Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/207

Rh they have added coke-making, fire brick and common brick manufacturing, also lime-burning from Hawke’s Bay stone, conveyed in their vessels as ballast.

A short description of the work will be interesting, and this I am enabled to give from data furnished me by Messrs Kennedy Brothers. Immediately on crossing the Suspension Bridge at the Grey Gorge, we are on the Brunner Lease. Mr J. Bishop is the resident manager and engineer at the mine, under whose direction and management the entire works have been placed and have been carried on during the past two years. In viewing the machinery on the surface, there is first seen a 20 h.-p. engine, constructed by Messrs Kincaid, M‘Queen, & Co., of Dunedin, which is used for hauling coal from the dip workings, by means of a 2½-in. steel wire rope over a large drum. Six skips, of 15 cwt. each, are hauled up each time, and the drum is reversed when lowering the empties. The road is on an incline of 1 in 6, and is about 20 chains in length. Close to the engine-house is another engine of 7 h.-p., which works an elevator for lifting the slack or small coal to a height of about 50 ft., where it passes over a screen, the largest of which is technically called “nuts,” and passes into a large bin, capable of holding 200 tons, which is completely covered in. At this elevation the railway hoppers are placed under it, and the doors and traps, of which there are several, are drawn back by means of a lever, and a truck of six tons is filled in a minute. The fine slack separated from the nuts passes down the bin through a trunkway, and is taken away for coke-making. Steam is supplied to these engines by means of two large tubular boilers, by Clayton and Shuttleworth, set beside each other and close to the main engine. These boilers also supply steam to a 16 h.-p. engine, used for crushing the fire-clay at the fire-brick works, which will be referred to later on, and also to three Pulsometer pumps and one Tangye, which are at various levels in the dip workings, and by which means this, the only part of the mine which is not free level, is kept pumped. Mr Bishop says, for shallow workings these Pulsometers give more satisfaction than any pumps he knows of, the Tangye being used for the furthest part of the dip workings.

It is rather curious to stand on the platform or tipping bank, and watch the amount of coal arriving from various quarters with the greatest regularity, and no confusion of any kind whatever. For, in addition to the dip workings, there is also what is called the rise workings, and which are worked “level free.” The coal from this part of the mine used to be lowered by means of drums and wire ropes placed inside of the mine and at the top of the bank. As the works got far back several of these drums had to be erected, thus increasing the cost very largely. This Mr Bishop has superseded by applying an endless rope extending the whole way to the farthest part of the rise workings, so that it only requires one man at the top of the bank to hang on any quantity of coal up to 500 tons in 8 hours. The banksmen who attend tipping the coal over the screens on the surface take the coal off as it arrives. This endless rope travels very slowly, the motion being hardly perceptible. The trucks standing about 40 yds. apart on the rope give ample time for removal and hanging on the empties. Mr Bishop is satisfied this is the cheapest system that could be applied to that part of the mine workings, as the