The EngSneeting and Mining Jotifnal VOL. LXXXI. NEW YORK, APRIL 7, 1906. NO. 14. Published Weekly at it as a typical case of the significance of The elevator has 30xi2-in. bucket* 505 PEARL STREET, NEW YORK leaching the approximate 100 per cent, of and travels not more than 30-ft. per London Office: Bucklersbury, London E. C., England. conventional technique. min. This enables all the water to Suhncription, payable in atleanee, $5.00 a year of 52 Thus the common coal analysis gpves drain out and back into the settling tank. numbers, ineluding postage in the United States, Canada, over 100 per cent., the iron (existing in All of the disturbance occurs in the fourth Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Haicaii or the Philippines, the coal as FeS2) being converted into partition of the tank; practically no coal To Foreign Countries, including postage, $8.00 or its works back to the first compartment equivalent, 33 shillings; 33 marks; or 40 francs. Fe20» in the ash, and weighed as such, thus figuring oxygen into the coal which where the pump is connected to raise the Notice to discontinue should he icritten to the Neio York office in every instance. does not exist there. In a careful coal an¬ clear water to the fresh-water tank above. Advertising copy should reach Neie York office by Thursday, alysis correction is always made for this. a week before date of issue. The case offered by Professor Richards A similar arrangement can be made to Copies are on sale at the news-stands of the following is an excellent illustration of discovery separate water from waste rock, or in¬ hotels Waldorf-Astoria, New York; Brown Palace, Denver; coming from seeming inconsistency; but stead of a 30-ft. settling tank, one can be- Palace Hotel, San Francisco, and the lending hotels in the principal cities. it is only the natural experience of chemi¬ built 60 ft. in length with two screws, eachi Copyright, 1906, by cal analysis. revolving toward its end. The sludge is- Thb Enoineebino and Mining Journal. dropped into one end, and the waste rock Entered at New York Post Office as mail matter of into the other, the clear water being- the second class. Recovery of Water from Coal pumped from the middle partition of the Washing. tank. During 1905 The Engineehinq & Mining The advantages of these systems are: Journal printed and circulated 454,250 BY F. W. PARSONS.* copies, an average of 8735 per issue. Of this I. Dryer coal in the waste-coal bin, and issue 12,000 copies are printed. None sent consequently, better service at the ovens. regularly free. No back numbers beyond It has been the custom for some years Ihis is due to the use of larger meshes current year. past to run washed coal through a in the revolvng screen, for the pump has cylindrical screen having fine meshes, and not to handle all that goes through. 2. The New Oxide of Aluminum. then pump the water and slack coal, or There is a saving of about 50 per cent, in BY CHAS. S. PALMER. sludge as it is called, up into a tank at power, for neither the coal nor the water the top of the washery, just over the has to be raised so high. 3. Practically The statement in the last paragraph on washed coal bins. The sludge is there no water is lost. 4. A smaller pump can p. 505 of the Journal (March 17, 1906) allowed to settle, the water is run off be used. relative to an analysis of supposed alu¬ into the fresh-water tank lower down, The cost of installation is hardly any mina as giving “over 100 per cent.” seems while the slack coal is dropped from the mqre than that of the older method. The to have attracted some attention, and sludge tank into the bins. This requires settling tank can be placed on top or set many hasty readers, without waiting to an expenditure of much power and can in the ground. It is made of 3xi2-in. read the paragraph through, seem to have be avoided by separating the water from lumber; part of it is lined with iron; in jumped to the conclusion that the ed¬ the waste rock and slack coal on the the remainder the boards are so beveled itors must have allowed a statement of ground floor. where they join that a wedge and caulk¬ the impossible to appear. The washed coal, after leaving the jigs ing can be driven in to make it water¬ As a matter of fact, not only is this and going through a disintegrator, is run tight. particular statement true (the figures ob¬ into a long revolving cylindrical screen, tained were really somewhat over 102 per with perforations. The fine coal and water Such a tank will contain about 6000 ft. cent.), but it was this seeming paradox goes through the screen, and instead of of lumber, and the iron, calking, and all, which guided the chemist in his success¬ being pumped to the sludge bins before will cost about $165. The 12-in. screw on ful search for the new oxide. The gain mentioned, goes into the fourth partition a 3-in. pipe and the conveyor for 7S-ft. in weight from the proportions implied in of a settling tank. center, with all driving machinery ex¬ AUO,, to those in AUOs (in which form This tank is 30 ft. long, 9 ft. wide and cepting the motor, will cost about $1050. aluminum is invariably determined and 6 ft. deep; the bin is so hoppered that A centrifugal pump will cost about $90. weighed), involves the principle, which is everything will run into a revolving 12-in. This equipment will handle the waste, by no means new in the history of chem¬ screw in the bottom. This screw is 29 ft. water, and sludge from 400 to 500 tons of istry. long, and the 3-in. shaft on which it re¬ coal in 8 hours. Each ton of coal requires The classic illustration in this line is volves passes through a water-tight stuf¬ a ton of water. probably the conservative analysis by fing box and is operated by a bevel-gear Plattner of the mineral pollux, in the arrangement. J. K. H. Inglis, in an exhaustive paper forties. Plattner’s figures showed a total The settling tank has three partitions, read before the Society of Chemical In¬ of about 92 per cent. He obtained these which fit down within one inch of the dustry, Feb. s, 1906, on the loss of niter results, but no explanation was offered of screw circumference and have several in the chamber process of sulphuric-acid the anomaly, till in the sixties, when spec¬ J/2-in. holes drilled about two feet from manufacture, summarized his results as trum analysis discovered the new alkali the top. There are four compartments follows: (i) Only very small quantities metal caesium. Pollux contains over 30 in the tank. The sludge is dropped in the of nitrogen peroxide and trioxide are re¬ per cent, of caesium, which has an atomic last compartment, the screw revolves and duced to nitrous oxide in the sulphuric weight of 132.9; but Plattner, knowing carries all settlement to its end and there acid chambers. (2) About 50 per cent, nothing of caesium, had faithfully figured drops it into a boot where an inclined of the total loss of niter takes place ow¬ it as sodium (atomic weight, 23), with the bucket elevator carries it to the washed- ing to incomplete absorption of the nitro¬ deficit as noted. The sturdy fidelity of coal bin above. Plattner to his actual results not only vin¬ gen trioxide and peroxide in the Gay- ♦Chief Engineer, Victor Fuel Company, Lussac tower. dicated his conscientious work, but marks Denver, Colo. 650 THE ENGINEERING AND MINING JOURNAL. April 7, 1906. Great Lakes Coal Company. narrow valley, along which runs the Lower Kittanning. In the mines on this Western Allegheny Railroad. Of thesC seam, wide rooms and chain machines are BY JOHN LEGGETT PULTZ.* five mines, the Kaylor, Snow Hill and practical. Pine Run openings are on the Lower At the Kaylor mine the coal lies about The Great Lakes Coal Company’s Kittanning, while the Reese and Barnhart 40 ft. below the stream; a rock slope has mines are located at Kaylor, in the north¬ are on the Upper Freeport seam. All therefore been driven on a 15 per cent, east portion of Armstrong county, Penn¬ the mines are drift except Kaylor, which gradient to strike the coal at a distance sylvania, about 40 miles northeast of is opened by a slope. At the Reese mine, of 600 ft. The mouth of the slope is in Pittsburg. The company owns a standard owing to the high elevation of the coal the hillside at an elevation above the gage railroad 18 miles in length, known above the river, it has been necessary to valley floor sufficient for the necessary as the Western Allegheny, connecting at construct a gravity plane equipped with tipple hight. A few hundred yards down stream from this point the Lower Kittanning rises above water, so that the Snow Hill and Pine Run mines are opened by drifts. The last named mine is at present in the construction stage. The Snow Hill and Pine Run mines are tri¬ butary to one tipple. The approach from each pit mouth is by trestle across the valley. As the general method of development and working the coal is similar in all the mines, a brief description of the mode of attacking the coal at the Snow Hill will be sufficient.