SURFACE EQUIPMENT. 33 



compressors, mill-engines, crushers and the machinery employed in 

 workshops and electric lighting. It is estimated that the cost of the 

 power employed in running this machinery can be reduced to ^10 

 per horse-power per annum within 5 years by the substitution of 

 water-power for steam-power. 



Steaming plant. — The boilers employed on the field are chiefly 

 of the Cornish type, but Lancashire, multitubular, vertical and 

 Galloway boilers are also employed. The total number of boilers in 

 use during 1899 was 1 9$j having an aggregate grate-area of 3,393 

 square feet and a heating surface of 63,102 square feet. They were 

 worked at a pressure of from 60 to 90 lbs, per square inch. 



It is usual to group the steaming plant as far as practicable at 

 the main hauling shafts, where steam is supplied to the hoisting, 

 pumping and air-compressing machinery in use there. In addition, 

 however, separate steaming plant is required to run the motors for 

 the mill-stamps, rock-breakers, dynamos and the various machines 

 employed in the workshops, which are not located near the shafts. 

 At the Ribblesdale shaft of the Mysore Mine, there is a battery of 

 eight 30 by 7 foot Lancashire boilers, supplying steam to the com- 

 pressor, cage and skip-hoisting engines, a capstan-engine, and a 

 Cornish Beam pumping engine. Similarly at the new vertical shaft 

 of the Champion Reef Mine, there are ten 30 by 7 foot Lancashire 

 boilers, steaming two compressors, two winding engines and the 

 capstan and pumping engines. 



The water in use on the field for steam-generation contains a 

 rather large percentage of lime, thereby necessitating constant 

 cleansing of boilers and condensers to get rid of "scale," 



Feed-water heaters and economisers do not appear to have been 

 introduced, the boiler feed being supplied, as a rule, direct from the 

 condenser tanks. 1 Mechanical stokers are not used ; but Wilton's 

 and Meldrum's patent furnaces with forced draught are employed, 

 enabling a large proportion of the waste ash-heaps to be burnt and 

 thereby effecting a considerable economy in coal-consumption. 



1 A Green's Economiser is now being erected in connection with the steam- 

 ing plant for the new mill at Champion Reef. 



D 



