August 27, 1915. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 423 OBITUARY. It is with great regret that we have to announce the death of Mr. J. W. Fryar, general manager to Messrs. Barber, Walker and Company, the owners of the East wood and Bentley collieries. On Tuesday the 17 th inst., Mr. Fryar was suddenly taken ill. He was immediately removed to a private nursing home in Park- row, Nottingham, and an operation for appendicitis performed the same evening. A satisfactory report was issued following the operation, and during Wednesday the patient appeared to be holding his own, but there was, unfortunately, a relapse, and early on Thursday morning the family were summoned, under grave con- ditions, and Mr. Fryar passed away about noon. The deceased gentleman, who was the son of the late Mr. Mark Fryar, of Eigton Lodge, County Durham, and brother of Mr. Mark Fryar, of Denby, was a bachelor, in his 47th year. He served his apprenticeship as a mining engineer with his brother at Denby Colliery, and after- wards at the Seghill Colliery, Northumberland, where he was appointed manager, and then went to Pease and Partners collieries, Durham, before coming to the Nottingham district. Previous to coming to Eastwood, Mr. Fryar was engaged in the sinking and opening out of the Sherwood Colliery, near Mansfield, and on the con- clusion of this work entered into a partnership with friends in a colliery in North Wales, but retired in order to take up the position he held under Messrs. Barber, Walker and Company, at the time of his death. Coming to Eastwood in the autumn of 1905, Mr Fryar’s position took him into the Doncaster district, where his company were developing a new coal field at Bentley, and he supervised the sinking and equipment of this large [Photo: Jas. Bacon and Sons. The Late Mb. J. W. Fryar. colliery. Mr. Fryar next turned his attention to the East wood collieries, and between 1907-10 he completely reconstructed and modernised these pits by the installa- tion of a central electrical plant serving the whole five collieries. This work of regeneration was not carried out without bitter conflicts with the men, but it says much for Mr. Fryar’s strength of purpose and fairness of mind that long before his death the hatchet had been completely buried, and his relations with the workmen had again become most cordial. To mining engineers, Mr. Fryar will be chiefly remembered for the active part which he took in the. scientific investigation of the questions relating to gob- fires. On the development of the large collieries in the Doncaster coal field, the gob-fire question acquired attributes that were altogether novel, so far as British coal mining was concerned. With great enterprise and determination, Mr. Fryar set himself to devise practical means of dealing with this danger. With the collabora- tion of Sir Arthur Markham, he founded the Doncaster Coal Owners’ Committee, from whose laboratory have been issued a most valuable series of reports on spontaneous combustion, the use of rescue apparatus, and other subjects germane thereto. In dealing with the gob-fire problem at Bentley, Mr. Fryar sometimes found himself in opposition to official views, and his refusal to withdraw all the workmen in the case of an outbreak of fire, led to a prosecution, which created a great stir in coal mining circles at the time. The deceased gentleman, with the possible exception of Sir William Garforth, was perhaps the greatest living exponent in this country of the stone-dust remedy, which was extensively applied in the workings at Bentley. In the Nottinghamshire collieries, Mr. Fryar always contended! the use of stone-dust was unneces- sary, owing to the high content of ash in the road dust.normally present in the pits. Mr. Fryar was a councillor of the Institution of Mining Engineers, and a member of the council of the Mining Association of Great Britain. He resided at the Grange, Eastwood, and was greatly interested in the Red Cross movement. The funeral, which took place on Monday, was largely attended by mining engineers and others associated with the industry in Yorkshire and the Midlands. Information has been received of the death in action at the Dardanelles on August 10 of Capt. Douglas P. Robathan, of the 5th (Territorial) Battalion Welsh Regiment. In civil life deceased was a mining engineer under Mr. Hugh Bramwell, of the Great Western Colliery Company. The death took place at his residence at Camerton last week, of Mr. James Clark, a well-known Cumberland mine manager who has been associated with the mining industry in the county for over half a century. The deceased had been in poor health for the last ten years, being afflicted with diabetes, although he recovered sufficiently to enable him to go about up to within a week of his death. He was born at Seaton, near Workington, and had resided in the district all his life. He began to work at the local collieries at a very early age, and when only 22 was appointed manager of the Camerton Colliery, which position he held for over 50 years. He was well known- and highly respected and possessed a very extensive knowledge of the Cumberland coal field. He was 76 years of age, and leaves a grown-up family of three sons and two daughters. His wife died about 17 years ago. The death has occurred at the Lye, near Stourbridge, of Mr. Thomas Mobberley, at the age of 82. He was a director of some of the principal iron and hardware industries in the district. Second-Lieut. G. H. Wheatcroft, Royal Garrison Artillery, who has been killed, was the fifth son of Mr. and Mrs. Wheatcroft, of Wirksworth, Derbyshire. He was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in engineering. After serving as apprentice in Mather and Platt’s engineering works, he left to take up an appointment in the Federated Malay States, from whence he returned in December last to join the Army. The death is announced of Dr. August Tenholt, aged 76, formerly chief physician to the Allgemeiner Knappschafts- verein, Bochum. Dr. Tenholt played an important part in devising and carrying out the measures adopted for dealing with the outbreak of ankylostomiasis in Westphalian collieries. Capt. Lionel G. 0. Townsend, 7th South Staffordshire Regiment, has been killed at the Dardanelles. He was the only son of Mr. Oliver C. Townsend, who is the secretary and general manager of Messrs. Hill and Smith Limited, Brierley Hill Iron Works, Staffordshire. Capt. Townsend was an electrical engineer, and a couple of years before the war he was appointed to assist in the management of the works of Messrs. Hill and Smith Limited. Much regret is expressed at the death, which took place under tragic circumstances on Monday last, of Mr. John Henry Shaw, cashier at Thrislington Colliery, county Durham. Mr. Shaw was found dead in an old quarry, having, so the jury decided, shot himself whilst of unsound mind. He had used a “ humane killer,” the ordinary function of which was to destroy disabled and worn out pit ponies. At the inquest, Mrs. Shaw stated that her husband had complained for years of terrible pains in his head. Mr. Shaw, who was 48 years of age, was an ex-Army man. LETTERS TO THE EDITORS. The Editors are not responsible either for the statements made, or 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 communications. As replies 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. WINDING MECHANICS. Sins,—In his recent remarks, Mr. T. C. Futers seems unduly sanguine. There is still much ground to travel, and there are plenty of plants of 30 years ago equal in efficiency to the bulk of those to-day. All winding mechanics are for safety and profit of shaft operations. No matter at what point a question starts, it must be carried to the safety in the shaft. The cage and men in the shaft must always be vital factors. To talk about ropes or drums is mere dabbling, if the cage is forgotten. When an official does not know enough mechanics to prevent injury and loss in the shaft, does he know enough mechanics? As a matter of fact, all the text- books put together do not contain 1 per cent, of the mechanics of winding matters, and it may be safely said whoever attempted to write a full and plain account of them would probably starve by the process. The real difficulty is one of attitude. All sorts of business reasons or private notions enter the question of adopting things, with the result of slackness of adoption of accurate mechanic things. Then we have the “ thing ” idea. To a miner a rope may appear a flexible rod (thing), which wears like a piece of leather; a cage is a box, a drum is a wheel, a detaching hook is a number of plates bolted together, and so on—just mere static things—single things; but to the engineer these things are a multitude of dynamic forces ever varying in quantity and direction, always intense and destructive. In mechanics, it is these dynamic winding forces that matter. Every rope wire, cage member, drum, and other part of a winding mechanism is alive with forces of insistence and resist- ance for the net result of deciding the question of whether or not the cage shall arrive safely from bottom to top, or vice versa. A cage, rope, drum, etc., has to be looked at as more than things, for they hold life, the official’s character, and the firm’s bank book as they fly in their mechanic path. Once an official looks at things from this point of view, mechanics become intensely interesting, and it is largely because many engineers and managers have become accustomed to this point of view that mechanics have made progress —even in things not required by the Act. The Act is not much help to the engineer who knows, and has full scope to perform his duties—as an engineer. Then our writers might exhibit more distinction and qualification. Mr. Futers, for instance, knows that it is seldom, if ever, practicable to raise the heaviest load at the slowest speed possible. He must know that there are wise limits as to loads and speed in any given ease. He must know that speed per second has an enormous business (and often safety) value, and instead of “ speed being a huge mistake,” speed has a mechanical value up to a point. Cages now wind at from 2 to 156 ft. per second, and lift 3 cwt. to 18 tons of coal at once. With slow winding a load from 100 to 500 tons of coal would be quite a common lift. Then, Mr. Futers praises a winding drum 21 ft. wide, with a traverse movement, and Mr. Halbaum assumes a winding drum would be 35 ft. diameter; neither of which are required by the mechanics of winding, and an obvious waste of the firm’s capital. Of course, they may have reasons which would qualify the bald idea or fact, but the lack of qualifying reasons js one of the stumbling blocks to appreciating winding mechanics. The enthusiasm of the past few years has been chiefly concentrated on indirect winding appliances—-con- trollers, signals, etc.—each of which bring their own crop of difficulties. Taking a broad view of the matter, we see that winding mechanics have not yet reached their point of rest, whilst in some aspects they are only just beginning to move. A. Hanley. Bristol, August 20, 1915. Grimsby Coal Exports. — Returns for the week ending August 20 show that the coal exported from Grimsby was as follows :—Foreign : To Dieppe, 1,123; Esbjerg, 576; Gefle, 2,589; and Oxelosund, 2,298 tons. Coastwise: To Fowey, 86 tons; making a total of 6,586 tons foreign and 86 coast- wise, as against 4,386 tons foreign and 1,567 coastwise during the corresponding week of last year. British Association. — The arrangements for the forth- coming meeting at Manchester of the British Association for the Advancement of Science are now practically com- plete. The inaugural meeting will be held in the Free Trade Hall on Tuesday, September 7, at 8.30 p.m., when the new president, Prof. Arthur Schuster, will deliver an address. After that the various sections will meet on each day up to September 11. Amongst the papers and dis- cussions are the following :—In section B (chemistry) there will be discussions on smoke prevention and homogeneous catalysis, and experimental papers on combustion, whilst Prof. Bone will deliver his presidential address. Section C (geology).—The presidential address will be given by Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole; Dr. G. Hickling will give an account of the geology of Manchester and district, and a paper on * ‘ The Microstructure of Coal ’ ’; other papers are ‘ ‘ The Rocks of the North-Western Part of Charnwood Forest ” (Prof. T. G. Bonney); “The Carboniferous Limestone Fossils of North Derbyshire” (Mr. H. Day); “The Car- boniferous Limestone Zones of North-East Lancashire” (Dr. A. Wilmore); “ A Contour Map of the Barnsley Seam of Yorkshire ’ ’ (Prof. W. G. Fearnsides); “ On the Restora- tion of Certain Fossils by Serial Sections” (Prof. W. J. Sollas); papers by Mr. D. M. S. Watson, Prof. Boyd Dawkins, and Sir T. H. Holland are also expected, whilst Profs. Sir E. Rutherford, Joly, and Holmes will take part in a discussion on radioactive problems in geology. Section E (geography)—Dr. R. N. Rudmose Brown will give a lecture on “ Spitsbergen Before the War,” and Mr. J. Parry a paper on afforestation. Section F (economic science and statistics)—On the opening day, following Prof. Scott’s presidential address, there will be a discussion on “ Means for the Promotion of Industrial Harmony,” in which two employees, two representatives of labour, and two economists will take part; a report of a conference which has investigated outlets for labour after the war will be discussed; Major Tudor Craig will speak on the employ- ment for members of H.M. Forces partially incapacitated by the war, and reports on the effects of the war on credit, currency, and finance, and on industrial fatigue will be presented. Section G —The presidential address will be delivered by Dr. H. S. Hele-Shaw, and reports of committees on gaseous explosions and complex stress will be taken; papers will also be contributed as follow :—“ Experimental Investigation of the Thermal Efficiency of a Gas Engine ” (Profs. Asakawa and Petavel); “The Strength of Iron, Steel, and Cast Iron Struts” (Mr. Andrew Robertson; “ The Work of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Municipal School of Technology, Manchester ” (Prof. A. B. Field); “The Apparent Specific Heats in Gaseous Explosions” (Prof. W. M. Thornton); “Exposure Tests on Some Metals and Alloys ” (Prof. Ernest Wilson). Section I (physiology).—The arrangements include a dis- cussion on “ The Physiological Conditions Necessary for the Maximum Efficiency of the Factory Worker." Section K (botany).—Papers are to be given by Dr. D. Ellis on “ Fossil Fungi and Fossil Bacteria,” and by Dr. D. H. Scott on “ The Heterangiums of the British Coal Measures.” . Section L (educational science).—Sir William Mather, Prof. H. E. Armstrong, Principal J. C. Maxwell Garnett, and Mr. J. Graham will take part in a discussion on “ Educa- tion and Industry.” Section M (agriculture).—Reports will be presented by Profs. J. Hendrick and Mr. E. T. Halman on the influence of war upon supplies and use of fertilisers, etc.