19 
SAFETY CAGES. 
This Department lias several times been urged to offer a reward or premium 
for the best safety cage, but I have hitherto declined to recommend such a course, on 
the ground that, if a Board were appointed to adjudge such an award, its opinion 
would not convince mining managers of the superiority of the cage selected. More¬ 
over, in the Report of the Board appointed in 1878 to investigate the merits of the 
different safety cages, it is specially recommended that “ mine proprietors should be 
permitted to exercise their own discretion in the selection of cages.” 
The Department, however, has always been glad to afford the inventors of 
cages or of any other improved mining appliances every opportunity of having them 
practically tested in the presence of a mining inspector, and to furnish a copy of his 
report thereon. In the following pages I propose to give a short description “of each 
safety cage which has been brought under the notice of the Department during the 
past year, taking them in alphabetical order of the name of the inventors. By this 
means, and by the aid of the mining inspectors’ reports on safety cages in actual use 
(see page 25), it is hoped that mine owners and others will be enabled to select cages 
suitable to their requirements. 
Allan’s Patent Safety Cage. 
Amongst the safety cages which have been in use for a considerable time, 
Allan’s is spoken of by the Mining Inspectors in very favorable terms. So far back 
as 1879 Senior Inspector Nicholas reported that the trial which he made of the cage 
was “perfectly successful.” Inspector Stewart, in the same year, stated that “the test 
of Allan’s cage was perfect, its grip being instantaneous,” whilst Inspector Grainger 
reported as follows:—“This cage, from all I saw, stood the severe tests to which it 
was subjected, and was, I consider, a great success, haying, I believe, only fallen one 
inch or so on being suddenly detached from the rope.” 
Mr. Allan withholds his consent to the publication of a sketch of his cage, 
otherwise I should have pleasure in giving it a place in this Report with other similar 
contrivances. He has, however, kindly forwarded a model to the Department, and in 
doing so made the following remarks:— 
I believe you will find in the model which I have this day forwarded all that can be desired in 
a sufety cage. Everything is provided for that can be provided for—ropes breaking, over-winding, the 
drum getting loosepm the shaft, or the cage being accidentally lowered into water. In the first two cases 
the cage is self-acting, in the last two it can be stopped instantaneously by hand; and I venture to say that 
if my cages are attended to the same as any other part of the machinery on a mine, the companies using 
them may safely calculate on complete immunity front cage accidents. I here tender you my best thanks 
for the action you have taken in having all safety cages tested. 
Speaking of the necessity of having cages periodically overhauled, he says:— 
In the majority of cases when cages are put into a shaft they are no more thought of as long as 
they will haul the stuff, and in many cases I have seen my own safety appliances, and those of other 
people, made fast so as to make it impossible for them to act, if required to do so. 
Mr. Allan has issued some printed instructions to accompany his cage, and, as 
the contrivance is already in use in several mines, being preferred by some mining 
managers to other rival inventions, it will not he out of place to reproduce the instruc¬ 
tions here. They are as follow:— 
Instructions as to the Proper Keeping in Order and Working of Allan's Patent Safety Cages. —It 
should be the duty of every boss of a shift, when landing at the plat, to see that the spring after raising the 
grippers to the skids has still a firm pressure upwards against the cross-bar of the cage; if it has, then it 
may bo reckoned in working order, but if it leaves the cross-bar in the slightest degree, ft is not reliable, and 
should be reported to the manager, and attended to at once. Every man working in any mine where these* 
cages are used should make himself thoroughly acquainted with the working of them, and, when being 
raised or lowered, one should always have his hand on the knob ready for action. If accidentally lowered 
into water, or should the spider get loose on the shaft, or being lowered too quick, pull the handle, 
and the cage will be fixed on the skids in one second. In case of "a rope breaking, the self-action of the 
appliance would have to he depended on, which is quite reliable if the spring is good; a slight wearing of 
the points of the gripper teeth that first touch the skid will necessarily take place, by being constantly 
brought against the skid every time the cage rests, particularly at the bottom, as the back weight of the. 
