200 



NA TURE 



[January 2, 1902 



(5) whether the mining industry of this country under 

 existing conditions is maintaining its competitive power 

 with the coalfields of other countries. 



The chairman of the Commission is the Right Hon. 

 W. L. Jaclcson, M.P., chairman of the C.reat Nor- 

 thern Railway Company, and he has fifteen colleagues. 

 Coal-mining interests are represented by Sir W. T. 

 Lewis, the eminent -South Wales colliery owner. 

 Sir Lindsay Wood, chairman of the Durham Coal 

 Trade Association, Mr. A. C. Briggs, of Xorman- 

 lon, Yorkshire, Mr. J. S. Di.xon, the Scotch coal- 

 master, president of the Institution of Mining 

 Engmeers, Mr. A. Sopwilh, of Cannock Chase Colliery 

 Company, and Dr. C. Le Neve Foster, F.R.S., professor 

 of mjning at the Royal College of Science and Royal 

 School of Mines. The working men's interests are en- 

 trusted to Mr. W. Brace, of the South Wales Miners' 

 Federation, and Mr. R. Young, of the Northumberland 

 Miners' Association. Transport interests are in the hands 

 of Sir G. J. Armytage, chairman of the Lancashire and 

 Yorkshire Railway Company, of Mr. Thomas Bell, coal 

 exporter of Newcastle-onTyne, and of Mr. \. P. Maclay, 

 shipbroker, of Glasgow. Geology is represented by Mr.' 

 J. J. Harris Teall, F.R.S., Director-General of the 

 Geological Survey, by Prof. C. Lapworth, F.R.S., of 

 Birmingham University, and by Dr. E. Hull, F.R.S., 

 formerly Director of the Geological Survey of Irelanti^ 

 whilst chemistry is represented by Prof. H. B. Dixon! 

 F.R.S., of Owens College, Manchester. 



The main interests involved are thus represented with 

 the exception of the consumers. The metallurgical in- 

 dustries, which consume such vast quantities of British 

 coal, do not find their spokesmen on the Commission. 

 This is a matter of regret, inasmuch as metallurgy was 

 so largely represented on the previous Commission ; and 

 the investigations of Sir Hussey \'ivian, Dr. Percy, Mr. 

 Hartley of Wolverhampton, and Mr. G. T. Clark of 

 Dowlais, on waste in combustion were amongst the 

 most valuable of the results of the Commission. 



The task of the Royal Commission to estimate the 

 available resources of the British coalfields is one of 

 great difficulty, and it is to be feared that any estimate 

 must be of slight value, owing to the impossibility of 

 prophesying with accuracy either the rate of increase in 

 production and consumption, or the limits at which 

 mining may be carried on with profit. Prof. Hull, one 

 of the Commissioners, has already published a reassuring 

 estimate, although it is not in accord with the less opti- 

 mistic and divergent views e.xpressed by Prof. Stanley 

 Jevons, by Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, by :\Ir. R. Price- 

 VVilliams and by Mr. T. Forster Brown. The questions 

 of the possible economies in the use of coal and of the 

 adoption of better methods of working should prove the 

 most fruitful field for the Commission's labours. Great 

 Britain now produces one-third of the world's supply of 

 coal ; and more and more attention is being devoted to 

 improvements in mining details. Although the use of 

 mechanical coal cutters has by no means become as 

 general as it has in the United Slates, where 

 25 per cent, of the output is thus obtained, there has 

 recently been a distinct increase in the use 

 of these labour-saving appliances. Moreover, en- 

 deavours are being made to economise in the consump- 

 tion of coal, notably in the South Staffordshire coalfield, 

 where the producer-gas invented by Dr. Ludwig Mond 

 has recently been introduced as a cheap source of heat 

 and power. That great economies in the home consump- 

 tion of coal have been effected since 1871 is unquestion- 

 able. Indeed, Mr. Price-Williams has shown that, 

 whereas in 1871 the iron and steel trade required 30 

 per cent, of the coal consumed in the United Kingdom, 

 Its requirements had been reduced to 16 per cent, at the 

 time he read his paper before the Statistical Society in 

 1889. To further coal economies effected in the manu- 

 NO. 1679, VOL. 65 J 



facture of iron and steel Mr. Bennett Brough has drawn 

 attention in an article on the scarcitv of coal in the 

 Nineteenth Century (April, 1900). There is, however, 

 still room for large economies in coal in the manufac- 

 turing industries ; and the results of a searching inquiry 

 into the subject cannot fail to be of permanent value 

 and interest. 



ON PAPER AND PEROXIDE OF HYDROGEN. 



T DESIRE to show by means of the following photo- 

 graphs some special points of interest which occur 

 when certain papers are allowed to produce pictures on a 

 photographic plate in the dark. Some papers are them- 

 selves active, that is, if they be slmplv placed on or near 

 to a photographic plate in the dark they act upon it so 

 that after ordinary development a picture is produced. 

 Other papers which are without this power can be ex- 

 amined by placing them on a photographic plate and 

 putting behind them a plate which is giving off hydrogen 

 peroxide, such as one of plaster of Paris or a pad of 

 blotting-paper which have been soaked in an aqueous 

 solution of this body, or a plate of polished :<inc, or a 

 piece of cardboard or glass which has been painted over 

 with copal varnish or other body of that kind. There is 

 also with regard to paper the action of writing and printing 

 ink upon it. 



The fibres which are used in paper making are ' cotton, 

 flax, hemp, wood celluloses, esparto, straw celluloses, 



mechanical wood pulp. Of these bodies cotton and hemp 

 are entirely without action on a photographic plate ; all 

 the other materials are more or less active, especially so 

 is mechanical wood pulp and flax. If, however, any of 

 these bodies, even the most active, be bleached, they 

 lose this activity : the bleaching must, however, be very 

 complete to destroy altogether their activity, and many 

 papers although bleached are still active. On the other 

 hand, the activity of a paper may arise, not from the 

 paper itself, but from the size which has been added ; 

 this occurs when rosin is used. 



The ordinary first-class papers are entirely without 

 action on a photographic plate, but the common kinds 

 are generally active. For instance, we may take some 

 of the daily newspapers as illustrating this. The follow- 

 ing results apply to copies issued on November 25. 

 1901 : the Stanitard, Daily Express and Daily Mail all 

 gave ^dark picture, the Pall Mall a good, but not so 

 dark a picture as the former papers ; the Westminster 

 and the Sportsman gave a faint picture, and the Times, 

 Globe and N.\TtRi: only very faint pictures, and, lastly, 

 the Daily Telegraph, Daily News, Daily' Graphic and 

 Morning Leader gave no picture at all. Punch paper is 

 also not active. 



With books and periodicals the least expensive are 

 usually the most active ; as far as 1 am aware the paper 

 of high-class books is without action on a photographic 

 plate. Fig. i is a picture produced by an active paper. 



^ Report on the Deterioration of Paper, .Society of Art*-. 



