Mining Engineers In Sheffield

Visits To Cadeby Main Colliery

The members of the Chesterfield and Midland Counties Institute of Engineers, and of the Midland Institute of Mining, Civil, and Mechanical Engineers, met for business at the Royal Victoria Hotel, Sheffield, on Saturday. Previously they had visited the Cadeby Main Collieries of the Denaby Main Coal Company, and the Rotherham Main Colliery of John Brown and Co., Limited.

Cadeby Main

Cadeby Main was visited by about forty gentlemen, for whose convenience every arrangement had been made by Mr. W. H. Chambers, the manager. Great interest was shown in the pit to this colliery, for the reason that the sinking had been a task of the greatest difficulty, the quantity of water to be dealt with having been enormous, and the pumping arrangements having been of a character which, though well known, had not previously been utilised to any great extent in such a work. There was no foundation to enable large pumps to be put down; no one pump could have been erected to have dealt with the quantity of water, and pulsometers suspended in the shafts were accordingly used. The water-bearing strata extended to a great depth, and the difficulties were such that it has been said the sinking in some parts cost as much as £100 per inch of progress made. As is known in our columns, a fault in the Barnsley bed, ten feet thick, was met at the colliery a few weeks ago, at a depth of 751 yards. Preparations for the permanent working of the colliery are now being made.

The visitors saw at the downcast shaft the huge winding engines—45-inch cylinders, seven feet stroke, the drum not yet in place; the pulleys 18 feet diameter, 10 inches by 8 inches bearings; temporary winding engine for sinking, &c.; the upcast shaft, fan and capstan engines; the electric dynamo, driven by the fan engine; the set of nine boilers, each 30 feet by 7 feet 6 inches; the permanent head-gear, of steel, its legs two feet square; height, 109 feet, towering high above the pit bank, which is itself 25 feet from the surface, &c.; and inspected the well-fitted mechanics’ shop. Everything that could be of interest to mining engineers was shown them; the method of sinking which has been described in these columns and in the papers of the institutes was explained, and the steps taken to combat the many difficulties that were met with described.