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Jan 1, 1968

By Arthur Mackwell

The role of the precious metals is changing rapidly. They are becoming primarily materials of modern industry, and their decorative and monetary functions are diminishing in relative importance. Certainly gold is still the premier metal for jewelry, as silver is for silverware. But these uses are not growing nearly so fast as are the uses of these metals in a variety of industries. This is even more true of the platinum metals. Moreover, this is true despite the fact that the precious metals are highly expensive and liable to substitution by the base metals in cases where this is feasible. For the fact is that the physical and chemical properties of the precious metals make them relatively invulnerable to substitution; where they can be replaced by the base metals, they have been, and the opportunity for further substitution is, therefore, limited. SILVER In November 1969 the United States Treasury stopped minting the only remaining coin with any silver content. That was the silver-clad Kennedy half dollar, which had a silver content of approximately 40%. The step was taken out of necessity, because of the rising shortfall between world mine production and consumption. It was important to divert the 35 to 40 million oz of silver per year used for the minting of this coin into the open market, where it would be available for industrial consumption. This decision was important, not only for its practical effect but also for what it symbolized. Only four years earlier, in 1965, the Treasury had used 320 million oz of silver" for the full range of coinage. Now not an ounce of silver goes into the United States coinage. The reason is simple and yet complicated. For many years the U.S. Treasury had purchased silver at prices which provided a subsidy to domestic producers. As a result, silver producers were eager to sell to the Treasury, and that agency built up a huge supply of the metal -almost 2 billion oz by- 1961. But, as the free-market price neared $1.29, the basic melt value of the coinage, the Treasury became a seller of silver, not a buyer, and its stock was depleted rapidly. The Treasury lost more :than a billion ounces of silver in the years 1962 through 1965, and it continued to lose silver, both through coinage and through sales to consumers, through 1969. The Government continued to sell silver to consumers at the rate of 1.5 million oz a week, even after terminating the 40% silver Kennedy half dollar. But it was apparent that the Government stocks could last no more

Jan 1, 1976

By Robert S. Williams

NO new ferrous alloys have been produced in the last five or six years that are as outstanding contributions to civilization as were the high-speed steels of the early part of the century or the stainless steels announced at the close of the World War. There have been, however, many developments of major importance having to do either with modifications of existing alloys or with new methods of treatment of older iron or steel alloys. Only a limited number of these new developments can be discussed and their selection does not necessarily imply that these are the most important but merely that they are of general interest rather than perhaps of greater importance in highly specialized fields.

Jan 1, 1939

By AIME AIME

WITH the example of the steel open-hearth men and their round table conference before the copper men, the query naturally arose "Why cannot we do likewise?" The advantage of pooling and comparing knowledge on smelting in the copper reverberatory furnace seems particularly pertinent at this time when all metallurgical economies possible must be rigorously enforced. A great deal of data had also been obtained and filed during the period of litigation over the Carson patent, and it would naturally be available with the cessation of further suits. With these ideas in mind, H. Foster Bain took up the advisability of holding such a conference directly with the heads of all the companies in the United States operating copper reverberatories, and found a nearly unanimous response. The mining companies appointed representatives directly, or indicated to the heads of various metallurgical operations what members of their staffs should be sent to such a conference.

Jan 1, 1930

By Leo Ranney

ANY years ago a prospector came to a Nevada town and built himself a shack. Day after day he searched the hills for gold -but he found none. He closed his shack and hurried north, where a strike had been made. Next he tried to trap the flour gold that floats down the Snake River. He panned the black sands along the Oregon coast. He ranged over the mountains and up the gulches of far-off Alaska. At last, broken in health, six years ago he came back to his old home in Nevada. There his shack still stood-nobody wanted it. One day he started a garden in the rocky soil that he owned. His spade turned up a chunk of quartz, and in that quartz were stringers of gold. He had found a rich gold vein, running right under his own house. You gas producers who have hurried to Oklahoma, Louisiana, East Texas, South Texas, West Texas, even to California to drill wildcat holes a mile or two miles deep-why not, like the old gold prospector, have a look in your own back yard? Some of your coal seams contain 20,000,000 cu. ft. of natural gas per acre.

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

Annual net production of crude oil from the Anglo-Iranian, Oil Company's fields in Iran for the years 1940 through 1945 amounted to: YEAR TOTAL PRODUCTION (Long Tons) 1940 8,626,639 1941 6,605,320 1942 9,399,231 1943 9,705,769 1944 13,274,243 1945 16,835,000 (preliminary figure) All developed fields were on almost continuous production throughout the war, though their operation naturally was hampered by war conditions, which affected particularly supplies of equipment.

Jan 1, 1946

By Louis Moyd

In the preparation of illustrations to accompany reports of investigations concerning particle shapes of various natural and manufactured materials proposed for use as fine aggretates in concrete structures, it was found that stereoscopic views of such materials presented the information much more effectively than the usual two-dimensional photographs. With the whole-hearted cooperation of the Photographic Section, a technique was developed in the petrographic laboratory of the Concrete Research Division, U.S. Corps of Engineers, at Clinton, Miss., for simple and rapid preparation of paired stereoscopic photographs and micrographs. The method requires only equipment which is usually part of the general stock of any laboratory, and it is adaptable for all purposes in which three-dimensional views would be found superior to ordinary photographs.

Jan 1, 1949

By Earl E. Hunner

At the end of the year 1914, the main North Star incline shaft had reached the 6300-ft. level, and encountered a vein dipping southwest, or exactly opposite to the North Star. Subsequent development failed to find the North Star vein continuing beyond this intersection, so the 6300-ft. level proved to be the bottom level of the North Star vein, and very little ore was found below the 5300-ft. level. The new vein was called No. 1 vein. Development work carried on for the next 10 years discovered a third vein, called No. 2, branching off about 1200-ft. to the east, with a north-south strike and a west dip. No. 1 vein had about 900 ft. of backs above the 6300-ft. level before reaching the boundary line of the property, and No. 2 vein died out about 800 ft. above. During these 10 years, the money spent on development was increased from $54,000 in 1914 to $184,000 in 1924; the ore reserves steadily diminished until it was evident that the mine must close down unless by some means a large tonnage of ore could be developed quickly. Problems and Plans In order to understand what follows, the general layout and equipment of the mine as it was at this time must be briefly described. Fig. 6 indicates the relative positions of the shafts. The North Star (incline) shaft extends from the surface to the 6300-ft. level following the vein, with an average pitch of 26", between limits of 11" to 38. There is at present no hoisting equipment in this shaft between the 2700 and 4000-ft. levels. The Central (vertical) shaft connects with the North Star shaft at the 4000-ft. level, at a vertical depth of 1600 ft. In two compartments of this shaft 4-ton skips made a vertical turn of 15 ft. radius at the 4000-ft. level and ran down the incline to the 6300-ft. level. A cage operated in the third compartment to the 4000-ft. level. Men and supplies were transferred to a truck running on a third track down the incline shaft to the 6300, operated by an electric hoist on the 4000-ft. station. When the shifts changed double-deck cages were substituted for the skips in the vertical shaft, but they stopped at the 4000-ft. station. The truck to 6300 carried 22 men, and it required 8 min. to make a trip down and back. This arrangement was satisfactory as long as a fairly large proportion of the work was

Jan 1, 1930

By W. L. Saunders

(New Haven Meeting, February, 1909.) This paper deals specifically with heading-driving as distinguished from the broader term tunnel-driving. A heading is a pilot or path-finder for the main tunnel. Some headings are complete tunnels in themselves; that is, conditions at times warrant driving a heading the full diameter of the proposed tunnel. A tunnel 10 ft. in diameter might be driven to advantage through a single heading, provided the nature of the material admits, but it usually pays to drive rock tunnels of large diameter through the heading-and-bench system. Much de-pends upon the material, as in soft ground tunnels of much larger diameter are driven in a single heading. In mines, the tunnels, drifts, cross-cuts, adits, etc., are usually of small diameter, hence the driving of headings applies to completed tunnels in minim-work, except, of course, in cases like drainage-tunnels and main entries leading into coal-mines, where conditions call for tunnels of large diameter, approximating those driven for railway-service. In building aqueducts the tunnels are driven from 6 to 8 ft. in diameter up to 15 or 20 ft., while in railway-service the dimensions vary from 18 to 30 ft. in diameter. There is no department of rock-excavation so difficult as that of heading-driving. This work. also belongs to the most expensive class in rock-excavation. A heading is driven .directly in the solid. There are no lines of lesser resistance towards which to direct the energy of the blast, but. the material must be blown out by main force. The completion of the heading simplifies all the rest of the work of excavation. It is easy, for instance, to enlarge a heading either from above, below or oil the sides, by breaking towards the open face through holes approximately at right angles to the axis of the heading; or the enlargement sometimes takes place by holes driven outside

Apr 1, 1909

By JOHN A. FULTON

THE Comstock Lode is in Storey County, Nevada, and extends in a north and south direction through the towns of Virginia City and Gold Hill, with a total length of 4.27 miles. Its mines have produced silver and gold to a known value exceeding $400,- 000,000 since 1859, when the work first began. More than $126.000,000 was paid in dividends by the mining companies, although much more than this was probably realized from the ore, because many milling companies were independent companies owned by the directors and superintendents of the mines. The milling companies' contracts called for an extraction of only 65 per cent and, as much of the ore was worth $100 a ton and up- ward, they must have recovered substantial amounts for their own accounts over and above this guarantee. Gold was discovered in the spring of 1850 by a party of Normons bound for California. The discovery was made at the mouth of Gold canyon near Dayton, on the Carson River, about 10 miles south of Virginia City.

Jan 1, 1929

By G. Sachs, S. I. Liu

Introduction In a previous investigation on the effects of repeated strains of large magnitude on the aluminum alloy 24 ST, it was found that the reduction in ductility by straining in tension was partially restored by a subsequent compression.&apos; As illustrated by the dashed line in Fig I,$ the ductility (e~) retained after prestraining in tension by a certain amount (el) and measured in a subsequent tension test is represented by a straight line sloping down under 4s°. If a compression of the same magnitude as the first tension is inserted (€2 = — €1) between prestraining and final testing in tension, such a "balanced" tension-compression cycle yields a ductility considerably higher than that present after prestraining in tension only. The results of these tests can be correlated with those of an investigation on the effects of prestraining in compression.~ As also shown in Fig I, the ductility in subsequent tensile tests decreased with com- pression, at a rate considerably slower than that after prestraining in tension. The above discussed testing conditions can be considered as special cases of a general straining cycle, consisting of first, straining in tension by an amount el, subsequently straining in compression by an amount e2, and finally determining the retained &apos;ductility, e,, in a tensile test. Prestraining in tension is then represented by el > o and e2 = o. Prestraining in compression is given by e~ = o and e~ < o. Balanced cyclic straining is defined by the condition el > o and cz = — 61. In order to obtain further information on the effects of straining cycles consisting of tension and subsequent compression, further tests were made, varying both the tension strain, el, and the compression strain, e2, within extreme limits; el varied between 0.06 and 0.28 and e2 between — 0.008 and —0.h approximately. Apparently, such tests have not been previously performed. They revealed phenomena which have not been recognized to date, The results of the investigation are herewith reported, without attempting to correlate them with internal processes within the metal structure. However, in order to assist in an analysis of this type, the results have been represented in various manners. In addition, further test data on the effects of prestraining by compression were provided by using specimens of various contours (notched specimens) in the sub-

Jan 1, 1949

By Henderson, Robert

A GOOD idea of the magnitude of the underground operations at Climax can be gained from the following figures. A little more than 43,000,000 tons has been drawn from the mine and of this amount, 40,500,000 tons has been drawn in the past ten years and 12,000,000 tons was drawn in two of the war years. The maximum daily average output over a period of one month was slightly more than 20,000 tons but during this period, production on certain days was 24,000 tons, and 9000 tons was produced in a single eight-hour shift. This production came chiefly from 260 draw points although all of them were never in operation at one time. The haulage system for these draw points is made up of 7.5 miles of 36-in.-gauge track, and 131,000 ft. of subsidiary drifts and 44,000 ft. of raises have been driven to develop the necessary broken ore reserves for this high production. Power consumption is often considered an index of operating efficiency. In 1943, the year of maximum production, the mine power consumption was 19,223,000 kw.-hr. or 3 kw.-hr. per ton; in 1945 it was 3.5 kw.-hr. per ton. To handle this amount of power, there are four transformer stations and one switch station in the mine. Mr. Garrabrant, the chief electrician, describes the electrical installation in this issue.

Jan 1, 1946

By Wm. A. Haven

ON the northern part of the globe, almost since the earliest days of mankind&apos;s history. ironmaking has been practiced in one form or another. Some investigators question the generally accepted belief that copper and bronze were in earlier general use than iron, explaining the greater age and abundance of copper relics by their greater resistance to natural oxidation. However, the occurrence of copper in its natural state and its greater ease of reduction from the simpler copper minerals is a strong argument that the making and use of copper came first. Nevertheless, good evidence exists that ironmaking was practiced in ancient India and China, as well as in ancient European countries. Some interesting vestiges of those early operations still survive and have a place, in the background at least, of a discussion of modern blast-furnace practice.

Jan 1, 1940

By Albert E. Wiggin

PagE I. Early History of Boston & Montana Mill at Great Falls (1891 to 1905). 210 a. Original Mill Built in 1891.........210 b. Coarser Concentration Tried...211 c. Screen Sizing of Fine Jig Feed Introduced..211 d. Installation of Finer Grinding.......211 e. Steam Stamp Tried in Place of Blake Crushers..... 211 j. Mill Increased from Three to Six Sections........ 213 g. Tonnage Increased from 300 to 450 Tons per Section... 212 h. Round Tables Replaced by Wilfley Tables....212 I1. Hancock Jig Replaces Evans Jig...212 a. Description of Hancock Jig...213 - b. Tests Made on- Hancock Jig..213 1. Treating Natural Feed..215 2. Treating Sized Feed..215 3. Treating Classified Feed .215 c. Tests Made on Evans Jig...216 III. Richards Pulsator Classifier System...218 a. Experimental Work.....218 b. Installation of System in Section No. 4,....... 220 IV. Woodbury Classifier and Jig System.............222 V. The Great Falls System................ 222 a. As Installed at Anaconda............ 224 1. Coarse Crushing and Jigging Division...... 225 2. Hancock Jig Division........... 226 3. Fine Middling Division.......... 229 4. Table Division............. 230 5. Slime Division.........230 b. Special Features of Great ails Flow sheet....... 231 1. Development of Hancock Jig Flow Sheet..... 231 2. Development of Finishing Table Flow Sheet.... 232 3. Treatment of Coarse Middling Table Products .. 232 4. Results of Test Made on 500-Ton Section at Great Falls Mill...........234 VI. Comparison of Great Falls and Evans System at Anaconda.... 236

Jan 1, 1914

By AIME AIME

CERTAINLY in point of attendance, and doubtless in several other ways as well, the 147th meeting of the A.I.M.E. was the best ever held. In times of depression, mining engineers and metallurgists have plenty of time to come to the Annual Meeting but money is scarce; at the height of industrial activity they have plenty of money but no time. "The current period of transition seemed to provide ideal conditions for&apos; both the preparation of papers and attendance at their presentation. The weather made even the Californians present envious though the weather man gets no credit, for rain and snow was what he willed. Among the elevator men, the miners have the reputation of being the toughest crowd to handle, though the best natured, withal, of all the engineering groups that meet in the Engineering Societies Building. This year Your inquiring reporter was told, "it was the damnedest meeting I ever saw; they

Jan 1, 1937

By Williams, J. A.

THE Alaska Juneau mine has been developed through an adit driven at the elevation of the top of the mill and all mining is done above this main haulage level. As a result of wholesa1e"mining operations about 11,000 tons rock containing one dollar&apos; per ton in gold is, hauled to the. concentrator during every 24 hr. Due to the method of mining, whereby a system of oreways delivers-the.ore direct from the stope to the bottom level of the mine, no tramming of ore is done on any of the upper levels. However, ;in doing exploratory drifting and crosscutting on the upper levels, the broken material is trammed by hand in 1-ton 18-in. gage cars to a nearby raise connecting with one of the several oreways. This constitutes the only tramming operation except that on the main level.

Jan 1, 1931

By Maurice Magee

The Ducktown ore deposits have been known, explored, and mined for 120 years. Eight massive sulfide ore bodies occur in highly folded and metamorphosed graywacke, graywacke conglomerate, mica schist, chloritegarnet schist, and staurolite schist of Precambrian age. The ore deposits are tabular bodies that have been extensively folded, generally conform to the enclosing rocks, but show local complex differences. The ore deposits, ranging in size from 250,000 tons to over 20 million tons, are composed principally of the minerals pyrrhotite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, and magnetite. Gangue minerals are quartz, calcite, actinolite, tremolite, hornblende, garnet, and masses of schistose wall- rock. Three fault systems are present that have influenced ore control and ore body configuration. Hydrothermal effects are evident in wall-rock alteration. Evidence of retrograde metamorphism is extensive in the wall and ore associated rock. Preliminary isotopic age dates have indicated four possible metamorphic events during the Paleozoic Era. Ore genesis is considered to be hydrothermal replacement of receptive beds, predominantly highly calcareous zones, quartzitic zones, and brecciated shear zones. Ore deposition is thought to have occurred during the Devonian Period, with later mobilization and recrystallization of the ore and gangue during Middle and Late Paleozoic times.

Jan 1, 1968

By G. L. Smit

The Buffelsfontein Gold Mining Company is situated in the Klerksdorp district of the Province of the Transvaal in the Republic of South Africa, approximately 100 miles west of Johannesburg. Gold production commenced in January 1957 and Uranium treatment of residue slimes as a by-product started in July 1957. The mining property is 5435 mining claims in extent, the equivalent of 7988 acres or 12.5 sq miles. The mine was initially exploited by the Pioneer Twin Shaft System, consisting of a 26-ft diam down-cast shaft and a 22 ft-diam up-cast shaft, sunk in the north-west area of the mine to cater for the hoisting and ventilation requirements for a milling rate of 150,000 tons per month. To exploit the Eastern zone of the property and assist in increasing production to 200,000 tons milled per month, it was decided to sink a further Twin Shaft System consisting of a 28-ft diam downcast shaft and a ventilation up-cast shaft -22-ft in diam, both monolithic concrete lined — 200 ft apart and 5300 ft deep. This paper deals with the sinking and commissioning of these Eastern Twin Shafts. This was achieved by one sinking crew within a period of 20 months. A) PLANNING 1) Siting: The Eastern Shaft System was sited in the north-east area of the property, 12,000 ft east on strike from the Pioneer System. (Fig. 1). Initially the system was sunk to the 5300 ft elevation to conform with the original Pioneer Shaft System. On completion a sub-vertical main shaft will be sunk to the 8000 ft elevation in the immediate vicinity, and subsequently the surface ventilation shaft will be deepened to this elevation by raising from level to level and sliping to full size. The exact positions of the shafts were chosen after: a) underground development had located certain known water bearing zones, and b) geophysical and topographical surveys had been carried out. The shafts passed through the following geological succession: Surface to 4430 ft - Dolomites of the Transvaal System 4430 to 4470 ft - Quartzites and conglomerates of the Black Reef Series of the Transvaal System. 4470 to 4470 ft - Diabasic Lava of the Venters-dorp System (Ventersdorp Contact Reef at base). 4470 to 5250 ft - Quartzites of the Elsburg Series of the Upper Witwaters-rand System. The shafts were sited to ensure that the least possible water would be encountered during sinking, and this contributed to the rapid rate of sinking. 2) Duties: a) The 22-ft diam ventilation shaft was designed to up-cast 1,400,000 cfm of air (0.060 density) against a resistance of 22 in. water gauge. b) The main shaft was designed to handle 160,000 tons hoisted per month as well as the men, material and down-cast ventilation to serve this tonnage. The 284 diam main shaft is equipped with streamlined buntons spaced at 15 ft centers set in pockets which were left during sinking. There are six compartments, four of which are sewed by two dual purpose hoists, hoisting either, twedeck man cages or 13-ton bottom discharge skips. The other two compartments are served by a single purpose winder hoisting double deck cages accommodating 60 men per deck. (Fig. 2). 3) Timing: Permanent equipment was ordered well in advance to insure continuity in the operation. Development underground reached the shaft positions before the start of sinking operations. From this development, boreholes were drilled into shaft positions to drain off water in the vicinity of the shafts. To ensure complete co-ordination of effort, all relevant data, as well as the allocation of responsibility, were made known to all persons and departments concerned. 4) Models: The extensive use of scale models during the preliminary planning stages proved most useful in deciding on design such as buntons, bunton pockets and guide cleats, and complex layouts concerning loading, spillage and pumping arrangements. (Fig. 3). These models also proved invaluable in determining the walling routine. Normal working conditions could

Jan 1, 1964

By Stephen Krickovic

THERE is today no proven continuous mining machine that can be used under all the varying conditions found in most bituminous coal mines. During the last five years, however, both the machines and methods of using them have been improved. Coal operators can now exercise a fair degree of selectivity, except those who must struggle with thick and hard partings and operate in seams less than 40 in. thick. It must be realized, then, that more than one type of continuous miner may be used advantageously in the same coal mine. Although this appears to violate the standardization generally sought after, the gain can more than offset added maintenance and, to a lesser degree, operating problems.

Jan 12, 1957

By Ian Wark

IN an earlier paper1 measurements of contact angles due to the effect of xanthates on mineral surfaces were reported. The solutions in which these measurements were made differed widely from those of modern flotation circuits. It is intended, however, by introducing, one at a time, the other principal reagents of flotation, to approach gradually the solu-tion composition of flotation liquors. The work now described is an attempt to determine the effect of one of the most important of these reagents-namely, sodium cyanide-on the establishment of air-mineral contact. The work has been carried out for the following companies: Broken Hill South, North Broken Hill, Zinc Corporation, Electro-lytic Zinc of Australasia, Mount Lyell Mining and Railway, and Burma Corporation. Since the effect of cyanide is inseparably connected with the alkalinity, the results cited below deal with the mutual effects of alkalis and cyanide. Alkalis alone exert a significant effect on the air-mineral contact but comparatively large amounts are required. Since the addition of a small amount of cyanide greatly decreases the degree of alkalinity necessary for the suppression of contact at surfaces of any of the minerals experimented with (except galena) and since alkalis are rarely used alone in practice, little attention has been paid to cyanide-free solutions. It was shown in the previous paper that, excluding the dixanthogen effect, whenever contact was practicable at all in an ethyl xanthate solution the angle of contact was 60°. There is, therefore, less necessity to measure equilibrium contact angles; in fact, the experiments herein described have generally been conducted with a view to determining whether contact is possible and not to measuring the actual value of the contact angle. The separations which have generally to be effected in dealing with complex sulfide ores are: (1) galena from sphalerite, pyrite, etc.; (2) sphalerite from pyrite and/or gangue minerals; (3) copper minerals from pyrite and gangue minerals; (4) pyrite from gangue minerals; (5) chal-

Jan 1, 1933