Mining Experience Research Articles

Why Study Mathematics?

Two recent experiences of mine had a part in the selection of the topic for this article. The first was an eight page editorial that appeared in a recent issue of Life Magazine on the theme: “War is Teaching U. S. Citizens a Belated Lesson in the Supreme Intellectual Discipline of the Science of Mathematics.” Since books on mathematics are best sellers today, it is probable that teachers of mathematics should better sense the high importance of the work they are doing.

Some Dangers and Difficulties Ahead

YOU will regard it, I am afraid, as an inauspicious beginning of this address, that I should commence by adding one more to the—what is it ? hundreds or thousands?—of definitions of an optimist. But the particular definition I am about to perpetrate is the result of a few recent experiences of mine, after delivering addresses dealing with library affairs. An optimist is a person whose pessimism is of that profound order that he dare not seriously consider anything which is likely to weaken his optimism. He feels that he must meet any such thing by airily waving it away, and crying in a loud voice: Pessimist! Like Cassius “such men are dangerous,” but for precisely the opposite reason to Caesar's, not because they “think too much,” but because they refuse to think at all. It is the childish belief, to which most of us are prone at times, that if you decline to look at a thing, it isn't there. You who are young are necessarily natural optimists—if you're not, it's a case for a doctor—but your optimism, being probably more instinctive than defensive, should enable you to consider calmly and intelligently any reasoned statement of difficulties and dangers which may, or which do lie ahead of the libraries. And you will not assume that anyone who points these out, because he points them out, believes that the difficulties will not be surmounted, and that the dangers will certainly materialise. If forewarned is not always forearmed, the tiger in the path is surely less formidable if his presence is known, and even if there is discovered to be no tiger, there is no particular harm done by a little wary looking out.

Coal Mine Surveying

Abstract It is my intention in this paper to refrain from anything technical, but rather to put in simple language the knowledge that I have gained after about thirty years' experience of coal mine surveying, in the hope that it rnay be of some value to student members particularly, and perhaps to the Profession generally.

Prevention of Roof Falls in Mines

DURING the early years of the Safety in Mines Research Board in Great Britain, the staff recruited consisted almost exclusively of chemists with no actual mining experience. Their energies were directed towards chemical aspects of the safety problem, and in particular to the phenomena of explosions, a study which lends itself readily to laboratory investigation. Calamitous as gas or dust explosions may be, the reports of the Secretary for Mines show that they normally account for only about five per cent of the total fatal accidents occurring annually in the coal mines of Great Britain, whereas the fatalities caused by falls of roof or sides account for approximately fifty per cent. Thus whilst explosions create most public interest in the safety of mines, falls of roof and sides cause by far the most casualties.

Liveing's Fire-Damp Indicator

IN my note I had no intention of disparaging the very ingenious invention of Mr. E. H. Liveing; on the contrary, I wished, while commenting on a new application of the same principle, to recall the fact that the credit of utilising the increased glow of a heated wire over which a methane-air mixture is drawn, as a measure of the methane present, is due to Mr. Liveing. Like Prof. Boys, I tested the apparatus both near working faces and in the return airways of mines which gave off fire-damp. Although I cannot claim to approach Prof. Boys's unique experience in photometric work, I had had several years' practice in comparing the illuminating power of lights—and especially of lights of different tints—and I found it possible to make concordant readings with the instrument. But my companions—men of great mining experience—did not agree with my readings, or with each other's. The impression formed by me was that the indicator was not adopted because the mine-managers thought (rightly or wrongly) the instrument allowed too much margin to the ‘personal equation’.

Safety in Coal Mining

THIS subject is much too extensive to be even fairly adequately treated in a short paper, consequently there can be given here only a partial summation of the writer's conception of Safety in Coal Mining after somewhat over twenty-five years' experience in mining wholly within the United States. Most of the time was spent in connection with health and safety but several years were spent in both engineering and in operating work, the experience involving underground work or observations in several hundred mines in more than twentyfive states of the Union. This paper will be devoted largely to pointing out unsafe conditions with suggestions -where available-as to what may be done to increase coal mine safety. Coal mining is inherently one of the most dangerous of our major lines of occupation. Coal in finely divided form (dust) is readily inflammable and explosive, this being true of all coals except possibly the highest grades of anthracite; there is frequently encountered in all coal mines, or there is likely to be encountered at any time, gas which is very flammable and explosive; and in some instances there are found gases which are non-flammable but which quickly snuff out life by asphyxiation. The most dangerous gases given off in coal mines are invisible, tasteless and odorless, thus being peculiarly treacherous. The explosions in coal mines started by ignition of flammable gases or dusts and carried on, or propagated, usually by dusts, constitute a hazard almost exclusively confined to coal mining and the result-

Note upon a Recent Discovery of Tin-ore in Tasmania

As a sequel to discoveries of tin-ore in abundance made during the last two years in Queensland and New South Wales, there has been one of some importance recently in Tasmania, which has this special interest, that the one has been found in large masses in situ , and that the containing rock is lithologically distinct from the ordinary ternary granite which forms the whole of the stanniferous country of Queensland, and, so far as my information extends, of New South Wales. The tin-stone also has an individuality of character not shared by that in the adjacent colonies, occurring in several distinct varieties of form within the distance of a few chains. I forward a small series of samples for the inspection of the Members of the Society, among which I would specially invite attention to a fragment from a large mass (itself 80 lbs. in weight) which has an appearance on fracture sufficiently approaching to that of a hæmatite to deceive a casual observer. This discovery of tin-ore has been made at Mount Bischoff, in the N.W. portion of Tasmania. Active operations were only commencing when I visited the spot; and in the absence of mining experience on the part of those engaged, coupled with the numerous obstacles to the progress of pioneers, presented by a rough and exceptionally difficult country, some time may be expected to elapse before its full importance is developed. Mount Bischoff is distant by the present route fifty-four miles from the place of shipment; and