Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - Patent Applications by George Taylor, of Penarth, 1883 . . .

In shipping coal from a shoot, the coal first shipped at each hatchway is frequently lowered in skips or boxes to form a conical heap for the remainder of the coal to fall on, the consequence of which is that the large lumps roll down the heap to different parts of the hold and are thereby broken to a great extent whilst the small coal falls into the interstices between the lumps of the heap, and thus collects to a great extent in one place instead of being uniformly distributed throughout the cargo. By avoiding this local excess of small coal and preventing the breakage, the condition and marketable value of the whole cargo would be improved.

This Invention has for its object to reduce the cost and difficulty of conveying the coal from the staith to the hatchway, of lowering it into the hold, and of trimming the cargo or distributing it in the various parts of the hold and to avoid or reduce the breakage of the coal in these various operations, and the Invention comprises the employment of machinery for carrying out these operations.

The Invention relates first to apparatus for conveying the coal from the staith to the hatchway in a horizontal or slightly inclined direction whereby to avoid the necessity of raising the waggons to a great height in the staith.

This apparatus consists preferably of a conveyor composed of a series of carrying plates or platforms working in outgoing and return guides or ways extending between the staith and the hatchway, these plates being adapted to be pushed pulled or otherwise traversed along their guides in the form of a train or series, this motion being produced by power or the force of gravity, and the plates being adapted to pass from the outgoing to the return ways on arriving at the point of discharge.

The Invention relates 2ndly, to apparatus for lowering the coal. This apparatus comprises platforms arranged in series at short distances above one another in vertical guides within a tube or shaft extending through and beneath the hatchway, and of lowering mechanism whereby these platforms are supported at the proper intervals and are lowered within their guides. The lowering mechanism may consist of endless chains, and the power derived from the weight of the coal may be used for actuating the apparatus for conveying the coal from the staith to the vessel and also the distributing apparatus hereafter described.