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By AIME AIME

THE first meeting" of the Iron and Steel Division was held Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 17, with nearly 100 men present and C. B. Murray as chairman. This was a round table discussion of iron ore beneficiation and of its relation to blast-furnace operations, and only one paper was presented, by Clyde E. Williams. Mr. Williams discussed the future of the Lake Superior district in its relation to the iron and steel industry. He stated that although estimates had shown that the total life of the present known iron ore reserves of the Lake Superior district was 20 to 30 years and that many believed that as a result of this depletion foreign ores would be brought to the Atlantic Seaboard, thus causing a displacement of the steel industry to the East, he believed that the Lake Superior district would continue to be the important producer of iron ore used in this country for decades beyond the predicted time before the exhaustion of the present known reserves. He described the three general types of ores that required concentration and pointed out the needs for research and the proper methods to be used in processes for the beneficiation of these low-grade materials. He discussed the effects of fine concentrates and the use of agglomerated ores in the blast furnace. This general summary led to interesting and valuable discussion on the various economic, ore-dressing, and blast-furnace problems in large-scale development of beneficiation. Perry Harrison described recent developments in sintering and the properties of iron ore sinter. T. B. Counselman and W. H. Coghill discussed the merits of classification of iron ore previous to tabling. Robert Faulkner and J. E. Little described the beneficiation plant of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

Jan 1, 1931

By Goro Shimaoka, Kichizo Niwa

IN the past, the crystalline states of graphite in cast iron have been studied by many investigators. Recently several authors 1-4 have published interesting information on the crystal texture of the individual graphite grain, especially spherulites in nodular cast iron. In regard to the crystal structure of graphite, Lipson and Stokes0 howed by powder X-ray analysis that most of the crystals contain about 14 pct rhombohedra1 structure (ß-form) which differs from the hexagonal structure (a-form) in the sequence of layer stacking. Hoerni6 onfirmed the existence of the ß-form in a single crystal with electron diffraction by Kossel-Moellenstedt's method. Furthermore, Hoerni and Weigle7 found extra reflections in electron diffraction patterns, which are given by a unit cell twice as large as the usual one in the basal plane. Recently, Lukeshs observed graphite twinning and satellite reflections in his X-ray work and considered them as evidence for the existence of an orthorhombic superstructure. Owen and Street" and Matuyama" studied the structures of graphite crystals in several types of cast iron, using the X-ray powder method, and they showed that the graphite crystal contains a certain amount of the ß-form, an amount which varies with the sources of the cast iron used. The present study was made in order to secure structural information on graphitization in cast iron. Electron diffraction studies on the structure of single graphite flakes segregated from molten carbon or silicon-rich iron at 1200" to 1500°C are reported. Experimental Honkeiko pig iron (4.05 pct C, 1.59 pct Si, and 0.65 pct Mn) was used as the solvent of carbon or silicon. The pig iron was melted in an open furnace and a small quantity of metallic silicon was added to the melt at 1300°C. The melt was heated to 150O°C, and then retort black carbon or metallic silicon was added little by little. The components added to the bath contained approximately 5.0 pct C and 2.0 pct Si in the carbon-rich material, and 3.8 pct C and 5.4 pct Si in the silicon-rich iron. These two types were held at 1500°C and then cooled without graphitizing by cutting the heat sup-

Jan 1, 1958

By J. C. Motz

Introduction The variations in crushing plant design seen during the past 30 years provide a valuable source of information and experience from which one can select the optimum arrangement for a specific requirement. The purpose of this paper is to examine some specific equipment configurations as they relate to operating efficiency, plant availability and final product size in the form of mill feed. Due to the varied ore properties, physical space limitations, size of ore body and financial resources, there is no single crushing or grinding flowsheet that is best. Since energy costs have risen dramatically during the recent past, it became obvious that significant savings are possible by selecting equipment and a circuit which offers low power requirements balanced with low wear metal and installed equipment costs. Relatively clear and measurable are the metal and maintenance costs and the ever increasing cost of energy. Metal costs in the form of crusher liners have not quite doubled in the last 20 years, while power costs have increased by a factor of four or five, depending on the region considered. Estimates made only a few years ago on the increased cost of energy are obsolete in view of the recent unstable conditions. Since power is therefore becoming the largest cost area, it behooves us to investigate potential cost saving methods in the form of lowering the KWH/Ton of crude. Crushing To reduce run-of-mine to mill feed requires reduction in a series of stages. The physical size and power requirements of a crusher capable of reducing hard rock vary depending on the application. Extended experience in most crushing plants show that a minus 19MM (3/4 in.) rod mill feed can be and is being produced in three stages of crushing. In the majority of cases, the last crushing stage is closed circuited using anywhere from 19MM (3/4 in.) to 14MM (9/16 in.) slotted openings on the sizing deck. In some copper concentrators, the mill feed is all passing 13MM (1/2 in.) using three stages of crushing and 14MM (9/16 in.) square openings on the closed circuit screens. It was felt by some that crushing to this fine size is only possible if the ore is friable and is relatively soft in comparison to the harder ores. Our results show that some of the copper ores are as hard as taconite and are crush-

Jan 1, 1982

By M. N. Dunlap

This article summarizes the successful incorporation of a flash-flooding stream into the tailing-disposal system at the St. Joseph Lead Company's Federal Division mill, in St. Francois County, Missouri. The mill was built in 1906, by the Federal Lead Co., as its No. 3 mill for the concentration of southeastern Missouri lead ores, and damming Davis Creek was first considered in 1908. Plans were made also in 1925 and in 1937. Dam layouts varied from a reinforced concrete structure to a barrier built of tailings alone. .All were abandoned because of liability that would be incurred by flash-flood rupturing of an incompleted dam. By 1942 mill capacity had reached 12,000 tons daily and increasing tailing-disposal costs again focused attention on the Davis Creek basin. This time the problem of riskless dam building was solved. Moreover, most of the items that appeared in the answer were materials that normally required wasting and the major portion of labor involved performed functions that it mould normally have done, without constructive benefit, elsewhere. The new layout also made possible advantageous changes in mill-water supply pumping; static head being reduced from 514 ft to 9; ft, friction head from 4900 ft to 2860 ft, and pumping can be done now at periods of low power demand. The following facts about the Davis Creek watershed explain the 36-year reluctance to reach these, and other, benefits. Size: 3600 acres. Outline: roughly pear-shaped, 21/2 by 3 miles at the largest dimensions. Topography: mostly hill land with steep valleys. Relief: 760 minimum to 1153 maximum. Maximum rainfall: 3.36 in. per hour. Permanent water: none natural. Now 2200 gpm discharged through 16-in. drill hole from mine pumps underground. Geology: the 17 acres near dam centerline is Bonne Terre dolomite covered with sand and gravel eroded from Pleistocene beds that cap some of the hills. The remainder of the pond basin is on Davis shale. Soil cover: mostly second-growth timber with some abandoned fields; all subject to careless burning, which reduces water-retaining ability. Flood history: flash-flooding that had taken at least one life. Downstream values: two railroad bridges before creek intersection with Flat River. Immediately below confluence, a highway bridge, a low-water crossing, a few business establishments and several blocks of residences. In July 1942 the following segments of an ingenious plan were put into operation. A ditch 270 ft long, 16 ft wide and 51/2 ft deep was excavated to bedrock in the gravelly soil along the proposed dam's centerline. This excavation, which exposed many gravel-filled channels, was run full of slimes drawn from a riser set in the top of an adjacent tailings-disposal

Jan 1, 1949

By Shiou-Chuan Sun, R. F. Wesner, J. D. Morgan

A new apparatus termed a "distribution analyzer" is introduced to ascertain the optimum conditions of electrostatic separation of minerals. It was found that with similar surface condition, testing environment and a constant feed rate of not higher than one layer of particles fed on the grounded roll of the separator, the behavior of each component mineral in a synthetic mixture or ore is roughly similar to that of the same mineral when tested alone.

Jan 3, 1950

By Joseph E. Pogue

THERE are two methods employed in the development of oil pools. The older and dominant method is one in which the primary object is the protection of the underground deposit from drainage through competing wells, and considerations of efficiency of extraction and cost of production are subordinated thereto. The newer and less prevalent method is one in which maximum efficiency and minimum cost are the first objectives and developments to these ends may proceed undisturbed by the exigencies of competitive drainage. The second method has developed mainly in pools under single ownership and the term "unit operation" has come to be applied to this procedure. A single ownership, however, is not essential to the method, for unity of operation may be achieved by agreement under split ownership, or even by a concert of enlightened purpose. There are examples of unit operation where neither the ownership nor the management is a unit, but merely where unity of procedure has been attained, as is the case of the Yates pool. .Throughout this paper unit operation is used in its broad sense without implying sole ownership or single management, although unit operation is more conveniently attained where these conditions are present.

Jan 1, 1930

By C. H. Loux

THIS paper deals primarily, with the advantages realized from the adoption of methods more suitable than those previously used. The improvements noted include: (1) modification of practice in shrinkage stoping, (2) use of sublevel caving over grizzlies, (3) improved haulage and loading, (4) use of contract wages wherever possible. The Washington mine is on Jonestown Hill, one mile south of Oxford, in northwestern New Jersey. It is producing 16,000 tons of concentrates a month, which are being shipped to the Alan Wood Steel Company's furnaces at Swedeland, Pennsylvania.

Jan 1, 1933

By H. F. Moore

We have studied the simple case of repeated stress, without considering impact, which might bring in other factors. This investigation has shown that steel under repeated applications of stress, reversed from positive to negative, will not fail below some fairly clearly defined limiting stress that, so far we can see, does not bear any definite relation to the ordinary elastic limit, being as large as the elastic limit in some cases and about one-half the elastic limit in others. According to one theory, fatigue is the result of changes in crystalline structure by repeated stress. I do not know of any evidence in favor of this theory. The crystals are broken under repeated stress. According to Bauschinger, under repeated stress some inherent property of the material changes its elastic limit; possibly some property of the amorphous cement between the crystals. A third theory is that all fatigue of metals is the result of the spread of damage from little localized overstresses. While I do not feel justified in accepting the last theory rather than the second, I have yet to run across a case of failure of steel or other metal, either in the laboratory or in service, that could not be explained by the gradual spread of damage from some nucleus. We have found, for example, that it is possible to subject a homogeneous steel, like Armco iron or a 0.90 per cent. carbon steel, that has been thoroughly annealed, to one hundred million reversals of stress as high as the elastic limit of the steel with no sign of failure. On the other hand, a complex structured steel, like a chrome-nickel steel that has been hardened with very little drawing, will fail at a stress about 58 per cent. of its elastic limit. Between these two we get a variety of results. In the steel work of any building, there are undoubtedly many thousands of places where structural damage was done—where riveted members were bent into place cold and where the rivets were fitted with drift pins, etc. Locally the steel in the building was stressed beyond its yield point in many places. These little localized overstresses do no damage at all; the building is entirely safe. But if this building were subjected eight or ten times a day to a mild earthquake, these little localized overstresses might be nuclei from which damage would spread

Jan 1, 1922

By Theodore Marvin

NOW that real progress is being made in building airplanes that can stand up under adverse conditions in isolated parts of the world, utilization of aviation by mining and petroleum companies is proceeding rapidly. This isolation, offering such handicaps to ordinary methods of transportation, also was the thorn in the flesh of aviation until the recent advances in plane and englue design. The accompanying illustration shows one of the six new planes just delivered to the U. S. Government for map making. The planes will be used in Department of Commerce, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Navy Hydrographic, and Insular work. There is a trap door in the bottom of the hull for a Fairchild camera which takes five pictures-vertical, N60°, E60°, S60°, and W60°-at regular intervals. It is manufactured by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp., Farmingdale, N. Y.

Jan 1, 1935

By Thomas D. West

A short time ago, I had occasion to cast iron plates 1 in. thick, direct from metal containing Si, 0.51; 8, 0.045; Mn, 0.75; and P, 0.094 per cent. Much to my astonishment, I found that there was no trouble in planing them; whereas, if cupolaimetal of like composition had been used,*the planing would have been a difficult operation. I have often noticed a greater fluidity or " life " in furnace-metal, as compared with the cupola-product. Iron can be seen flowing down the furnace-runners from 50 to 100 ft., and reaching the last pig-bed in satisfactory condition, while cupola-metal might have solidified before it had flowed so far. I have seen Bessemer iron, which, on account of its low phosphorus-content, does not have the " life " of ordinary foundry-iron, held in a 30-ton ladle for nearly an hour and a half; and after skimming off the coke-dust, it still had to be cooled off' considerably before being cast. As a general proposition, it is known that the lower sulphur-content and the frequently higher temperature of direct-metal, compared with the same iron remelted in the cupola, has much to do with its greater life; yet some problems connected with this phenomenon seem to call for further study. For instance, furnace-metal containing more than 1 per cent. of silicon holds carbon, which is separated later as "kish." This separation does not take place to any great degree while the metal is very hot; but during its gradual cooling, at times, the kish is given off in such large quantities as to cover the ground from 20 to 30 ft. around the ladle. In making castings of direct-metal, especially with a high content of silicon, the separation of kish becomes an annoyance. Perhaps this throwing out of the excess of carbon makes the life of the metal shorter, after it has been remelted in a

Jan 1, 1905

By M. H. De Hora

(Butte Meeting, August, 1913.) IN giving my opinion of the importance of Colombia as a field for investment for those interested' in mining for the precious metals, I must begin by quoting Sir Clement Markham, who, in one of his presidential addresses to the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain, called the attention of its members to the fact that " although Colombia is the least known and least developed of the South American republics, it is far and away the richest mineral country of them all." This to American investors is extremely interesting, as the country is the most accessible of all the South American republics from the United States. .Almost all of the gold shipped by the Spaniards from Madre de Dios, now Colon, came from Colombia, and statistics from the Mint at Medellin, the capital of the Department of Antioquia, go to show that the . total production of the precious metals of Colombia, dating from the Spanish conquest in the fifteenth century to the present time, aggregates the enormous total of $700,000,000. Of this amount, nearly 70 per cent. represents gold obtained from the placers of the Republic, more than one-half of which came from the Department of Antioquia, the balance, being divided between the placers of the Choco and the rest of the Republic. The remaining 30 per cent. of the $700,000,000 represents the silver and gold obtained from the quartz mines, the silver greatly predominating. A glance at the map of Colombia shows the territory somewhat in the shape of an outspread human left hand extended palm downwards on the paper, with the wrist adjoining the Republic of Ecuador, the bones of the hand, fingers, and thumb representing the divisions of the great Andean mountain chain known as the Cordilleras of Colombia. The first finger represents the Eastern Cordillera, with the thumb as the extension to the Nevada de Santa Maria, forming

Jan 7, 1913

By William Firmstone

ON the 19th December, 1833, a patent was granted to F. W. Geisenheimer, for smelting iron ore with anthracite. In his claim he says: "Sixthly, though I cannot, and do not, claim am exclusive right of the use of heated air, for any kind of fuel, nevertheless I believe to have a right to claim the use of heated air, applied upon, and in connection with, the said principle and manner discovered by me, to smelt iron ore in blast-furnaces with anthracite coal, by applying a blast of air in such quantity, velocity, and density, or under such pressure, as the compactness, or density, and the continuity of the anthracite requires, as above amply and fully described and illustrated." Dr. Geisenheimer made experiments in smelting iron ore with anthracite at the Valley Furnace, near Pottsville, but he failed to carry out to good practical results the principles enunciated in his patent. In the Journal of the Franklin Institute for February, 1838, a communication was published that was made by Mr. George Crane, of the Yniscedwyn Iron Works, South Wales, to the British Association, in September, 1837. On the smelting of iron with anthracite coal, Mr. Crane states therein, that he began the use of an¬thracite with hot-blast on the 7th February, 1837, in a cupola blast-furnace, 41 feet high, and 10' feet across the boshes ; product, 34 to 36 tons a week. Mr. Crane goes on to say, "It may not be uninteresting to be informed in what matter the idea first occurred to me of applying a heated blast to anthracite coal. One evening, after I had placed a piece of it upon my parlor fire (which had before been made up with bituminous coal), and had allowed it to arrive at a red heat, upon applying as fierce a blast to this piece of coal as I could raise from a pair of bellows, I noticed a black spot or mark

Jan 1, 1875

By E. C. Mahan

THE text of my talk was suggested by the invita-tion of your secretary, who said that the excess productive capacity of the bituminous industry was a matter of common concern to engineers and coal operators. Cognizant of the depressed condition of the industry, he tactfully added that in common council we might find wisdom. Certainly it would seem that the application of the best engineering knowledge available would be helpful in solving mining problems. There is no doubt that clear thinking, characteristic of the engineering type of mind, is essential to untangle the shapeless pattern which increased complication, so often mistaken for progress, has developed. There is much thinking today which neither looks forward to a logical combination of ideas nor backward to simple fundamentals. The result of that sort of thinking is hopeless confusion. Lately we have heard much about excess capacity and overproduction, along with their attendant evils. Respecting the bituminous coal industry, these terms have been frequently misused. How many of us have seen them applied to the coal industry but how few of us have understood them. I am reminded of a state-ment which William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor and a former miner from the Ohio field, gave to the Associated Press last month, in which he was quoted as saying: "The coal men must realize that conditions have altered since the World War. To-day they are producing a billion tons a year, with a market for only half that tonnage." I cite this instance as a glaring example of the flood of. loose statements about the bituminous industry with which the public is being deluged. If the general public, or some of the newspapers, had any passion for the facts, this sort of misleading statement would not get very far. Unfor-tunately, in these days, opinions are more sought after than facts, and statements by such a person as Mr. Green and are promptly accepted by a credulous public.

Jan 4, 1928

By William Firmstone

On the 19th December, 1833, a patent was granted to F. W. Geisenheimer, for smelting iron ore with anthracite. In his claim he says: " Sixthly, though I cannot, and do not, claim an exclusive right of the use of heated air, for any kind of fuel, nevertheless I believe to have a right to claim the use of heated air, applied upon, and in connection with, the said principle and manner discovered by me, to smelt iron ore in blast-furnaces with anthracite coal, by applying a blast of air in such quantity, velocity, and density, or under such pressure, as the compactness, or density, and the continuity of the anthracite requires, as above amply and fully described and illustrated." Dr. Geisenheimer made experiments in smelting iron ore with anthracite at the Valley Furnace, near Pottsville, but he failed to carry out to good practical results the principles enunciated in his patent. In the .Joozcrnal of the Franklin Institute for February, 1838, a communication was published that was made by Mr. George Crane, of the Yniscedwyn Iron Works, South Wales, to the British Association, in September, 1837. On the smelting of iron with anthracite coal, Mr. Crane states therein, that he began the use of anthracite with hot-blast on the 7th February, 1837, in a cupola blastfurnace, 41 feet high, and 10 feet across the boshes ; product, 34 to 36 tons a week. Mr. Crane goes on to say, "It may not be uninteresting to be informed in what matter the idea first occurred to me of applying a heated blast to anthracite coal. One evening, after I had placed a piece of it upon my parlor fire (which had before been made up with bituminous coal), arid had allowed it to arrive at a red heat, upon applying as fierce a blast to this piece of coal as I could raise from a pair of bellows, I noticed a black spot or mark

By A. G. Moncrieff

In the paper the authors show [(Fig. 12)] in diagramatic form a "typical vacuum filtration system." This indicates a drum filter with two filtrate receivers-one for mother liquor and one for wash liquor. Have the authors ever found a drum filter that will adequately separate mother liquor from wash liquor? I recall in about 1957 being superintendent of a major copper leaching operation treating oxide flotation concentrates. The plan was being expanded, and filters installed to replace CCD following acid leaching and primary thickening of the pulp. The design of the expansion allowed the mother liquor to join the thickener overflow as feed for the electrolytic tankhouse. The water balance required that only pan of the wash liquor could be electrolysed direct, and the remainder had to be treated by lime precipitation. The design assumed the mother liquor would have the same copper content (about 50 gpl) as in the leach pulp solution, and the wash liquor about 50% of this (25 gpl from memory). You can imagine my horror when, on starting up, the solution from the mother liquor receiver contained somewhat under 40 gpl and, from the wash liquor receiver, somewhat over 40 gpl. The filters were provided by two of the most reputable manufacturers and, in the end I believe they agreed that never before had they supplied rotary drum filters that would segregate the filtrates. By changes to the valve design we made minor improvements, but eventually decided that insufficient segregation of the filtrates was possible to warrant trying to do it. On further consideration I concluded that, owing to the time delay between solution passing through the cake and entering the valve, segregation was impossible, though radical alteration of the internal piping of the filter might have improved it. I would be interested to know if anyone has found a solution to this problem using a drum filter. If not, why go on publishing information that infers that it is possible?

Jan 1, 1982

By James P. Kimball

THE object of the present memoir is to put on record some practical experiments by the writer in smelting a silicious native magnetite with no other flux than the silicates of its own gangue: This work was undertaken in the spring of 1878 for Messrs. Naylor & Co., of Boston, to whom I am indebted for the privilege of here communicating its results, these having hitherto only been simply announced.* So far as I am aware these are the first instances of the kind in this country that non-calcareous; or rather non-carbonated, magnetites have successfully been used strictly alone as self-fluxing ores in the blast furnace; that is, without the addition of calcareous flux in the form either of limestone, quicklime, calcareous ore, or basic (calcareous). slag. Previous to the spring of 1878, when the Chateaugay magnetic ore was first brought to my notice, its use had been limited to Catalan forges, after "separation" at the ore bed. The blooms and billets made from it in the several forges of Messrs. Weed & Williams, and of Mr. Williams, were well known in the trade as among the best in the market. The Chateaugay ore beds proving of great magnitude, and the ore exceptionally low in phosphoric acid, it commended itself for blast-furnace purposes to Messrs. Naylor & Co., who employed nee to blow-in the charcoal furnace at Pittsford, Vt., on this ore in the spring of 1878., a previous trial of this ore in the same furnace in the fall of 1877 having proved abortive. This was therefore the first time that Chateaugay ore was successfully smelted in a blast furnace, although since well known as a blast-furnace ore possessing superior and exceptional qualities. The Pittsford furnace, although rebuilt in 1844, and subsequently improved by the former owner, the late J. Prichard, is one of the few furnaces of the old type with open breast (Sumpfofen) still active in this country. Its improvements on furnaces of the period, * Bulletin American Iron and Steel Association, XII, 1878, 132, 156.

Jan 1, 1881

By Robert W. Hunt

The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers was the first American technical organization to consider steel-rail specifications and sections. If I am not mistaken, the first contribution on those subjects to the Proceedings of the Institute was presented by Prof. Thomas Egleston, in 1874, and was entitled "Investigations on Iron and Steel Rails made in Europe in the Year 1873.1" The next contribution was Dr. C. B. Dudley's report of his investigation for the Pennsylvania Railroad of the wear of steel rails in their tracks, in 1878, which contribution led to a very memorable discussion that extended through several meetings.2 In 1880, Mr. C. P. Sandberg3 presented an article on rail specifications and inspection and rail sections. This was followed, in 1881, by A. L. Holley,4 in his exhaustive report on the then used American rail sections. The next contribution, I believe, was made by myself5 at the Buffalo meeting, in 1888, on steel-rail specifications, which I followed,6 in 1889, by a paper on steel-rail sections. Since that time there have been numerous contributions to the Transactions of the Institute in relation to the manufacture of steel rails. The American Society of Civil Engineers officially took up the investigation of the relation of rail sections to the wear of car wheels in 1888. In the prosecution of this work, the Society appointed a special committee, whose labors extended through several years and resulted in an exhaustive report to the Society in 1893.7 Later, another committee was appointed to consider specifications for the manufacture of steel rails; the labors of this committee extended over a period of several years, a final reporta being made in 1910. It was my fortune to be the secretary of both of those committees. The American Society for Testing Materials, organized in 1899, took up the consideration of rail specifications and is still giving attention to that subject through its established procedure of investigations by committees. In 1900, the American Maintenance of. Way Association was organ-

Jan 1, 1920

By T. Egleston

The origin of gold both in placer deposits ancl in veins, and especially the origin of nuggets, has been the subject of repctated discussions and investigations, which have been recently brought to my attention by several extremely interesting specinlens sent to me for examination, and mare especially by the one exhibited at the meeting of the Institute in February, 1880.* In the year 1874 I made some exan~inations of the hydraulic mines of California, and was very nluoh struck with the distribution of the gold throughout these deep placers, which were almost invariably poor on'the surface, while gradually growing richer towards the bedrock. The constant presence of fossil wood, and the large quantity of organic matter contained even low down in these beds, was also remarkable. Not being satisfied with the various theories advanced to account for the formation of these deposits, I began an investigation early in the pear 1879 on the conditions of solubility of gold and the causes of the loss in working gold ore in a large way. The researclles which I have undertaken show that gold must be considered a soluble rather than an insoluble metal, and that the conditions of solution are such as will be found anywhere where gold is likely to occur, and the solution may take place even under the ordinary circumstuncee of surfiace drainage, and may be going on freely even where the presence of gold has never been suspected, and that there are causee enough in nature to produce the solution of the gold in sufficient quantities to account for all the phenomena of both the vein and placer formations. The general theory with regard' to the formation of these placer deposits and nuggets has been that they were the result of the deatruction of pre-existing. vein-matter, which does not accord with the fitcts as sholvn in the deep placer deposits. The gold in such case would be distributed in layers of unequal richness throughout

Jan 1, 1881

By Rossiter W. Raymond

(Read at the Amenia Meeting, October, 1877.) IN the case of The Eureka Consolidated Mining Company v. The Richmond Mining Company of Nevada, recently tried at San Francisco, California, the real defendant was the Richmond Consolidated Mining Company, of London; but this being a foreign corporation, holds its mining property in Nevada through the Nevada corporation of similar name, in which the London Company owns all the stock, except the few shares necessary to "qualify" the American directors. The trial would naturally have taken place in the Circuit Court at Carson City, Nevada, and before a jury. But by stipulation of the parties, the case was tried in San Francisco, before Hon. Stephen J. Field, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Hon. Lorenzo Sawyer, United States Circuit Judge of the Ninth Circuit, and Hon. E. W. Hillyer, United States District Judge, for the District of Nevada. The hearing began July 23d, 1877. The witnesses occupied two weeks, and the argument of. counsel three days. Very eminent lawyers were. engaged on both sides ; for the plaintiff, Messrs. Solomon Heydenfeldt, R. S. Mesick, John Garber, and H. J. Thornton ; for the defendant, Messrs. S. M. Wilson, Thomas Wren, and J. J. Williams. The court held the case under advisement until August 22d, when Mr. Justice Field delivered its unanimous opinion in favor of the plaintiff. The action was a complaint in ejectment, and an appeal was taken to the United States Supreme Court. The questions at issue between the Eureka and the Richmond Company in this suit, comprised several points in the construction of the mining law of the United States, and its relation to the customs and regulations of the mining districts, which possess an importance and an applicability far beyond the limits of the case in which they arose. It is my purpose to state these points, the arguments

Jan 1, 1878

By Henry G. Granger

It still rains in the Choco! I well remember one evening a dozen years ago, while traveling toward the town of Negua in a small champa or dug-out canoe, the rain fell so heavily that I had to work my hardest to bail out the water with a large totuma or gourd in order to keep the canoe afloat, the native boatman meanwhile plying his paddle in the stern. If any one thinks bailing is easy work, let him scoop out a quart or more at a stroke, 40 times a minute for half an hour, and I venture that he will change his opinion. These small canoes required only one paddler to make the 3 miles an hour which is the standard rate of aquatic progress on the Choco. Another time, on the Atrato river, about six o'clock in the afternoon, the rain fell so heavily that an empty gourd, 9 in. in diameter and 4.5 deep, was filled to the brim in 90 sec., timed by a watch. Such downpours are typical, but unless caught in one it is not specially noticed. These downpours seldom last more than an hour, and frequently cover only a limited area, occasionally falling on one bank of a river and not on the other. During the night-time, the rain, if gentle, will usually last until dawn, and sometimes an intermittent drizzle will keep up all day as well, although, as a rule, it rarely rains during the day. The rise of the rivers, due to the rain-fall, varies from a few inches to several feet. One night in August, 1899, the spuds of the dredge Margaret, operating on the Atrato river, showed a rise of 16 ft., and for 3 days thereafter occurred the greatest flood known in that district for 32 years. The dredge had all three spuds down, and the 2-yd. shovel dragging 011 the bottom. A 0.75-in. cable fast to a stout tree, 700 ft. away, stretched tight

Jan 1, 1909