September 13, 1918.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

553

anted, on Simple Hire, 50 Railway
TRUCKS, suitable for coal traffic, ten- or twelve-tonners.—
Reply, Box 7153, Colliery Guardian Office, 30 & 31, Furnival-street,
Holborn, London, E.C. 4.

Second-hand Timber, 10,000 cubic ft.,
for SALE, in all kinds of sizes; also, our stock consists of 5,000
DOORS, WINDOWS, STAIRS, MOULDINGS, SKIRTINGS; also New
Timber of all kinds (Permit required for new timber over £5 weekly). Call
and inspect all we have to offer. Send stamp for sheets, or Is. for fully
illustrated list.—JENNINGS LTD., Bristol. Also small quantity stocked
at Leicester and Porthcawl.

FOR SALE.

Stone Breaker, by Marsden, 16 in. by 9 in.,

with Screen.

STONE BREAKER, by Mason, 21 in. by 10 in., and smaller ones.

Pair 22 in. by 54 in. Hauling, 1 drum for 2,000 yards rope.

,, 15 in. by 24 in. „	1	„

10-ton STEAM LORRY (Ruston’s).

LAN. BOILERS, 30 ft. by 7 ft. 6 in., 90 lb. w.p.

COAL SCREEN (shaker for 4 qualities).

ELECTRIC PLANT, ENGINE, 12-h.p. dynamo, 500 volts, and 180 yds.
NEW ARMOUR.

40 TRAMS, 2 ft. gauge.

2 BELT FLY WHEELS, 12 ft. by 11 in.

2 STEAM WAGONS, 4/5 tons, w.p. 200 lb.

DAVID M. DAVIES, Caer-street, Swansea.

FOR SALE.

800 HIGH-SPEED TWIST DRILLS, ifm. dia., iiin.
over all, 5| in. flute. No. 4 Morse Taper Shank. Made
by Armstrong Whitworth from their “A.W.” High-
Speed Steel.

Price : 48s. less 2| per cent., 10 per cent, to merchants.

LAWTON BROS., Woodseats Engineering Works,

’Phone—21 Sharrow.	Chesterfield Road, Sheffield..

J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY,

PITWOOD IMPORTERS,

WEST HARTLEPOOL.

YEARLY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES.

OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED,

PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS,

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER.

Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.”

*** I°r other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last
White Page.

AND
Journal of the Coal and Iron Trades.

Joint Editors—

J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S.
HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E.
{At present on Active Service).

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1918.

The London market is unchanged. The demand
for all qualities of coal is unusually strong, and the
arrivals are short.

The Newcastle market continues to strengthen in
consequence of improved transport facilities. Durham
gas coals are pressed for, especially by metropolitan
gas companies. The bunker market is firm, and
coke alone is freely offered to neutrals. Household
coal has an upward tendency in Lancashire. The
demand in Yorkshire is very active, but few surplus
lots are obtainable. The pressure on Midland
collieries is unabated. Buyers have had little diffi-
culty in obtaining steam coal in Cardiff, but
inferior sorts are chiefly offered. Scarcity of supplies
is the chief feature in Scotland. Coals for local con-
sumption are difficult to obtain.

Patent fuel has a good tone in South Wales this
week. Anthracite large coals of the better sorts are
steady. Bubbly culm and duff are dull.

The freight market still lacks tonnage. Swedish
orders are plentiful in Newcastle, and forward rates
are maintained. Neutral tonnage is scarce. Busi-
ness in Cardiff is practically confined to Allied ports
on schedule terms.

An Order has been made by the Board of Trade
empowering local fuel overseers to commandeer trucks
of coal that may arrive at stations consigned to private
consumers and to use the coal in the public interest.

The Coal Controller has issued figures showing a
serious falling off (about 8*7 per cent.) in the
estimated output of coal during the first 32 weeks of
the year compared with the corresponding period of
1917.

It is reported that Mr. Vernon Hartshorn will act
as an adviser of the Coal Controller relative to an
increased output.

A meeting will be held in the Great Hall, Cannon-
street, London, E.C., on September 23, at 3 p.m., to
consider the proposed formation of a Federation of
Coal Merchants. About 20 associations have
already supported the movement.

Reports from the United States announce that,
owing to truck shortage and labour unrest, the coal
output is falling steadily behind the scheduled mini-
mum for the war programme.

The Lord Mayor of London has called a conference
of the London mayors, town clerks and other officials
at the Mansion House, at 3 o’clock, next Friday,
September 20, to consider what can be done by
municipalities to save coal, and the steps to be taken
to impress on consumers the urgent need of fuel
economy. The Lord Mayor will preside, and Sir
Albert Stanley, President of the Board of Trade, will
make a statement. Sir Guy Calthrop, the Coal
Controller, is also expected to speak.

About 2,000 Mersey-side coal heavers are on
strike. They complain of the closing of public-
houses at a certain time, the arrangement of working
hours and the rate of pay.

The First Report of the Mine Rescue
Mine Apparatus Research Committee is a
Rescue useful and instructive document, and
Apparatus, promises wed for the important
investigation now being carried on
under the supervision of Dr. Henry Briggs, at the
Heriot- Watt College. The need for such an enquiry
has been long felt owing to certain unsatisfactory
results which have followed the use of some types of
breathing apparatus under conditions of practical
working in mines. These failures have been due
to various causes, which could not in all cases have
been foreseen. It is not satisfactory, for example, to
have to throw the responsibility for a breakdown
upon the wearer’s zeal. The conditions under which
rescue work has to be carried on in the pit will not
always admit of leisurely and methodical movement.
Bisks must occasionally be taken if life is to be
saved, and no rescue brigade, however well trained,
will be easily persuaded to refrain from undergoing
upon occasions exertions which cannot fail to throw
a serious strain upon the most perfect appliances
that have yet been invented. Whether it will be
possible entirely to eliminate the existing limitations
of breathing appliances, and to devise a type of
apparatus capable of withstanding the most exacting
conditions that can arise, time alone can prove. In
the meantime the obvious course to pursue is to
examine carefully every cause of failure in the light
of increasing experience, with the hope that existing
defects may be overcome and a safe and successful
form attained.

The Committee has laid down as a first object to
be accomplished the perfection of a type of breathing
apparatus capable of protecting the wearer for at
least two hours during any kind of work he may be
called upon to perform, even under the condition
that the heaviest exertion should be necessary during
the last portion of the time—such, for example, as
might arise when a stretcher is being carried on an
inclined roadway against the dip.

The commonest cause of failure with existing
apparatus under such conditions is the accumulation
of carbon dioxide gas in the inspired air. When
the proportion of this gas rises, as a result of
muscular 'work, to about six per cent., the danger
point is already reached, and when air containing
10 or 11 per cent, of carbon dioxide enters the lungs,
the wearer of the apparatus is upon the point of
losing consciousness. It is, of course, the function
of the purifier to prevent such an accumulation from
taking place. But unless the complete passage of
expired air through the purifier can be ensured, the
dangei’ of re-breathing vitiated air must always be
present; and even if the air passes through the
purifier, this may be working inefficiently with
similar results.

All this may be going on without the wearer’s
knowledge. There are at present no means of indi-
cating any failure of the purifier to perform its
proper function—so that a man may fall unconscious
even while his reserve of oxygen is still ample. The
Committee is of opinion that the capacity of the
purifier should be such that it will outlast the oxygen
supply, and approval is given to the Doncaster test,
which requires the purifier to remain active for two
hours while the wearer is walking on the level at
four miles an hour—the proportion of carbon dioxide
in the inhaled air remaining in the meantime not
greater than 2 per cent.

Next to the adequate removal of carbon dioxide
comes the question of the oxygen supply. Deficiency
of oxygen generally arises from leakage. When
oxygen cylinders are carried, the gauge reading
supplies the wearer with adequate information as to
his available reserve—an advantage not possessed by
the liquid air apparatus. There is, however, still
the possibility of a low rate of supply, especially
during hard exertion; but this danger may be mini-
mised by simple precautions, which are detailed in
the report.

Leakage in the breathing circuit is a more serious
defect, owing to the possibility of noxious air being
drawn into the apparatus. Leakage may act both
outwards and inwards. The former merely leads to
premature exhaustion of the apparatus; but the
latter may give rise to risk of poisoning by carbon
monoxide, or other toxic gas. Such leakage may be
of a very insidious nature, often noticeable only
when serious exertion is undertaken, or when the
oxygen supply has diminished. The only safeguard
is efficient testing for leakage before putting on the
apparatus. But even this precaution will not always
secure immunity from collapse of the breathing bag
with certain types of apparatus—a condition that
may arise from accidental pressure on the bag, such
as may be produced by bending or crawling, or by
the action of an automatic blow-off valve under
conditions of considerable exertion.

The report deals at considerable length with
various constructional requirements, and attention is
directed to specific cases in which accidents have
been caused by faulty design of apparatus. It is
shown how necessary it is to give careful and minute
attention to every detail. A detailed criticism of
the injector principle has led the Committee to
condemn this method of inducing air circulation,
and the injector is recommended to be abolished
entirely. Even the question of oxygen purity
should receive due consideration. Manufacturers

in this country have maintained generally a
high reputation for the purity of the oxygen
supplied by them; but since the war it has,
in some cases, deteriorated. Analyses of various
samples taken during the year 1917 betray the fact
that less than 50 per cent, of the samples conformed
to the Home Office standard of purity. In one
case, the gas contained only 80 per cent, of oxygen.
It is not desirable that oxygen containing more
than two per cent, of impurity should be used
in actual rescue work, and in the case of lung-
controlled apparatus a purity of 99 per cent, is
desirable. The growing use of electrolytic oxygen,
which is a typically pure gas, leads to a warning
against the permissible proportion of hydrogen in
such cases. The limit is placed at 0’5 per cent. In
all cases it is recommended that an analysis should
be made of every cylinder of oxygen before use in
rescue apparatus, as makers’ guarantees are not
sufficient during the present stress at chemical
works.

We have referred only to a portion of this
elaborate and carefully written report, leaving to
another occasion the consideration of the Committee’s
important recommendations respecting the training
of rescue brigades. The general impression con-
veyed by the copious references to the well-known
types of apparatus now in existence is that, while
each of these may possess excellent features, it is
not possible to build up a new machine upon the
eclectic principle of selecting the best part from
each. The evolution of these types has proceeded
upon more or less divergent lines, and probably the
time is not far distant when some unifying regulation
will have to be drawn up for the purpose of con-
centrating effort in the more promising directions.

Among the many teachings which
The the war has impressed upon us is the
Training Of lesson that, if our British industries

Mining are to survive and to compete success-
Ceologists. fully with those of other nations, a
closer co-operation must be estab-
lished between science and industry than has
obtained hitherto. Science must apply itself more
directly to industrial needs, and industry avail itself
more freely of scientific advice and guidance.

In the past our men of science have too often been
unable or unwilling to render assistance to industry,
and, our directors of industry have, too, generally
failed to make the best use of science. No more

striking example of this lack of co-operation could be
instanced than the neglect of geology by British
miners and of mining by British geologists, and
probably no better case could be cited of the mutually
beneficial results which might ensue from a proper
system of collaboration.

With few exceptions, our miners have had little or
no serviceable knowledge of geology, and our geolo-
gists none, or next to none, of mining. The former
have tended to be impatient of pure as opposed to
applied geology. They have not sufficiently realised
that for the successful application of geology to
mining an especially extensive knowledge of that
science is indispensable. The latter, on the other
hand, have taken, as a rule, no interest in mines or
in the application of geological principles to mining
problems. As a consequence their geological know-
ledge, though as scientifically sound as could be
desired, has usually been lacking in that particular
quality which is required to make it of practical
value to the miner. For this reason they have
largely remained, to their own disadvantage and
to the detriment of the mining industry, both unem-
ployed and unemployable in mining undertakings.

This want of practical association between geology
and mining is not to be attributed, therefore, to the
geologist alone, as some maintain, or to the miner,
but to both of them, the former having failed to
demonstrate the utility of geological knowledge, and
the latter to recognise the need for it. The effect
upon British mining has been unfortunate, not to
say disastrous. For the want of proper geological
information much time, labour and money have
repeatedly been thrown away upon mining enterprises,
which in the light of such information could have
been productively employed.

In order that modern geology may be made of
greater service in mining practice, it is desirable that
geological and mining experts should more generally
work together, pooling their respective abilities for
the benefit of a common cause, or that a supply of
specially trained men, who combine as far as possible
the qualifications of both, should be made available.
This latter type of man— the mining geologist—has
been much needed in the past; he will be more
than ever needed in the future if our mineral
industries are to be adequately developed.

The value of the mining geologist and the
importance of producing him have long been realised
in other countries than our own. In America, for
example, he has been trained in large numbers, and
during the last quarter of a century he has played
such a useful part in the discovery and development
of mineral resources that he is now regarded as
indispensable to the mining industry. A similar
type of man has been produced in Germany, and
has proved a valuable agent in the German policy of
peaceful penetration. Of set purpose, and partly
because of the limitation of his opportunities within