Applications to mining work

A. M. MacCutcheon: I should like to ask the committee if they can give us any more detail on the progress in getting apparatus approved with an unqualified approval of the Bureau of Mines. As I understand it, they give limited approval to certain types of apparatus. I have not yet learned that they give unqualified approval of types for use in gaseous mines. In talking to the people of the Bureau of Mines at Pittsburgh about two years ago, my conception was that they are approving apparatus because it is the best there is, but it is not thoroughly satisfactory. They said that if they used tests that they would be satisfied with, there was nothing on the market that would stand them. They said, “We are not giving unqualified approval. When we get the right kind of apparatus, we will give unqualified approval.” I was wondering if apparatus now gets unqualified approval.