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Show THE MINE MULE OUSTED. Improved Machinery Supplants the Little Animal l?y spoking thousands upon thousands thou-sands of tioiiars, and after many years of unsuccessful experimenting, an air t.njjine h;i3 been perfected, :Axd an ceuxioiiiieai method furnished of transporting' trans-porting' com li'oiu the interior of mines to the botio... of the slope. The nevt device was built by the Uulchvin, locomotive loco-motive works, and will, it is expected, be the means of saving millions of dollars dol-lars per annum to the mineral mining companies. While the locomotive hats been undergoing a severe test in the mine near Girardville for the past few months, all have awaited the result with much anxiety, and now that it i declared a success, most of the principal prin-cipal mining concerns are making ln;v-ried ln;v-ried preparations to adopt it. This state of affairs mean a boor to the locomotive builders of the world It also means that thousand., of uuu and boj's employed in conveying con from the "breasts" and gangways mines will have to seek other tccuy;. tions. The leading coal companies ha long been endeavoring to obtain a rn ehanical substitute to replrce the mi: mule that would reduce the immenr cost entailed in getting the coal fro-the fro-the underground workings to the bot toms of the slope. They tried engine? propelled by steam, electricity, gas, etc., but all proved complete failures The steam locomotive was abandoned because the vapor had a tendency to loosen the "top," or roof of the gangways, gang-ways, and various chambers through-1 cvt Ihc mines. It also rattled the pine timber used for "legs," "collars" and laggings, and caused the top to cave Jr frequently, entailing large losses. E'oetvic'ty and gas were abandoned because be-cause cither was liable to ignite the ga3 In the undergroimd workings. The new r.ir locomotive was built almost al-most a year ago and is the invention of a Philadelphia man. With the exception excep-tion of a huge air boiler or' tank the construction of the air locomotive is-rimilar is-rimilar in every respect to a steam locomotive, lo-comotive, nnd is. propelled in the same manner. The air tank is not unlike the steam boPer of an engine- and is carried car-ried in the same position, thus doing wvay with a tender. On aceount of ts pointed head it is better able to cut 5ts way through the heavy air of a mine, uttaining a high rate of speed. The air ?s supplied by nn air compressor located lo-cated on the surface. The air is . pumped through two five-inch five-inch pipes into the mine at a pressure of SCO pounds per square inch. One of these pipes runs to the bottom of the r,lope and the other to the end of the underground workings. These pipes serve as a reservoir for the air. At the ends of the lines and along the route of the locomotive are stations where the air tank of the engine can be refilled when exhausted. Exhaustion frequently frequent-ly occurs, and without the station pumps the engine would be useless. The air tank on the locomotive has a capacity of 164 cubic feet, a sufficient amount of air to carry a train, including includ-ing eight or ten heavily loaded mine oars. The speed is regulated according to the number of mine cars attached mil to the track. On a level and straight !! way one of these engines can carry i-orn ten to twelve loaded mine wagons t tlu rate of 2.) to 35 miles per hour. v the eld method the mine ears were iaded from a chute which ran directly t to 1h'- faes of the "breast," at a -Weh of from 43 to 90 degree?. From here they were conveyed through yvrnU ravgways by tcdms of mules to the main rargwa ya where bi"vrcr teams picked then up and carried them to 'the bottom of the slope. Ilerf they were hoisted to the rf ace in a self-dumping car.' Taking all this into confederation, he air locomotive is the solution of the problem and will reduce the cost of mining to a minimum. Philadelphia Times. |