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Recently completed coal bunkering machine at Port Huron, Mich., near the International tunnel unker Coal Is Weighed at New Port Huron Station BY A. D. CARLTON on the seaboard as well as on the Great Lakes except in those instances where the ship is taking on eargo of coal has invariably been accomplished in a crude and primitive manner. The quality and weight has often been. somewhat uncertain even under the best conditions and with the sincere desire of all parties con- cerned to be fair. There has been in other words no check such as is by general consent and recognized custom observed in practically all transactions of modern business. It may be argued for the existing methods of bunkering that condi- tions imposed do not make it prac- ticable to employ exact methods. Ships do not find it convenient as a rule to go out of their way to a deep water coal terminal unless their trade takes them to a coal exporting port, as would apply for instance to ships making Hampton Roads or ships engaged to carry coal from Iake Erie ports to upper lake ports. On the Great Lakes, however, cir- Bos te sex coal burning ships cumstances surrounding bulk cargo movement would seem to permit of improving the customary methods of bunkering. The courses of ships in this trade takes them through. land locked and comparatively narrow waterways where without any ap- preciable deviation and little delay ships requiring bunkers could go alongside of a modern coal dumper conveniently situated on deep water along the shore. Acting on the belief that a mod- ern coal dumper for bunker coal so situated would fill a real demand and render an efficient service to shipping on the Great Lakes, the Port Huron Coal & Dock Co. recently perfected and erected a new modern machine for putting fuel aboard steamboats. This outfit is located at Port Huron, Mich., on the St. Clair river alongside the international tunnel, convenient to the main highway of commerce of the Great Lakes near the lower end of Lake Huron. By referring to the accompanying general illustration of the entire dock 20 it will be noted that the machine is placed on the upper end of the prop- erty. This was done so that boats fueling will not interfere with the self unloader boat unloading cargo at the lower end of the dock or, so that the boat unloading will not in- terfere with the boat fueling. The coal is brought from Lake Erie ports to this coaling station in self unloader boats and placed over a tunnel which runs the full length of the property. The coal is then con- veyed by a conveyor belt system with- in the tunnel to a hopper at the base of the skip hoist; thence by means of the skip buckets into the inclined bins shown in the illustration. There are two bins each with a capacity of about 3850 tons giving a storage capacity overhead of approximately 700 tons with a hoisting capacity of about 150 tons per hour. These bins rest on Fairbanks automatic scales so that every pound of coal which is sold for fuel purposes can be accurately weighed. All operations of the coal dumper