The Engineering and Mining Journal 1870-10-11

VoL. X.—No. 15.—Third •Series.] NEW YORK, TUESDAY, OCTOBER ii. 1870. [Single Copies 10 Cents. Improved Rail Cleaner. _ the control of the engineer ; once placed, it works with the great- i ments in colliery lamps, with the object either of improving the light, of rendering the lock which is generally used in them All experienced locomotive engineers are well aware of the est regularity. The discharge orifice being very small —not ex¬ more secure, or of extinguishing the flame in case the lock immense friction resulting from the use of saud on ascending ceeding one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter—the waste of water should be tampered with, but in all cases, so far as my observa¬ grades upon a wet, or, in railroad parlance, a dirty rail, some¬ is small, and it con be used for a long time without any appris- tion has gone, the old principle of feeding the lamp with oil of times amounting to one-third more resistance than is due to the able lowering of the water level various descriptions has been adhered to, consequently smoke weight of the train, at the same time causing great destruction ! ■—■—^—— and soot are largely produced, clogging the gauze, or glass and to the rails and the wheels of the cars, and also owing to the A New Patent Safety Lamp.* I By W. E. Teale. gauze, destroying the efliciency of light, and thereby rendering increased power necessary, a much greater expenditure of fuel. the temptation to the collier to remove the top of the lamp, that The use of the Kail Cleaner avoids all those evils by imme¬ The importance o; any means which can be devised, having he may obtain sufficient light to enable him to work, almost a diately removing the sand behind the wheels of the engine, I for their object the saving of human life, by rendering the oc- necessity—so that we seem, as far as our coal miues are con¬ leaving the rail perfectly clean and moist, whereby the friction I cupation of the coal-winner less hazardous, and the interest cerned, to be indulging still in the glorious brilliancy in which, of the train is considerably diminished. It has been observed ' which the British Association has always felt in any invention before the introduction of gas, our grandfathers rejoiced in that engines supplied with this auxiliary make their time and conducive thereto, must be my apology for the introduction of a short paper on a colliery lamp, on an en¬ their city streets in the early part of this our nineteenth cen¬ tirely new principle, recently patented by tury. Messrs. W. E. Teale & Co., 11 Mark lane, Mr. Baker, a Government Inspector of Mines, in addressing, ilanchester. as their President, the Midland Institute of Mining Engineers, The attention of mine-owners and practi¬ early last month, at Wolverhampton, remarked that “the term cal men, both in this and other countries, safety-lamp was a misnomer ; no lamp yet invented was per¬ has long been occupied by attempts to fectly safe.” construct a lamp which shall satisfy there- So far as oil-burning lamps was concerned, I am bound to (luirements of the mine, by combining, concur in this opinion, from the fact that many disastrous ac¬ with safety, a powerful light and simplicity cidents have been distinctly traced, either to the inherent de¬ of mechanism, and the realization of this fect of our present lami>K, or to the fact of the collier having ORTIZ ANI> VALLAVARK’S RAlL-CTRAyER. pull their trains with much greater facility, and the boiler is want must be of deep interest to all those who are responsible tampered with the top to improve his light. Doubtless many also kept better and cleaner, as the Kail Cleaner acts as a sur¬ for the safety and welfare of their men, those who have such fearful accidents have occurred in which hundreds of lives face cock on a small scale. Also, on railroads like those in enormous properties at stake, and to every well-wisher to the have been sacrificed, wherein fire and destruction haye effec¬ Cuba, where molasses is a great part of the freight, and the sur¬ brave men who risk their lives in the dark and dangerous tually removed all traces of these fertile sources of danger. I face of the rails is unavoidably covered by the molasses trick¬ mines, on whom we depend for the comforts of the winter may mention, in passing, the following facts : That when oil is ling down from the cars, much time was formerly lost in making hearth, and without whose labors our factories and workshops carelessly spilt, left on the outside of the gauze, or when, by up the trains at the stations and switches, which is now en¬ would be brought to a stand-still, and the noblest navies in overturning the lamp, it may run out of the reservoir inside ; tirely obviated by the use of the Kail Cleaner, which promptly the world would ride idly in harbor. coal dust will naturally adhere to the exterior of the oily gauze, removes the molasses, and facilitates the placing of the cars in To Sir Humphrey Davy we are indebted for the invention of and, on the same being overheated by burning gas in the lamp, their proper order in the train. Knowing the great benefit which the lamp which bears bis honored name, by means of which a sufficient flicker may be produced to fire the mine. The hole ought to arise from the use of an apparatus that would remove thousands of lives have been saved, and in the many modifica¬ through which the pricker works may likewise become so en¬ the sand used by the locomotive, for long time past many expe¬ tions and improvements, which have since been made, the fine larged as to allow a passage of flame with a like result. riments have been made to construct a Kail Cleaner. Brooms of wire gauze has been necessarily retained, as in the Stevenson To prevent the miner tampering with his lamp, to light his various classes were tried, but they wore out quickly, and were (or Geordie), where it forms the entire length of the top, with pipe, or, by removing the top, to increase the brilliancy of his not effective. To obviate this difficulty, springs were used, but the glass inside, or partly glass and partly gauze as in the light, so as to facilitate his work, a number of patents have they were not successful. The Kail Cleaner furnished by Messrs. Clanny lamp, in which the glass forms a light chamber below been taken out, with the object of extinguishing the flame on Walton & Co., No. 56 John street, and here presented in the ac¬ the gauze, both of which, in many respects, show a great im¬ his attempting to do so, involving, in most coses, the use of companying engravings at a, 6, b, b, b, effects completely the ob¬ provement on the original Davy lamp ; the one much more springs, by the action of which an extinguisher is brought to ject for which it is intended, without any of the inconveniences trustworthy in fiery mines, while the other gives a far better bear on the flame. But a spring is evidently likely to be weak¬ occasioned by any other apparatus in use. This improvement light. ened by use, or to break by becoming rusty in a damp mine, consists in blowing hot steam on the track, immediately after the It is admitted that flame may, under certain circumstances, and therefore a poor reliance is to be placed on its certain ac¬ driving-wheels of the locomotive have passed over it, thus remo¬ pass the naked gauze, and men are known constantly to light tion at the critical moment, when life and property are at stake. ving the sand which was necessary to prevent the slipping of their pipes by drawing the flame through it, which is rendered Much, undoubtedly, depends on fhe attention paid to the thor¬ the driving-wheels. The cost is insignificant compared with the impossible when glass is also used. Many other patents have ough ventilation of min^s ; indeed, some practical men are of great benefit it produces. It can be put on any locomotive, with¬ been taken out, too numerous to specify, for various improve- opinion that, when it is properly looked to, naked lights nmy out affecting any of its pieces ; neither is it necessary to change be safely used, but in several fearful accidents which have oc¬ anything. This apparatus is very simple, and owing to its posi¬ • A paper prepared for the Liverpool meeting of the British Association curred of late, in pits where good ventilation was a primary tion by the side ol the cooks (guagei«ock8), is perfectly under for the Advancement of Science, and “ taken as read.'* care on the part of the managers, a momentary oeasatioo, 226 THE ENGINEERING AND MINING JOURNAL. [October ii, 1870, entirely unseen, in connection with inseenre lights, has scat* size and the mechanical obstruction they cause, destroy the any rate, of xenogenesis ; aud it is only quite recently that the tered death and destruction to all within reach. Onnpowdcr organism out of which they are developed ; while, finally, in real course of events has been made out. It has been ascer¬ ' another fertile source of explosion—would be robbed of some those terrible structures known as cancers, the abnormal tained, that when one of the spores falls upon the body of a fly, of its danger if a really safe lamp were used.

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