March 28, 1913.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

647

The Division reversed this decision, deciding that
Brown’s death was not due to an accident arising out of
and in the course of his employment. It was held that
there was nothing abnormal in the circumstances in
which the deceased and other men found themselves
in the shaft No. 1, as it was the downcast shaft and the
current of air was always blowing there. The case was
entirely distinguished from the case of Drylie (supra),
in respect that in that case there was the abnormal
condition in the presence of water which had not been
there before and in which the men had to stand. In
the present case the conditions were entirely normal.

Assault by a Bystander.

Mitchinson v. Day Brothers.—In this case (Court of
Appeal, February 6) the applicant was the widow of a
carter in the employment of the respondents, a firm of
removers of heavy machinery. On July 15, 1912,
Mitchinson was in charge of a horse and van, when a
man who was the worse for drink came towards the van
and either touched, or was about to touch, the horse,
when Mitchinson warned him that the horse might hurt
him. He then struck Mitchinson a heavy blow, and
before Mitchinson could protect himself a second blow
followed, which felled him to the ground and caused his
death. The assault was entirely unprovoked, and
Parkes was subsequently tried at the assizes and found
guilty of manslaughter.

On September 14, 1912, the widow commenced
proceedings on behalf of herself and her children as
dependents of Mitchinson, claiming compensation. The
county court judge held that Mitchinson had met with
his death as a result of an accident arising out of his
employment, and awarded £181 7s. compensation.

The employers appealed, and the Court of Appeal
reversed the decision, holding that the risk of being
assaulted by a drunken man was not in any way
specially connected with or incident to the employment
of a carter.

*#* We shall be pleased to answer in this column questions
relating to Workmen’s Compensation and Employers’
Liability. All communications must be authenticated by the
vame and address of the senderf whether for publication or
not. No notice can be taken of anonymous communications.

Letters to the Editor.

The Editor is not responsible either for the statements
made, nr the opinions expressed by correspondents.

All communications must be authenticated by the name
and address of the sender, whether for publication or
not. No notice can be taken of anonymous communi-
cations .

Asreplies to questions are only given by way of published
answers to correspondents, and not by letter, stamped
addressed envelopes are not required to be sent.

TRIVIAL QUIBBLERS.

Sir,—In your article “ Rescue Apparatus Problems ”
you point to that queer type of mining man who,
knowing very well that his duty requires him to under-
stand and use rescue apparatus (so as to save his men
if, perchance, they be in danger), objects both to
understanding and usage of practical appliances, by
magnifying small faults and quibbling over suppositions
of his imagination. I often meet this type—they often
appear at inquests—and can corroborate your remarks.

One can appreciate honest criticism pointing the
finger at some real fault. It is easy to remedy a real
fault, when found; but the trivial objector should begin
to think seriously over his notions before utterance.

Many of our pit injuries and deaths, and much of
what you call “ hasty legislation ” is due to the trivial-
notion objector. His notions often generate nervousness
in others, who become timid towards safety appliances
and then assume the attitude of not using safety tackle
“ till compelled by law.” They lose their sense of duty,
and financial instincts become dull. I have seen many
examples of this nervous timidity, and might quote
hundreds of preventable pit tragedies in support of my
remarks.

It is time these people became serious to pit dangers,
for, after all, an official can only perform his duty to
masters and men by using some practical appliance to
prevent injury and loss. And this requires officials to
invent better things, if they have real objections to the
things the market supplies.	0. M.

March 22, 1913.

Astley Green Colliery: Correction.—In last week’s issue,
under the head of “Mining and Other Notes,” it was stated
that the Pilkington Colliery Company’s pits at Astley Green
had been delayed owing to inrushes of water said to come
from adjacent old workings. We now understand that
there is absolutely no foundation for this report, and much
regret that the statement, which was received from a
correspondent, should have appeared.

- PROGRESS. -

Benzol as a Petrol Substitute.

In the third of his Cantor lectures on “ Liquid Fuel,”
recently delivered at the Society of Arts, Prof.
Vivian B. Lewes dealt with the increasing demand for
liquid fuel. In the coking of coal for metallurgical
work, he said, the recovery plant, in which the benzol
and ammonia distilled out from the coal were
recovered from the gas before the latter was
burned to supply the heat to carbonise the coal,
yielded a far larger proportion of benzol than the
gas industry; in the latter the bulk of the benzol
went forward as a vapour in the gas and added
to its illuminating and calorific value when burned,
whereas in the coke oven the benzol was scrubbed out of
the gas with heavy oil, from which it was recovered by
distillation. Some 32 million tons of coal were
carbonised annually for coal gas and metallurgical
coke, and if proper arrangements for recovering the
whole of the benzol from this amount were made, a
very considerable supply could be assured. If methods
of carbonisation were adopted which favoured the
production of light hydrocarbons in the tar, and if then
the tax on petrol were removed, and an export tax to
recover the amount were put upon benzol, a very
important addition to the petrol supply could be
ensured.

A recent issue of the Gas World contains summary
of the evidence taken by the petrol committee of the
Royal Automobile Club and associated bodies as to the
possibilities of benzol for motor purposes. Mr. T.
Wilton, of the Gas Light and Coke Company, said
the quantity produced by his company of 90 per
cent, benzol was 81,500 gallons, and of 90 per cent, toluol
19,600 gallons (from, roughly, 1,600,000 tons of coal
carbonised), and that if they sold it at 8d. per gallon
they would gain nothing over selling tar at 3d. a gallon.
He did not think any gas company would be inclined
to produce more benzol than at present, and he thought
it possible that so far as the gas companies were con-
cerned the production might be less in future.—Mr. J.
E. Mitchell, secretary of the Mitchell Main Colliery
Limited, and other Barnsley collieries, said that at
Mitchell Main they produced from 500 to 600 gallons
of crude benzol per day from coke ovens, which they
washed, re-distilled and used as a motor spirit. In
his opinion, properly refined benzol was as good
as petrol, and he got more strength and better mileage
out of it. They were charging lid. and Is. a gallon for
it at the works. The yield per ton of coal carbonised
was about 2 J gallons, and, as far as they could tell at
present, there were 5,200 by-product coke ovens in
England and 420 in Scotland. This practically worked
out at 23,460,000 gallons of crude spirit, and, roughly,
about 25 per cent, would be lost in distillation. A lot
was used in France for motor purposes, and in
Paris for motor ’buses. The limiting factor as regarded
coke ovens was the demand for coke in the iron
and steel trades. There were a lot of coke ovens
in his own district which had not got the benzol-
recovery process, and practically in these cases the
benzol was wasted. The capital involved [in putting
down recovery plant would be met by the average yield
of 2|. gallons of benzol, because whatever they could
make of the benzol per gallon would be “ found money ”
once they put down the plant. He knew one gentleman
who said that if he could have 3Jd. per gallon
guaranteed for crude benzol he would put down a plant
immediately. This would enable him to sell it 9d.
when refined, and leave him a good profit. When he
(witness) spoke of benzol he meant a mixture of benzol
and toluol, and in the coke-oven system they got about
the same percentages of each as in the distillation of
tar.

Mr. Norman H. Holden, a director of Messrs. Hard-
man and Holden Limited, said his firm had dealt with
benzol for 40 years, and he had been using it for 10
years for motor purposes. They were not producers of
benzol, but only manufacturers; they bought their raw
material on a sliding scale in relation to the finished
product, with a margin, and therefore it was no interest
to them to boom benzol—it was the coke-oven people
who should do that. From figures that had been
given to him in confidence by coke-oven people,
the highest field of benzol was 3T gallons—
65 per cent, benzol — but a good average was
about 2 J gallons per ton. Provided all the coke ovens
were recovering benzol (which they were not), there
would be available 8,500,000 gallons if recovered as
pure, or, if recovered as 90’s, 10,600,000 gallons. He
had been astonished at the figures given by the
last witness in this behalf. He did not think that
anybody could buy 11,000,000 gallons of benzol in

this country, and he could not imagine how Mr.
Mitchell got his figures. Of course, the figures would
be increased during 1911 and 1912. If the whole of the
coke made in 1910 had been made in recovery ovens, with
an average benzol yield of 2J gallons a ton, there would
be available 24,794,000 gallons if recovered as pure, and
of 30,830,000 if recovered as 90’s. He believed the petrol
consumption was something like 70,000,000 to 80,000,000.

They (witness’s firm) had a chemist working on another
spirit—a tar spirit—and they hoped to get a result of
1’7 gallons per ton there. This-was made from coke-
oven benzol, but was a mixture, calculated on the lines
of giving the biggest yield as a motor spirit. He thought
this might be sold at Is. per gallon.

The Safety Factor of Winding Ropes.

An interesting article on the safety factor of winding
ropes has been contributed to Gluckauf by Prof. Herbst,
of Aachen. The author comes to the following con-
clusions :

1.	With the safety factors actually prescribed, the
weight of ropes increases in proportion very much more
than the depth and the load.

2.	The number of accidents caused by this consider-
able weight of the ropes is very probably greater than
the number of accidents avoided by these high factors
of safety.

3.	A notable diminution in the weight of ropes can be
obtained by employing strands possessing a greater
breaking resistance.

4.	It is very desirable, for great depths, to introduce
a reduced factor of safety.

5.	This reduction is possible. In fact, for heavy loads,
the margin of resistance contained in the cable to
encounter particularly high tensions, and to compensate
for progressive deterioration, increases in such fashion
that reduced factors of safety would still leave a sufficient
margin of resistance.

6.	A comparison with other branches of the art
supports the view that such a measure is not only
possible but justifiable.

7.	As regards the extent of the reduction, it is not
necessary for collieries to push it beyond the substitution
of an addition factor for a multiplication factor. On
the contrary, it is proved that much may be gained
by a reduction of the durable factor of safety to four or
five, for in such cases, the weight of the ropes with all
the inconvenience entailed by it, has already been con-
siderably reduced.

Naphthaline as a Binder for Briquettes.

Bergassessor Grahn, in Gliickauf, states that several
mines in Rhenish-Westphalia, working hard coals,
employ naphthaline as a binder. Tests carried out with
the Schiiring process at Bremerhaven and the Blanken-
burg mine show that an addition of naphthaline
amounting to 3 per cent, enables the proportion of pitch
to be lowered from 6| or 6| per cent, to from 4J to 5 per
cent. The resulting economy per ton of briquettes
(with pitch at 30s. per ton, and naphthaline at 47s. per
ton) being from 6d. to Is. 3d. According to the
Schiiring process the naphthaline is injected in a vapor-
ised condition into the mass by means of a jet of super-
heated steam.

PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—March 20.

Railway Rates.

Mr. C. Bathurst asked the Prime Minister whether, in
view of the feeling expressed by farmers and traders
throughout the country during and since the passage
through Parliament of the Railways (No. 2) Bill of last
Session, owing not merely to the prospective additional
burden to be thrown upon them thereby, but also to the
omission therefrom of all the provisions of the former
Government Bill relating to owners’ risk rates and other
long-standing and admitted grievances of such consignors,
the Government would in this Session introduce and carry
through Parliament a one-clause Bill relating to owners’
risk rates, and so afford to them some quid pro quo for the
far-reaching benefits conferred by the above Act upon the
railway companies for which they have to pay.

Mr. Asquith said he did not know whether it will be
possible to deal with the matters referred to this Session,
but the President of the Board of Trade had the subject
under consideration.

Over 2,000 electric lamps have been obtained by the
Brodsworth Main Colliery Company for use by the miners
employed in the pit in place of the ordinary oil lamp. A
new electric lamp station is now in course of erection, near
the old lamp cabin, and will be fitted up with turnstiles.
Already about 100 electric lamps are in general use, and
are stated to give every satisfaction.