Search Documents

By Philip B. Bucky

WITH the exhaustion of the sections of iron ore bodies amenable to opencut mining the iron ore miners raise the question: "How can we mine the extensions of these ore bodies in depth with the same costs as obtained in opencut work?" This question brings to the fore the relationship between mineral exploration and research on mining procedures. The iron miners must either find new de? posits amenable to their known methods of mining or develop new mining methods for deep deposits. It is understood that the oil companies will spend $30,000,000 next year in the search for new oil fields. How much the metal mining companies will spend in the search for new ore bodies is unknown, but without doubt the amount will run into several millions of dollars. If the mining companies that concern themselves with metals, nonmetallics, and fuels will set aside a substantial sum for fundamental and applied research in mining methods, they can not only lower their costs but increase their reserves thereby. Any increases in mining efficiency automatically result in increased ore reserves at no cost.

Jan 1, 1947

By T. Koulomzine

The theory of the Askania magnetometer, as well as a complete discussion of all factors influencing magnetometer readings, is very ably described by J. Wallace Joyce. We will assume that the reader is thoroughly familiar with this theory and we will use whenever possible the same notations for the physical values involved in the theory. On the other hand, we believe that the principal formulas of the magnetometer can be deduced much more easily by the use of differential calculus than by the methods employed by Joyce. Consequently, we are presenting herewith a resume of the theory of the vertical magnetometer in order to determine the correct formula of the temperature coefficient which we propose to compensate.

Jan 1, 1949

By Richard W. Smith

Why are we losing our liberties? (1) . . . because our local chambers of commerce come to the National Chamber's annual meeting, vote for a policy on federal economy, and then go to Capitol Hill and ask for a federal project for their area. (2) ... because our mining men ask for a subsidy to mine submarginal deposits that can't be economically mined in a free economy. (3) . . . because 18,000 men and organizations all over the country recently wired or wrote a Congressional committee asking that the Army Engineers be exempt from the President's power to reorganize the Executive Branch of the government under the recommendations of the Hoover Commission.

Jan 1, 1949

By WILLARD HAYES

(Glen Summit Meeting, June, 1911.) THE determination of the question whether the Mayari and Moa mining-claims of the Spanish-American Iron Co. have been rightly denounced under the third section of the law of bases rests on the findings in the following questions of fact: 1. Is the mineral an iron-ore? 2. Is the iron-ore a bog iron-ore? 3. Is the iron-ore ocher? 4. If ocher is present, can it be mined separately and independently of the iron-ore ? 1. IS THE MINERAL AN IRON-ORE? Since the material is shown by a large number of analyses to contain from 41. to 50 per cent. of metallic iron and less than 0.02 per cent. of phosphorus, and since it has been and is being actually used on a commercial scale for the production of iron and steel, it must be classed as an iron-ore. 2. IS THE IRON-ORE A BOG IRON-ORE? Bog iron-ore has certain invariable characteristics of chemical composition, physical appearance, geological relations, and origin by which it can always be recognized with certainty. In chemical composition, it is the hydrated sesquioxide of iron, limonite, or a mixture of limonite and other closely-related iron hydrates. It never contains the anhydrous oxides-hematite or magnetite; is never magnetic, and never contains either nickel, chromium, or cobalt oxides. On the other hand, it is invariably high in phosphorus-content. In physical appearance and texture it is a yellow or reddish-brown amorphous spongy material, and always contains water-worn sand-grains, silt, clay, and plant-remains. In its geological relations it is wholly independent of the rock

Mar 1, 1911

By W. D. BRENNAN

AS a rule the thoughts of engineers are more often directed toward the mechanical and physical conditions of mining practice than they are toward the disposition and the marketing of the product. This, I think, has been true of the coal industry to the present time not only among the engineering force but also generally true of operators. There has been a tendency to place the sales department in a rather secondary position; for a great many years there was a greater demand for coal than the supply would meet, so it was only necessary to increase production: either by expansion of operating mines, or opening new mines of greater capacity. While the production of coal is still a highly important phase of the industry, its enormous development throughout the country, the great advance in fuel, efficiency and economy, and the discovery of new reserves of competitive fuels have combined to create a buyers' market and force the present-day attention upon merchandising in modern ways. A buyers' market has a natural tendency to develop the keenest competition, frequently unscrupulous and nearly always profit-wrecking. Under such conditions bad practices are bound to grow and to extend until the industry is wrecked, or until wiser heads get together to reduce or eliminate unfair methods of competition. This is not so recent a condition as one might believe.

Jan 1, 1931

By AIME AIME

A PAPER recently presented before the Anthracite Section of the A. I. M. E. by S. J. Phil- lips, Mine Inspector, Fifth Anthracite District, Department of Mines of Pennsylvania, covering the water hazards in the anthracite coal mines of the Lackawanna River Valley, was especially timely because the conditions there are duplicated to a large extent in the Wyoming Valley, which is traversed by the Susquehanna River with its many large tributary streams. Also, in the southern anthracite field, where there are a number of large creeks, similar pumping problems and mine water hazards will in time be presented if mining is continued to its conclusion.

Jan 1, 1936

By George S. Rice

MANY studies on ground movement and subsidence have been carried on by members of the Institute during the past year, but only a few papers have reached maturity. Two of the mining schools of this country have continued their interest in ground movement research. At Columbia University School of Mines, Philip Bucky has continued his investigations, employing photoelastic methods and the use of his centrifugal apparatus for testing what he termed "the strength and behavior of mining structures." Helmut Landsberg, of The Pennsylvania State College, has developed a convergence recorder similar in principle to that used by the

Jan 1, 1936

By John V. Beall

GOING west from Denver on Route 6, the direct road to Grand Junction, one gets the first glimpse of mining a few miles east of Denver near Idaho Springs where the workings of defunct gold mines are visible on the sides of mountains along the highway. One enterprising company is turning a profit by showing tourists through the mine and mill and then selling them gold samples on the way out. We have always known that mining people are ingenious, but this proves it. About five and a half hours fast driving west from Denver brings one to Rifle, Colo., which is the site of the oil shale mine, retorting plant, and refinery of the U. S. Bureau of Mines. As you drive up to the mine, you can see a portal high on the face of the cliff in front of you where the mine surface plant literally hangs by its toenails. Below, the retorting plant and refinery gleam in the sunlight. Up at the mine, Fred Wright will show you how the oil shale is extracted in two benches (a third bench would be used for commercial mining) by the room-and-pillar method. In mining the top level, an underground crew of thirteen men have been able to produce 1500 tons of shale in each eight-hour shift. To do this, the mine is thoroughly mechanized. The mining method is de- scribed in the September issue of Mining Engineering.

Jan 1, 1949

By A. E. Wells, H. O. Hofman, R. P. Reynolds

A Discussion of the Paper of H. O. Hofman, R. P. Reynolds and A. E. Wells, read by title at the London Meeting, July, 1906 ; presented at the New York Meeting, April, 1907, and printed in Bi-Monthly Bulletin, No. 13, January, 1907, pp. 37 to 52. GEORGE A. PACKARD, Boston, Mass. (communication to the Secretary*) :-The very interesting results obtained by Prof. Hofman and his assistants came to my attention when I had temporarily assumed charge of the metallurgical department of the Missouri School of Mines, and had found it, pending the completion of a new building, lacking a furnace in which to roast ore preparatory to the customary lead blast-furnace run. An attempt at lime-roasting had been already determined upon, but the use of a charge which would make a slag of definite composition was a new idea. The results following were obtained by Messrs. Aubrey Fellows, J. C. Long, E. R. Wash, and Dr. T. C. Tseung, under my supervision. It is regretted that the data are not more complete; but the work was done simply incidentally to securing the desired ore for the blast-furnace, with no idea of obtaining any results of especial interest. It is submitted because of the metallic lead obtained, no notice of which has been seen elsewhere. The ore was an aggregate of several lots of concentrates, apparently from Missouri ores. The analysis follows, with that of the limestone and sandstone used, as far as made:. Ore, SiO2, 3.04; Fe, 0.77; CaO, 2.53; Pb, 68.74; Zn, 5.77; S, 13.9 per cent.; limestone, SiO2, 1.0 ; CaO, 54.35 per cent.; sandstone, SiO2, 99.8 per cent. The converter was made in the shops from a sheet of No. 14 iron riveted in the shape of a truncated cone, 20 in. in diameter at the top, 15 in. at the bottom and 22 in. high. A grate of No. 8 iron, 17 in. in diameter, with 130 s-in. holes placed at about 1.25-in. centers, was held in place by the shape of the

Jul 1, 1907

By Charles H. White

METHODS in colorimetry are based on the assumption that the intensity of the color of a definite volume of solution is directly proportional to the quantity of the color-producing substance' present. In the preparation and examination of colored solutions there are three ways in which the depth of color may be varied. These variables are; (1) the quantity of the coloring matter, (2) the quantity of the solvent, or the dilution, and (3) the thickness or depth of that portion of the solution examined. With these three variables as a basis, three general methods in colorimetry have been devised, all of which have been used in the determination of carbon in steel. In the first method, the quantity of the solution is kept the same for both the unknown steel and the standard, and the sections compared are of equal thickness, while the quantity of the standard is varied until the color obtained is of the same intensity as that produced by a definite quantity of the unknown steel. In laboratories where this method is used there is pre¬pared and kept for permanent use a series of solutions with varying amounts of the standard, representing the percentages of carbon from the lowest to the highest demanded in that laboratory. These standard solutions are kept in bottles, or test-tubes of equal diameter, and are arranged in series from the faintest to the most intense color, so that it is a simple matter to find the place of the unknown steel in the series, when the solution is of a definite volume and is contained in a tube of the same diameter as the standard tubes. In the second method, equal quantities of the standard and of the unknown steel are dissolved, the standard is diluted to a definite volume, and the solution of the unknown steel is di-

Sep 1, 1906

E. Hill, South Norwalk, Conn. (communication to the Secretary*) :—The phenomenon described by Dr. Ledoux, involving an apparently abnormal high temperature in the air-cylinders of compressors, has not been, so far as I know, discussed in technical literature. The common formula for the adiabatic compression of dry air does not account for heat suficient to flash ordinarily decent cylinder-oils, nor do the text-books include in their theoretical statements any quantitative consideration of the effect of leaks in the ideal machines which they contemplate. This lack I have endeavored to supply by preparing, in the form of a circular, for the use of the customers and correspondents of the Norwalk Iron-Works, a brief mathematical

Jan 1, 1904

Henry Louis, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England (communication to the Secretary): I think very highly of the novel and ingenious device of Prof. Richards for analyzing the movement of the various elements of the jig; it is a method that certainly seems to promise valuable results, if we could only make certain that these various indicator-appliances have no effect upon the action of the jig. I would like, however, to suggest that in future experiments the connection between the plunger indicator-rod and the pencil should be made by means of parallel motions, so as better to reproduce the rectilinear motion of the piston. I should expect, if this were done, that the " curve " of the plunger in the Harz jig, at any rate, would be represented either by straight lines or else by quite regular curves, according to the method by which the plunger is set in motion; the apparent combinatioil of straight line and curve seems difficult to explain. With respect to the water-curve, I am afraid I am completely at fault, but no doubt Prof. Richards can explain my difficulty. In Fig. 2, the areas of the screen-side and the plunger-side of the jig are equal. If the piston be a fair fit and the bottom of

Jan 1, 1897

Allan Gibb, Mount Perry, Queensland, Australia (communication to the Secretary):—In drawing conclusions from his observations, Mr. Van Liew has apparently overlooked the reduction in weight that takes place in the content of the converter. The percentage-compositions of the matte, etc., are not directly comparable for determining the rate of elimination of the impurities; and, in the absence of exact weights (which in such an operation could not be obtained), it is necessary to determine the relation between the impurities and the copper with which they are combined at various stages, in order to get data that are comparable. Owing to a portion of the copper being removed in the slag, etc., the weight of copper in the converter is not a fixed quantity, but.it is sufficiently approximate to permit very reasonable comparison. The analytical data given by Mr. Van Liew, reduced to this basis (a ratio between the impurities and the copper with which they are combined), are shown in the table on page 958. From this table it will be evident that Mr. Van Liea's conclusions as to the source of heat at digerent stages are not quite correct. During the first 10 minutes, no iron is scorified, the heat being derived from the oxidation of the sulphur, of which 7 per cent. of the total is removed in this time. Prom

Jan 1, 1904

By F. G. Miller, E. B. Wilson

In 1972, coal mine productivity was in steady decline and labor and maintenance costs were spiralling upward. Yet, despite this sad state of affairs, nowhere in the US at that time was there a comprehensive and coordinated coal research and development plan in the offing. The Bureau of Mines had not yet been charged with such a responsibility, and industry was content to rely on machinery manufacturers for innovations. It was during this period that Bethlehem Steel Corp. determined that a new approach to coal mining research was needed for the industry as well as for the company itself. After studying Bethlehem's own mining practices, the state-of-the-art of mining research elsewhere, and development work by manufacturers, a comprehensive research package was presented to company management in late 1972. The ideas and experience of many operating and management personnel in the company contributed to the formulation of the final plan as approved.

Jan 10, 1976

By Carroll Forbes

INTRODUCTION MANY different shapes of drill bits are in use with hammer drills, but little definite information is available whereby to judge which one of these shapes is the best. The following investigation was undertaken in order to determine what effect, if any, the shape of the cutting edge has on the cutting speed and wearing qualities of drill bits. The bits tested were those in common use, namely, the 4-point or cross bit, the 6-point bit, the Z bit and the "Carr" bit. The rock in which the tests were made was the red granite from southeast Missouri. It is a coarse crystalline granite containing an unusually large amount of quartz and is extremely hard, and on account of its uniform texture is admirably adapted to this work. While tests in other rocks might show somewhat different results, nevertheless it is the opinion of the authors that the relative cutting quality inherent in the shape of the bits would be the same in all rocks. Other qualities, such as mudding freely, freedom from fitchering, etc., might make one bit more desirable than another in softer rocks. DESCRIPTION OF BITS TESTED The 4-point bits were the usual shaped bits commonly made on the Leyner sharpener with 14° taper on the wings and a 90° angle between cutting edges. Some tests were run at 85 lb. pressure with a 4-point bit made with a 5° taper on the wings. This was made by using the Carr bit die. The 6-point bits were the usual shaped hits made on, the Leyner sharpener. The Carr bits were made with a 5° taper and an angle of 100° between cutting edges.

Jan 8, 1917

Large deposits of manganiferous iron ores, representing several million tons of metallic manganese, occur in the United States. The Minnesota deposits of such ore are of outstanding importance because of their size, state of development, ease of mining and proximity to the Great Lakes, which permits water transportation to steel centers. In view of the fact that our steel industry requires large quantities of manganese, for which no satisfactory substitute has been found, and because our reserves of ferro-grade ore are comparatively small, the development of methods that will make our large deposits of manganiferous iron ores available as a source of ferromanganese is an important problem. Realizing the importance of this problem, some years ago the North Central Station of the U. S. Bureau of Mines and the Minnesota School of Mines Experiment Station undertook jointly the development of methods for recovering the .manganese content of manganiferous iron ores in a form suitable for the production of ferromanganese, the 80 per cent. alloy indispensable in producing steel. Two types of manganiferous iron ores have been described in previous reports.' The brown ores are higher in iron and lower in manganese than the black ores; the black ores are more siliceous but contain less phosphorus. The utilization of the iron content of the brown ores in the production of steel appears to furnish the best basis for their treatment. The method of attack has been to work out modifications in iron and steel practice so as to recover manganese in the form of slag comparable to ferro-grade ores. The greater part of the experimental work has been conducted with a 6-ton blast furnace and a 1/2-ton basic open hearth. This paper is devoted mainly to open-hearth tests in which high-phosphorus spiegel

Jan 1, 1930

By W. R. Ingalls

Jan 1, 1922

By William P. Shinn

IT seems proper to present in the Transactions of the Institute, from time to time, formal record of the advances made in the arts and sciences to which our organization is devoted-milestones in the highway of progress-from which our successors may measure what they in their turn have gained. The admirable address of the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, then president elect of the Institute, on "A Century of Mining and Metallurgy in the United States," read at the opening of the meeting held in this hall in June, 1876, forms a point of departure, and the conclusion of the eighth decade of the nineteenth century and the end of the first five years of our country's second century seem to offer a fitting time for again making up our record. The period since 1875 has been marked by a degree of activity in mining and metallurgical industry never before equalled in our history, while the progress made in the science and art has been, if possible, still more noticeable. Whether we consider the mining of iron, ore, and coal, or of the precious metals,-the advances made in smelting the former and in reducing the latter, the extraordinary increase in the production of Bessemer steel, or the science of Thomas and. Gilchrist, which makes the hitherto rejected phosphorus the corner-stone of success,-the past five years are alike memorable for the progress they have shown and to some of the most marked features of this progress I will now oriefly call your attention. It may be of interest in this connection to note the following figures, showing the growth of the population of the United-States during the last three decades :

Jan 1, 1881

By A. H. Smallbone, R. Lathe

Considerable efforts have been expended to apply multiple regression techniques to quantitative determinations in x-ray fluorescence analysis. Multiple regression has been shown to be an effective method for correlating x-ray fluorescence intensities to elemental concentrations. Although many other techniques have been devised to solve the problem of matrix effects in x-ray fluorescence analysis, there are few as efficient in terms of storage requirement or ease of programming for digital computers as the multiple regression method. In the case of ore slurry, it has the additional advantage of allowing a unified approach to the problems of slurry density correction and matrix effect corrections. The data used in the present work were obtained with an on-stream x-ray analyzer capable of analyzing 15 slurry streams for as many as nine elements simultaneously. One of its fixed monochromators was set to accept scattered radiation at a discretely selected wavelength as a means of monitoring the slurry's pulp density. The data were reduced to obtain the correlation equations and a computer program combining slurry density with matrix corrections was written in FORTRAN IV to calculate concentrations.

Jan 8, 1969

By Sadtler, C. B.

IT is generally assumed that in most metals and alloys a given tensile stress produces a given deformation irrespective of the length of time during which the stress is applied. This assumption is justified in most of the important engineering applications of metallic materials; however, in the case of some metals and alloys used or tested at temperatures over or slightly under that at which recrystallization can occur the assumption is not warranted.1 This paper deals with the variations of deformation produced by a constant tensile stress acting for varied lengths of time in the special case of thin aluminum alloy sheet of the duralumin type, which had been subjected to different thermal and mechanical treatments. The material investigated was in the form of a sheet approximately 0.002 in. thick, which had been cold-rolled from a thickness of 0.020 in. It has been found that at a sufficiently high constant tension such material deforms continuously with the elapse of time and that the rate at which this deformation occurs is greatly influenced by the previous thermal and mechanical treatments.

Jan 1, 1927