June 1, 1917.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1035

THE AMERICAN COAL TRADE.

Another sharp upward swing has occurred in the
bituminous market. Government requisitions have
become exceedingly heavy, interfering with contract
obligations, and there are also alarming rumours that
considerable tonnages are to be commandeered, and
that preparations are under way to give preferential
movement to Government coal. The fact that the rail-
roads are unable to meet the demands at this season of
the year is regarded as decidedly ominous (says the
Coal Age of May 12).

The spot demand in Boston has sent prices soaring
again, 7-50 dols. f .o.b. having been reached at this
writing. Practically no cargo coal is offered, as the
factors who have transportation in hand are needing
it for their own use.

Pocahontas and New River are now quoted at 7 to
7-50 dols. f .o.b. Norfolk or Newport News, Virginia,
for spot coal, and 11-50 to 12 dols. at Providence and
12-50 to 13 dols. at Boston on cars for inland delivery.

Price changes in Philadelphia are at times quite
sudden, being governed almost entirely by rapidly
changing conditions in the mining regions. While the
car supply has improved slightly, it does not seem to
meet more than 20 to 30 per cent, of the demand. The
prices per gross ton f.o.b. cars at mines are as follow:
Georges Creek Big Vein, 6 to 6*50 dols.; South Fork
Miller Vein, 6 to '6-50 dols. ; Clearfield (ordinary), 5-50
to 6 dols. ; Somerset (ordinary), 5-50 to 6 dols. ; West
Virginia, Freeport, 5 to 5-25 dols.; Fairmont gas,
lump, 5 to 5-25 dols.; Fairmont gas, mine-run, 4-75 to
5 dofs.; Fairmont gas, slack, 4-75 to 5 dols. ; Fairmont
lump, ordinary, 4-75 to 5 dols.; Fairmont mine-run,
4-75 to 5 dols.; Fairmont slack, 4-75 to 5 dols.

The movement from the mines is very light at
Hampton Roads, and receipts at Baltimore are small.

The new prices of anthracite for domestic use are
out. The demand for all the steam sizes shows no
abatement whatever, and it is rather expected that
new prices will be in force in a short time in equality
with the advances on the domestic grades. The prices
per gross ton f.o.b. cars at mines for line shipment at
Philadelphia are as follow:—Broken, 4’90 dols. ; egg,
4-05 dols.; stove, 4-30 dols.; nut, 4-40 dols.; pea,
3 dols. ; buck, 2-50 dols. ; rice, 2 dols. ; boiler, 1*80 dols. ;
barley, 1-50 dols.

No charter fixtures have been reported recently.
Quotations for West Coast of Italy average 85 to 100
dols., and Marseilles 80 to 100 dols.

Spot furnace coke is higher. It is difficult to obtain
any at 7*50 dols., and 8 dols. is likely to be paid for
any considerable tonnage. Spot foundry is 9-50 to
10-50 dols. ’ at ovens.

THE GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN COAL
AND IRON TRADES.

We give below further extracts from foreign periodicals
that have reached us, showing the course of the coal and
iron trades in Germany and Austria :—

The Rhenish-Westphalian Iron Market.

In the early part of May the partial removal of
transport difficulties enabled better supplies of coke to
be sent forward to the blast furnaces, and more iron ore
to be hauled. Complaints were being made about
increased official interference, and the number of official
and semi-official bodies which had to be consulted daily,
and which issued conflicting instructions and regula-
tions, involving much unnecessary correspondence.
Much objection was raised to the way in which maximum
prices had been fixed, and the different prices for the
same material for different uses.

The ore market was extremely active, Siegen ore,
which was in short supply, being in special request.
Siegerland slag heaps were drawn upon to a large
extent, and prices ruled exceedingly firm. Some iron-
masters were complaining that the supplies of Sieger-
land ore on which they had been relying were being
diverted to other users.

Pig iron remained very firm, the demand being
persistent. Both the output and volume of deliveries
showed an improvement over April, and the small
existing stocks suffered further depletion. The
covenanted supplies to neutrals were maintained. The
increased working costs and higher coke prices have led
to the Union advancing the price of all grades of pig
iron. The scrap iron market was irregular, many
works being quite out of stock, and although large
quantities were coming in from the invested enemy
territories, the traffic and labour difficulties prevented
proper distribution; whereas other works had plenty.
The whole business is in the hands of the Scrap Iron
Association, which distributes allocated quantities to
dealers, and shares the profits of the latter. A new
organisation was in course of formation to deal with
casting scrap in collaboration - with the Pig Iron
Syndicate, to regulate the supply to the works.

* In semis the deliveries were on about the same
level as in March and April, being still insufficient
for the demand, and consumers were offering the
mills increased prices to obtain preferential delivery.

Bar iron remained unusually firm, with a pressing
demand, all makers being full up with orders and
disinclined, in the absence of any improvement in price,
to undertake new business. Dealers’ stocks being very
low, consumers had to go short. An element of uncer-
tainty was imported into the situation by the works
being allowed to charge autumn prices for advancing
such army work as would, if taken in serial order, be
delayed. This measure has also been introduced in
respect of hoop iron. Sections were in very heavy
request, and supplies short, but the advanced prices
asked by the works were not granted to the full extent.
Orders for tubes were plentiful, the demand for boiler
and gas tubing being very heavy.

The heavy plate mills were booked for delivery five to
six months ahead, with more orders than they could
cope with ; and any new business was accepted with the
reservation that any increased prices decided upon must
be agreed to. Both medium and fine plate, the latter

especially, were in strong request, the market for drawn
and rolled wire being also very active. The Hessian
Railways were large buyers of railway material at
increased rates; and the military authorities took con-
siderable quantities, heavy rails, pit rails and field rails
also selling well at increased prices. On the other
hand, the demand for tram rails was slack.

Dissolution of the Austrian Iron Cartell.

The Austrian ironworks have decided on the imme-
diate dissolution of the Cartell, which was due to expire
at the end of the year. This step is a mere formality,
the. works having, for more than 12 months, been
allowed their own way on the question of selling prices.
The reason now given is to stimulate production, but
in reality the works desire to derive the utmost benefit
from the consumers’ eagerness to obtain supplies at
any cost. This is particularly the case with the smaller
makers, who have been asking over 400 kr. per ton for
bars, as compared with 350 kr. by the large firms, and
a pre-war rate of 180 kr. The history of the Cartell
shows that, whilst in bad times the fixation of prices
helped the works to keep up their profits, the prices
became minimum rates when the war created an
unexpectedly heavy demand, and rose quickly to 100 to
125 per cent, of the former prices. Thus, in spite of
the heavier costs of production, the dividends grew
largely, the Alpine Montangesellchaft distributing 21
per cent, in 1915 and 25 per cent, in 1916, compared with
only 11 per cent, in 1914; and the Prager Eisenin-
dustriegesellchaft paid 38 per cent, in 1916, against
8 per cent in 1914. The Cartell originated in 1873,
when the various Austrian rail mills associated; and
when the Bohemian iron works formed a syndicate in
1886, the two bodies amalgamated to form the Cartell,
which entered into a working agreement with the
Hungarian Cartell. This arrangement came to an end
in 1901, but was renewed in 1903, and since 1915 there
have been no outsiders.

EXPERIMENTS ON THE CONSTRUC-
TION OF ELECTRIC BELLS.

[From a Correspondent.]

A recent paper with this title, read before the East
Scotland branch of the Association of Mining Electrical
Engineers, apparently dealt with a continuance of the
experiments carried out at the Home Office Experi-
mental Station by Drs. Wheeler and Thornton. The
authors of the paper seem to have conducted their
experiments at Eskmeals, and in their paper they
make use of a good deal of the material given in the
two Home Office reports. The object in view appears
to have been to determine the best lines for the con-
struction of safe electric tremblers for use in coal
mines. The experiments were based upon the suppo-
sition that bells, or the signalling wires, might be
placed in positions where the most sensitive mixture
of firedamp and air might be present; and the authors
have taken the limiting pressure allowed with signal-
ling batteries or other sources of current as their stan-
dard. Their object has been: First, to determine
what they term the 11 range ” of bells constructed in
different ways, so far as the electro magnets are con-
cerned. All the experiments appear to have been
carried out with a form of trembler bell which the
writer believes is very little used, either in mines or
elsewhere, and in which the armature of the bell is
held away from the poles of the electro magnet by a
spiral spring, whose tension can be regulated; the
usual flat spring that engages with the contact screw
being also provided. The authors measured the
“minimum igniting current” with each form of
electro magnet, and under varying other conditions;
and they also measured the “minimum ringing cur-
rent ” ; the difference between these two currents—
when converted into electrical resistance—evidently
being the measure of the distance at which each bell
could be employed. The authors point out that No. 8
G. I. wire is usually employed for engine road signals,
and as this has a resistance of approximately 20 ohms
per mile, each mile of signalling would have a resist-
ance of 40 ohms, so that by ecmating the difference
between the two currents found and the pressure of
the service, the length of road over which the signals
can be used with anv of the bells tested (or with any
bells tested in a similar manner) can be obtained.

The authors, however, appear to the present writer
to have quite unnecessarily complicated the formula
they give for finding the “ range,” and, as it also
appears to him, have rendered it incorrectly. It is
highly undesirable for any unnecessary complication to
be introduced into a formula intended for use by elec-
trical engineers engaged in mining work. Their work
is quite difficult enough without the introduction of
academic difficulties. The formula for finding the

range could be obtained quite simply, by modifying

E

I

the well-known form of Ohm’s law, R =

where R

is the resistance in ohms, E is the pressure in volts,
and I is the current in amperes; and writing

F

R = —	; where I is the minimum igniting current,

I — i

and i is the minimum ringing current. The authors
give the following formula for the range of the bell:
RangeE =	i where I and i represent the same

quantities as in the formula given above. The authors
formula interpreted means that the range equals the
pressure in volts, multiplied by the difference between
the reciprocals of the two currents. Is theie any
reason whatever that reciprocals should be introduced
into a simple matter of this kind? Why should men
who often have very little time for study, and still less
for calculations, he put to the trouble of finding the
reciprocals of the currents they will probably have had
some difficulty in measuring accurately, when the same
result is obtained by taking the difference between the
currents themselves? Three tables are given in the
paper, Table 1 being a summary of the results of the

experiments upon a bell made on the lines described
above, having electro magnets whose cores are a little
over 2 in. long, and of varying diameters, from about
| in. to 1 in., some of the cores having been bored out
internally to different diameters. The results are
interesting, though the authors appear to interpret
them wrongly; and their results are rendered practi-
cally useless by the fact that the working out of their
own formula appears to be all wrong. To give two
instances: a range of 20 is given when it should be
223, and another of 61 when it should be 556. They
give as their opinion that the best results are obtained
with a core J in. diameter, bored out till its sectional
area is only 0-3 sq. in. ; whereas, according to their
own figures, quite sufficiently good results, concerning
insensibility to ignition, long range, and loud sound-
ing power, are given by | in. solid core. This corre-
sponds with the experimental results given in the
second Home Office report. The interesting results
obtained by the authors relate to the cores used;
evidently, down to a certain limit, large cores are
not as good as smaller ones, J in. being a good working
size for the bell under test; and the large cores are
improved by reducing their sectional area. As this
means expense, there is no reason for incurring it.
The present writer suggests that the better results
obtained with the smaller iron cores are due to the,
fact that more powerful eddy currents will be set up
in the larger cores than in the smaller ones, and that
with the larger cores the whole of the iron will not
have time to take part in the molecular movement
which constitutes magnetisation. The other tables
given by the authors do not appear to contain any-
thing of value.

LAW IHTELLIGEMCE.

HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

KING’S BENCH DI VISION.—May 24.

Before Mr. Justice Lush.

Excess Mineral Rights Duty.

Inland Revenue Commissioners v. Earl of Lonsdale’s
Trustees.—The Commissioners of Inland Revenue appealed
from a decision of Mr. T. Jones, as Referee, on a question
which had arisen between themselves and the trustees of
the settled estates of the Earl of Lonsdale, touching assess-
ment to excess mineral rights duty in connection with cer-
tain collieries in Cumberland.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Gordon Hewart, K.C., M.P.)
and Mr. Sheldon appeared for the Inland Revenue, while
Mr. Langdon, K.C., and Mr. W. Allen represented the
trustees.

The question resolved itself into what is the legal con-
struction and effect of section 43 of the Finance (No. 2)
Act, 1915, and its subsections Nos. 1, 2, and 2a, in its
bearing upon the method by which the excess of mineral
rights duty during the accounting years 1914 and 1915 is
to be arrived at. The trustees claimed that it must be on
the basis of the actual pre-war standard of rent value per
ton, as received for the years 1912 and 1913, which were
the two pre-war years selected by them under the Act,
while the Commissioners contended that it must be on the
basis of the actual standard of rent value per ton paid in
the accounting years 1914 and 1915.

Mr. Langdon, on behalf of the trustees, urged that it
would be manifestly unfair to adopt the calculation of the
Commissioners, and contended that the trustees, in apply-
ing the 6s. 6d. standard to the pre-war years, had obviously
done what was intended by the Act. He submitted that
the Referee’s decision was right, and that it would be a
remarkable thing if the trustees were made to pay addi-
tional excess duty through having consented to a reduc-
tion of royalties.

Mr. Justice Lush observed that the object of the Act
could hardly be to tax people who had not benefited by.
increased prices. He reserved judgment.

COURT OF SESSION, SCOTLAND.

SECOND DIVISION.—May 24.

Before the Lord Justice Clerk, and Lords Dundas,
Salve sen, and Guthrie.

Liability for Surface Damage.

William Donald v. J. and R. Howie Limited.—Counsel
were heard in an appeal for William Donald, farmer, Far-
dalehill. Kilmarnock, in his action against J. and R.
Howie Limited, coal masters, Hurlford, for £94 as com-
pensation for surface damage by coal workings under por-
tions of the pursuer’s farm. The pursuer is tenant of the
farm under a lease dated in July 1903 from the landlord,
Baron Howard de Walden, and he based his claim upon
clauses in the lease.

In Kilmarnock Sheriff Court, Sheriff-Substitute Robert-
son decided that the effect of two of the clauses of . the
lease was to deprive the pursuer of his common law right
to have the surface of the land supported, and, further,
that the pursuer, by accepting the lease, renounced all
claims in respect thereof against his landlord. The Sheriff-
Substitute held that the defenders were bound to pay sur-
face damages to the agricultural tenants, but only in so
far as might be necessary to relieve the proprietor from
their claims. But the proprietor was free from any claim
for surface damages caused by mineral workings under the
pursuer’s farm by the terms of the pursuer’s lease.

The Division reserved judgment.

The late Mr. Johan Johansen, of J. L. Johansen and
Company, coal merchants, 70, Wellington-street, Glasgow,
left estate valued at £130,936.

Traders and Commercial Libraries.—At a special meet-
ing of the Wigan Chamber of Trade last.week, Mr. F.. H.
Mee, the acting chief librarian for the Wigan Corporation,
read a paper on “ The-Commercial Library and its Aid to
Business Men.” Mr. Mee said that steps were being taken
in Germany to form a National Technical Library, which
was to be established at Frankfort-on-Main, and which
would be open for public use. In the coming competition
only those business men who were efficient,, modern, and
possessed of up-to-date information respecting not only
their own businesses, but of all the industries, markets,
and commercial possibilities of allied trades, could hope to
survive the coming commercial war. The commercial
library, given proper organisation and support, would
prove of incalculable service,