August 13, 1915.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

323

NORTH OF ENGLAND INSTITUTE
OF MINING AND MECHANICAL
ENGINEERS.

Annual Meeting.

Mr. T. Y. Greener presided over the annual meeting
of the members of the North of England Institute of
Mining and Mechanical Engineers held in the Wood
Memorial Hall, Newcastle-on-Tyne, on Saturday after-
noon last.

Annual Report.

Mr. Reginald Guthrie, treasurer, presented the
annual financial statement. This showed a total income
of £2,697 9s. 5d., of which £42 8s. was from subscrip-
tions in advance, leaving £2.659 Is. 5d. as the ordinary
income of the year, as compared with £2 749 17s. 9d. in
the previous year. The expenditure was £2,271 Os. 5d., as
against £2,752 9s. 5d. The balance of income over
expenditure was £426.9s., which, added to the previous
balance of £674 5s. 6d., left a total of £1,100 14s. 6d.

The President moved the adoption of the report and
called attention to the fact that during the past year the
income had exceeded the expenditure by £426 9s. The
council was of opinion that, so far as could be seen, the
current year would show equally favourable Jesuits.
Under the circumstances, it was felt that the institute
was able to assist in some of the ways by which aid was
being given to the wounded in the country, and the
council had decided to recommend that £200 be sub-
scribed towards the funds which were being raised by
Mr. Bayley for the Red Cross Society. He moved the
adoption of the report, with the addition of the recom-
mendation.

Mr. J. H. Merivale (Secretary), seconded.

The motion was adopted.

The annual report of the council recorded the death
of Mr. Geo. May, who, elected a member in 1862,
served on the Council from 1878, and was elected
president in 1896. For the fifth successive year a
decrease in the membership was reported. During the
year under review a decline of 28 was shown. The
decrease was, no doubt, in part the result of the removal
of the headquarters of the Institution of Mining
Engineers to London in 1909, and an effort must be
made to increase the membership from local sources.
Agents and managers in the district could materially
help by inducing their officials to become members or
associates of the Institute. The membership in 1910
was 1,361; 1911, 1,342; 1912, 1,298; 1913,1,273; 1914,

I,	242; and year ended August 1, 1915, 1,228. The
deaths (15) included the following:—Members, Lord
Merthyr, and Messrs. Win. Barrow, Jos. Cook, Jas.
Fairley, Grainger Heslop, F. C. Keighley, I}- A. Louis,
Geo. May, P. V. Tuxen, and Hemy Wall; associate
members, Messrs. G. M. Capell, C. W. C. Henderson,
and G. Humphreys-Davies; and students, Messrs. J. R. '
Brass and R E. White (both killed in action). Thirty-
eight resignations were reported, comprising one
honorary member, 27 members, two associate members,
seven associates, and one student. A list, admittedly
incomplete, of 92 members serving with the forces was
given. The Institute’s library was augmented by 600
bound volumes and 26 pamphlets, reports, &c._, and now
contains about 15,339 volumes and 557 unbound pamph-
lets. The course of lectures for colliery engineers,
enginewrighfs, and apprentice mechanics, arranged
at Armstrong College, had been suspended owing to
the war. Mr. Samuel Dean was, in January last,
awarded the Daglish Travelling Fellowship and suitable
arrangements had been made for him to gain knowledge
and experience abroad. A G. C. Greenwell bronze
medal had been awarded to Mr. Robert Clive for his
paper on “ Stonedusting at Bentley Colliery : Report to
the Doncaster Coal Owners’ (Gob-fires) Committee.”
Prizes had been awarded to the writers of the following
papers, communicated to the institute during 1914-15 :—
“ Coal Mining in Mexico,” by Air. E. O. F. Brown,
M.I.M.E.; “ Notes on Coal Mining in the State of
Illinois, U.S.A.” by Mr. Samuel Dean; “ Hydraulic
Stowing in the Gold Min^s of the Witwatersrand,” by
Mr. B. C. Gullachsen, M.I.M.E.; and “ The Prevention
of Overwinding and Overspeeding in Shafts,” by Mr.
G. G. T. Poolej M.I.M.E. The council hoped to arrange
the postponed excursion to Eskmeals on the conclusion
of the war.

The report was adopted on the motion of the
President.

The President then presented Mr. Clive with the
’ bronze medal awarded by the council.

The following gentlemen were elected, on the motion
of the President, to represent the institute on the
council of the Institution of Mining Engineers:—His
Grace the Duke of Northumberland, and Messrs. R. S.
Anderson, Sidney Bates, W. C. Blackett, W. C. Carr,
Benj. Dodd, J. W. Fryar, T. Y. Greener, Reginald
Guthrie, Samuel Hare, A. M. Hedley, T. E. Jobling,

J.	P. Kirkup, Philip Kirkpp, C. C. Leach, Henry Louis,
J. H. Merivale, W. C. Mountain. R. E. Ornsby, Walter
Rowley, F. R. Simpson, John Simpson, J. G. Weeks,
W. B. Wilson, and E. S. Wood.

The following were admitted into the institute:—
Members : Mr. John Coggin Brown, geologist, Geological
Survey of India, 27, Chowringhee, Calcutta. India;
Mr. Geo. Ei nest Gregson, surveyor, valuer and mining
engineer, 13, Harrington-street, Liverpool; Mr. Edgar
Arthur Jackson, surveyor, Clipsley Lodge, Hay dock, St.
Helens; Mr. Asahiko Karashima, mechanical engineer,
c/o Messrs. Mitsui and Company Limited, 31, Lime-
street, London, E.C.; and Mr. Griffith Rees Morgan,
land and mineral surveyor, 178, Commercial-street,
Senghenydd, Cardiff. Associate members: Mr. Edward
Maurice Gregson, surveyor, 12, Hesketh-road, South-

port ; and Mr. Geo. Arthur Gregson, mechanical
engineer, of the same address. Student : Mr. Cecil
Edward Wm. Sbapley, mining student, Santry, Chelston-
road, Torquay.

A New Battery Signalling Bell.

Prof. W. W. Thornton then read a paper on “ A
New Battery Signalling Bell,” which appears on
page 317.

Dr. R. V. Wheeler, of Eskmeals, wrote regretting
his inability to be present to express in person his
admiration of the manner in which Dr. Thornton had
presented the theory of the common form of battery bell.
The paper should give valuable information to bell
makers as to the manner in which they could improve
both the ringing efficiency and the safety of bells. The
writer had the pleasure of examining a bell fitted with
Dr. Thornton’s device to prevent sparking and could
testify to its efficiency. There was, however, a practical
disadvantage attaching to the use of any device to
prevent sparking which involved a circuit other than the
ringing circuit. Should the additional circuit by some
mischance become broken, the bell would become unsafe
and would continue to i ing. For that reason, he favoured
any device which, though not theoretically or in practice
as efficient as Dr. Thornton’s, formed an integral part
of the ringing circuit and could not be separated from
the bell without destroying it. The problem of obtaining
a safe system of underground signalling without dis-
pensing with bare wires—which it was expedient to
retain for the sake of their convenience—presented
s'everal complications, but the difficulties were certainly
not insuperable. He hoped that, as a result of the
investigation now being made for the Home Office,
several methods alternative to those already outlined in
his recent report would emerge.

Air. H. R. Kempe, of Letchworth, consulting engi-
neer to the Post Office, wrote that, in regard to
the influence of resistance, he thought wl en Dr.
Thornton stated that “ resistance in the battery or line
or bell windings diminished the igniting power of the
spark,” the author did not sufficiently define what he
meant by “ resistance in bell windings.” High resistance
could be obtained by winding the electric magnet with
a great number of convolutions of wire. That, however,
whilst giving the bell a high resistance, would also give
it a high inductance, which was certainly not desirable
unless the electro-magnet was shunted, which, at that
part of the paper, Dr. Thornton did not seem to suggest.
He did not consider the arrangement suggested in fig. 8
of the paper was at all a good one. It introduced three
c mtacts in the place of one, and the amount of current
which such a device saved was insignificant, xa^s the
proper resistance for the shunting off would be ten
times that of the bell coils which it shunted. He
thought Dr. Thornton should, in speaking of the shunt
being of “ suitable ” resistance, have pointed out that
“ suitable ” included “ double winding.” Also, it would
have been better to have said that the value of the shunt
should be about ten times the resistance of the coils that
it shunted, rather than to have made a rather indefinite
statement that the value might be from 20 to 150 ohms.
The value ten times was the one adopted by the Post
Office for all local apparatus such as sounders, the object
of the shunt being to get rid of sparking at the relay
contacts. Such shunts had been in use for the la>t 30
to 40 yeais. In regard to the statement that the shunt
device had never been used on electiic bells, he might
mention that the Post Office arranged, some time ago,
to fit a number of bells for special purposes with spark
shunts (bell coils 100 ohms, shunt 1,000 ohms), and he
believed these were being installed. The bells were
rather large and were to be worked from relays. The
use of bells shunted to prevent gas ignition was novel,
and should be made compulsory. “ Double winding ” of
the shunts should be specifically mentioned in the
specifications of such bells.

Mr. W. C. Mountain remarked that the experiments
they had just seen were very conclusive proof that
Dr. Thornton had almost certainly produced a bell which
would reduce risks from explosion. A bell built upon
Dr. Thornton s idea would cost so very little more than
an ordinary bell that he thought what Dr. Thornton
had done was of very considerable value. The speaker
did not suggest that the use of the improved bell
should be compulsory, because, he thought there was a
great deal too much fear existing in the minds of many
people as to the actual risk of sparking in collieries.
There were risky places but there were many more
places in which th^re was no risk at all. He thought
the installation of such a bell should be determined by
the conditions.

In a brief reply Dr. Thornton said Dr. Wheeler had
raised the most vital objection—if it were vital—
namely, that one should have some arrangement for
checking sparks, which would stop the bell. That
would be ideal, of course, but it could not be done
without the introduction of auxiliary devices which
were not wanted.

On the motion of the President, Dr. Thornton was
thanked for his paper.

The Lateral Friction of Winding Ropes.

The paper on “The Lateral Friction of Winding
Ropes,” by Mr. H. W. G. Halbvum, was open for
further discussion.

Mr. T. C. Futers said that Mr. Halbaum had, no
doubt, performed a useful service in drawing attention
to the subject. At the same time, the speaker did not
think the harm resulting from lateral friction of properly
crossed winding ropes was as great as might be imagined

and there were hundreds of ropes coiling perfectly satis-
factorily on plain parallel drums. Where difficulty had
been experienced, the conical drum had been installed
more as a make-shift to overcome what was regarded as
a nuisance rather than a mechanical difficulty but,
whilst it attained the object aimed at, it did not entirely
remove lateral friction, because the conical drum became,
so to speak, a fleeting pulley. The speaker thought the
same conditions would apply to all conical drums, even
in those designed according to Mr. Halbaum*s rules.
Ropes would coil evenly on plain parallel drums without
serious lateral friction if the engine were placed far
enough back from the shaft, so that the angle of rope
travel would not exceed two degrees on either side of the
centre line pulley. Where these conditions could not be
obtained or where it was desired to eliminate lateral
friction entirely, the proper remedy and the only
perfectly satisfactory one was to screw-cut the drum.
In the speaker’s opinion it would be to screw-
cut every drum. He could not imagine why that
perfectly simple and well-known method of guiding
a winding rope, in which every coil was properly
bedded and supported, was not made more use of.
As regarded the Koepe and Whiting systems of winding,
the chief trouble with the latter wask the heavy
deterioration of the ropes due to the excessive bending
stresses. That system was in use, he believed, on both
the Edinburgh tramways and the Glasgow and district
underground railway, and, in both cases he understood,
the rope wear was very heavy. The system was also
used for underground endless rope haulage, and was
much more suitable for that class of work, as the strain
upon the rope was much more constant and continuous.
In winding, the rope had frequent sudden strains put
upon it, varying from a maximum to zero, and it
was really that which was responsible for all
rope troubles. The harder the steel from which the
rope was constructed the quicker deterioration took
' place. In this country, at any rate, owing to legal
requirements in regard to roj es and keps, it was very
unlikely that either the Koepe or the Whiting system
would be used to any extent. In Germany the Koepe
system was certainly used, but mostly in connection with
electric winders,for which, owing to the more even turning
movement, it was much more suitable than with a steam
engine. The only way to wind minerals in a vertical
shaft with the maximum economy of steam and with the
least wear and tear on ropes and machinery was to lift
as heavy 3a net load as possible at as slow a rate as the
required output in a given time would permit. Speed
was a huge mistake. By speed he meant the velocity
of the cages, and undoubtedly the present legal restric-
tions and requirements in regard to winding ropes were
due entirely to neglect of that fact. By all means they
should keep inertia of drums and moving masses as low
as possible, but the effect of inertia was much more
difficult to deal with in the case of high velocities than
when the speed was slow. The drum should be kept to
a minimum diameter, and in cases of deep shafts the
very best arrangerrent, in his opinion, for preventing
the angling of the rope was the Morgan’s traversing
engine. No other method yet suggested was its equal,
and for electrical winding it had very many advantages
indeed. Mr. Morgan’s engine kept the diameter of the
drum to a minimum, and winding from a depth of
3.000 ft. it was only 10 ft. diameter and 21 ft. long, the
rope coiling on taking the place of the rope uncoiling
off the drum. Its advantages in many respects
were so undoubted that it had always appeared
strange to him that the design had not, so far,
been repeated. In any winding installation, in order to
secure the maximum economy and safety, the designer
should aim at lifting a maximum net load of coal with
a minimum speed and with the least possible inertia of
the moving masses. Thirty years ago, the mechanics of
winding were not thoroughly understood, and the i esult
was that winding plants were badly designed and
roughly operated. Mr. Halbaum did not mention the
human factor, but the type of man at the handles had
an important influence on the whole opera’ion of
winding, especially where the speed was the chief
consideration. With slow speeds and heavy loads, his
influence was reduced, and, as the mechanics of
winding were now generally well-known, there was not
the same excuse for faulty design or dangerous opera-
tion. When these facts became recognised as they
ought to be, there would not be the same reason for
legal restrictions and requirements as existed at
present.

New Officers.

On the motion of Mr. Futers, a vote of thanks was
accorded to the president, vice-presidents, councillors
and officers for their services during the past year.

The President returned thanks, and intimated that
at the next meeting he would deliver his presidential
address.

A vote of thanks to the representatives of the
institute on the council of the Institution of Mining
Engineers was accorded.

The election of officers for the ensuing twelve months
was announced, as follows:—President, Mr. T. Y.
Greener, re-elected; vice-presidents, Air. J. B. Atkinson,
Mr. Samuel Hare, Mr. T. E. Jobling, Mr. C. C. Leech,
Prof. Henry Louis, and Mr. F. R. Simpson, all
re-elected; councillors, Mr. R. S. Anderson, Air. Sidney
Bates. Mr. W. Cochran Carr, Air. Benjamin Dodd,
Mr. Mark Ford, Mr. A. M. Hedley, Mr. A. C. Kay 11, Air.
W. C. Mountain, Mr. Simon Tate, Mr. R. L. Weeks and
Mr. E. S. Wood, re-elected ; and Mr. Henry Armstrong,
Mr. R. W. Berkley, Mr. C. S. Carnes, Mr. Frank
Coulson, Mr. J. H. B. Forster, Mr. John Morison and
Mr. John Simpson in succession to Mr. Tom Hall, Mr.
Austin Kirkup, Mr. F. O. Kirkup. Mr. Philip Kirkup,
Mr. C. B. Palmer, Mr. R. F. Spence and Mr. R. J.
Weeks.

The meeting then ended.