September 17, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

583

Institution of Mining Engineers.

ANNUAL MEETING AT LEEDS.

The 26th annual meeting of the Institution of Mining
Engineers was held on Wednesday, September 15, at
the Hotel Metropole, Leeds. Mr. H. C. Peake, of
Walsall, the acting president, occupied the chair at the
opening of the proceedings, and was supported by Major
Sir Thomas Holland, F.R.S., of Manchester (the new
president), Sir William Garforth, and others. There
was a large attendance.

The Lord Mayor of Leeds (Mr. J. Bedford) offered a
civic welcome to the institution. He spoke of the situa-
tion of Leeds on the edge of the South Yorkshire coal
field, of its position as a manufacturing district, its
pretty residential portions on the north-east, and its
beautiful parks. He alluded to the fact that at Leeds
University there were important departments devoted
to mining and to fuel, and spoke of the part Leeds was
taking in the war.

Mr. Peake, in returning thanks to the Lord Mayor,
referred to some remarks of his at a meeting of the
institution in London, when he said that if all the colliers
would work every day, and do their utmost, there would
be no shortage of coal. He had since then looked
further into the matter, and his views were stronger
still. He had no hesitation in saying that if the miners
would work all they could, they would reduce the price
not only of coal, but also of corn and meat, to a very
appreciable extent. Full work on the part of the miner
would also enable England to retain its trade, instead of
allowing other countries to take it, and then having the
difficulty of getting it back again. He was afraid that
those men who were playing now would be some of the
worst sufferers for it.

Mr. Walter Hargreaves (president of the Midland
Institute) also replied.

Annual Report.

The Hon. Secretary (Prof. L. T. O’Shea) then read
the 26th annual report of the council.

After referring to the grant of a royal charter of
incorporation, the council regretfully recorded the death of
Lord Merthyr of Senghenydd and of Mr. George Henry
Hollingworth. They also mourned the loss of several
members of the institution who have been killed in action
during the present war, in addition. to a large number
wounded. About 250 members are now serving at home
or at the front, and the following have been killed in
action :—Capt. Hargreaves Bolton, Lieut. James Robson
Brass, Gunner Preston Brunton, Lieut. Andrew Burt, Sec.-
Lieut. R. N. Carswell, Capt. W. Hutton-Williams, Lieut.
George Sydney James, Lieut. A. D. Campbell King, Sapper
William Hutchinson Murray, Lieut. Norman C. Parry,
Capt. Hugh Brocklehurst Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Charles
Lawson Robinson (H.M. divisional inspector of mines),
Capt. Henry Milward Rogers, Lieut. Samuel Pestell Donald
Thomson, Sec.-Lieut. Ronald Edwin White, and Sec.-Lieut.
John Wilson. The council offered their hearty congratula-
tions to Lieut. Henry Malkin Hance and Lieut. W. W.
Varwill, 176th (Mining) Company, Royal Engineers, on
having won the Military Cross for gallantry and devotion
to duty in the field.

The question of the position of mining students serving
with the Colours, in regard to their terms of training to
qualify them for examination as colliery managers, was
receiving the consideration of the council, with a view, if
considered desirable, of taking action with the Board of
Examinations.

The membership showed a total of honorary members, 16;
members, 3,048; and non-federated members, 44; giving a
grand total of 3,108. The decrease of 169 in the total
membership for the year just ended was largely due to the
unsettled state of the coal trade, and the absence from home
of a number of the members in consequence of the war, as
well as to the fact that the federated institutes had been
more conservative than in the past in guaranteeing additions
to the register. In addition, the institution takes into
account only those members whose names have been sent
forward by the federated institutes as having actually paid
their subscription for the past year on or before July 31.

A suggestion from Dr. J. B. Simpson (past-president),
that a history of the safety lamp should be compiled for
printing in the Transactions, in view of the fact that the
present year is the centenary of the invention of the safety
lamp, has received the approval of the council, and Prof.
F. W. Hardwick has been invited to prepare such a paper.

Sir Thomas H. Holland, F.R.S., represented the
institution at the annual conference of delegates of
corresponding societies of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science. Professor Henry Louis con-
tinues as the institution representative at the conference on
the standardisation of steel-wire ropes organised by the
Engineering Standards Committee; and on the advisory
board for the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington. ?
The executive committee of the Kelvin Memorial Fund have M ,	... w

included the president of the Institution of Mining Engineers^' farcr0»’ ’ accoun\.ot “L T3 • ”?T
for the time being as a member of the awardAommittee.W™^3- bas?d on a reaction winch he had previously dis-
Mr. Arthur Sdpwith has been reappointed for a further M^vered This method has since been extensively used m
period of four years as the institution representative on	a? we^ as a^^oa ’ an. ou .° 1 : directly or

1	-r-	• v ,,	innirGp.tlv has orrnwn a. Inner series nt .mvestiera,finns witn

8

governing body of the Imperial College of Science and
Technology, South Kensington. Mr. Hugh Johnstone,
H.M. divisional inspector of mines, continues to represent
the institution on the board of governors of the Consolidation L
of Cornish Societies and Art Foundations. Sir William ®
Garforth and the hon. secretary (Prof. L. T. O’Shea) con-
tinue to serve as the representatives of the institution on
an advisory committee appointed by the council of the
Royal Society to administer the Tyndall Bequest. Mr.
H. C. Peake and the secretary (Mr. Percy Strzelecki) have
been elected the institution representatives on the Profes-
sional Classes War Relief Council. Mr. R. van Arsdale
Norris and Mr. F. J. Horswill have been appointed the
institution delegates at the International Engineering Con-
gress to be held at San Francisco from September 20 to
25, 1915. Sir William Garforth represents the institutionL.
on the general committee formed for the purpose of pre-GSk, ,	,	. , ,	,

senting a bust of Sir Archibald Geikie to the Museum ofpthe benefit of a thorouSh series of tests, made on
Practical Geology.	* Journ. of Physiology, vol. xviii.

The institution medal for the year 1914-15 has beenSfflj I Jdufin. of Physiology, vol. xviii., 1895.

awarded to Dr. John Scott Haldane, F.R.S., in recognition+ General Regulations, dated July 10,1913, No. 142 (c) (1).

of his investigations in connection with mine air. The
council have appointed a standing committee, consisting
of the president of the institution and the presidents of the
federated institutes for the time being, for the purpose of
nominating future recipients of the medal.

The council state that the total amount subscribed to the
institution capital fund reached the sum of <£15,349 5s. lid.,
which was increased by bank interest to £15,375 15s. lOd.
The sum of £15,030 3s. 7d. has been invested in the purchase
of trustees’ stock to a nominal value of £16,000, in the
names of the institution trustees (Sir Lindsay Wood, Bart.,
Sir William Garforth, and Mr. H. C. Peake), which stock
yields an average rate of interest of about 4 per cent, per
annum. The total invested funds of the institution now
amount to the nominal value of £18,045 6s. 6d. The state-
ment of accounts shows the ordinary income for the year
ended July 31, 1915, to have been .£4,367 13s. lid., as
compared with .£4,468 Os. 4d. in the previous year. The
expenditure amounted to £4,469 7s. lid., as compared with
£4,587 18s. 9d. for the year 1913-14. The balance of assets
over liabilities, exclusive of the capital fund and of the
value of the stock of Transactions, but inclusive of the value
of the furniture and fixtures, now amounts to £2,933 4s. 4d.,
as against £3,034 18s. 4d. at the end of the previous year.
The deficit of £101 14s. is not due to an increase in the
expenditure, but is caused by the decrease in subscriptions,
owing to the fall in membership, which alone more than
accounts for the total deficiency.

New President.

Mr. Peake, in introducing Sir Thomas Holland as the
new president, said there was little doubt that under
his presidency the institution would go ahead, judging
from the hard work and energy that he had shown during
the past two years on the council. He had been of
great assistance in obtaining the charter, and in helping
to frame the rules under it.

Sir Thomas Holland, on taking the chair, briefly
expressed his thanks to the council for their confidence,
and to the members for the way in which they had
endorsed the action of the council.

The Hon. Secretary then read the list of vice-presi-
dents nominated by the different institutes, as follows :
Messrs. Leonard R. Fletcher and John Gerrard, Man-
chester Geological and Mining Society: Messrs. G. S.
Bragge and W. H. Hepplewhite, Midland Counties
Institution of Engineers; Messrs. James Barrowman,
James Hamilton, and D. M. Mowat, Mining Institute
of Scotland; Messrs. W. C. Blackett, T. Y. Greener,
C. C. Leach, F. R. Simpson, and J. G. Weeks, North
of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engi-
neers; Mr. John Gregory, North Staffordshire Institute
of Mining and Mechanical Engineers; Mr. Alexander
Smith, South Staffordshire and Warwickshire Institute
of Mining Engineers.

In accordance with the new by-laws, it was necessary
to elect auditors at the meeting, and, on the motion of
the President, seconded by Mr. Peake, Messrs. John
G. Benson and Sons were elected for the coming year.

Presentation to Dr. Haldane.

The President then presented the institution medal
for the year 1914-15 to Dr. John Scott Haldane, F.R.S.,
in recognition of his investigations in connection with
mine air. He said Dr. Haldane’s work had been of
value, not only to the owner, the manager, and the
official, but equally to the working miner; not to the
collier only, but equally to the metal miner. Apart
altogether from his contributions to the progress of
scientific knowledge—and of this matter he would speak
directly—Dr. Haldane could justifiably enjoy a form of
satisfaction that rarely came to the lot of any scientific
worker within .his own lifetime : he must know that, as
the direct outcome of his work, there are hundreds of
industrial, workers now living who would not otherwise
be alive to-day. Apart from its direct and immediately
successful application to the cause of humanity, Dr.
Haldane’s work had an independent value as an impor-
tant contribution to the sum of scientific data and the
progress, of scientific thought. If no direct and recog-
nisable benefit had been immediately apparent from his
work, it would still be true that he had established a
solid foundation which a more fortunate worker might
turn to account. He was speaking with the considered
assurance of recognised authorities on the chemistry of
physiological action, the compound department of
science which Dr. Haldane’s researches had in so many
respects largely reformed and organised. The President
then gave the following survey of Dr. Haldane’s work
in the field of research :—

In 1902 Dr. Haldane published, in conjunction with Mr.
J. Barcroft,* * * § an account of his new method of blood-gas

indirectly, has grown a long series of investigations with
practical results. Most coal miners will recognise as an
early constituent of this group of investigations the delicate
method of detecting carbon monoxide by its influence on
the colour of the blood, f As the result of his observations
at the Tylorstown, Micklefield and Brancepeth explosions,
lit was shown, in his special report to the Home Office, that
Ithe cause of death in colliery explosions and fires is, apart
ifrom special cases of shock, mainly due to poisoning by
[carbon monoxide.

The use of small warm-blooded animals as a practical
Jtest for carbon monoxide was first recommended by Dr.
OlHaldane in 1906, and is now familiar to most miners, as
Mthe provision of mice or birds for testing purposes at certain
MH mines has been made obligatory by the Coal Mines Act of
11911, J: ,and they are similarly used in our submarines.

| Directly connected with this line of research we have had

w

behalf of the Doncaster Coal Owners’ Committee, of various
types of apparatus for enabling men to penetrate irrespirable
atmospheres. * The provision of such apparatus had been
made obligatory at mines, but had not hitherto proved of
much service for rescue purposes, and several fatal accidents
had occurred. The result of this special investigation was
an elimination of some radically defective types, and a
marked improvement in the self-contained rescue apparatus,
as well as in the training of the men using it.

Dr Haldane’s work on purely physiological problems has
become of practical value mainly because of his ability and
ingenuity also in closely related chemical problems. His
apparatus for the estimation of minute percentages of
methane is a model of simplicity, combined with accuracy
and speed, enabling any intelligent amateur to make gas
analyses of critical value to the colliery manager, f

Before leaving the important series of investigations
which have completely reformed our ideas and rules regard-
ing the relation of the worker to the atmosphere which he
is sometimes compelled to breathe, it is necessary to refer
briefly to one phase of the work more strictly dependent
on the physical than the chemical nature of such atmospheric
conditions. Those engaged in tunnelling and sinking opera-
tions are familiar with what is known as “ caisson disease,”
which also affects the life conditions of deep-divers.

Cases of unconsciousness following the rapid relief of
pressure on emergence were found to be due to the disengage-
ment of gas bubbles in the blood; and, for the purpose
of investigating this subject, Dr. Haldane superintended
the construction of a suitable steel chamber at the Lister
Institute in London, where experiments, conducted with the
assistance of Dr. Boycott and Lieut. Damant, R.N., led
to the discovery of a method of bringing men safely out of
compressed air, without the loss of time due to the system
recommended by Continental authorities. These experi-
ments also led to various reforms of the other conditions
observed during operations in which men were necessarily
required to work in compressed air.

Turning from the class of cases in which the safety and
health of the miner depends on chemical and physical varia-
tions in his atmospheric environment, Dr. Haldane’s work
has produced equally beneficial results in other ways.
Among these, members will recall the photometric determina-
tions made in conjunction with Dr. Llewellyn to show the
marked effects of oxygen deficiency in air on the light given
by a miner’s lamp, J a matter of special importance in
connection with the influence of defective light in the pro-
duction of the eye trouble known as “ miners’ nystagmus.”

Another series of investigations dealt with the regulation
of body temperature in warm and moist air, § and these
showed that in warm atmospheres, within wide limits, it
is neither the temperature of the air nor the percentage of
moisture present, nor the relative humidity, but the tempera-
ture shown by the wet-bulb thermometer which, other things
(such as clothing, muscular exertion, and velocity of the
air current) being equal, determines the ill effect of external
heat on a man. For instance, if the wet-bulb temperature
was at 89 degs. Fahr., it made no difference whether the
actual temperature, as shown by the ordinary dry-bulb
thermometer, was 89 degs. or 130 degs.

One of the most important and conclusive pieces
of research undertaken by Dr. Haldane led to the
discovery that miners’ anaemia, which was prevalent
especially in warm metal mines, was due to the tropical
parasite Ankylostoma, and was therefore easily curable and
controllable. This discovery was the result of his investiga-
tions, in conjunction with Messrs. J. S. Martin, R. Arthur
Thomas, and Dr. A. E. Boycott in Cornish tin mines, and
afterwards in Westphalia. J|

Comparable in importance with the remarkable work on
ankylostomiasis is that on the cause of miners’ phthisis, which
is predisposed by the special nature of the dust inhaled by
the miners during the dry drilling and blasting of hard
brittle rocks, such as vein quartz. To reduce the appalling
death rate from this cause in the Transvaal alone would be
a matter for pride, and the satisfaction of the metalliferous
mining world was promptly expressed in 1904 by the Insti-
tution of Mining and Metallurgy, which conferred on Dr.
Haldane one of its gold medals for his paper, in conjunction
with Mr. R. Arthur Thomas, on “ The Causes and Preven-
tion of Miners’ Phthisis.”

The researches in connection with this subject paved the
way for questions more familiar to members of this institu-
tion, namely, the possibility of additional dangers arising
from the application of stone dust to prevent the occurrence
and spread of colliery explosions. The result of this work,
carried on as part of the work of the committee controlling
the large scale experiments inaugurated at Altofts, and subse-
quently continued at Eskmeals, will, I understand, shortly
be issued.

Here Dr. Haldane’s work links up with that which we
owe to the provision, energy, and public spirit of the dis-
tinguished first recipient of this medal.

I have made no allusion to the more purely scientific and
philosophical aspects of Dr. Haldane’s work : if they had had
no direct bearing whatever on the "well-being of industrial
workers, they would still be sufficient to mark him out as
distinguished among his caste. I have also made no allu-
sion to his public work as a member of various Royal Com-
missions and official committee of enquiry; they cover *
questions ranging from the ventilation of warships to the
effects of the food and clothing of the soldier: and they
deal effectually with noxious substances of varying tvpes.
from intestinal parasites to rats on board ships, and the
latest product of German civilisation.

Dr. Haldane seems to have been the friend of every man
who, in the interests of industry or in the service of his
country, undertakes what is known as a technically
“ dangerous ” occupation. His untiring industry, his recog-
nised ability, and his devotion to public duty are equalled
only by the generous’courtesy with which he is ever ready
to assist his felldw> worker, or to consider the views of a
would-be critic. In inviting him to accept the highest mark
of respect at our disposal, I am conscious that I am repre-
senting the wishes, not of our 3,000 members only, but of
the millions of working miners scattered throughout the
world.

* Trans. Inst. Min. Engineers, vol. xlvii., p. 725, and
xlviii. p. 550.

f Trans. Inst. Min. Engineers, vol. xli., p. 455.

t Trans. Inst. Min. Engineers, vol. xliv., p. 267, 1912.

§ Journ. Hygiene, vol. v., 1905, p. 494.

|| Parliamentary Papers, Cd. 1302 and Cd. 1318, 1902;
Joutn. of Hygiene, vol. iii., 1903: Trans. Inst. Min. Eng.,
vol. xxv., 1903; Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 1843; Journ.<
Hygiene, vol. iv., 1904.

H Trans, Inst. Min. and M^t;, vol. xiii., p. 379, 1904,