330

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

February 15, 1918.

North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers.

Mr. John Simpson presided over the usual two-
monthly meeting of the members of the North of Eng-
land Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers,
held in the Wood Memorial Hall, Newcastle, last
Saturday afternoon.

The Late Prof. Lebour.

At the outset, the President referred to the great
loss they had all sustained by the death of Prof. Lebour,
Professor of Geology at Armstrong College ever since
1879, vice-principal of the college since 1902, a member
of the institute since 1873, an honorary member since
1879, a member of the council of the institute from
1880 to 1888 and secretary from 1888 to 1891. He was
a man who did a great deal for the geology of that
district, and the speaker had often heard his students
express their appreciation of his kindness in the way
in which he tried always to assist them. The meeting
passed a vote of condolence with Prof. Lebour’s widow
and family.

An Antipodean Courtesy.

The council reported receipt of a letter from the
honorary secretary of the Engineering Association of
New South Wales extending the privilege of member-
ship to any member of the institute visiting Sydney,
to which the assistant secretary (Mr. Allan Cordner)
had been instructed to reply thanking the association
and offering to reciprocate the courtesy. It had been
agreed that the director of the associates’ section of the
British Empire Association should be advised that the
council would be pleased to hear his views when he was
in Newcastle. The council had agreed that the insti-
tute should subscribe £100 towards the Motor Ambul-
ance Fund being raised by Mr. Dennis Bayley and
should issue an appeal to the members for further
funds for that object. The following committee had
been appointed to go into the question of the scholar-
ship scheme and to report to the council:—The presi-
dent (Mr. Simpson), Prof. H. Louis and Messrs. T. E.
Forster, A. M. Hedley, M. H. Kellett and J. R. R.
Wilson. It had been decided that the general meetings
of the institute fixed by rule for June 8 and August 3
should be held on June 1 and August 10, respectively,
and that the council meetings fixed for May 25 and
July 20 should be held on May 18 and July 27,
respectively.

New Members.

The following gentlemen were admitted into the insti-
tute :—Members: Mr. J. Hunter, colliery manager,
Norton House, Chester-le-Street; Mr. T. Hynd,
teacher of coal mining and mine surveying, Metcalf
Street, Wallsend, New South Wales, Australia; Mr.
J. Lawson, general manager, East Tanfield Colliery
Company Ltd, Tantobie, co. Durham; and Mr. S. J.
Millar, engineer, 19, Woodbine Road, Gosforth, New-
castle. Associates: Mr. D. Fletcher, colliery under-
manager, 3, Victoria Terrace, Hamsterley Colliery,
co. Durham; and Mr. D. Hindson, mining student,
Framwellgate Colliery, Durham.

The following papers were open for further discus-
sion, .but none resulted:—“ A Fresh Aspect of Inten-
sive Mining Thin Seams,” by Mr. Geo. Gibb; u The
Flow of Water in Siphons,” by Mr. Mark Halliday;
and uNotes on the Uniflow Steam Engine,” by Mr. G.
G. T. Poole.

Memoir of John George Weeks.

A Memoir of John George Weeks,” written by Mr.
R. J. Weeks, was read by Mr. Reginald Guthrie.

John George Weeks, who was born at Ryton-on-Tyne,
co. Durham, on August 6, 1843, was educated at New-
castle Grammar School and Rossall, and in 1860 began
his apprenticeship as a mining engineer with the Stella
Coal Company under the late Mr. Robert Simpson
and Dr. J. B. Simpson. In 1865 he was made master
sinker at the Addison Pit, but left in the same year
to take his first charge as manager of the Machen and
Rhos Llantwit Colliery in South Wales, under the late
Mr. Thomas Forster Brown. In January 1868, he
accepted the post of manager of North Gawber and
Willow Bank Collieries, near Barnsley, which he held
until September 1872, when he was appointed head
viewer and agent to the Bedlington Coal Company
Limited. Mr. Weeks was then 29 years of age, and
his connection with this company, owning one of the
largest groups of collieries in Northumberland, lasted
to the date of his death on July 8, 1916, a period of
nearly 44 years. Many important changes and
developments took place at Bedlington in his time;
several additional shafts were sunk, all the heapsteads
and screening plants were remodelled, the furnaces
replaced by fans, and electricity substituted for gas.
He built a great many workmen’s houses, and it was
one of his sayings that “ every new house
built was an improvement on the last.’ He
held strong views on managing his own pits,
and insisted on making and maintaining good
haulage and travelling roads, and was of opinion that
most of the obstacles to keeping up the output was
due to a disregard of this essential. His relations with
his workmen were good, for he always gave them a fair
crack of the whip, and though he constantly differed
in opinion with them, they knew that they could rely
on him dealing justly with any subject in dispute and
on him keeping his word.

Tn addition to the Bedlington Collieries, he was con-
nected with Messrs. Joseph Laycock and Company’s
Seghill Colliery, and became managing owner there in
1883, which post he retained until his death. He was
also mining adviser to the late Earl of Ravensworth
and his successors from 1903 onwards, and held several
other similar offices.

Mr. Weeks took a great interest in local affairs ; he
became a member of the Local Board in 1876, and on
this becoming an Urban District Council was its first
chairman. He continued as a member until 1913,
when he retired, although still keeping his connection
with them by being appointed as their first represen-
tative on the newly constituted Blyth Harbour Com-

missioners. He was a member of the Morpeth Board
of Guardians from 1879 onwards; chairman of the
managers of several of the colliery schools, and in
various ways gave a helping hand to the many institu-
tions, societies, and undertakings in the district. In
1894 he was made a justice of the peace for the county,
later becoming chairman of the petty divisional court
and a member of the licensing committee.

Mr. Weeks will perhaps be best remembered in con-
nection with the Coal Trade Associations of Northum-
berland and Durham and the Mining Association of
Great Britain. He became a member of the Northum-
berland Joint Committee at its inception in 1873, and
remained on till the end of 1913.

He took a prominent part in the Northumberland
Coal Owners’ Association, and so long ago as 1876
acted as arbitrator with Mr. S. C. Crone in the engine-
men’s dispute; and together with the late chairman
(Mr. R. O. Lamb) gave evidence in London in 1891 on
their behalf before the Royal Commission on Labour.
In the minimum wage proceedings in 1912-13, before
Lord Mersey, the brunt of the practical evidence fell
upon his shoulders. In 1913 he was made vice-chairman
of the association, and held that office until his death.

In the United Coal Trade Association he played
latterly a leading part; when the clauses of the New
Mines Act of 1911 were first published, Col. W. C.
Blackett and he were appointed to represent the
Durham and Northumberland coal trade on the com-
mittee appointed by the Mining Association of Great
Britain, and it was greatly due to their common sense,
practical knowledge and vigorous efforts that the
various provisions and special rules were pruned,
altered and excised so as to make them as workable
and comprehensible as possible.

No position that he held was he more proud of than
the presidency of the North of England Institute of
Mining and Mechanical Engineers in the years
1900-2. He became a member of the institute in 1865,
was elected to the council in 1877, and served con-
tinuously till his death; he always took the greatest
interest in its welfare, and spared nothing to further
its progress. He was also a member of the Finance
and Publications Committee of the Institution of
Mining Engineers, and for many years an examiner
for colliery managers’ certificates.

Mr. Guthrie said he desired to be allowed to express
his personal appreciation of the services rendered to
the mining industry by the late Mr. Weeks, whose
unique knowledge was always at the full disposal of
the coal trade, and who was ever ready and willing
to advise on matters connected with that industry.
His kindness to the speaker, personally, was of enor-
mous advantage and of the very greatest benefit to the
coal owners.

The President, moving a vote of thanks to Mr. R. J.
Weeks for his excellent and interesting memoir of his
late father, said that, probably there was no one
present at that meeting who was in such close touch
with the late Mr. Weeks as was he (the speaker). He
knew Mr. Weeks when the latter first commenced to
serve his time in 1860, and, in 1865, when Mr. Weeks
went to South Wales under Mr. Forster Brown,
the speaker was put under Mr. Weeks’ charge in South
Wales. Practically, they served their time together.
Ever since then they had been associated and had
worked a good deal together, and a better friend and
a truer and more straightforward person that Mr.
Weeks the speaker had never come across in his life.

The vote of thanks was cordially given.

Spontaneous Heating in Coal Heaps.

Mr. John Morison, M.Inst.C.E., read a paper on
“A System of Storing and Filling Small Coal, with
Remarks upon the- Prevention of Spontaneous Heating
in Coal Heaps.” (See p. 329.) He prefaced the paper
by apologising for its unscientific character, and said
he was impelled to write it, because there was a new
condition arising in Northumberland with reference to
which he had gained some experience regarding the
large accumulations of small coal and the serious risk
that was arising of the heating of these heaps.

Discussion.

Mr. R. W. Dron (Glasgow) wrote asking if the small
coal was dry or wet when laid down, and if weather
conditions had been found to affect the liability to
spontaneous combustion. The general experience with
Scottish coal was that heating seldom occurred with
heaps under 20 ft. in height, unless under some excep-
tional conditions. The fact that it had been necessary,
as related by Mr. Morison, to exercise considerable
vigilance in order to prevent heaps of from 12 ft. to
15 ft. from firing led him to ask if there were any
special characteristics of the coal making it liable to
spontaneous combustion. He had a difficulty in under-
standing the remark that, if the small coal contained
too much shale, there was a tendency for this to cake.
He would have expected that the presence of shale
would have rather reduced that tendency.

Mr. John Kirsopp (Gateshead) wrote remarking
that the Northumberland and Durham collieries (with
the exception of a few producing Coking coals), being
entirely dependent on export trade for their markets,
little stacking of coal at the pit mouth had been done
in the past and the necessity of so doing had only
arisen recently, but in the inland coal fields of the
country, where the coal went largely for gas making
and a home house coal trade, they had a very slack
time during the summer and stacking during these
months was essential. Consequently, in order not to
impede winding operations, the most expeditious
method of handling and manipulation of tubs at bank
was essential, and on that point Mr. Morison’s paper
furnished valuable information. The writer, when
compiling his paper on “ Coal Shipment,” a
few years ago, enquired into the question of
spontaneous combustion, on which subject Mr.
Richard Threlfall, F.R.S., read a valuable paper

before the Society of Chemical Industry in 1909
(Jour. of Soc. of Chem. Ind., vol. 28, p. 759. See also
discussion on “ Coal Shipment” paper, vol. xl, part 4).
Mr. Threlfall stated that Mr. Henri Fayol found, as
the result of experiments with various coals from the
North of France and Belgium coal fields, that the
inflammability of coal was highest with lignite, passing
down through gas and coking coals to anthracite, in
the order named, but the differences between gas and
coking coals were not great, an important fact, as
there had always been a tendency to make too much
of supposed great differences in the natural tendencies
of coals to inflame spontaneously. Various Commis-
sions had proved that the risk of spontaneous fire was
much greater when a ship’s cargo was loaded in summer
than in winter, and that the size and depth of the
hold had also an important bearing. The second New
South Wales Commission further recommended that,
where large ships w’ere being loaded during warm
weather (90 degs. F. or over) a hose should be played
down the hatchway. (Some collieries, for the preser-
vation of their coals in wet weather, covered their
loaded wagons with tarpaulins during transit between
the colliery and the place of shipment, a practice
adverse to the views both of Fayol and the New South
Wales Commission). Fayol also claimed that the
height played an important part in heating, more
especially when the heap was composed of unscreened
coal or slack, and stated, from his own observations,
that no cases of heating had occurred in heaps of less
height than 6| ft., whereas, when the heaps were more
than double that height, spontaneous combustion
invariably occurred. One of the reasons generally
given for spontaneous combustion was the occlusion
of oxygen by the small particles of coa], by which the
oxygen was raised to a great pressure. Authorities
all agreed that ventilating the heaps to the greatest
possible extent was a preventive, combined with the
use of water if and when the coal began to heat.
In face of these statements, he (Mr. Kirsopp) sug-
gested that Mr. Morison should give his reasons for
stating: —(1) That it was not necessary to have any
hard or fast limits to the size of the heaps, for it
would seem that there did exist a maximum limit to
the height in the opinion of other authorities and
Commissions; (2) that heating commenced at a depth
of 5ft., the heaps being cone-shaped; (3) that the
periodical raking of the heaps affected the possibility
of heating; and (4) that heaps should not be formed
on marshy ground, seeing that, in the case of heating,
the second New South Wales Commission advised
watering. He himself could understand that, where
there was a series of cone-shaped heaps, there was
probably less likelihood of either heating or firing, pro-
vided that there was a maximum limit to their height,
owing to the constant circulation of air round them.
Older authorities seemed to have fixed the limit of
height not above 12 ft. and, apparently, had con-
sidered the length and breadth of a heap as not affect-
ing the heating in any way. That seemed to be a
most important point to ascertain, as every colliery
or works was not so favourably placed as to have
sufficient waste ground to allow of the dumping of a
series of stacks, although each might have sufficient to
lay down a large stack. Mr. Morison seemed to think
that length and breadth, as well as height, did control
the question. Where heaps 15 ft. high were cone-
shaped, did he find a greater tendency to heating than
in those not exceeding 12 ft. high or less ? It might
also be interesting to know whether the coal was un-
screened, what percentage of round and small it com-
prised, the length of time coal was stacked before he
first noticed signs of heating, how long afterwards it
was before it fired and at what point, much lower
or at the extreme bottom, it did actually fire. What
was the least height of stack which he had found or
known to begin to heat or fire? If the paper could
also draw7 out a discussion on the question of reducing
the deterioration of various classes of coal when stacked
it would be valuable.

The President expressed the institute’s indebted-
ness to Mr. Morison for so practical a paper, and said
it dealt with a matter that required very careful atten-
tion at present. Mr. Morison’s experience and con-
clusions agreed absolutely with the speaker’s own
experience in past years. They had considerable diffi-
culty at Heworth at one time with their heaps, and
they found that, so long as they kept to a height
of not more than 14 ft. or 15 ft., they had little trouble,
but when they got up to 20 ft. or 22 ft., they had
heating and, in one or two instances, very heavy fires.
They found that the only remedy was to spread the
heap and not teem it so thickly. Mr. Morison’s way
was, he thought, very simple and effective.

Prof. Henry Louis asked if Mr. Morison found any
difference as to heating corresponding with weather,
whether it was more in wet or in dry weather, in cold
or heat? In a paper recently issued by the Canadian
Department of Mines about heating in small coals,
very great stress was laid on weather conditions.

Mr. Mark Halliday stated that he thought that, in
the paper to which Prof. Louis referred, there was
raised the question of storing coal under w7ater to
prevent deterioration. Had Mr. Morison had any
experience of that?

Mr. C. C. Leach asked if Mr. Morison had had any-
thing to do with the insurance of his small coal heaps
against fire, and whether the insurance companies had
drawn up any set of rules for such policies.

Mr. T. V. Simpson asked whether Mr. Morison had
found any point where there was a critical tempera-
ture before the heat actually broke into fire. The
speaker had had some bother at Throckley through
heating, and for some time he could not get the insur-
ance people to cover the risk. Then he referred them
to an old paper in the Transactions as to the limitations
of the size of coal heaps, and in the end they agreed
to issue a policy, as the coal company was an old
customer, but not on the full quantity. The coal
company had been watching the heap, which was about
16 ft. high, latterly, and put down some pipes, as