Mr. T. Forster Brown, in his address to the Mechanical Science Section
of the British Association, said that great progress had been made in
mechanical science since the British Association met in the
principality of Wales eleven years ago; and some of the results of
that progress were exemplified in our locomotives, and marine
engineering, and in such works as the Severn Tunnel, the Forth and Tay
Bridges, and the Manchester Ship Canal, which was now in progress of
construction. In mining, the progress had been slow, and it was a
remarkable fact that, with the exception of pumping, the machinery in
use in connection with mining operations in Great Britain had not, in
regard to economy, advanced so rapidly as had been the case in our
manufactures and marine. This was probably due, in metalliferous
mining, to the uncertain nature of the mineral deposits not affording
any adequate security to adventurers that the increased cost of
adopting improved appliances would be reimbursed; while in coal
mining, the cheapness of fuel, the large proportion which manual labor
bore to the total cost of producing coal, and the necessity for
producing large outputs with the simplest appliances, explained the
reluctance with which high pressure steam compound engines, and other
modes embracing the most modern and approved types of economizing
power had been adopted. Metalliferous mining, with the exception of
the working of iron ore, was not in a prosperous condition; but in
special localities, where the deposits of minerals were rich and
profitable, progress had been made within a recent period by the
adoption of more economical and efficient machinery, of which the
speaker quoted a number of examples. Reference was also made to the
rapid strides made in the use of electricity as a motive power, and to
the mechanical ventilation of mines by exhaustion of the air.