IC 7556 Historical resume of mine and tunnel ventilation studies,-Bureau of Mines 1910-1949

"INTRODUCTION The subject of mine and tunnel ventilation has two broad aspects - (1) what atmospheric conditions to obtain in underground openings and (2) how to maintain the desired conditions efficiently. The first relates primarily to quantity requirements of ventilating systems, whereas the second relates more particularly to pressure requirements. Both, therefore, determine power requirements, which is the deciding factor in any system of mine or tunnel ventilation.Both divisions of the subject have received considerable attention from the Bureau of Mines since its inception in 1910 in the form of research, service, and correlation and dissemination of information. Numerous papers on various Phases of the subject have been published, of which a selected list, numbered and arranged in chronological order by type of publication, will be found at the end of this Paper. One of these, Technical Paper 705 (25) 2/ gives a complete bibliography of Bureau of Mines publications dealing with health and safety. As indicated by the selected list of publications accompanying this paper, the health and safety aspects have received most of the attention devoted to this work, chiefly because these have been dominant factors in Bureau policy, but partly because these aspects lend themselves to laboratory research and small-scale field studies. Although considerable attention has also been devoted to the engineering aspects of mine and tunnel ventilation, there has been, in the opinion of the author, who has been engaged on this phase almost continuously for the last 30 years, only sporadic recognition of the vital effect this phase of the work could have on improving health and safety conditions. As a matter of fact, ventilation activities have constituted but a very minor part of the total work of the Bureau of Mines, as, except for a few years in the nineteen twenties, there have been only a few short intervals when more than two or three men were engaged in field work and a similar number in laboratory research directly related to mine gases or mine air."