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O. S. GARRETSON, Buffalo, N. Y.: If I may judge from the half-tone illustration engraved from a photograph of this medal and accompanying Dr. Prazer's paper, I do not think the cast ing is exceptionally fine. I have often made castings of simi lar character which I think were equally good. For instance, I have taken a coin, moulded it directly in fine sand, and cast from it in Scotch (or the equally good, if not better, Ameri can Scotch ") foundry-iron a copy quite as sharp and smooth as the original. The secret is in using very fine sifted sand. In fact, I have used for this purpose the dust which had accumulated on the beams overhead in my foundry, riddling it with a very fine sieve before using it. ['NOTE BY THE SECRETARY.—After the session at which these remarks were made by him, Mr. Garretson cast at his Buffalo foundry, in the presence of a number of members of the Institute, copies of the bronze pin furnished to visiting members by the Local Committee of the Buffalo meeting. The accom panying illustration, Fig. I, has been reproduced from a photograph of such a casting, made in green sand, under the conditions of ordinary foundry-practice, and not subsequently polished in any .way. I can also certify that the photo graphic negative was not touched, to improve its clearness of definition, before the production of the " half-tone" plate from which Fig. 1 has been printed. As, in the case of the Kytchtym medal, it was the thin, ribbon-like sprue, rather than the low-relief features of the medal itself, which indicated the fluidity of the metal and the sharpness of the casting, so in this work of Mr. Garretson it is the long and slender pin which offers the strongest evidence of these qualities. It is scarcely neccssary to point out that the filling in the mould of a long and nar row opening, such as this pin presents, is the severest test that could be imposed upon the casting, and that the sharpness of the point of the pin in the casting is striking evidence of the success with which this test has been met. The Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory .has made for the American Manufacturer measurements of this casting and an analysis of the sprue. The thickness of the main casting is from 0.049 to 0.068 inch. That of the tag bearing the stamped number is 0.024 inch. The analysis, which represents the iron ordinarily employed by Mr. Garretson for thin castings, is as follows :

Jan 1, 1899

By Stewart Coleman, Thomas W. Moore, H. D. Wilde

It is recognized that in the early days of the petroleum industry oil was produced with practically no scientific or fundamental knowledge of the laws and principles governing its extraction from the ground. Only a few, if any, of those exploiting the oil resources made any effort to collect accurate scientific information. There was little need for it, for as is frequently the case where the supply of a natural resource appears inexhaustible and is greater than the demand, large profits were possible from merely skimming the surface with little regard to the efficiency or thoroughness with which the oil was obtained. With this policy in force, great quantities of gas were wasted and when the reservoirs ceased producing by natural means they still contained a large fraetion of the oil originally in them. The present tendency in the industry is toward conserving existing oil reserves. In order that greater percentages of the oil present in the ground may be recovered, efforts are being made to improve production methods and to rework depleted fields. If the production methods are to be improved intelligently it is essential that the fundamental laws be known and understood, consequently large amounts of money and effort are being spent in gathering data that will serve to define and interpret these laws. A great deal of attention is being focussed on the study of the motion of oil through an oil-bearing sand, the forces that cause it to move and the factors that affect its motion. It is recognized that one of the important factors is pressure, but its quantitative effect is not known. In a given field the rate of production declines with time and so does the rock pressure. Furthermore, a comparison of different fields shows, as a

Jan 1, 1930

By Leon Banks

THE- Missouri-Kansas Zinc Corpn., operating in the Waco district, 15 miles northwest of Joplin, Mo., owns large tailing piles made during milling operations of the years 1918-28 by the Butte-Kansas, Acme, and Barnsdall mining companies, whose holdings have been purchased and consolidated under, the ownership of the Missouri-Kansas Zinc Corpn. These tailings had been considered too low in value to be worth retreating by the ordinary methods. C. Erb Wuensch, consulting engineer of the Missouri-Kansas Zinc Corpn., noted the difference in the type of tailing from upper-level and lower-level ore. The latter contained hard lime chats. He also found that mill losses had been due to particles of blende on the corners or sides of the chats and to the existence of soft, porous, cellular, lime chats containing varying amounts of blende. He conceived the idea that a quick grind in rolls or ball mills might change the type of the material so that jigging could make a clean tailing for discard and a partly concentrated product sufficient in blende content to justify the expense of fine grinding in ball mills to free the mineral entirely. A laboratory was equipped with the necessary machines and the writers were assigned the problem of developing a method of retreating the tailings.

Jan 1, 1929

By E. J. Wasp, T. C. Aude, F. B. Raymer

Abstract-The following paper deals with technical aspects of terminal facilities for western coal pipelines. The information is taken from the Ohio and Black Mesa pipelines and the proposed one in Wyoming. This paper first discusses the feed terminal, the product that it must produce, and the reasons for coal cleaning. Then, in the delivery terminal section, the various methods of dewatering the coal and some recent innovative ideas on bunkering the dewatered product and storing the dewatered coal in large outdoor piles are discussed.

Jan 2, 1978

By James Aston

INDICATIVE of the practical importance of the achievement of James Aston , recipient of the Robert W. Hunt Medal for 1930, is the following prosaic item from the financial columns of a recent issue of a New York newspaper. "According to private advices from Pittsburgh, production costs of the A. M. Byers Co. for 1929 were reduced about $5 a ton by the use of the Aston process for making wrought iron pipe. A greater saving is anticipated for 1930, when more of the company?s requirements will be produced by the new method."

Jan 1, 1930

By C. F. Hardy, D. R. Mitchell

Bolts held up roofs as mining machines went on to set new records, but rising labor costs still plagued operators.

Jan 2, 1951

By Benjamin N. Webber

THE peninsula of Nicoya contains virtually all of the known manganese deposits of Costa Rica. These are south and west of the Tempisque River, which flows across the peninsula near its juncture with the mainland. This peninsula forms the westernmost part of the province of Guanacaste, which is the northern of the two Pacific Coast provinces of Costa Rica. The larger villages are connected by ox-cart roads and trails. The area may be covered on horseback without difficulty except during the rainy season, when rivers are in flood and difficult to ford. This is particularly true of the Rio Seco-Guayjiniquil area, where there are no inhabitants and few open trails through the tropical jungle. Santa Cruz and Sardinal are served by the Taca Airlines, two planes a week from San Jose and Puntarenas. The port of Puntarenas has excellent loading facilities but none are available nearer the manganese districts; there ore must be lightered to vessels standing offshore. PHYSIOGRAPHY In Costa Rica there are three physiographic divisions: (I) the central plateau (Mesa Central), a somewhat dissected lava platform upon which are superimposed volcanic peaks, some of which are still active: (2) the Atlantic low-lands and (3) the Pacific lowlands. The peninsula of Nicoya and the larger part of the province of Guanacaste lie within the Pacific low lands. The term "lowland" indicates relation to the central plateau, as the peninsula of Nicoya is largely mountainous. The mountains of Nicoya form the southern extremity of a range of low hills, which are almost continuous along the Costa Rican coast to the Nicaraguan border. The coast line shows evidence of subsidence. The Gulf of Nicoya obviously is the drowned valley of the Tempisque River. The west coast of Nicoya shows many rocks, shoals, bays, inlets and small islands as evidence of a sea encroachment. The altitude of the manganese deposits ranges from o to 800 ft. Topography is of the mature type of wide valleys and low hills, often with abrupt slopes. The climate is tropical and humid; rainfall of 125 in. falls largely between Sept. I and Jan. I. Vegetation often is very dense, the Rio Seco-Guayjiniquil area being truly tropical jungle, containing many hardwoods. HISTORY AND PRODUCTION The production of manganese ore in Costa Rica apparently dates from the first World War. It reached a peak of about 10,000 tons in the year 1919, then declined rapidly. Evidence of this period of prospecting has rotted away or been swallowed by the jungle. The war now in progress apparently revived the interest in Costa Rican manganese and has encouraged further prospecting. Deposits long known have been redenounced and trails have been cut through the jungle to them. Many new deposits have been discovered in the last

Jan 1, 1942

By W. R. Ingalls

WHEN I was a boy, political economy was taught in the old fashioned New England high school that I attended. I still possess my text-book, an abridgment of one of the old classics, and, I referred to it a few days ago. It began with the definition that "political economy is the science which investigates the' nature of wealth, and the laws which govern its production, exchange and distribution." That definition of 50 years ago strikes me still as being a good one. In college I sat under Francis A. Walker, the greatest of American economists. I still have his old text-book, which begins with substantially the same definition as Fawcett, but adds that "political economy has to do with no other subject, whatever, than wealth." As so developed economics was a dry study which captivated but few. It was characterized as the dismal science. It seemed to lead nowhither. . This was perhaps due to the inadequacy of the data available to economists. Consequently, their discussions and deduc-tions were founded largely on conjecture and assump-tions. Naturally this resulted in differences in the formulation of doctrines. There were controversies respecting the nature and influences of money, over the derivation of wages, over the principles of laissez faire (letting things take their own course) over the Malthusian doctrine, and so forth. Amid all this there was one great fundamental law universally recognized, namely the law of supply and demand, which ranks with the law of gravitation and the law of the conservation of energy among the great fundamen-tal laws of nature. The law of supply and demand is the one thing in economics upon which we may fix our eyes as upon the lode star. In the course of time we have fallen out of agreement with Walker's doctrine that political economy has to do with no other subject than wealth. Although it is indeed the science of the production and distribution of wealth we can see that many things pertain to that subject and that economics links hands closely with engineering, biology, and psychology. It is probably the recognition of this that caused the study and exposi-tion of economics to acquire such a strong sociological

Jan 6, 1923

By H. R. Brannon, J. S. Osoba

The introduction of the scintillation counter into field use for gamma-ray well logging has provided a new tool with special utility for the deternzination of natural radioactivity of sediments. Previous subsurface gamma-ray measurements have indicated only the total amount of radioactivity of the sediments. With the scintillation counter, the relative amounts of the elements which emit gamma radiation can be determined. Sediments logged included 35 zones in wells located in the Teras Gulf Coast, East Texas, and West Teras. Although the data obtained from measurements made to date are not sufficient to evaluate the possibilities of spectral logging, it appears likely that spectral measurements will yield information of geologic value. INTRODUCTION Although variations in the natural radioactivity of sediments were recognized as early as 1909,1 the appli- cation of such variations to borehole logging was not made until almost 30 years later. A group of Russian workers in the early 1930's were successful in making crude measurements of natural gamma activity in an oil well borehole. The first practical gamma-ray logging system was developed by Howell and Frosch2 in 1939. Induced radioactivity, or neutron, logging appeared soon after the introduction of gamma-ray logging. After early work had demonstrated the potentialities of radioactivity logging, development of sensitive and stable logging equipment for field use followed, so that neutron and natural gamma logs are now run routinely and have proved to be extremely valuable in characterizing subsurface formations. Even though tremendous strides have been made in developing radioactivity logging, it is apparent that the ultimate in the method of logging has not been reached, for, until very recently1 in none of the commercially available logging systems has advantage been taken of the fact that gamma radiation is composed of a spectrum of rays, each ray having a distinct and characteristic energy. An individual gamma ray originates in a single element and has energy determined by the element. The inten- sity of radiation, or number of rays emitted from unit volume in unit time, is determined by the concentration of the element. If it were possible to sort out these gamma rays and assign them to their parent elements, thereby essentially analyzing for the elements, a wealth of new information descriptive of formation material and fluid content would be at hand. For example, if in natural gamma logging, the gammas due to potassium and to the thorium and uranium series were measured individually, data would thus be available on the concentrations of each of the three elements, adding materially to the information content of the log. In contrast, conventional gamma logs measure only a quantity proportional to the combined concentrations of uranium, thorium, and potassium. The naturally radioactive elements occur in sediments in concentrations dependent on source material of the sediment, and through their chemical characteristics, on conditions of deposition,' so that the individual concentrations may be diagnostic for particular formations. These concentrations, particularly if measured in situ, could lead to a powerful tool for correlation and for reflecting environmental conditions under which sedimentation took place. As a correlation tool, individual uranium, thorium, and potassium measurements

Jan 1, 1957

By Paul M. Tyler

YEAR after year, the kaolin industry of the United States has been setting new production records and making better products. High-grade paper, pottery, and rubber clays are produced in this country mostly in the South. Georgia alone contributes over 70 pct and South Carolina almost 20 pct of the total domestic output. Residual kaolin is mined in North Carolina, highly plastic but naturally sandy Tertiary (Eocene) potting clays are worked in north central Florida, and good white clays are produced in several other states, but the main sources of kaolin or china clay have been numerous deposits in the Tuscaloosa (Upper Cretaceous) formation. This formation of generally sandy sediments is called the Middendorf member in older geologic reports and corresponds in age with some of the New Jersey clays. As shown in fig. 1, it crops out almost continuously in a generally southwesterly direction across South Carolina and Georgia and into Alabama. Clay is mined from this formation in all three states but the principal producing centers lie within about 10 miles of a straight line drawn between Aiken, S. C., and a point about 10 miles south of Macon, Ga. The white kaolins of the South were recognized and used prior to the Civil War but suitable treatment processes were not introduced until World War I when imports, chiefly from England, were curtailed. Although imports of high-grade clays were resumed after 1918, the domestic industry managed to treble its prewar production record during the early 1920's and has continued to grow. Whereas the 1909 to 1913 average total production in the United States was only 132,104 short tons valued at $705,352 f.o.b. mines, the output in 1948 was 1,568,848 tons worth $19,756,738.

Jan 6, 1950

By John A. Hansuld

Molybdenum presents a series of baffling geo- chemical puzzles. It can exist in six different valence states, possessing three different coordination numbers. As a result, it combines with other elements to form a wide variety of negatively and positively charged ions and complexes whose exact chemical nature are relatively unknown. Its rather complex chemistry might be described as "ambidextrous, bi-sexual and polygamous". It is little wonder then that the geochemistry of molybdenum is relatively unknown, and compared to most common metals its geochemical behavior is somewhat unique. The behavior of a particular element or metal, such as molybdenum, in a given dispersion media is largely controlled by the stability relations among its various oxidation products. Recognition of these products and an understanding of their stability relations is therefore a prerequisite to a proper understanding of its observed behavior. Because most secondary dispersion media represent aqueous chemical systems, stability relations are best expressed as functions of Eh and pH.

Jan 12, 1966

By S. Y. Ogawa

The effects of sulfur (up to 0.1 pet) on the deformation and fracture characteristics of iron, in cast form, were studied at strain rates up to 100 pct pcr sec and at temperatures of 1600o to -3300 oF. The effects of oxygen and manganese additions on the behavior of Fe-S alloys were studied under comparable test conditions. Brittle fracture characteristics, evident at all strain rates, resulted from the presence of the liquid iron sulfide phase at grain boundaries. Ductility could be restored in three ways: solution of the sulfide in solid y iron at higher temperatures, spheroid-zzation of the liquid sulfide, and increase. in the melting point ot the sulfide. THE literature shows that most previous studies of deformation and fracture at hot working temperatures have been based on measurements of energy absorption, reduction of height in forging upset tests, torsion tests of bar or wire samples, and so forth,' but that relatively few tension tests have been used at high temperatures and strain rates. The present work was initiated to study the ef- fects of temperature, strain rate, composition, and structure on the deformation and fracture characteristics of iron, utilizing cast specimens tested in tension. As in a previous study,' strain rates up to 100 pct per sec were chosen for the temperature range 1600° to 2400° to provide data which might be useful in the interpretation of the deformation and fracture behavior of steels under hot working conditions. The previous work was with Fe-P solid solution al10ys;2 this work is concerned with Fe-S alloys, and with the effects of oxygen and manganese additions. MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE Cast tes! specimens were employed throughout, since most of the difficulty during hot working occurs in the initial breakdown of the ingot. Alloy Systems. Ten 25 lb. heats containing sulphur were prepared. Of these, three had manganese additions, and two had oxygen additions. The sulfur content varied from 0.023 to 0.10 pct. Manganese contents were intended to be ten to twenty times the sulfur content of the particular alloy. Oxygen, being more difficult to control in small melts, was varied by the amount of solid deoxidizer added, but poor control of the oxygen content was experienced in most instances. Table I shows the chemical analyses of the heats. Melting and Casting. Electrolytic-iron chips were melted by high frequency induction in a prefired, clay-graphite crucible lined with rammed magnesite.

Jan 1, 1962

By B. Heide, A. Bergrnann

The Meggen mine and the concentrator plant of the Sachtleben Bergbau GmbH are located in the southern part of the Ruhr district of the Federal Republic of Germany. The mine has been in operation for more than 100 years, but the concentrator described in this paper was started up in January 1963. The Meggen orebody is of sedimentary origin and occurs in a zone of limestones, graywacke and shales of Devonian age. The average thickness of the deposit is 3 meters and due to an intense folding of the area, the mineralized zone dips steeply at 80º towards the north.

Jan 6, 1973

By W. T. Thom

Interest naturally attaches to fissuring and subsidence of the earth's surface, whatever the cause may be, and the induced movement and fissuring of the impervious strata overlying an oil sand is of even greater practical importance because of its bearing upon the recoverability of the portion of the oil not already extracted or extractable by ordinary production methods. It is probably true that significant ground movement induced by oil production occurs only in oil fields in relatively young formations, where the oil comes from incoherent or only slightly cemented sands and oil-soaked clays, but inasmuch as a great proportion of our "gusher" wells produce from "running" sands and yield a large part of the total oil output, it seems worth while to make an effort to inspire the collection and recording of data indicating the nature and magnitude of oil-field subsidence, both surface and subsurface. Goose Creek Field The single known instance in which the nature and magnitude of the surface subsidence incident to petroleum withdrawal has been accurately ascertained is that in the Goose Creek oil field of Texas, described by Pratt and Johnson.' There subsidence caused the submergence of a considerable area within the oil field, and, because the title to the naturally submerged lands of Texas rests in the State, it became necessary to determine whether the submergence was due to natural or artificial causes. A detailed study revealed that the sunken area conformed very closely to the limits of the productive oil field and that the cumulative depression over an eight-year period ranged from zero at the margin to 3.25 ft. at the center. This depression was accompanied by the development of local marginal surface fractures along which the subsiding ares

Jan 1, 1927

By C. F. Dietz

WHEN thinking of industrial relations, we must not confine the term to what is ordinarily called "welfare work;" viz., organizing baseball teams, departmental parties, athletic contests, and such things. These are all of interest but not very helpful in solving the problems of industry. We must think of industrial relations as that understanding developed between workers and management that permits of harmonious progress because of a mutual understanding of each other's problems. Most of the industrial unrest, discontent, mistrust, or antagonism is due to misunderstanding; and that misunderstanding is the direct result of not having taken the workers into our confidence. If they are merely cogs in a machine, employed to do certain things, and have no interest in anything but the receipt of the pay envelope, we cannot expect intelligent harmonious progress. There are still some people who think that the interests of management, or capital invested in a business, and the interests of the worker are diametrically opposed. That is an unfortunate belief; the interests are identical. If the worker does not understand what his part of the work represents, what the management's part represents, and what the invested capital's part represents, he is bound to have a misconception, of the matter and will think only in terms of the pay envelope. The methods used for producing a better understanding between workers and management do not much matter so long as the end is attained. Some plants prefer shop committees; others attempt to work through the foremen in the various departments; others, by personal contact-between the management and the men, especially if a shop is small. It does not really matter how the end is attained as long as the object is accomplished. The best type of industrial relations can probably be attained when the mystery is taken out of industry-when the workers understand what they. are a part of, what their function is, what they are contributing. They should also understand something of fundamental economics-that it is not just a question of getting all they can and giving just as little as possible but that their contribution makes for expansion, progress, and permanence, and opens a field of activity for themselves that other-wise would probably be blocked.

Jan 6, 1925

By Rossiter W. Raymond

THE most important event in the history of mining in the United States was the discovery of gold in California, which led to the rapid development, not only of a new industry, but of a new empire. The settlement of the Pacific slope was making but slow progress under the inducements of a scanty commerce in furs and hides. The liberal grants offered by the government to agricultural pioneers in Oregon had attracted to the Willamette valley and other favored points in that territory a limited population; but the government of the Mexicans in California was positively unfavorable to enterprise. It is true that gold was known to exist in the country. Rumors of it were current among the trappers, and placers had actually been worked in what is now Los Angeles County ; but the padres of the neighboring mission of San Fernando had discouraged the business as demoralizing to their flocks ; and the existence of the precious metal was not widely known; still less was its distribution north¬ward suspected. The discovery of gold, January 19th, 1848, at Sutter's saw-mill, on the south fork of the American River, afterward famous as Coloma, in Eldorado County, was the beginning of the new epoch. This discovery was made by James Wilson Marshall, a partner in the mill, who observed in the debris washed down by the tail-race a glittering fragment of a mineral unknown to him. Suspecting it to be gold, he sought for further specimens, and obtained, in the course of a few days, several ounces of it. Tests subsequently

Jan 1, 1875

By Robert McClurkin

Over a long period of time considerable attention has been paid to the chemical properties of the materials entering the iron blast-furnace charge. Infinite care has been used in the selection of materials having the correct chemical composition. Little attention has been paid to the physical properties of either the ore, coke or limestone. Until comparatively recent times the coke as produced, as well as the ore, was charged into the furnace without any attempt to maintain uniformity in physical size. Recently some work has been done along the lines of sizing of coke and in some cases the sizing of ore has been applied. In each instance marked results in the efficiency of operation have been attained. The effect of changing the physical size of the materials entering the burden has been reflected directly in the coke consumption. From the experience of operators and the results of numerous investigations which have been conducted on blast-furnace materials, it may be stated definitely that the physical properties of the materials entering the charge have as much bearing on the efficiency of the process as the chemical properties of these materials. Structure of Sinter On the Continent and more recently in this country iron-ore sinter has been introduced in blast-furnace burdens. The effect of the use of sinter has resulted in a material reduction in the coke consumption and an increase in the capacity of the furnace. The effect of the use of sinter is due undoubtedly to its porosity and to its physical size and, incidentally, to the chemical condition of the iron in the sinter and to the absence of combined water. Compared with Mesabi ores, all sinters are generally larger in size than the ore particles, and the structure of the sinter differs considerably from the structure of the ore. In sinter the mass is porous and open and makes available a great deal of surface for gas contact during the process of reduction. Most ores are relatively dense and nonporous and when the particle size is large the time element required for reduction is materially increased. The result of a very thorough investigation on iron-ore sinter by Schwartzll has shown that sinter is completely cellular in structure and

Jan 1, 1932

By AIME AIME

The XCVIIth meeting of the Institute for the reading and discussion of papers will be held at Spokane, Wash., beginning Monday, Sept. 27, 1909, as already announced in Special Circulars of May 8 and Aug. 14, 1909, and in the Bulletins for June, July, and August. The meeting will be preceded by a tour through Yellow stone Park and visits to Butte and Anaconda, and will be followed by visits to the Coeur d'Alene district, to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle, to the mining- and smelting-plants near Salt Lake, and to the iron- and lead- and zinc-plants at Pueblo. The special train for the party' will leave Chicago, September 16, and return about October 12. Details of the itinerary are given later in this announcement. The Secretary of the Spokane Local Committee is Lyndon K. Armstrong, 615 Hyde Block, Spokane, Wash., to whom should be addressed all inquiries concerning local matters. The control of the papers and proceedings will remain in charge of the Institute office, as usual. It is greatly to be desired, both in behalf of the Institute and in recognition of the many courtesies to be extended on the trip, that the excursion party be made larger. Exceptional facilities to visit the many mines and smelters have been freely provided; and members are requested to make all reasonable effort to attend the meeting at Spokane and participate in the excursions. For those who cannot join in the entire trip, it may be possible to provide special Pullman accommodations after leaving Yellowstone Park. In order to make the necessary arrangement, however, the names of members and guests contemplating this partial trip should be sent at once to Theodore Dwight, 29 West 39th Street, New York City. The general cost of the trip per member will be $300, which includes transportation, berth, and meals for the entire trip from

Sep 1, 1909

By Robert Stefanko

Roof bolting in coal mines has progressed very rapidly in the last decade, and today this method of support is in general use. There are many theories concerning the functions of roof bolts, but the importance of beam building is indisputable. Proper tension in the bolts minimizes shearing along bedding planes and creates a thick, competent beam from individually weak layers. Bolting must be accomplished immediately upon exposure of the roof, and bolt tension must be maintained if roof failure is to be prevented. Seams are being mined today with roof bolt support where conventional timbering was not effective1. The widespread use of continuous mining equipment was made possible by roof bolts which permit long supported spans free of obstructions.2 Since adequate anchorage is the key to successful bolting, better methods for determining the efficiency of anchorage are continually being sought. Attempts have been made to measure bolt loads, thus assessing anchorage efficiency by employing sensing devices between the bolt head and roof. 3,4,5 None of the techniques appears to be very accurate, and all have at least one serious deficiency.

Jan 5, 1962

By C. A. Hartnagel

During- the past 10 years the annual production of petroleum in New York has averaged close to 5,000,000 bbl., the total for the period being 49,881,000 bbl. In 6 of the 10 years, the production was slightly in excess of the 5,000,000 mark. The 1944 production of 4,697,000 bbl. represents a 7 per cent decline from the previous year. Of the total 1944 output, the Allegany County district, which includes two small areas of Steuben County, contributcd 3,614,065 bbl., a decline of 5 per cent from 1943, and the contribution of Cattaraugus County, which represents the northern extension of the Bradford pool of Pennsylvania into New York was 1,082,935 bbl., a decline of more than 14 per cent. Since March 1942, the posted price of New York crude oil has remained at $3.00 per bbl. On lug. I, 1944, a Federal subsidy of 75¢ per bbl. was granted to oil producers, thus making the price actually $3.75 per bbl. Since all of the oil produced in New York comes under the designation "stripper well operations," it is entitled to the Federal subsidy. During the last few years there has been little change in the number of wells drilled annually. In the Allegany field, which accounts for three fourths of the oil produced in the state, 1240 wells, including water-intake wells, were drilled during 1944 as compared with 1223 in 1943. There was no marked increase in the number of wells drilled after granting the subsidy of 75¢ per bbl. of oil on Aug. I, the increase being but 14 wells during the last half of the year over the preceding six months. In flooding operations it is not to be expected that even a substantial increase in the price of crude oil will be reflected quickly in an increase of the number of wells drilled or in a marked increase in production of crude oil. In flooded areas, oil is obtained through a program extending over a number of years. This program involves the drilling of the water or input pressure wells, drilling of the oil wells, building up the oil flood to maximum production, and finally the watering out of the well when the amount of oil produced in proportion to the water becomes so small that pumping is no longer profitable. The various operations may extend over a period of 10 years or more, during which time the price of crude may have fluctuated greatly. Although the rate of production can be controlled to a limited extent, it is evident that a flood when once begun must be continued regardless of the price of crude. During the past seven years New York crude has had a price range from $1.68 per bbl. in 1938 to the present price of $3.75 per barrel The field pattern now in general use for wells in a flood project is the "five-spot." Under this arrangement, the lease is divided into squares with a water well at each corner and an oil well in the center. In the all-over pattern of the lease each oil well is acted upon by four water wells and each water well supplies part of the pressure to four oil wells. Spacing between the input water wells and the oil wells usually varies from zoo to 225 ft. or, on an acre basis, there is one oil well and one water well for each 2 1/2 acres. In recent years there has been a tendency to increase

Jan 1, 1945