury.

J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY

PITWOOD IMPORTERS,

WEST HARTLEPOOL,

YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES.

OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED,

PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS,

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER.

Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.”

*#* For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last White
Page.

(the Mhj (BwiUn
AND
Journal of the Coal and Iron Trades.

Joint Editors—
J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S.
HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E.

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1914.

The London traders are still busy in issuing
u lowest summer prices,” but the response from the
general public is reported very weak at present.
Best coals are firm, but lower qualities are moving
very slowly.

The tone of the prompt markets on the Tyne and
Wear are very healthy. Throughout Lancashire
and Yorkshire, little change has taken place during
the past week, and prices remain firm. In Derby-
shire considerable falling off in the demand has been
experienced, and prices are slightly weaker. There
has been a good enquiry at Cardiff, and the outlook
for this market appears very favourable. The
strength of the coal market in Scotland has been
maintained.

The Second Report of the Royal Commission on
Metalliferous Mines and Quarries has been issued as
a Blue Book [Cd. 7476].

The Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey
of England and Wales for 1913 has been published.

The Home Office prosecution of the owners and
manager of the Senghenydd Colliery on charges
.arising out of the explosion which occurred last
October was resumed at Caerphilly on Saturday.
The Bench will give judgment on July 18.

The causes of a number of explosions which have
taken place in the last few years in connection with
electric cable mains are discussed in the report by the
Board of Trade Departmental Committee on Electric
Mains Explosions.

The quantity of coal, coke, and manufactured fuel
exported from the United Kingdom last month
amounted to 5,999,417 tons, valued at £4,086,833, as
compared with 6,266,908 tons, valued at £4,466,488,
in June 1913, and 5,916,432 tons, valued at
£3,602,414, in June 1912.

The total exports for the first half of the present
year show a falling off when compared with the
corresponding period of last year. The figures respec-
tively are:—36,148,907 tons, valued at £25,011,456,
and 37,048,137 tons, valued at £25,839,252. The
totals in 1912 were 27,196,714 tons, valued at
£17,126,514.

The average value of coal, coke and manufactured
fuel exported from the United Kingdom during
June was 13s. 7*4d. per ton, as compared with
14s. 3*05d. in June 1913, and 12s. 21d. in
June 1912.

The value during the first six completed months of
the present year is 13s. 10 05d. per ton, as compared
with 13s. 11-3d. and 12s. 7-Id. respectively in the
corresponding periods of 1913 and 1912.

Of the total exports of coal during June, the
mean value of the large coal exported was 15s. 3“06d.;
through-and-through (unscreened) coal, 12s. 2 003d. ;
and small coal, 10s. 7’8d. The average value of all
kinds of coal exported was 13s. 5e5d., a decrease of

l’5d. as compared with the preceding month. Other-
wise divided, it fetched the following values:—Steam
coal, 13s. 9’4d. ; gas coal, 12s. 3‘3d.; anthracite,
15s. 4’9d. ; household coal, 12s. 9-8d. ; and other
sorts of coal, Ils. 9-9d. The value of the coke
exported was 16s. 4-2d. per ton, and of the manufac-
tured fuel 17s. 4-3d. per ton.

The question as to whether the combined duties of
checkweighman and workmen’s inspector could be
carried out under the Coal Mines Act was raised in
the case of Date v. The Gas Coal Collieries last week.
Mr. Justice Bailhache held there was nothing incon-
sistent in the provisions of the Act to prevent a
checkweigher acting as inspector.

The Railway and Canal Commission Court, on
Monday, gave judgment on two preliminary points
in a case raising the important question of the
validity of the recently increased railway rates. The
complaint was that the publication of the increases
was not in statutory form, and that the railway
companies had not published the increases in their
rate-book in the manner provided by Statute.
Judgment was in favour of the railway companies.

The Scottish coalmasters have resolvedito resist the
the four days’ working policy by a lock-out, if
necessary. A national conference of the Miners’
Federation of Great Britain will be held at Southport,
on the 21st inst., to consider the whole Scottish
.wages question.

The men’s section of the Coal Conciliation Board
for the Eederated area held a meeting in London
yesterday to consider proposals for altering the wage
basis.

The Royal Commission on Metal-
Royal liferous Mines and Quarries was

Commission formed in May 1907, and after a
on lengthy and exhaustive enquiry they
Metalliferous have now issued a Report giving
Mines and suggestions for new legislation. It
Quarries, -will be remembered that this Com-
mission, under the chairmanship of
Sir Henry Cunynghame, had its original powers
enlarged in May 1910, in order to cover these
undertakings, and the terms of reference covered all
quarries and all mines not under the Coal Mines Act.

There can be no question that a simplification of
the law respecting metalliferous mines and quarries
is most desirable. It was inevitable that the
Commission should have kept in view throughout
the enquiry the possibility of modelling these statutes
upon the lines of the Coal Mines Act. It is clear
from this Report that any extensive adaptation in
this direction is impossible not only on account of the
very diverse conditions of working, but still more on
the score of expense.

The ‘ industries concerned are, as compared with
coal mining, poor and hard pressed. To load them
to anything like the same extent as the colliery
owners, would simply be their complete ruin. The
Commissioners recognise this fact, and they state in
their report that, although they have not dealt with
the financial aspects of the mining and quarrying
industries, sufficient facts have been brought to their
notice to make them feel that it is desirable that no
more expense should be caused in the working than
is absolutely necessary.

It is one thing, however, to express an opinion of
this kind, and another to act upon it. When one
glances through the list of recommendations, one is
struck by the fact that a large proportion of them
could not possibly be enforced without adding to the
cost of working.

The matter only concerns coal owners to an
infinitesimal degree, the amount of coal produced
under the Quarries Act being very small, but the
report is, nevertheless, not without interest even to
the coal mine manager, because labour is sometimes
deflected from metalliferous mines and quarries to
coal mines, and then the questions of ankylostomiasis
and phthisis come into play. In this connection it is
interesting to note that the Commission does not
think that infection of ankylostomiasis has spread
beyond the Cornish mines. Even if this is the case,
phthisis remains. What is more likely than the
case of an ore miner, who has become an incipient

victim to this complaint, seeking change of occupation
by becoming a coal miner ?

The attention now being bestowed
More Coal upon the distillation of coal gives
Researches, increased importance to researches
bearing upon the complex problems
relating to the phenomena connected with carbonisa-
tion, which are still but imperfectly understood.
We welcome, therefore, a report submitted to the
Institution of Gas Engineers, at the recent annual
conference held at Liverpool, upon a The Thermal
Phenomena in Carbonisation,”* the result of an
investigation by Mr. Harold Holdings, Gas
Research Fellow of the Institution, and Prof. Cobb,.
of the University of Leeds.

Before referring to the results obtained in this
research, we must beg leave to differ from certain
general criticisms which have been made with regard
to the utility of researches of this type. It is urged
that research is a mere fad to find occupation for
budding professors, that it possesses little practical
value to the gas engineer or manager who has to get
as much gas out of his coal and to sell as many
thousand cubic feet per ton as possible, in order to
earn sufficient money to pay statutory dividends, or
to provide a surplus for the relief of rates.

This criticism may be apparently justified in the
case of any particular research; but surely it is
wrong to quarrel with a piece of specially intricate
work merely because it may be beyond the capacity
of the ordinary member of the Institution of Gas
Engineers either to discuss it or to assess its value.
It would be preferable to take a higher standpoint
and to welcome every effort, whether immediately
fruitful or not, to unravel the mysteries surrounding
the reactions accompanying the distillation of coal.
Every fragment of knowledge bearing upon this
matter is of possible value, not only to the gas
engineer, but to that larger circle of colliery
managers who know only too well how much remains
to be discovered before we can hope to get the
greatest possible value out of every grade of coal.

Mr. Holdings and Prof. Cobb have attacked the
problem of coal distillation from a standpoint which
has hitherto received but little attention. They have
endeavoured to study those heat absorptions and
heat evolutions which are due to inside chemical
changes taking place in any fuel-using process, with
the object of attempting to correlate these with the
chemical results obtained by Messrs. Burgess and
Wheeler in this country and of M. Vignon in
France, and so, if possible, to suggest new points for
investigation.

The researches of Mahler, Euchene, Barnum and
others have shown that the calorific value of coal
appreciably exceeds that of the products of its
combustion, and it has long been recognised that the
distillation of coal is accompanied by complex
chemical changes which may be either exothermic,
endothermic or neutral. Messrs. Holdings and Cobb
have endeavoured to divide the process of distillation
into thermal stages, and to ascertain which of these
are characterised by heat absorption or heat evolu-
tion. They have, for this purpose, studied the
heating curves of coal, and have tried to find at what
temperatures exothermic and endothermic reactions
respectively occur. It is known, for example, that
during the distillation of cellulose a marked evolution
of heat occurs at a certain stage. Can this same
evolution of heat be recognised in the case of coal ?
The authors answer this question in the negative.
The distillation of coal appears, in the light of their
experiments, to consist of a complicated sequence of
reactions extending over a wide temperature range.-
Thus, in the case of Monckton coal, thermal changes
begin at 250degs. Cent, and up to 410degs. Cent,
endothermic reactions predominate. This is followed
by a short exothermic stage between 410degs. Cent,
and 470 degs. Cent., and a second endothermic
period between 470 degs. Cent, and 610 degs. Cent.
Above 610 degs. Cent, the exothermic change is very
marked, and is interrupted between 750 degs.
Cent, and 800 degs. Cent., above which exothermic

* An abstract of this paper was published in the Colliery
Guardian, June 26, 1914, p. 1478.