Abstract
WE have received from the University of Birmingham the report on the work of the Mining Research Laboratory during the fifteen months to March 1935. The introduction explains how it is that the report ends with work done in March. The report especially discusses silicosis, pneumonoconiosis, etc., to which six pages out of twenty are devoted. Attention may be directed to the excellent article by Bax in Gliickauf, page 1241, upon the methods used in combating silicosis in the Ruhr district. The report before us shows, like Mr. Bax's paper, that nothing definite is yet known as to the causes of silicosis, etc. The suggestion is made that the incidence of silicosis may in large measure be due to the riding of men on ‘spakes’. The essential thing is that up to the end of December 1934 there have been a great many deaths in the country from silicosis, of which more than 50 per cent have occurred in the anthracite area of South Wales. Other subjects treated in the report before us are underground illumination, utilisation of coal by converting coke oven gas into gas with high calorific value, the quantity of firedamp in coal seams as worked, the pressure not having been investigated, spontaneous combustion in coal mines, control of atmospheric conditions in hot and deep mines, whilst investigations connected with the Gresford disaster apparently have occupied a great deal of the time and energies of the Research Laboratory, of which the late Prof. J. S. Haldane was director.
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Mining Research at Birmingham. Nature 137, 811–812 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137811e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137811e0