November 15, 1918.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1027

GRIFFIN’S MINING BOOKS.

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WORKS BY JAMES PARK, F.G.S.,

Professor of Mining, Otago University.

Fourth Edition. Revised and Enlarged. Crown 8vo. Pp. i.-xii. + 342.
With 109 Illustrations and Three Plates. 9s. Od.

A TEXT-BOOK OF MINING GEOLOGY.

Contents.—Introduction -Classification of Mineral Deposits -Ore Veins:
Their Fillin", Ace, Structure, Wall Movements, Pay Shoots, &c.—Dynamics
of Lodes and Beds—Ore Deposits Genetically Considered -Theories of Vein
Formation -Ores and Minerals Considered Economically -Mine Sampling
and Ore Valuation—Examination and Valuation of Mines—Index.

Third Edition. Thoroughly Revised and greatly Enlarged. In Crown 8vo.
Pp. i.-xiii. + 430. Cloth. With 163 Illustrations and 2 Plates. 12s. 6d.

A HANDBOOK ON

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For the use of Students in Land and Mine Surveying.

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(Atpresent on Active Service}.

LONDON. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1918.

The London coal trade has been very quiet during
the past week. The demand continues strong*, but
the supply has been less.

Mamet business has been almost nominal this
week on account of holiday-making and the rather
uncertain position. Northumberland and Durham
pits are still unable to cope with all demands. The
fuel supply in the Manchester district has increased,
but no material improvement can be traced in York-
shire or the Midlands. Stocks in Cardiff are
satisfactory, and there is a prospect of considerable
activity in the near future. Already enquiries are in
the market from quarters which have been neglected
for a long period. Market conditions in Scotland
are practically unchanged.

A prospective reduction of freight rates made
chartering business practically nominal this week.
Many neutral orders have been withdrawn until the
market settles down.

It is stated that the authorities have arranged for
all miners serving with the Colours in this country
to return to the pits at once. A scheme is under
consideration for bringing back the miners serving
abroad.

The committees concerned with the organisation of
coal supplies to France and Italy will continue in
office for some time to come. No definite informa-
tion is available yet regarding the prospects of
French and Belgian coal production.

A new Order which has been issued contains a
number of directions regarding the use of coal
wagons.

The executive council of the South Wales Miners’
Federation decided to call a conference of South
Wales delegates at Cardiff to-morrow (Saturday)
relative to the hours of surface workmen.

It is proposed to form a sulphate of ammonia
trading company, to be owned and controlled by
makers of sulphate.

An official announcement states that there is no
prospect of an early increase in the supply of coal
for commercial and household purposes.

The Petroleum (Production) Bill (Amendments)
passed the third reading in the House of Lords on
Tuesday.

The Minister of Munitions gives notice of certain
additional maximum prices for foundry coke and
steel melting coke (Sheffield district). The maximum
prices do not apply to any sale or purchase, under a
contract in writing, entered into prior to July 1
at a price not contravening that permitted up to
that date.

The Central Executive Committee for the supply
of coal to France and Italy held a meeting m London,
yesterday (Thursday), to discuss the future position
of their scheme. Sir Daniel Stevenson presided.
They afterwards saw the Coal Controller. It is
understood no decision was arrived at.

The armistice which was signed on
The End Monday marks the beginning of the
Of the end of the Great War which burst
Great War. upon an unprepared world in August
1914. No such gigantic contest has
ever before occurred, although similar bids for world
power have been made upon more than one occasion
in both ancient and modern European history. All
such attempts, however, have sooner or later been
frustrated, and this last Pan-German venture adds
one more to the list of colossal failures of would-be
despots. But although historical parallels may be found
for the “vaulting ambition” which has now again
“o’erleaped itself,” there is no previous record of a
year so marvellous in its vicissitudes of fortune as
the present year of grace, which sees the very
foundations of political organisation scattered in
ruin throughout a large part of two continents. The
German Empire, as it existed in 1914, was an out-
standing example of what can be achieved by
organised method and persistent effort. It was no
bubble inflated almost to bursting point, but an
apparently sound and prosperous political entity—
a mighty octopus having its tentacles firmly fixed
on the whole industrial activity of the world.
This colossal structure lies to-day a hopeless
mass of disorganisation and ruin. It has collapsed,
almost unexpectedly, but not undeservedly, from a
sheer defiance of natural forces. Bv natural forces
we mean something more than physical power, and
more than the vague abstraction known as inter-
national law. Germany has done something more
outrageous than to regard treaties as scraps of paper,
or to dishonour her own pledged word. She has
defied and outraged the moral sense of civilisation;
and she has defied the acquired experience of man-
kind, which her own great poet has summed up in
the expression, Die Weltgeschielite ist das Weltgericht.
If this policy had succeeded, the world would have
been left without either a moral standard or a guide
to national conduct. Civilisation would have
collapsed; the evolution of ordered society would
have come to a halt, the progress of the world would
have found itself in a cul de sac. But human
experience has again proved a sure guide; and
although the morality of nations may at times sink
to a very low ebb, yet there are still limits beyond
which no government can hope to go, and live. Thus,
German autocracy has perished, just as those of past
history have done, but more in gloriously. It is the
fashion to ascribe this fall to the vice of militarism,
but it is due to something more deep and subtle
even than that. German militarism was only the
instrument by which her traditional policy was
intended to be enforced. Living, as we do, in the
very midst of the stupendous events of the past few
days, amidst the ruins of empires and kingdoms, it
is scarcely possible to realise their full significance,
and we must wait yet a little longer before any
profitable forecast can be made as to what lies
ahead. For the moment chaos reigns supreme
throughout Central Europe. One thing, however, at
least is evident. At the moment of their triumph,
the Allies must preserve that same calm and level
head which has enabled them to steer safely through
all the perils and pitfalls of the past four years. Our
difficulties are by no means over. The Allies have
won the war. It remains to win the peace.

We return this week to the further
Coal and its consideration of Prof. Bone’s impor-
Scientific tant monograph.* In dealing with
Uses.—II. the combustion of coal the author
enters upon what is perhaps the
most valuable section of his work. He reminds us
that the process of burning bituminous coal in a
furnace is in reality a highly complex molecular
process, involving several stages, in which the
interaction of steam is often a prominent factor.
There is, indeed, as he states, scill much misconcep-
tion regarding the mechanism of combustion. We
have to deal with two distinct p lases of the process—
viz., the combustion of solid carbon in the lower layers,
and that of the volatile gases and vapours in or*
above the upper layers. A succinct account is given
of the controversy respecting the primary formation
of carbon monoxide when carbon is burnt in air, and
he adopts, as the best working hypothesis, the views
of II head and Wheeler, that the two oxides of
carbon are produced simultaneously by the decompo-
sition of an unstable “ physico-chemical complex,”
By the application of the well-known
principle of mobile equilibrium in a reversible
system, Riiead and Wheeler worked out, both
theoretically and experimentally, the important
result that in most types of furnaces the fuel bed.
acts primarily as a “ gas producer,” supplying carbon
monoxide, which, with other combustible gases, such
as hydrogen, methane, etc., issues from the top of
the fuel bed, the complete combustion of which can
only be effected by supplying additional air over the
fuel bed. What happens further in respect to the
distillation and combustion of hydrocarbons is too
long a story to explain, but Prof. Bone deals with it
in a remarkably clear and interesting manner, and.
shows that efficient combustion, and, consequently,
the avoidance of black smoke, depend u:»on the

* Coal, and its Scientific Uses, by W. A. Bone. London:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1918. Price 21s. net.

proper regulation and distribution of both primary
and secondary air supplies. To this end, the
superiority of mechanical stoking over ordinary
hand-firing is admitted. At this stage the author
introduces an account of the present position of
firing furnaces with coal dust.

Dealing with the efficiency of coal as now used
for power purposes, Prof. Bone calculates that in even
the most modern of British power stations the coal
consumption averages throughout the year as much
as 2 lb. per horse-power hour generated, while for the
country as a whole it is as much as 51b. ; whereas,
theoretically, it should' be no more than one-fifth of
a pound. He then proceeds to analyse the losses and
chief causes of waste in current boiler practice.
Turning next to domestic heating, a review is given
of the British Association Committee’s report. In
view of the national waste involved in the use of raw
bituminous coal it might be expected that the open
grate fireplace would be absolutely condemned. The
author, however, does not adopt quite so drastic a
line, but maintains that the proper solution of the
domestic problem lies rather in the provision of fire-
places constructed upon sound principles, combined
with the use of some form of carbonised coal or gas.
Upon the use of anthracite he does not go so far as
the Coal Controller in respect to its combustion in
open fireplaces, and he calls attention to a type of
fireplace recently described by Dr. A. Vernon
Ha rcourt, which is specially designed for burning
coke in the sitting-room. Incidentally, the use of
common salt or any such mineral solution for the
purpose of diminishing the domestic fuel bill is
shown to be a myth.

Considerations of space preclude more than a mere
mention of the chapters dealing with the carbonisa.-
tion industries. The author confines his treatment
of this portion of the subject mainly to a survey of
the trend of modern developments, both in the gas
and coking industries; but the 65 pages devoted to
these subjects contain a large amount of invaluable
historical and statistical information, with numerous
illustrations of well-known types of plant.

In dealing with the chemistry of the gas producer,
after briefly recapitulating the result of the researches
of Riiead and Wheeler, referred to above, the author
refers to Karl Wendt’s experiments with an air-
blown producer, based upon principles which had
already been applied in this country in the Thwaite
cupola producer. .The importance of moisture in the
reaction has already been clearly illustrated by the
elaborate researches of Prof. Bone himself in conjunc-
tion with Dr. Wheeler—an epitome of which is
given, together with an excellent summary of the
main conclusions thereby established. This section
of the book, with its detailed description of gas-
producer plants, is admirably adapted for the purpose
of illustrating the author’s contention that there is
no branch of fuel technology in which greater
improvement is foreshadowed than in the substitu-
tion of scientific methods for rule-of-thumb procedure
in producer-gas practice. The same may also be said
with regard to water gas systems, which have impor-
tant industrial applications in connection with steel
plate welding, as well as in the manufacture of town
gas for public supplies.

The author then passes on to the problem of fuel
economy in relation to the manufacture of iron and
steel. The cardinal fact, in this case, is the impossi-
bility of utilising, within the blastfurnace itself,
more than about 60 per cent, of the total available
energy of the coke put into it. This follows from
the reversibility of the reaction—

Fe;cOy + y CO < .—> y C02 + x Fe,
as was proved in 1872 by Lowthian Bell’s classic
researches. Hence, there is a practical working
limit which cannot be exceeded, and the only way to
secure economy of fuel is to recover, outside the
blastfurnace, the surplus energy which cannot be
utilised within it. The elaboration of this principle
leads naturally to the utilisation of blastfurnace gas,
to which the author devotes careful consideration.
In discussing the organisation of an iron and steel
works with a view to fuel economy, he shows that
the problem of storage capacity for surplus gases is
capable of a simple solution by the linking up
system through the medium of a public electric
supply company, for the purpose of equalising the
load ; but the week-end difficulty still remains.

Prof. Bone has arranged his matter with due
regard to the position of the culminating interest
towards the end of the volume. This desirable
climax is reached in the chapter on power production
from coal, notwithstanding the author’s diffidence in
attempting an adequate discussion of so large a
subject in the space available for it. His task,
however, has been rendered easier by the foregoing
matter, which will have already supplied the reader
with the fundamental principles involved. We may
welcome, also, the reprinting here of the author’s
Royal Institution lecture on “Surface Combustion,”
which, apart from its intrinsic value, serves the
useful purpose, of illustrating the progress of an
idea from its inception in the laboratory to its
technical application. The book closes with an
appendix on the coal consumption of Germany and
the United States, an excellently selected biblio-
graphy of works relating to coal, and both subject
and authors’ index.