Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1889-01-30
A LIFE-SAVING APPLIANCE.
An Automatic Bell to Warn Engineers of
the Approach of a Cage to the Surface
in Use at the Alice.

in Use at the Alice.
Nobody needs to be told that this is an
age of inventions. The rapidity with which
patents are issued in this and other coun-
tries would alone prove this. Inventions
are generally the device hit cpon by a man
who has been worried by the methods there
tofore in use for accomplishing the same
end. They are labor-saving devicss-and
some of them ave too much labor for the
good Of the working classes. Some devices,
however, are purely humanitarian, in
vented to ave human life from the acct
dents to which it is exposed in the rush
and roar of machinery in it's constant
whirl. These are suggested by loss Of life
or manning OF human beings from more or
less applicable causes.
To this category belongs an invention
lately perfected by Superintendent W. E.
Hall of the Alice. Everyone familiar with
the hosting engine at a mine knows that
each en- CINE is supplied with a dial, usually
about three feet in diameter, placed near
the reel on which the cable is wound that
raises and lowers the cages, upon which
white figures on a black ground indicate
the different levels OF a mine. to which an
indicator points which works automatic
ally, sohwing precisely where the cage is at
any moment in it's ascent or descent OF the
shaft. This is always in plain view OF the
engineer as he stands working his levers to
raise or lower the cages. To d casual OBJ
server it would seem impossible that an
engineer should be able to overlook
where a cage is at any moment. The
Indicator on the dial has never keen kno En
to fail to register accurately the depth in
the shaft of a cage which it serves. But,
nevertheless, cages have shot up into .e
sheaves instead of being stopped at the sur
face and men in them been killed or manned
thereby, and the explanation has been that
the engineer thought the cage was two or
three hundred feet lower than it really was.
Miners know how this has happened. The
engineers eye was not on the dial.
Such an accident has happened, and to
devise a scheme that will more effectually
warn the engineers of the approach of a
cage to the surface occupied Superintendent
Halls thoughts for some time until he hit
upon a scheme which is now in operation at
the Alice.
This consists of an alarm placed on the
indicator dial, fastened to the top, where
the INDICATOR points TO the cage having
reached the surface. When the hand comes
to a point OF the dial that shows the cage |
is twenty-five feet above the one hundred
level. it pushes a lever with a togsle point, /
which pulls back the striker OF the gong, thus
setting the alarm free, showing by the ring
that the car has passed the 100 level and
warning the engineer by sound which he
cannot fait to hear. The cage can there.
fore be stopped within the reveuty-fve feet
after hearing the ring even if coming up at
full speed, and az there are fifty feet more
from the surface t" the shave the posi-
bility OF accident is out 81 tn QUESTION.
Mr.. Hall has BEN advised ly his ~Irienrls to
have the invention patented "a one of the
most useful Inventions tn insure safety Of
life where, by any accident, the engineer has
u mistaken idea az to the Grafton Of "a
cage at the most critical moment. The
alarm will be placed Immediately in the
hoist of the Magma Charta mine.