346 
NATURE 
[Aug. 25, 1870 
On Wednesday morning the reading of papers was resumed, 
Mr. E. F. Boyd again presiding. The following is a brief 
notice of the papers overtaken :— 
1. ‘*On the Economical Advantages of Mechanical Venti- 
lation,” by Mr. D. P. Morison. The author stated that tabulated 
results of experiments recently made showed that the saying 
effected in the consumption of fuel varied in most cases from 40 to 
8o per cent. in favour of mechanical ventilation as compared with 
furnace ventilation. The latter had other disadvantages, such 
as (1) the danger of an open fire in a fiery seam ; (2) in order to 
avoid that danger, the necessity and serious cost of constructing 
a dumb drift to convey the return air to the upcast shaft, and the 
fact that a large amount of fresh air is required to feed the fur- 
naces, while it is of no value in the workings themselves ; (3) the 
serious fact that the upcast shaft, being usually heated to nearly 
its practical maximum, cannot, in cases of necessity (such as a 
sudden fall of the barometer, an unexpected occurrence of a 
large discharge of fire-damp, ora block in the air-ways), be made 
at once available for an increased duty ; (4) the inordinate wear 
and tear upon furnaces, arches, bars, and the shaft lining, 
whether brick-casing or tubbing, and in case of a coal-drawing 
upcast shaft, the deterioration of the ropes, guides, cages, and 
other plant. In no case could the furnace compete successfully 
with mechanical ventilation. Even in the deepest of English 
mines the advantage of mechanical ventilation is shown by the 
economy in fuel being from 35 to 40 per cent. over that required 
for furnace ventilation. Mr. Morison described various mechani- 
cal ventilators, including those of Struve, Nasmyth, Lemielle, 
Waddle, Guibal, and others. He expressed himself as most in 
favour of the Guibal ventilating fan, the one most in use both 
on the Continent and in this country. An interesting discussion 
followed Mr. Morison’s paper, remarks being made by Messrs. 
Lupton (Leeds), Steavenson (Durham), William Cochrane and 
Simpson (Newcastle), Barclay (Kilmarnock), Marley (Darling- 
ton), Harvey (Glasgow), and others. 
2. ‘On J. Grafton Jones’s Coal-getting Machine,” by Mr. 
Arnold Lupton, Leeds. After describing the machine in question, 
and specially dwelling upon its involving the use of the hy- 
draulic wedge end a drilling apparatus, Mr. Lupton claimed for 
it the following advantages :—1Ist, The safety with which mines 
can be worked by it as a substitute for gunpowder; 2nd, The 
superior shape of coal got by the wedge as compared with that 
got by blowing, and the less amount of slack made; 3rd, The 
improvement in the health of the miners likely to ensue on the 
disuse of gunpowder; 4th, The saving in labour by using the 
hydraulic wedge instead of hammer-driven wedges; 5th, The 
saving in labour and diminution in the amount of slack made by 
using the hydraulic machine to push the coal out of the solid, 
in working those seams whose nature is such as to render it pos- 
sible. Mr. Lupton stated that Jones’s powerful machine is now 
in use, pushing coal out of the solid without any holing or 
natural breaks in the seam, at Kiveton Park Colliery, in South 
Yorkshire. The seam is five feet thick, and the coal is very 
hard, but by the use of the hydraulic wedge blocks are got four 
yards long and four feet wide—each about eight tons weight— 
at one application of the machine. In the course of the dis- 
cussion which followed various other important and interesting 
facts were evoked. 
. **On an Expansive Double-cylinder Pumping Machine,” 
by Mr. Andrew Barclay, Kilmarnock. 
4. ‘£On an Expansive, High-pressure, Cut-off Slide Valve,” 
by the same. 
5. ‘On a New Coal-getting Machine,” by Mr. George 
Simpson, Glasgow. The author of this paper dwelt at some 
length on the working of coal on the ‘‘long-wall” system by 
machinery, and then explained the nature of the machinery 
which he thought most suitable for it. The essential feature of 
the machine, exhibited and described by Mr. Simpson, is a some- 
what saw-like blade which works into the face of the coal seam 
in a horizontal manner. Mr. Simpson said it was indispensable 
that the tool to be used should be durable and easily removed 
and replaced in case of blunting or breakage, and he claimed 
that his cutter possessed those qualifications. He also showed 
an application of an endless chain for driving the proposed 
machinery, and which might be worked by an engine on the 
drawing road at the face of the coal, or from the bottom of the 
shaft or other convenient point. 
6. **On the Utilisation of Blast Furnace Gases, Coal being 
used as the Fuel,” by Mr. William Ferrie, Monklands, Iron and 
Steel Works, Lanarkshire, The author stated that it had occurred 
to him that if raw coal could be coked in the blast furnace as in 
a common gas retort, the difficulty of withdrawing the furnace 
gases for use would be overcome, and he immediately commenced 
experiments with a small blast furnace, one-fifteenth of the 
capacity of a 50-feet furnace. The upper part was divided into 
two compartments or retorts into which the coal, ores, and lime- 
stone flux were charged ; and the top of the furnaces was closed 
in by the ordinary bell and cone arrangement, as in the Cleye- 
land district. The gases passed off into a main which com- 
municated by two pipes, one to each side of the furnace, to the 
entrance of the flues at the bottom of the retorts, and were 
ignited by the aid of atmospheric air. These flues were spiral, 
in order that the heat from the burning gases might permeate 
the materials inside the retorts, while the exhaust gases were 
thrown off by chimneys at the top of the retorts. This small 
furnace was worked for about two months with raw coal only as 
fuel, and the results were highly satisfactory, notwithstanding 
that the furnace was so small in size. Being convinced that this 
plan of working a furnace was practicable, Mr. Ferrie had forth- 
with commenced the alteration of one of the ordinary furnaces at 
Monkland Works, which he said would be ready for operating 
with at the end of the month of August. 
7. **On Mineral Oil Works,” by Mr. David Cowan, 
The author referred to the manufacture of mineral oils as one 
of the leading industries of Scotland ; to the nature and extent 
of the oil yielding materials, namely, bituminous shales 
and cannelcoals, distributed throughout the Scottish coal 
measures ; and to the quantity and quality of the produce from 
those materials. He afterwards described the mode of treating 
the raw materials, referring to the horizontal and the vertical 
retorts used in Scotland, comparing their advantages and dis- 
advantages, and then described an arrangement of apparatus 
designed to combine the advantages of both kinds of retorts, 
and which would at the same time admit of improved facilities 
of workings. In order to improve the mode of firing, Mr. Cowan 
suggested that instead of coal the retorts should be heated with 
gas flame, and further, that the system of first converting the 
fuel into gas (as successfully worked out by Siemens) should be 
adopted. He estimated that the mode of heating by gas in this 
way would effect a saving of from 40 to 50 per cent. of the fuel. 
The time allotted for reading and discussing papers having 
now arrived, the president announced that those papers which 
had not been overtaken, would become the joint property of the 
two institutions. They will doubtless be published along with 
the others in the transactions to be issued by each institution, 
The afternoon was spent in the same way as that of the preced- 
ing day ; and in the evening a grand banquet was held, at which 
the members of the North of England Institute were the princi- 
pal guests. ‘Thursday was occupied in visiting collieries, iron- 
works, engineering, ship-building, chemical, and other manu- 
facturing establishments ata distance from Glasgow ; and on 
Friday there was an excursion on the saloon steamer Chancellor 
down the Clyde to Dunoon, and thence up Lochlong to Arro- 
char, from which the party walked or rode over to Tarbet, on 
Loch Lomond, a distance of about two miles. The visitors 
were then conveyed by one of the Loch Lomond Company’s 
steamers to the top of that loch, ‘‘The Queen of Scottish 
lakes,” where dinner was served. In the afternoon the whole 
length of the loch was traversed to Balloch, where the party 
took train and returned by the Dumbartonshire Railway to Glas- 
gow. All the visitors were greatly delighted with the magnifi- 
cent scenery along this route, as well as with the kindness, 
attention, and hospitality shown to them during their four days’ 
sojourn in the ‘‘land o’ cakes.” Altogether, a very great de- 
gree of pleasure was experienced both by the members of the 
North of England Institute and by the members of the Scottish 
Institution. Not unlikely a return visit will soon be paid to the 
“*Coaly Tyne.” JoHN MAYER 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
THE Revue des Cours Scientifiques, for August 13, commences 
with a translation of Dr. Carpenter’s lecture on the Temperature 
and Animal Life of the Deep Sea. This is followed by a report 
of Prof. Milne-Edwards’s address in comité secret of the Academy 
in favour of the election of Mr. Darwin as corresponding member, 
the substance of which we gave last week. ‘The last paper is 
M. Ed. von Beneden’s very important and interesting article on 
commensalisme, or ‘‘ fellow-boarding,” as it has been termed, in 
the animal kingdom, extracted from the proceedings of the Bel- 
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