David Johnston

David Johnston, Engineer, 12, York Street.—

    Few men in the engineering business in the capital of the Clyde are better or more favourably known than Mr. David Johnston, who has been established at the above address for over fifteen years. No branch of mechanical engineering is more important in a mining centre than that devoted to the production of requisites and appliances calculated to simplify and render safe underground operations.

    In effecting these necessary and desirable objects no appliance plays a more effective part than the pumps, whether it be to clear the working of the colliery of water or to maintain a constant supply of pure air, that most essential requisite of all underground operations. The construction of water pumps for colliery and other purposes is the great speciality in which Mr. Johnston, has made a repute that is by no means confined to his own country. He has introduced many novelties and improvements in this line, and some of the latter are of great value.

    His horizontal engines and pumps for dook working in collieries and mines are admitted by all who have tested them to be nothing short of perfect. He has also invented and introduced on an extensive scale an hydraulic pump for use in mines and on public works. For pumping the lower level of mines his arrangement of this pump is the ne plus ultra of engineering skill. No foundation, setting, or oiling, or attention is required. The pressure to work it can be taken from the rising-column or from the surface, when the difference of pressure water is great. Every gallon of it will raise from two to ten out of the lower workings, or by catching a growth of water from a high elevation the pump may be worked for nothing.

    At the present moment three pumps erected at Stanrigg, Airdrie, and Southfield, Slamaman, for Messrs. Black & Sons, and Lord Belhaven’s trustees, are working in this way and giving entire satisfaction. Numerous testimonials from owners and managers of collieries and public works bear convincing evidence to the absolute efficiency and perfection of Mr. Johnston’s productions in this branch of mechanical engineering. Contractors, proprietors, and others having pumping of any description to do cannot consult their own interest better than by visiting Mr. Johnston’s establishment and seeing for themselves what is in its line the acme of inventive genius and skill — a pump that under very common conditions performs its work absolutely free of cost. The benefit conferred by the use of such a production, and its general utility, together with its reasonable cost, cannot be too widely known among employers of labour and others for whose use it is intended, for it is certain that in mining and contracting operations where pumping is necessary, its general adoption would not only afford underground workers an additional guarantee of safety but greatly economise the entire outlay of the work in hand.

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