1898 - Coalmininghistorypa.org

72 REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF MINES. Off. Doc.Colliery Improvements for 1898.Lehigh Valley Coal Company.At the Prospect Colliery a new breaker has been erected onan entirely new site. The breaker is estimated to have a capacityof between 2,500 and 3,000 tons per ten hours. It is equipped withall of the latest improvements and is constructed in a thoroughlysubstantial manner. The main posts of the breaker are all cast ironcolumns which stand on concrete foundations and run to the levelof the platform and support all of the heavy machinery of the breaker.Jigs were put in the breaker for handling doubtful and wet coal.The coal is screened over shaking screens driven by eccentrics andconstructed somewhat after the pattern adopted by the Philadelphiaand Reading Coal and Iron Company. The principal feature of thisbreaker is the arrangement for cleaning coal in large sizes which willbi- thoroughly done before it reaches the rolls, and it is proposed todo no further work in the matter of picking slate after the coalpasses through the prepared rolls. No arrangements have been putin for picking the slate below the main screens, as it is proposed todo all this work thoroughly on the platform. The coal is carried tothe breaker by two lines of conveyors, the flights of which are 10x54inches; one line takes the coal from the Midvale Hillman slope andthe other from the Prospect shaft over which a new steel tower hasbeen erected and an iron self dumping cage put in and the carriagesdump the coal directly into the conveyors. The coal from the Midvaleslope is hoisted by two pairs of engines which have been put indischarged by the ordinary tail gate dump into thethis year, and isconveyors. A new brick boiler house has been built, and the Babcockand Wilcox pattern of boilers placed therein with a horsepower capacity of 1,750. This boiler house is thoroughly modern andup to date in every respect. The forced draft is produced by twoSturdevant blowing fans and the gasses, after leaving the boilers,I>ass through an economizer of the "American Fuel Economizer"pattern, which extracts the heat remaining in the gasses after passingthe boilers. The air is drawn throngh this economizer by aninduction fan of the Sturdevant type. This boiler plant takes theplace of 46 old style cylinder boilers which were distributed inseven diflerent boiler houses which have now been abandoned. Thesteam is carried from the new boiler house to the various enginesof the colliery.Arrangements have been made to sink the Prospect shaft from theP.altimore vein to the Ked Ash, and work is now in progress on thisshaft.In the Oakwood shaft of this company a slope has been sunk in theRed Ash vein to a point on a level with the foot of the Prospect