THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN AND JOURNAL OF THE COAL AND IRON TRADES. Vol. CV. FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1913. No. 2736. MINING MACHINERY EXHIBITION IN LONDON. THE Mining Machinery Exhibition, which for a short week has filled the'bill at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, will compare well with any of its four predecessors. From the purely spectacular point of view it certainly surpasses them, and probably no finer frame for goods of great excellence could be devised than is presented by the stands of Messrs. Stewarts and Lloyds, Messrs. J. Hopkin- son and Co., Messrs. Hadfield’s, and Messrs. Davidson and Co. A long experience of exhibitions and a great variety of products assists firms such as these in the art of window-dressing. It is to the smaller and less imposing exhibits, how- ever, that the practical colliery manager and engineer has frequently to turn in order to find something that he has not met before. Doubtless there would be few visitors to the Agricultural Hall who, going there on business bent, failed to glean some morsels of knowledge, and yet, when we remember that five years have passed since the last of these exhibitions, and that those years have been prolific of legislative and other stimuli to the inventor, it must be conceded that the real novelties are few in number- and not particularly striking. The fact is that the legislation of the past few years, whilst it has laid upon colliery owners numerous obligations in the shape of appliances and devices calculated to minimise loss of life and injury, has in most instances done no more than stereo- type for general application what has already been the practice at many of the more modern collieries. It may be said to have widened the market for such appli- ances, but it has not evolved anything very new. The other influence that may be expected to produce novelties in mechanical equipment—the steady growth in scientific knowledge and experience—may be ex- pected to find its exemplification rather in small but continuous improvements in design than in the development of new types. This Exhibition does indeed provide an example of this latter form of progress. The coal-cutting machinery of to-day, which has been well represented on the stalls of at least half-a-dozen makers at the Agricultural Hall, is certainly more service- able and efficient in every way than that which was being sold half a decade ago. This has been brought about almost wholly by minute improvements in construction, which are not readily apparent until the case is removed. Then we see the better finish of shaft and pinion, and the improve- ments in lubrication and bearings, that make all the difference between profit and loss. Similarly, the Exhibition is rich in rock drills and their first cousins, the per- cussive coal-cutters, and these contain some notable improvements in valve mechanism, which, after all, is the main thing. Retracing our steps for a moment, the absence of electrical plant and appliances at this Exhibition has been a matter- of general comment. The lack of it gives compressed air an adventitious advertisement which it does not, perhaps, altogether deserve. Nevertheless, just as there is no market for electrical manufactures that has expanded so rapidly as the mine, there is also no branch of mining practice that has developed so quickly and to such proportions within the past year or two. We can only conclude that the promoters of this Exhibition have unfor- I 1 1 ■ A' ■ .■ :Sl.. '~»'- /Z.’.-'X ' Y-‘ . ’Wj ■KJ ■■■ ■' l :W; W; Y-';. a'-• .a-. ■ 1 ■ ■ • ,• •», ..... .A'A.. w.y.v TSArA ' '•I « ■ FRANCIS WILLIAM THOMAS BRAIN, J.P., Assoc.M.Inst.C.E., who has just received the honour of knighthood, is a distinguished mining engineer and ooalowner. He was born in 1855 and educated at Monmouth Grammar School. He entered business in 1872 .with the Trafalgar Colliery Company, of whose business he is now managing director. The first application of electricity to mining work—viz., a pumping plant—was installed underground at these collieries in 1882, and he was the pioneer of the electric fuse, which he introduced for use with explosives in mines in 1884. A member of the Departmental Committee on Explosives in 1909, of the Central Examination Board under the Coal Mines Act, 1911, and of the Departmental Committee on Washing and Drying Accommodation, 1912, he was elected president of the Mining Association of Great Britain in 1911. He is the present president of the National Association of Colliery Managers. He is besides a member of the Gloucester County Council, on which he has been largely responsible for the mining education scheme of that body, chairman of the Chepstow Water Company, and the Cinderford Gas Company, and secretary of theForestof Dean Colliery Owners’Indemnity Society. His residence is Trafalgar House, Drybrook, Gloucestershire, and Huntworth, Stoke Bishop, Bristol. tunately eluded the patronage of the powerful body that looks after such matters as exhibiting on behalf of the electrical manufacturers. Such electrical plant as there is to be found in this Exhibition, with the- possible exception of electrical miners’ lamps, is practically confined to the power plant which is required to operate the air compressors, pumps and ventilating machinery to be found on the various stands—that is to say, the makers of the plant are only represented by proxy. This does not prevent the Exhibition from being truly representative of the mining industry, apart from the disabilities under which such exhibitions must ever labour in failing to give a clue to the giant installations of plant that form the appanage of a modern colliery. We cannot expect to find a compound winding engine or a coke-oven battery at an exhibition;; such things can only be seen on the spot. There is, however, another cause that undoubtedly has kept many firms from being present at the Agricultural Hall, and others from doing full justice to them- selves. It is notorious that the engineering firms of the country are, speaking collo- quially, “ full up to their eyes ” with work. This is a matter for congratulation rather than lamentation, but one can hardly expect the manufacturer to bother about exhibitions when his order books are full. Yet a time when the demand for machinery is strong would appear to be just the time when some service may be rendered by exhibitions in bringing goods to the notice of immediate and prospective customers. The solution would seem to be the cultiva- tion of exhibitions as a branch of business— that is, if they aie indeed to be con- sidered as real avenues of trade. Thus, much can be done by means of models, which are independent of the state of the workshops, and do not even require the attendance of a staff: to manipulate them. None of these influences, however, have- prevented the Mining Exhibition from being a success, and in some directions it has given the mining engineer a real and useful opportunity of seeing develop- ments in certain branches. Thus the compelling influence of the Eskmeals Station is revealed in the new designs of oil and electric miners’ lamps to be seen at the Exhibition, whilst the latest improve- ments in rescue appliances are in evidence. Of gas-testing chambers there are several types on view, and winding engine controllers are shown on three stands. These have naturally provoked much interest, notwithstanding that almost eve> y colliery engineer nowadays has his own controller, to which his sympathies are closely wedded, notwithstanding the difficulties he may meet in finding the manufacturer who may turn his invention into a thing of universal use and inciden- tally bring grist to the inventor’s mill.. Underground conveyors are represented, but only a few types ; and pumping plant is not well exemplified, whilst the modern development of coking and by-product plant—which, perhaps, touches more nearly the future of the coal trade than anything else—notat all. We doubt, however, if any of the numerous visitors from the colliery districts have gone away disappointed.