The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-07-06


the downcast, making a short circuit
for the air, and cutting the ventilation
off from the workings of the mine.
The result was that the whole work.
ings filled with gases which ignited
from feeders left burning by the first
explosion. If one Of the shafts was
wholly as an upcast. and the other for
the downcast, no explosion could de-
stroy the whole ventiating system at
once, as the air currents would have
to traverse from the bottom of one
shaft to the other, and an explosion
in an upper seam could not cause
much damage to the workings of a
lower seam.
About a mile southeast of Nanticoke,
a stream of mine gas, issuing from a
bore hole, has been burning for over
two years, making a flame about six
feet long. The hole is eight inches in
diameter and goes from the surface into
the workings of the Lee seam of the
No. shafe of the Susquehanna Coal
company. A pipe was set to lead the
gas about twenty feet above the sur
face, and from this the flame is burn
ing. The ventilating pressure of the
foot. is acting against it, but the hole
being nine hundred feet in depth, and
the gas one-half the weight of air,
makes a column so light that it comes
to the surface. in spite of the down.
ward pressure produced by the mine
ventilator.
The Hazleton Boiler company is erect
insr 80
jacketed boilers, with a combination
furnace for waste heat and direct fir
ing, at the william A" breaker of the
Connell Coal company The boiler is
of 25O horse power capacity and is con-
nected by flues with nine cylinder boil
ers. forty feet in length and thirty
four inches in diameter. The waste
heat from the latter is utilized, and,
by system of dampers can be cut off
and the Hazleton boiler fired with coal.
The boiler is seventy feet seven inches
from foundation to top of stack and 1t
is expected that this height will give
sufficient draught to largely decrease
the amount of steam required for the
blowers of the cylinder boilers. A SINH
lar boiler to utilize waste heat was
erected at the Dorrance colliery of the
Lehigh Valley Coal company.
G. B. Markle & Company are at pres
ent cutting a canal. with two steam
shovels, along the south crop of their
property, extending from Jeddo to
Harleigh, distance of five miles, for
the purpose of catching and conducting
the surface water, before going into
extensive stripping on the Ebervale
basin. At present there is one shovel
in operation on the stripping. in the
near future the second shovel will be
put on, and with the completion of the
canal, the four shovels will operate on
the stripping, with an average of
twenty-five men to a shovel This COM
pany has successfully tapped the water
from the Old Pink colliery.
@
The Susquehanna Coal company is
building a new steel head frame at it's
No. l shaft at Nanticoke. The old
frame was of timber and ii has been in
use since 1875. There are four hoisting
cages in the shaft winning coal from
six seams. The coal is prepared in the
No. z breaker, which shipped 466, ,312
tons in the year of 1896.
o
Adam Boyd, formerly inside fore
man of the Burnside colliery, at Sha-
molSin, has been appointed district su-
perintendent of the Knickerbocker, Ell
lengowan, Turkey Run and West Shen-
andoah colleries of the Reading COM
pany, succeeding William Broughall,
resigned.
The old workings of the Mammoth
vein, of the Indian Ridge colliery, at
Shenandoah, Penna. are being filled
with culm from the Plank Ridge Jig
house.