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By L. P. Teas

Although 1930 has been a year of stagnation, proration and curtailment, the Gulf Coast has measured up to its tradition in the matter of interesting and significant discoveries. Only 2 domes and 7 new structural areas were brought into the producing column in 1930, whereas, in 1929, 13 domes and one structure were added to this list, yet a total of 14 new producing horizons were proved on various domes and structures. On 5 domes new flanks were successfully tested for commercial production. The year 1930 has shown at Barber's Hill that oil in commercial quantities may exist below salt or cap. Numerous wells have been drilled through cap, or even salt itself, into good producing sands. The past year has been particularly notable in the interest and in the number of deep holes drilled. Two wells have gone below 8000 ft. in each of the states of Texas and Louisiana, and in the two states together 14 wells have gone below 7000 ft At the beginning of the year only one well was producing below 6000 ft. in coastal Texas, while at its end, 19 wells were producing or had produced. Geophysical discoveries and activity on the Coast have waned and this type of work has moved further inland. The peaks of production at Pettus, Barber's Hill, Raccoon Bend, Refugio, Orchard and at Humble, in Texas; and at Lake Barre, Port Barre, Black Bayou, White Castle and Vinton in Louisiana, were seen this year. These were new peaks for Humble and Vinton, of course, these fields having previously gone through periods of peak flank production. In Table 1 the completions listed are for the entire month of December in both years. It is remarkable that in 1930, a year of overproduction and proration, there were actually more wildcat operations at its end than at the end of 1929; but it is gratifying that the operations in the proven fields were exactly one-half what they had been at the end of 1929. The price of A grade coastal crude, or oil below 25" Bé., has been cut from $1.30 at the beginning of the year to $1.00 at its close; and B grade, or oil above 25o Bé., has been reduced from a price range of $1.15 to $1.63 down to a range of from $0.75 to $1.22. In spite of these reductions there has been no proration program on the Coast. Systematic

Jan 1, 1931

By John G. Hall

The unstable metal market during 1949, with resulting lower metal prices, has focused every mine operator's attention on the problem of reducing operating costs. Improvement in mining, methods, use of modern mechanical mining equipment, and increasing the efficiency of the labor force are the tools with which we will have to work. Careful planning is necessary to coordinate all phases so that no one phase is overdone. A mine may become over-mechanized if, for instance, capital charges against new equipment exceed the savings in labor costs, or where a large enough tonnage is not produced. The cooperation, of labor is essential to any mechanization program. There have been too many instances where mechanization and improvements have done nothing more than make up for a decrease in labor efficiency, thus bringing the production of labor back to its old standard. The operator has gained little and labor has gained only a "softer job." In any mechanization program there are gains to be had by both the operator and labor. By the efficient application of modern equipment and improved mining methods the operator should gain by decreased costs, and labor may profit by receiving a share of these decreased costs.

Jan 1, 1950

By W. S. Ayres

I. Introduction. This cavern was discovered Oct. 32,1904, by Mr. Charles 8. Deutschman, in company with whom I made, May 29 to June 3,1905, at the request of Mr. Howard Douglas, Superintendent of the Canadian National Parks, the first exploration of it for the Canadian government. The results were stated in a paper, orally presented, with lantern-views from my photographs, at the British Columbia Meeting of the Institute, Victoria, B. C., July 5, 1905.* The present paper embodies also the results of a second examination, made Oct. 25 to 29, 1905. The accompanging map, Fig. 1, will serve as a guide to the following description. 11. Location. The cavern is situated at snow-line, at the head-waters of Cougar creek, on the west slopes of the Selkirks, about 2 miles north from Ross Peak water-tank, and 5.5 miles west from Glacier station, on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was then reached by an arduous climb from the water-tank, up the ravine of Cougar creek, for 8,000 ft. (2,000 ft. of altitude) over rock- and snow-slides, and through a thick tangle of alders. But an easy and very picturesque trail has, during the past summer, been opened by the government from Glacier station, which is also a hotel of the railway company. Figs. 3, 3 and 4 represent views, not heretofore published, of the grand scenery of this region, so rapidly becoming the object of attraction to thousands of tourists from all parts of the world. These views, as well as those shown in Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8

Jan 1, 1908

By Ovid W. Eshbach

ENGINEERING education has been powerfully affected by the impact of war, just how powerfully can be better understood after considering the postwar problems regarding students, staff, and plant. In time of war no one will question the necessity of expediency of military training. With the cessation of hostilities, expediency gives way to the evolutionary process of strengthening engineering education as need is exemplified by experience. During the war, except for the Navy V-12 program, engineering education was at its lowest ebb of the century. Freshman enrollments were largely limited to those graduating from high school at the age of seventeen; and the upperclass, to those disqualified for active service. In most schools the experienced staff was either in service or government and industrial research. Many may never return to their former occupations. The most immediate problem is that of maintaining and building a staff to meet the enrollment of returning veterans. It is estimated that out of the eleven

Jan 1, 1945

By AIME AIME

ON Thursday, Oct. 9, oil men from far and wide gathered at Beaumont, Texas to participate in a three-day celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the completion of the famous Lucas gusher well at Spindletop field just south of Beaumont, and to pay tribute to Anthony F. Lucas, for whom the Lucas Medal of the A.I.M.E. is named. In the afternoon the gathered host drove to the site of the discovery well to dedicate a 58-ft. granite monu¬ment erected on the spot where the original derrick stood. Representatives of the A.I.M.E. took a prominent part in the dedication ceremonies, giving the two principal addresses of the afternoon's program. Everette DeGolyer, past President, paid a personal tribute to Capt. Lucas, as a pioneer producer, an engineer, and a friend and well wisher of all young engineers. He gave a splendid picture of the useful and full life of Capt. Lucas who always took a great interest in the activities of the Petroleum Division of the Institute, from its inception to the time of his death.

Jan 1, 1941

By Edmond S. Miksch

The morphology and growth rate of ice grown in supercooled water are markedly affected by convection of the water. A dendritic ice sheet with water flowing past the dendrite tip exhibits deflection of the dendrite spine toward the upstream direction, accelerated growth of secondary spines on the upstream side, and suppression 01" secondaries on the downstream side. Flow causes a thin disk to become corrugated, the corrugations being parallel to the flow. Flow causes an increase in the growth rate of the ice. IF a small seed of ice is placed in slightly supercooled water, it grows initially as a disk with the axis of the disk parallel to the c axis of the ice crystal.' It appears that growth in the c direction is inhibited, while growth occurs with equal facility in all directions in the basal plane. It appears that growth rate as a function of interface temperature is very nearly equal for all directions similarly oriented relative to the c axis. Subsequent to the discoid growth, branching occurs and dendrites develop. The primary dendrite spines grow parallel to the six equivalent a axes of the crystal. Secondary, and in some cases, tertiary spines also grow in these directions. The highly anisotropic: dendritic growth indicates that there must be some finite difference of growth rate for different directions in the basal plane. These differences must be quite small, however, since if they were large, the discoid mode would not occur. Hence, it was expected that the dendrite growth direction could be deflected from the crystallographic direction by perturbation of the thermal field at the dendrite tip. Experiments were done in which perturbation of the thermal field was accomplished by causing the supercooled water to flow past the dendrite tip. The flow direction was perpendicular to the c axis of the crystal, and was perpendicular to the primary spine of the unperturbed crystal. Supercooled water was supplied by a 15 cm cubical copper box, which was refrigerated and insulated so it could cool water to temperatures down to —2oC, and maintain the temperature constant to O.l°C for the duration of a run. A lucite channel of rectangular cross-section, 12 by 24 mm, was mounted horizontally in the box, with one end open so water could flow into it, and the other end leading out through the wall of the box to a length of tubing leading: to an orifice plate 123 cm below. cnunMn s MIKSCH, MemberAiMe, formerly Research Associate, Research Associate, Fig. l(b)—Vertical section of apparatus A horizontal cross-section is shown in Fig. l(a), and a vertical section is shown in Fig. l(b). Means for observing the ice are shown in Fig. l(a). Collimated light passes through the ice sheet and forms an image on the ground glass screen. A lucite box containing dry air was employed to prevent condensation. Ice of the desired orientation was provided by the seed holder shown in Fig. l(b). This device was made of lucite, and had a reservoir in which ice could be frozen by placing it in a freezer. This reservoir com-unicated with the outside only through a narrow gap between two sheets of lucite. The seed holder (after ice had been washed off its exterior) was immersed in the tank of supercooled water, the narrow gap terminating in a slot in the top of the flow channel. Ice growing through a thin water layer in the gap between the two sheets of lucite was oriented so its c axis was perpendicular to the sheets. This orientation is an application of a growth phenomenon2 which causes ice growing along a smooth solid surface in supercooled water to orient itself so its c axis is normal to the surface. After the ice grew into the channel, further orientation was necessary, since the direction of the a axis

Jan 1, 1970

By James P. Kimball

Jan 1, 1885

By Donald L. Everhart

SOONER or later intelligent exploration for uranium leads to these questions: Where did the metallic ions that formed the orebodies come from? What processes and geologic factors were involved in ore replacement? These matters, of course, make a big difference in how best to look for orebodies. Before these questions are discussed it might be well to point out other factors bearing on the subject. The whole business of uranium exploration is only a little over ten years old, participation by the public is only about six years old, and real interest and activity by more than a few large mining companies has arisen only in the past two or three years. Throughout this short period, uranium exploration has been affected by the unique influences of necessary security measures and by division of the over- all job into individual projects by a large number of specialists in diverse fields. This has meant that a normal interchange of information on the nature of uranium deposits has really only just begun. Com- pared to the vast amount of published studies on iron, copper, lead, zinc, and gold deposits over the past 50 to 75 years, current knowledge of uranium deposits is in its infancy and much of the pertinent information is still scattered about in a number of unpublished sources. The volume of reports on all phases of uranium exploration is now beginning to mount at a remarkable rate, and geologists with widely varying specialized backgrounds in uranium geology are engaging in spirited debates over the origin of uranium and the relative importance of geologic controls of various deposits.

Jan 9, 1954

By R. E. Reed, R. D. Leggett, Paxton, H. W.

TECHNIQUES have been developed for growing monocrystals and bicrystals of Fe-20 Cr, Fe-20 Cr-20 Ni, and Fe-18 Cr-8 Ni alloys by both the strain-anneal and the Bridgeman techniques. None of the techniques are new but since they are simple and many people have expressed interest, they are described here quantitatively as they could be modified for other single-phase "commercial" materials of high melting point. CRYSTAL GROWTH BY STRAIN ANNEAL Flat tensile specimens with a tapered gage length were initially studied to deduce the approximate critical strain. Normal flat tensile specimens were then used. The optimum procedure for the austenitic steels (Fe-Cr-Ni) deduced from a variety of cold reductions, recrystallization treatments, tensile strain, and growth anneals was as follows: cold reduce 70 pct, recrystallize (after machining tensile specimens) at 1000°C for 1 hr, strain in tension 2.5 pct, and then heat to 1350°C as rapidly as possible. A time of 100 hr at 1350°C is usually sufficient to pro-

Jan 1, 1960

By R. W. Armstrong, P. C. Jindal

TABOR1 has indicated for a number of polycrystal-line materials that their hardness should be directly related to their yield strength. For a material showing zero work-hardening, the Meyer hardness, MH, may be calculated in terms of the yield stress, sy, by utilizing slip line theory and the result is: The Meyer hardness corresponds to indenting the surface with a spherical indenter and specifying the ratio of load and projected area of the indentation. The correlation indicated by Eq. [I] is not well-established. It has been verified to some degree by performing hardness tests on materials strained to the maximum nominal stress and taking this stress as the (new) yield stress of a nonwork-hardening material. The dependence of hardness on yield strength for an annealed material capable of showing work-hardening has not been theoretically evaluated but, presumably, the hardness should be greater than that specified above. Marcinkowski, Fisher, and szirmae2 measured the dependence of the Vickers Diamond Pyramid hardness, H,, on yield strength for an annealed Fe-Cr alloy which shows work-hardening and found:

Jan 1, 1968

By James E. York

THE honor so fairly earned and so incompletely and tardily paid to Henry Cort, the inventor of the puddling-furnace and the, rolling-mill, has been fully set forth by Mr. Charles H. Morgan,1 and needs no further emphasis here. In view of the importance of the rolling-mill in the treatment of iron and steel, the paucity of information concerning it is surprising. With the exception of a hook, written about 35 years ago, by Peter Bitter von Tunner, an Honorary Member of this Institute, and of desultory articles on simple sections, which have appeared in technical journals, I know of no pub¬lication attempting to treat this subject, although volumes have been written on the scientific theory and technical manipulations involved in other branches of the iron- and steel-industry. This strange anomaly may be due to the fact that roll-turning cannot be called a scientific business. It does not ordinarily come within the range of an educated engineer; yet it cannot be performed by an ordinary mechanic. It demands some of the qualifications of an engineer, in designing, and those of a mechanic, in execution. The men who have followed this trade have controlled the training of their successors. In many cases the technical knowledge required bas been handed down from father to son, and there has been a motive of private interest to prevent its public dissemination. Moreover, the statement of the various principles involved in the process would require, besides manual experience, a degree of scientific knowledge which roll-turners do not usually possess; and, finally, any book on the subject, in order to possess real, practical value, would have to be so fully illustrated as to make it very costly to publish. Regarding my own experience, I may say that I served a six-

May 1, 1906

By F. L. Kadey

The petrographic microscope is a well known tool in nonmetallic materials research. Its utility in the study of perlite is, therefore, not surprising. Valuable information has been derived on samples smaller than those needed by most other methods of analysis. Relatively little has been written about the petrographic analysis of perlite for two chief reasons: perlite is a material of relatively new commercial interest; and the independent prospector or expander, responsible for most studies, attacks the problem from an immediately practical viewpoint. Hence, petrographic studies of perlite have been limited to academic aspects. Rapid development of commercial interest in perlite has changed the situation. Mining and expanding companies now have effective research tools; and such instruments as the petrographic microscope have added materially to practical knowledge about this mineral. Petrographic techniques employed in the search for suitable deposits screen worthless samples rapidly and inexpensively compared with large-scale expanding tests. Hence, only samples of potential quality are selected for further testing. Field appearance of perlite reveals little about its true identity and practically nothing about its commercial significance. Consequently, any method that can be used to separate the "wheat from the chaff" is valuable. In addition to the conventional thin-section and immersion methods used in evaluation of crude perlite, petrographic microscope techniques have contributed to the study of expanded perlite. When apparently similar materials behave as differently in use as perlites, the internal structure of the individual particles becomes a subject of great interest. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the petrographic techniques used to characterize this material. WHAT IS PERLITE AND WHERE IS IT FOUND? Perlite was at first described as a glassy rhyolite possessing a pearl-like luster and exhibiting numerous concentric cracks resembling an onion skin appearance.' Fig. 1 is an illustration of perlite in this classical sense. Recently, its definition has taken on a commercial connotation: an acid volcanic containing 2 to 5% of combined water that, when heated rapidly to the softening point of the glass, coincident with the volatilization of the combined water, expands or "pops". Fig. 2, although hardly fitting the classical description given by Johannsen, is an excellent perlite in the commercial sense. It may occur as a breccia in rhyolite, (Fig. 3) and sometimes it is associated with obsidian nodules, as illustrated in Fig. 4. The term perlite includes the expanded product also. In the United States, perlitic rocks are restricted to the western part of the country. 2 Elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, European occurrences follow a belt beginning in Iceland and extending in a southeasterly direction through Scotland, County Antrim in Northern Ireland, and through the Massif Central of France, Germany, and Hungary; thence, into Italy and Sardinia, and through some of the Aegean Islands. A general oriental belt extends from Japan through Australia and New Zealand. Rhyolitic areas elsewhere in the world undoubtedly contain perlite.

Jan 1, 1963

By Louis R. Hodell

WHEN the drilling of an oil well is completed a permanent opening from the reservoir to the surface must be provided. This is done by lining the hole with pipe, commonly known as casing. In the past, all but a small amount of casing has been run in the hole and joined by threads and couplings. Recently, however, in California, Texas, and Oklahoma, there has been a definite tendency 'to adopt -the welded joint for the following reasons: (1) Plain end casing for welding may be bought for 15 per cent less than thread-and-coupled casing; some of this is offset by the cost of welding the pipe in the hole but a respectable net profit remains.

Jan 1, 1937

By R. H. Sweetser

THERE are SO many conditions affecting blast-furnace results that it is hard to get satisfactory comparative data on the working of two furnaces, and much more difficult to get comparable results from the use of two entirely different fuels. The several advantages of charcoal over coke as a blast-furnace fuel have doubtless been apparent to many managers; but probably the conditions for comparative tests of the two were never so favorable as during the year 1905, at the works of the Algoma Steel Co., Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which comprise two modern blast-furnaces, well equipped, though of comparatively small capacity. For four consecutive months one of these furnaces was run with charcoal and the other with coke. Then the charcoal-furnace ran for a while with part charcoal and part coke; and, still later, with coke only. The ore-mixtures were about the same in the two furnaces, and, of course, all the climatic conditions were identical. The dimensions of the two furnaces, and their work with the different fuels, are given in Table I.

Jan 5, 1908

By Max Kraut

UNTIL VERY RECENTLY the flotation process has not found much application in the treatment of gold ores. No appreciable improvement has been made lately in the technology of this application; but the possibilities of flotation have been more fully appreciated. Excellent results were obtained long ago, but few operators paid much attention to them. For instance, in 1915 extensive experiments were carried out by Mr. Beauchamp and Minerals Separation on ores from the Dutch-Sweeney mine near Jimtown, Calif. The ore contained gold-bearing pyrite and laboratory tests indicated a 10c. tailing on a $6 head. In 1918 a 300-ton flotation mill using Minerals Separation machines was built based on the results obtained. However, when the mill began full-scale operation, mill heads did not come up to expectation, being only $4; also the-tonnage was considerably less than had been expected. Flotation mill tailing assayed 15c., indicating a recovery of over 96 per cent, so that excellent metallurgical results were obtained. The operation was a success but the patient died.

Jan 1, 1932

By William G., Pariseau

There are important phenomena in rock and soil mechanics that cannot be explained in terms of theories of homogeneous, isotropic materials. Subsidence of strata about mine openings is an example. In-situ stress measurements in nonisotropic sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks is another. Patterns of joints, faults, fractures, and similar geologic features impart directional mechanical properties to rock masses that are locally isotropic or anisotropic. On the geologic scale, the non-homogeneity of composite rock masses may, in certain instances, be dealt with as homogeneous anisotropy. The mechanics of large rock masses can, therefore, be expected to involve considerations of anisotropy. The source of the anisotropy is not relevant. Once the scale of observation is selected and the material is defined accordingly, the analysis of stress and deformation proceeds without regard to the numerical values of the material constants. There are also important phenomena in rock and soil mechanics that cannot be explained in terms of linear elasticity, theory. For the mechanical description of anisotropic geologic materials capable of de- forming beyond the limit of purely elastic strains, a plasticity theory is required.

Jan 1, 1972

By J. T., Norton

As cold working is an important feature in a great many of the fabricating processes now applied, this paper presents some ideas on the nature and results of the plastic deformation produced in this operation. The art of manufacturing metal for practical uses is very old and has undergone very great development. The science of metals has- also developed very rapidly recently and the various processes to which metals are submitted are much better understood now than they were even a short time ago. All the knowledge that can be obtained on this subject is useful because it promotes efficiency in converting metal into finished articles.

Jan 1, 1927

By J. Jolly, R. V. Wheeler

This short note on the probable character of the organic sulfur compounds in coal can do no more than indicate lines of research. We have no new experimental work to describe, nothing comparable in value with the careful studies of American coals by Powell and Parrl and Yancey and Frazer. A study of the manner in which sulfur compounds exist in British coals (and their behavior on heat treatment) is rendered increasingly necessary by the fact that the British reserves of good coking coals of reasonably low sulfur content are fast being depleted. We believe that it is essentially by a study of the modes of formation, occurrence, and decomposition of the various types of inorganic and organic sulfur compounds in coal that it will be possible, with hope of success, to attack the problem of purifying coals, otherwise eminently suitable for coking, from these objectionable ingredients. Sulfur, so far as is at present known, does not normally occur in the free state in the coal conglomerate, but is chiefly distributed, irregularly, in three forms : 1. As primary constituents of the coal conglomerate, organic in nature and probably associated with those molecular complexes that have resulted from the degradation of the proteins of the plant tissues responsible for the formation of the coal mass. These constituents can be classed as "organic sulfur." 2. As metallic sulfides, e.g., iron pyrites. 3. As metallic sulfates, e.g., calcium sulfate and ferrous sulfate. (The occurrence of these compounds varies with the occurrence and degree of degradation of class 2.) It is usually found that sulfur compounds of class 3, the metallic sulfates, are present in coal in small proportions only, amounting to about 1 or 1.5 per cent. of the total sulfur. The compounds in classes 1 and 2 are therefore of more importance. Class 1 alone will receive considera-

Jan 1, 1925

By Arthur F. Taggart

The quality of aggregate materials is. of major importance in governing durability and permanence of concrete structures. The problem of selecting suitable aggregate materials is two-fold. Geological factors include the type and character of the aggregate source, presence of known or suspected reactive constituents, and presence of thermally incompatible materials. Laboratory investigations include petrographic studies, soundness and reactivity tests, and tests of thermal properties. The importance of each factor in the selection of satisfactory aggregate material is considered in detail.

Jan 1, 1950

By Arthur S. Dwight

THE professional career of Thomas Septimus Austin, who died at El Paso, Tex., August 23, 1906, was contemporaneous with the growth of the silver-lead smelting-industry of the Far West, to which his talents and zeal contributed in no small degree. Born at Stratford, Conn., December 7, 1853, he was the seventh son in a family of thirteen. His parents were well-to-do; and he received a thorough preliminary training at the Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, Conn., passing thence to the Columbia School of Mines, in New York, where he was graduated in 1876. His first professional work was that of analytical chemist with a Cuban sugar company. In this position he spent a year, and, whatever else of benefit he may have acquired during that year in Cuba, he gained a facility of speech in the Spanish language which was of inestimable value in his subsequent work in Mexico and the southwestern United States. In 1877, he went to the Rocky Mountains, and, under the firm name of Murphy & Austin, opened an assay-office in Leadville, Colo., which was just then coming into public notice as a rich silver-lead camp. The next year, however, he entered the service of the Germania Smelting & Refining Co. at Salt Lake City, Utah, where he remained until 1882, first as assayer and chemist, and later as Assistant Superintendent. The Germanic bears the honorable distinction of being one of the first of the large " custom " lead-smelters erected in the West. Its founders may be called the pioneers of the modern lead-smelting practice, and the Germania served, to a large extent, as a model for the many plants that sprang into existence during the next few years in Utah, southern Idaho, Colorado and other lead-producing districts. The formulation, for the first

Jan 1, 1908