January 28, 1916.

the) colliery guardian

185

damages, and .£175 costs. The only question remaining for
determination was whether the mining operations of the
Bridgewater Trustees prior to 1903 had caused damage in
respect of which the plaintiff was entitled to an enquiry.

Underlying the property were five seams, known as the
Five Quarters, the Trencherbone, the Cannel, the Plodder,
and the Yard. The dip of the scams was 1 in 5J from
north to south. The Five Quarters, which was at a depth
of 90 yds., was worked out under and around the plaintiff’s
promises by Messrs. Bennett, previous to 1883, and a number
of irregular pillars were left for the support of the surface,
but it was common ground that they were insufficient for
the purpose. The Trencherbone seam, at a depth of 168 yds.,
was also worked by Messrs. Bennett prior to 1883, and
the pillars left were also insufficient. The Cannel seam
was at a depth of 233 yds. It was worked by th<‘.
Bridgewater Trustees, some portions in 1895 and other areas
to the north of the plaintiff’s property in 1900 and 1901.
Since that date the Trustees had not worked the Cannel
mine. From the year 1907, Messrs. Roscoe and Sons worked
another part of that mine to the south-east and west. They
also worked the Plodder at a depth of 282 yds., and the
Yrard mine at a depth of 319 yds., under and around the ,
plaintiff’s premises. In the three mines the workings had
been proceeding simultaneously. It was alleged by the

■ plaintiff that these operations could not have affected the
property before January 1913, and that the damage which
was caused between October 1909 and December 1912 must
have arisen from the operations of the Bridgewater Trustees.
On September 6, 1910, he gave a receipt for a sum of
£31 10s. paid as a contribution to the costs of alterations
and repairs to one of the houses, and £5 16s. 7d. in respect
of loss of rent and beautifying. The receipt stated that
these sums were accepted in satisfaction of any damage
which had been done to that date by any mining operations
carried on by the Earl or his predecessors, or any person
claiming through him or them. It was suggested that that
referred only to the particular house in question, but the
conclusion he (the Vice-Chancellor) had come to was that
at that date the plaintiff .did not think he had any other
claim against the Bridgewater Trustees. Otherwise he
would certainly have put it forward, because he resided
on the property, and was vigilant in his own interests. It
remained to consider whether any damage arose from the
Bridgewater workings between September 1910 and the
end of 1912. From the evidence, he (the Vice-Chancellor)
concluded that all noticeable damage down to September
1910 was satisfied by the payment made in that month;
that no further damage was noticed until June 1912, and on
the balance of possibilities this was not caused by the
Bridgewater workings. The plaintiff had failed to produce
clear and cogent evidence that the damage he complained
of was due to the operations of the Bridgewater Trustees;
the action must therefore be dismissed with costs.

North Wales.

Colliery Engineer and Munitions Act.

A session of the North Wales Munitions Court held at
Flint, last week, considered a case wherein an electrical
engineer employed at Messrs. Summers’ works, Shotton,
named J. T. Roberts, made application to the Court for his
employers to show reason why they should not grant him his
discharge and the necessary certificate as required under the
Munitions Act. The applicant stated that he had an
opportunity of filling a vacancy as chief electrical engineer
at the Wynnstay collieries, Ruabon, where he had served
his apprenticeship, and had previously acted as second
engineer. For Messrs. J. H. Summers Limited, Mr. C. B.
G ardner stated that their works was one of those which were
controlled under the Act, whereas the colliery mentioned
was not so controlled. At the present time the applicant
was enagaged on very important Government work, and
could not be spared, as it would be very difficult to fill
his place with an efficient man, as they were not (allowed to
take men from works which were also controlled by Govern-
ment. The Court decided to reserve their decision for the
present.

Notts and Derbyshire.

At a meeting of the Mansfield Town Council it was agreed
to accept the offer of the Bolsover Colliery Company to
pay the Corporation the sum of £50 per annum for the right
to call upon the Corporation steam fire engine and brigade
to attend any fire that might occur at their Mansfield,
Rufford, or Clipstone collieries.

The Midlands.

Reported Colliery Subsidence—Colliery Closed Down—Motor
Ambulance Scheme.

The newly-formed Colliery Managers’ Association for
South Staffordshire held the first annual dinner on Saturday
at Dudley. It proved to be a very successful social event.

Damage estimated at several thousands of pounds, and said
to be due to mining operations, has been caused to residential
property at Haden Hill, Old Hill. The roads have also
suffered considerably.

The South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire Mining
Compensation Fund has subscribed £81 for the relief of
immediate distress among the families of the victims of the
recent colliery disasters at Pennant Hill and Cannock.

Messrs. N. Hingley and Sons Limited, Dudley, colliery
proprietors and iron masters, have decided to close the
Garratt’sdanc Colliery, Old Hill, which is said to be worked
out. The pits were re-opened by the present owners in 1902.
They had been closed for 25 years, owing.to the presence of
wider, and, prior to this, had been worked for 60 or 70 years.
The same firm has decided to rc-opcn No. 26 Colliery, Brook-
lane, Ohl Hill, which has been closed since the national coal
strike. The miners will be transferred from the one pit. to
the other.

A conference of colliery proprietors and men’s representa-
tives is shortly to be held at Dudley, with the object of
getting joint action for the raising of money to buy motor
ambulances. It is suggested that the Dudley Miners’ Asso-
ciation and the Old Hid Association should each provide three
ambulances, and that the employers should agree to provide
another six. The men have undertaken to subscribe their
portion towards the required sum.

Prosecutions for coal stealing continue to increase in the
Black Country. Another batch of defendants appeared
before the Brierley Hill magistrates on Monday. The
prosecuting solicitor for the Earl of Dudley said the average
weekly theft of coal from one of his lordship’s railways was

between 25 and 30 tons a week. Very often the stealers
had scouts or pickets arranged in order to give the alarm
when they were detected. When prosecutions did take
place, those stealers who were not caught had a “ whip ”
to pay the fines of those who were. A police constable
stated that at that court there had been no fewer than
221 cases of coal stealing in the past 12 months, and of
• these 121 were in respect of coal belonging to Lord Dudley.

Fines ranging from 40s. to 21s. were imposed on ten
women.

A considerable accession to the numerical strength of the
Midland District Miners’ Fatal Accident Relief Society was
recorded at the 131st quarterly meeting of the board of
management at Derby on Tuesday. Compared with the
total a year ago, the increase was only 783, the present
number being 43,579, but during the quarter approximately
4,100 new members had come in, thus more than counter-
balancing the effect of enlistments. In accordance with
instructions, a sum of £2,000 was recently invested in
Exchequer bonds, and it now appears that by the end of
February a similar amount would again be available,
principally representing dividends and interest, it was
decided that that should be disposed of in obtaining a
further allotment of the same class of security. The position
of members returning to their civil occupation after serving-
in his Majesty’s forces was discussed, and a motion was
placed on the agenda for the next meeting to secure that
they shall be in benefit immediately on resuming work,
regardless of the break in membership. The arrangement
is to be made retrospective. The quarterly return showed
that five widows and three children had become entitled to
benefit through the death of nine members, and that there
were at present on the funds 322 widows, an increase of
13, and 413 children, a decrease of 12. The expenditure
had included £1,754 in annuities and £137 in funeral
allowances, and the sum carried to the credit of the benefit
fund was .£568, as compared with £543 in the corresponding
period of last year.

Somersetshire.

In 1914 the Assessment Committee of .the Glutton Union,
whose area comprises most of the collieries in the Radstock
district of Somersetshire, instructed Messrs. Thos. F.
Hedley and Sons, of Sunderland, to carry out a revaluation,
with the result that the old aggregate ratable value of
about £9,000 was increased to over £21,000. As the result
of protracted proceedings and negotiations between the coal
owners and the committee, a settlement has recently been
arranged at an. aggregate ratable value of little more than
the old amount.

Kent.

The deep sinking at Snowdown Colliery is now making
satisfactory progress, following the recent accident. The
latest official report shows it has attained a depth of
2,138 ft., and is bricked to 2,038 ft.

With the installation of the new machinery now on order
for Tilmanstone Colliery, the eventual output of this colliery,
it is stated, can be raised to about a million tons of coal
yearly. A good deal of improvement work is now well in
hand at the colliery.

Some variations in connection with the East Kent Light
Railways connecting various collieries with the South-
Eastern and Chatham Railway system at Canterbury, were
approved by the Corporation of Canterbury at their last
meeting. The light railway is to be taken over the Sturry-
road by a bridge, instead of in the manner previously
proposed. This bridge is to have a headway of 15 ft., and
the light railway company are to be allowed to lower the
road 18 in. at this point. All the necessary works are to be
carried out at the expense of the light railway company.

Scotland.

Electric Shaft Winding.

Second-Lieut. David M’Kelvie, R.E., mentioned in
despatches, has now been awarded the Military Cross for
distinguished conduct in France. He served his apprentice-
ship as a mining and civil engineer with the United
Collieries Limited, Glasgow. He is now in Glasgow on sick
leave as the result of injuries received in France.

Mr. John Barrowman, youngest son of Mr. James
Barrowman, Staneacre, Hamilton (formerly secretary of
the Mining Institute of Scotland) has been appointed
assistant Government inspector of mines in the Ipswich
district of Queensland, Australia. The Government are at
present negotiating the purchase of several collieries in the
district, including those with which Mr. Barrowman has
been connected for the last 18 months.

Wm. Wood, pit inspector, Kinglassie Colliery, was at
Cupar Court fined £1 or the option of 10 days’ imprisonment
for contravening the Coal Mines Act, by having, between
October 17 and 18, failed to inspect a working place in the
“ Dock ” section, and made a false report that he had
examined the working place in question. Through going
into the place a miner, James Moyes, had been burned by
gas.

The restriction of the price of household coal to consumers
was once more before Glasgow Corporation last week. The
question was raised on a recommendation of a special com-
mittee on the subject to petition the Government to exercise
full control over the production and supply of coal during
the war, and by a narrow majority the Council adopted the
recommendation. During the discussion, Mr. Dollan, con-
vener of the committee, said the people in Glasgow were
paying Is. 7d. per cwt. for coal which could be had for
Is. prior to the war. That was 7s. 8d. per ton more than
the 4s. of an increase on the 1913 prices allowed by the
Government. The committee had had members,of the coal
trade before them who had stated that unless the Govern-
ment exercised fuller control over’ the coal supply there
would be an absolute coal famine in Glasgow at the end
of this month. It was said that coal owners in this country
were actually shipping coal, so urgently needed for Glasgow,
to neutral countries because they got higher prices there.

In the House of Lords on the 20th inst. an interesting
workmen’s compensation case was considered. The appeal
was by the Glasgow Coal Company Limited from a decision
by the Second Division of the Scottish Court of Session in
favour of a brusher named Patrick Welsh. According to
the case stated by the Sheriff-substitute, as arbitrator,
Welsh, on October 23, 1914, was working in the employ-

ment of the Glasgow Coal Company as a brusher at their
Newton pit, Kenmuirhill Colliery. On that date the water
pump in the colliery broke down, and a large quantity of
water accumulated in the pit bottom, in consequence of
which work in the pit was suspended. On October 28, 1914,
at about 10 p.m., he was directed to go down the pit, and
went down the pit in the belief that he was going to his
ordinary work as a brusher. When he got down the pit
he was directed to bale the water therefrom. In order to
do so it was necessary for him to stand up to his chest
in the water, and he was' engaged in this work for eight
hours. The workman thereafter and for two or three days
felt great stiffness and cold and pains in his joints, but
continued to work until the morning of November 2, when
he started to go to his work but had to turn back owing ^o
his physical condition. He consulted a medical man on
November 3, and was found by him to be suffering from
sub-acute rheumatism, and unfit for work. Since March 2,
1915, his incapacity for work had ceased. The arbitrator
found that the rheumatism was caused by the extreme and
exceptional exposure to cold and damp to which the workman
was subjected on the occasion in question, and that there
had been an injury caused by accident arising out, of ami in
the course of his . employment with the Glasgow Coal
Company. An award of compensation was accordingly
made. The appellants contended that on the facts hel l
proved the arbitrator was not entitled to hold that the
respondent’s incapacity resulted from “ injury by accident ”
within the meaning of the Act. Without calling on coiinU
for the respondent, their lordships intimated that they would
consider their decision.

Under the auspices of the West of Scotland branch of the
Association of Alining Electrical Engineers, a joint meeting
was held on Saturday in the Royal Technical College,
Glasgow, of the members of that branch, along with
members, of the Alining Institute of Scotland and the
National Association of Colliery Managers (Scottish branch).
Mr. J. B. Thomson, Hamilton, occupied the chair. A paper
was read by Prof. Daniel Burns, of the Royal Technical
College, Glasgow, on “ Electrical Shaft Winding.” At the
outset the author said that as the work of a winding engine
was that of raising the output of the mine from the shaft
bottom to the pit bank, it was evident that the capacity of
the winder would depend upon :—(1) The output to be
raised per day; (2) the depth of the shaft; and (3) the
inertia and acceleration stresses to be overcome. The choice
of power was limited—economically .at least—to steam or
electricity. Within the past 10 years or so, a considerable
amount of discussion had taken place regarding the
possibilities of using electrically driven main winders in
place of the more familiar steam engine. , So far as the
question of reliability and ease of control was concerned, it
was generally recognised that the electrical winder had
now made good its case, and from that point of view could
command attention. The question of first cost and
economical running was, however, greatly in favour of the
steam winder, and. any unbiassed engineer would recognise
that only in particular circumstances were electrically-
driven winders likely to supersede those employing steam
as the motive power. It was difficult to enumerate all the
circumstances that might favour electricity where steam
plants had already been installed at the colliery, but in
general, the wider application of central supply schemes
and the electrical equipment of groups of mines, must inevit-
ably lead to a more extensive use of electrical winding.
This development was readily foreseen, but even the most
sanguine advocate of the use of electrical appliances about
collieries must recognise that many colliery concerns produce
a large quantity of low grade fuel from their coal-cleaning
processes, which was almost unmarketable, and had to be
used for steam raising purposes at the colliery in order
to get rid of it. The necessity of thus having to dispose
of the residue of the coal washer must, and probably always
would, exert a powerful influence on the cost of steam
raising, and would provide in many cases a factor in favour
of steam winders which was entirely outside the relative
merits of the two systems. In fixing the system in any
particular case, the items of first cost, depreciation, and
upkeep must be carefully considered, but above all, one
must consider how the proposed method would fit in with
the working conditions pertaining at the colliery in question.
To discuss the problem' of electrical shaft winding it was
necessary to fix the following preliminary details :—(1) The
quantity of coal to be raised, the cage load, the number of
winds per day or per hour, the time per wind, and the
average speed; (2) the strength, weight, and size of the
winding rope to be used; (3) the diameter of the drum
and pulleys or sheaves to be used; (4) the inertia, accelera-
tion or retardation of the moving masses; (5) the
determination of the speed, torque, and power diagrams
from foregoing data; and (6) the determination of the horse-
power of the motor from the torque diagram. Prof. Burns,
in conclusion, remarked that the employment of electricity
for winding had now been perfected and placed on an
assured basis so that colliery owners need have no hesitation
in adopting this type of electrical machinery when careful
•investigation showed that suitable conditions existed for its
application.

Partnerships Dissolved.—The London Gazette announces
the dissolution of the following partnerships :—J. B.
Garnham, F. M. Gamham, and J. C. Garnham, metal mer-
chants, Upper Thames-street, London, E.C., under the stylo
of J. B. Garnham and Sons, so far as concerns J. C.
Garnham; J. Chapman and T. H. Hilken, foreign coaling
and chartering agents, etc., at Lcadenhall-street, London,
E.C., under the style of John Chapman and Company; J. H.
Horsfall and S. Horsfall, iron founders, at Square-road,
Halifax, Yorkshire, under the style of William Horsfall ami
Sons.

Coal Supply and Prices.—In the House of Commons last
week, Mr. J. Samuel asked the President of the Board of
Trade whether he was aware that the quantity of coal avail-
able for home consumption in the year 1915 was 188,965,000
tons, against 183,849,000 tons in 1914, an increase of 5,116,000
tons; and whether, in view of this increase, he was pre-
pared to consider a reduction in the price of coal to the home
consumer.—Mr. Runciman, replying, said the figures repre-
sented the amount available for home consumption and for
the Admiralty in the 12 months ended July 1915 and July
1914 respectively. The increase was due to a reduction of
export, the quantity exported having been nearly 30,000,000
tons less in the later period ; and he did not think it afforded
any ground for an amendment of the Price of Coal (Limita-
tion) Act.