The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-12


 securing clean coal, has offered the use of his device free to any and all coal mining companies in the country for the duration of the war.
 SAMPLE OF COAL The outstanding feature of the Ram sey sampler is it's simplicity for with it the operator can secure sample of coal from any part of the car, just as easily as a cotton sampler can se- cure a sample of cotton from any part of the bale, but probably it's best fea ture is the fact that with it per- feet "tab" can be kept on the indi- vidual miner as to the clean and un- clean coal just as easily and just as correctly as the official scorer keeps the batting average of the individual members of a baseball club and Just as no ball player retains his job whose batting average is always at the bot tom of the list, so no miner whose daily record shows unclean coal would be kept in employment
 Now as to the details of the sampler 1 itself, the following article from the Coal Age is explanatory:
 | "The sampler consists of a scoop made from a piece of 16-inch wrought pipe about IS feet long from which a l piece about three feet long in the  scoop will hold approximately 10O- pound sample. It is placed underneath | the regular dump.
 This scoop is pushed out by means | of an air cylinder 30 that it comes | directly underneath the stream of coal | as it is being dumped from the car. 1 By means of the twisted guides the l scoop is revolved as it returns from 1 it's position under the chute and emp l ties it's sample of coal into small 1 bin. From this bin the material is l dropped into a second bin and from l here it is fed onto a small shaking screen.
 The screen separates the coal into l two sizes. While the lump and nut coal
 is slowly travelling across the shaking 1 screen an attendant picks out the rock
 and other foreign matter. This screen
 ing of the sample capacities the work ! of the picker and makes it more eff fective. No attempt has been made at I Banner to determine the amount of
 rock in the fine coal, but if it should
 appear that some of the miners were shooting up their slate so as to be 1 able to load it out without being de- | tected. the screenings from the sam- pie could easily be tested by the float each sample the attendant weighs the rock, slack and lump coal and records the percentage of each.
 'sThe object in having two bins, one above the other, is to provide. a stor-
 ago for one sample while a second is
 being fed out slowly onto the shak- | ing screen.
 "One man operates the entire mech anism. obtaining as many as 100 sam pies in shift besides picking out the
 slate. weighing the lump. slack and | slate and making the necessary rec i ord. This record when carefully kept enables the operator to keep a close l tab on his miners and also allows the miner to compare notes with his fel- lows which makes it possible for the I conscientious miner to get credit for I his work.
 ] When the scheme was first proposed some were of the opinion that the pound sample might not be repre- sentative of the entire amount of coal ! in the tram car, but the results ob- | tained from the device. when checked with rejections from the washer, seem l to indicate that the sampling is fair 1 ly representative. It is we'll to recall that 100-pound sample from a mine car is relatively large sample com pared. for example, to the average
 sample taken from railroad car un- der the methods at present in vogue. In recent statement in regard to clean and unclean coal and the ad- lvantages of the coal sampler, MT. Ram sey said:
 For years there has been demand for better means than those now em ployed at coal mines for determining
 the quality of the coal which each in- dividual miner loads in cars at his working place, and it is essential in my belief that the means adopted ' should constitute large proportion fl of the cars carrying the total mine | output. There has been, heretofore, ab- solutely no way to accomplish this.
 'The sampling system now in use at most mines is to select from time to time at random mine car of coal and hand pick it's entire contents for
 slate, the percentage or amount oi
 slate found in that one car being re-
 garded as the average of the whole output of the miner that loaded il .I until such time as another car loaded Il by him is selected by chance and picked. By this system an average of say per cent of the total mine out II put, but of course a varying and in T definite percentage of the cars loaded
 by each miner is hand picked and fixed penalties known as dockages are assessed for given amounts of slats found It is the practice at few
 mines as an inducement for the load ing of clean coal. that where the car picked contains less slate than fixed amount a bonus is given, which off sets the amount docked in some degree T to the miners as whole.
 "Such a system is uncertain and in- ! effective in it's operation. for the very good reason that cars selected at long intervals cannot possibly give the truly Il average quality of all coal sent out A by the individual miner as sample cars Il from the same miner selected at diff ferent times during the day would, of course, show varying percentages ol I slate and of slack. Coal loaded during che early part of the days work. es- \ pecially from rooms. would have per- \ contage relatively high in lump and low In slate. while that loaded later in the day would be inst tho opposfte