Means to Prevent Coal Dust Explosions
It has been conservatively estimated that two-thirds of the fatal and serious accidents at the bituminous coal mines in this country could be prevented by the universal adoption of safety methods already in use in some of the mines in this and other countries. One of these devices is the spreading of rock dust thickly enough to cause an incipient coal dust explosion to die out rather than to travel through the mine atmosphere. During 1924 only one company in America practiced rock dusting on any large scale, but at present no less than 211 mines are rock dusting. This however, represents only about four per cent of the total number of bituminous mines in this country.
The American Engineering Standards Committee has just approved as “Recommended American Practice,” a safety code for rock dusting of coal mines, developed under the sponsorship of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.
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