February 9, 1917. THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN. 285 Send ^ny Smashed Metal Part of any machine or engine, tool, furnace, truck, permanent way, &c. A replacement would cost more than a repair — and a replacement cannot give better service than a Guaranteed Repair by SCIENTIFIC WELDING SPECIALISTS. The largest plant-using concerns make con- stant use of this efficient service of Specialists, whose prices are always moderate. Test Barimar To-day. Please address goods carriage paid, and letter (plainly marked “Dept. L”) to BARIMAR Ltd., Dept. L, 10, Poland Street, London, W. Telephone— Telegrams - 8173 Gerrard. “ Bariquamar, Reg, London.” In any cose of breakdown of plant where the part cannot be sent to London, a wire will ensure instant despatch of a Bari- mar Mobile Section, equipped to complete repair on the spot. J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY, PITWOOD IMPORTERS, WEST HARTLEPOOL, YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES. OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED, PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS, NEWCASTLE-ON-T YNE. SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER. Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.” *** For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last White Page. W fate AND Journal of the Coal and Iron Trades. Joint Editors— J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Loud.), F.G.S. HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E. (At present on Active Service}. LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1917. The London market is still crowded with buyers, but very little coal is offered. Transport arrange- ments have been disorganised by shortage of labour and frost. Prompt business in the Tyne and Wear market is of a nominal character, and the dearth of tonnage is affecting even the bunker and coke business. Coal generally is firm in Lancashire and steady in Yorkshire, with house coal tending to harden in consequence of the weather. Eeports from the Mid- lands speak of the sustained pressure for supplies. Cardiff market is very dull, and loading values, except for late February business, have eased. Stocks of large anthracite are accumulating. The position in Scotland has not undergone any material change. Chartering is very restricted. The advanced rates have not attracted many steamers. Intense frost, recorded at 2 degs. above zero in some districts, strengthened the pressure for house coal, while lessening the road, river and canal traffic. Many coal barges have been frozen in. Severe privations in many parts of Europe are reported. The coal owners’ representatives on the Conciliation Board passed a resolution expressing disappointment that the promised independent audit of the cost of coal production in South Wales has not been commenced. The Board of Trade promised such an audit on December 1, when awarding the miners an advance of 15 per cent. The Home Secretary has yielded to the repre- sentations made to him by the South Wales Miners’ Federation and the South Wales Coal Owners’ Association to suspend the new Order for the “ comb-out” of the mines of certain workers for the Army. For the present, therefore, the “comb- out ” is arrested. A meeting of the North of England Institute of .Mining and Mechanical Engineers will be held in the Wood Memorial Hall, Newcastle, to-morrow (Saturday), commencing at 2 p.m. A paper entitled “ Farther Notes on Safety Lamps,” by Mr. S. Tate, will be read. Mr. T. F. WinmiU’s paper on “The Absorption of Oxygen by Coal,” and Mr. F. F. Mairet’s paper on “ The Economic Production and Utilisation of Power at Collieries,” will be open for discussion. Absenteeism in coal mines was considered by the Northumberland owners and men at Newcastle on Saturday. It was decided that small colliery com- mittees, instead of unwieldy group committees, should work a scheme for settlement on matters of detail. Lord Strathclyde, adjudicating on the recent claim by Scottish miners for an advance of Is. per day, has decided that wages should not be advanced beyond the figures fixed by him last September. In a few days the subscription lists The for the Great War Loan will close, War Loan, and therefore no time should be lost by those who have not yet made arrangements for contributing to the victory we all confidently expect. To-day is War Loan meeting day, when all over the country thousands, or rather hundreds of thousands, of wage-earners of every grade in the social scale will meet together for the purpose of hearing at first hand the advantages to be derived from lending liberally to the State at this great crisis in the history of the Empire. To many it may appear strange that there should be any single member of the community who really needs such an appeal. But the British masses have ever been slow to be moved to great efforts, though once the inertia is overcome the acquired momentum is difficult to suppress. There is also prevalent a wide- spread feeling that small investors cannot materially influence the result. This is a great mistake. The millions who are able to bring in their tens and hundreds of pounds are of equal importance to the hundreds who contribute their thousands. Millions of hundreds are even more effective than hundreds of millions, and no one should feel that, however small his investment, he is not playing a great part in winning the war, providing that he is doing the utmost that he can. The general manager of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, in an address delivered recently in Toronto, put the matter clearly in the following words: — “ Since the war began we have Larned much in the workshop, in the chemical and physical laboratory, in the refinery, in the counting house, in finance—indeed, in every walk of life. We have been able to form some estimate of our value among the forces of the Allies, from the boy in the trenches to the father at home, who is backing his son in so many ways ; but do we realise that what we do, or do not do, may turn the scale on which depends victory or defeat ? Our responsibility for the future of the Empire is so great that there is no room for slackness. We must do, not many things, but every- thing that will help to win the war.” These words apply directly to the War Loan. If there should be any who hesitate to do their share in helping to provide funds for the war, they are, in fact, turning their backs upon the boys in the trenches, and are withholding from them the means of victory. There are some who may think it no concern of theirs. Having little or no money to invest, they may feel content to leave such matters to the capitalists. It is a mistaken view, which, if widespread, would endanger the success of the Loan. In Germany the chief feature of the last war loan was the great number of small subscribers. We want to beat that record if we can, and we shall ”do so if everyone does his duty. Every responsible person in the country should contribute as much as he can reason- ably expect to save in a year. Many large employers have evolved schemes to assist their men to buy War Loan stock, which will ultimately be their own after a series of payments by instalment. We are glad to see that the Mining Association of Great Britain has taken this matter up with the object of urging coal owners to give their workmen and official staff facilities for making contributions to the Loan. To these efforts there will certainly be a large response. But there will perhaps still be some who are not within the compass of any such arrangement. Upon them rests a responsibility more serious than they may realise. For, in the words already quoted above, “We must do, not many things, but everything that will help to win the war.” Is there any sacrifice |involved in lending money to the State at an interest of 5 per cent. ? It is a privilege that may never occur again; for when this period of storm and stress has passed away, and normal conditions begin to return, the national credit will certainly not remain on a 5 per cent, basis. Then the holders of War Loan stock will rejoice to see the capital value of their holdings increase. But we do not urge patriotism because it pays. It rests on higher grounds; for it is the very essence of our national existence. There are scarcely any wage-earners in the country who cannot help if they will. The next few days will show how far they have done so. While no one will deny Germany a Nationality high place amongst the industrial and nations of the world, her loud claims Originality to super-excellence in all the arts in Mining, and manufactures cannot but invite enquiry into the foundations upon which her assumed pre-eminence is based. A calm and critical examination of this assertion in regard to mining has recently been made by M. Bouvier, whose article, entitled “L’Allemagne etles Mines,” has been published in the Bulletin de la Societe de V Industrie Alinerale. In his survey of the question of the comparative place of Germany in the mining industry, M. Bouvier considers in turn the different processes involved in mineral exploitation. In regard to boring, the author shows that not one of the modern developments of this art has been initiated in Germany. The first application of the diamond drill is ascribed to M. Leschot, a French- man, who, in 1860, inaugurated this system by which deep boreholes have been made practicable, while the measurement of deviation from the vertical was first made possible by the teleclinograph, invented in Belgium, but anticipated in principle by the Compagnie d’Aniche in 1898. In regard to shaft sinking, the outstanding features of modern progress are undoubtedly the improved methods of dealing with water-bearing strata. The Triger method by compressed air. first adopted in the French pit at Chalonnes (Maine-et-Loire) in 1839, was the fore- runner of modern advances in this direction, although as early as 1795 cast iron tubbing had been used in England. The disadvantage of the Triger method was its limitation to moderate depths; and modifica- tions were devised by Kind, a German, in 1847, and by Chaudron, a Belgian engineer, in 1853. It is interesting to note that the freezing process was first employed in 1862 in Wales, although this method was first made really practical by Poetsch, a German engineer, who employed it in 1883 in sinking the Archibald pit in Saxony. But if we must give Germany credit for this important advance, it is to the genius of M. Portier, a Frenchman, that is due the first use of the cementation process in 1899, and in the following year M. Saclier put this method into practice with success at Anzin; and it was adopted subsequently by the Compagnie de Bethune for four sinkings carried out between 1904 and 1907. A notable success by this process was achieved at pit No. 2 of the Maries Colliery about this time, and the process found its way into Germany, in the Wendland pit, where the freezing process was checked by the occurrence of saline springs, and the sinking was completed by the cementation process. When we come to methods of working, it is necessary to consider the natural conditions under which the seams occur. In this respect the German coal fields possess many advantages to which much of the rapid progress in output in that country is due. Yet we find that extraction by a single shaft persisted in Saxony until 1867. M. Bouvier takes credit for the fact that pillar working without packing was abandoned in France at an earlier date than in ’England or Germany, in favour of the safer arid more scientific procedure of stowing. But to this we must, in all fairness, allow full credit for the rapid development of hydraulic packing in Germany. It is true that this method was initiated in the