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By Colin G. ink

OUTSTANDI'NG in progress among the less familiar 'metals during 1936 is the electrolytic production of 99.9 per cent manganese meta1 readily and many quantity. Strictly speaking, manganese should not' be classed as 'a rare metal, since there is 800 times as much manganese in the earth's crust as there is zinc or lead. But manganese' as a metal is rare, just as titanium metal is rare though titanium is five times as abundant in the earth's crust as manganese.

Jan 1, 1937

By Kenneth S. Ritchie

TOO often, many foremen; superintendents, managers, and executives, "The Bosses" of the oil and mining industries, do not fully realize: (1) How much personal actions '.on the job" may reduce their effectiveness in getting work done; and, (2) The importance of harmonious relations with their fellow men. Today. these qualities of personality in the people entrusted with the positions of responsibility are more important than ever with the shortages of labor so critical in vital war production. Likewise, many engineers do not fully realize that their work is essentially executive in character; i.e., other people do the actual labor. Without their help. the engineer's work would not be done. A clearer appreciation of this fact would increase their interest: (1) in the nontechnical aspects of their work. and, (2)in their relations with others, particularly the individuals in their own organization. Consequently, these engineers would be more successful in equipping themselves for greater responsibilities and increased remuneration.

Jan 1, 1944

By AIME AIME

OVER-ALL operations of the oil industry, as measured by production of crude oil and consumption of products, are almost exactly of the same magnitude as a year ago. Does this mean that the great oil industry has been undisturbed by the war? Has this industry, so vital to the prosecution of the war and to the maintenance of our way of life, been unaffected in its operations? No indeed - changes within the industry are great. It has been called upon to revamp its trans¬portation methods so as to move about one fourth of the total amount of crude and refined products by railroad tank car instead of by ocean-going tankers. Its fundamental internal economy, based on maximum gasoline yield from a barrel of crude, has been relegated to memories of the past. Rationing of oil products, which has been forced upon us in face of an abundant supply, is not only disagreeable medicine but is in itself completely disruptive to the marketing end of the-business.-

Jan 1, 1942

By DONALD H. McLAUGHLlN

Few factors have had more influence in maintaining the strength and stability of the United States than our persistent habit of providing .checks and balances to the dynamic powers of free enterprise on the one hand and to the controls and guidance exercised by the State on the other. .Indeed, it is this same concern for matching forces against each other that has given our republic its ability -to preserve a democratic basis of life for its citizens, and yet maintain a ,government that is able to protect the rights of all and to resist and minimize the danger of excessive concentration of authority. Our current efforts to clarify the nation's mineral policies and to define more clearly the role that the governmental agencies should play in conjunction with the functions of private -enterprise again reveal the desirability and advantages of maintaining our traditional controls. At times, the equilibrium has been temporarily disturbed by too great enthusiasm for one or the other of these basic concepts. Sooner or later, however, the balance has been restored by the healthy opposition that is always created by excesses of one sort. At the current stage in our history, the swing toward undue enlargement of the powers of the State seems to have gone dangerously far and we would be untrue 'to our traditional behavior if the group that must demonstrate the virtues of free enterprise did not rally to its support with the utmost earnestness.

Jan 1, 1949

By John J. Collins

The plight of the Japanese mining business is pitiful. Coal mines were given the highest priority for all materials they needed, yet between the end of the war and June 1948, the government was obliged to subsidize them to the extent of 22 billion yen, this being the difference between the consumer's price and the producer's price. Most of the metal mining companies have been operating at only one fifth to one third of war-time production rates, and financial losses have been terrific. The chief difficulties have been a plethora of office workers and a dearth of equipment, supplies, and miners. The principal material needs at metal mines are steel rails. cars, plates, nails, rubber hoses, and belting, to say nothing of modern core drills which are totally lacking. Until recently the great shortage was in coal; for lack of fuel the smelters and factories failed to produce the very metals and equipment now needed to operate the mines. Nation-wide shortages have created a monstrous inflation of prices throughout all the economy, currently amounting to 200 times the prewar figures. For example, the price of copper ranged from 500 to 900 yen per metric ton for many years until 1937, but in mid-1948 producers were

Jan 1, 1949

By Yeatman, Pope

FOR many years geologists have felt that mining companies should adopt a more liberal policy in the publication of their reports. The increasing usefulness of the geologist to the mining profession in recent years demands that consideration be given to this question. Prior to 1900, the call for geologists of high reputation by mining companies was probably mainly in connection with lawsuits arising from the interpretation of rights or ownership as defined by the "Law of the Apex," and from problems such as finding the continuation of the vein or whether the vein followed was the main one or a branch. Later, outside of legal questions, the most intensive and general use of their services arose from the search for oil. Geologists to determine the position of the formations

Jan 1, 1938

By A. C. Fieldner

IN the Wall Street journal for March 1, 1941, was a tabulation of the construction under way or under negotiation by thirteen iron and steel companies for a predicted increase in annual coke production of 3,165,600 tons. That even this figure was short of the mark is indicated by other plans, then being considered, for a later expansion of 2,610,000 tons additional. Considerable progress has already been made on thin program, for approximately 500 new ovens were put in operation in 1941. and well over 200 should be completed in 1942. These figures include a number of units that replace older and obsolete equipment.

Jan 1, 1942

By Eugene McAuliffe

HAVING reached the status of an octogenarian plus, I suddenly decided to take a trip to Great Britain by airplane, before the possibility of hardening of the arteries made such a program too precarious. Of thirty June and July days spent in the islands, five were spent in the south of Ireland, or Eire as the politicians like to call their country. On June 15 I arrived in Glasgow where a day was spent with old friends before moving on to Edinburgh, where the Institution of Mining Engineers was billed to hold its summer session. I had received a cablegram before leaving New York inviting me to attend the sessions which I accepted with avidity, spending three most enjoyable and informative days with old friends and the officers of the Institution, Douglas Hay, president; Ian McDermid, secretary; and members of the council.

Jan 1, 1947

By Lyon F. Terry

IN contemplating the prospects of natural gas being transported from the fields where it is produced to such distant points as Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York City, and New England, let us review the advance that natural gas has made and the projects currently scheduled for construction. This may give us a perspective of the point in the long-range development of the natural gas business in which we now find ourselves, and some basis for judging the further expansion of the industry. Authentic statistics of the total marketed production of natural gas in the United States have been compiled by the Bureau of Mines since the year 1906. The growth of the business is indicated by the following data on marketed production for each ten-year interval since 1906:

Jan 1, 1947

By AIME AIME

The following report is published for the information of the members Meetings. Two meetings for the reading and discussion of papers, etc., have been held during the year 1906-namely, the Ninetieth meeting, held February 21st to 24th at Bethlehem, Pa., and the Ninety-first meeting, held July 24th to 27th in London, England, in connection with the meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute. The proceedings of these meetings, including descriptions of the entertainments and excursions connected therewith, have already been published and distributed to the members of the Institute; the Bethlehem meeting in Bi-Monthly Bulletin, No. 9, May, 1906, pp. 497 to 508, and the London meeting in Bi-Monthly Bulletin, No. 12, November, 1906, pp. 809 to 908. The proceedings of the London meeting were published separately and distributed among the many individuals and concerns whose cordial friendship and delightful hospitality contributed so largely to the success of the visits in London and environs and the excursions in England, Scotland and Germany. At the Bethlehem meeting, 37 papers and discussions were presented and the names of 198 members and guests were regis¬tered at the Institute headquarters ; this number, however, does not represent all who were present at the sessions and excur¬sions. At the London meeting, 26 papers and discussions were presented, not including 5 of the papers and discussions read before the Iron and Steel Institute at the joint session with the American Institute of Mining Engineers, which, by a mutual agreement between the Councils of the two Institutes, have been selected to be republished in the Bi-Monthly Bulletin and Transactions of the Institute. The number of members and guests of the two Institutes registered at the London headquarters was 908, and of this number 131 were from America. This list does not include the names of all who

Mar 1, 1907

By R. W. Newcomb

THE constancy of calibration, and to a great extent the life, of a thermoelement is dependent on the suitability of the primary protecting tube in which the wires are mounted, particularly when used at high temperatures. An ideal thermocouple protecting tube would be com-posed of materials that would not contaminate the thermoelement wires contained in it-one that would remain absolutely gas-tight ,it all temperatures of usage, that will not be attacked by gases, or other surrounding agencies, that is not destroyed by heat, that withstands sudden and extreme temperature changes, that affords a high degree of mechanical protection and does not deform at high temperatures, that is a good heat conductor and obtainable in small diameters so as to keep down lag factors. It has not yet been possible to produce tubes of any known mate-rials that will meet all of these conditions. In selecting protecting tubes, therefore, one should be chosen the characteristics of which best fit it to the particular conditions of usage. Frequently conditions are such that two tubes have to be used, a primary gas-tight protecting tube inside of a secondary protecting tube, because certain agencies will attack the primary gas-tight tube unless it is guarded by the outside tube.

Jan 9, 1919

By J. D. Cooner

SINCE my working life of 32 yr has been spent in and about the anthracite mines of the Hudson Coal Co., and the previous 4 yr in a college school of mines, I can write best about the safety program of a coal mining company. However, most of the suggestions, statements and practices mentioned herein are applicable to the members of a safety organization and program of almost any industry. It is realized that industrial officials actually interested in real safety work are fully acquainted with the requirements of a practical safety program. Therefore, for such persons there may be nothing new in this paper. The Hudson Coal Co. of Scranton, Pa., employs 7,000 men and produces 5,000,000 tons of anthracite annually at nine collieries scattered for a distance of 40 miles throughout the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys of northeastern Pennsylvania. For the past 17 yr of the above mentioned 32, I have been engaged in safety work as a safety inspector, assistant mine superintendent, and at present the safety engineer. I have also had the privilege of visiting coal and metal mines in other parts of the United States and Canada. We Americans are the most careless people in the world. If any one doubts this statement why are 100,000 of our people killed accidentally annually? Or why during the almost four years we were engaged in World War II were more of our people killed accidentally at home than were killed in our army, navy, marine corps, coast guard, and other services during the same period? We are careless everywhere in our homes, on the highway, at work and at play. The purpose of this paper is to outline the requisites of a safety department and its program to stop the accidents occurring to employees at work in mines or industrial plants. The first requisite for a safety program is that the management must be convinced of the need and value of a real safety program. By "management" is meant each department head from the president down. Otherwise a good safety department with a good safety program will not succeed because it will not have the proper personnel and equipment to work with, its rules and regulations will not be enforced, and the members of the safety department will be belittled in the eyes of most of the workmen and supervisors. Next, a safety engineer and his inspectors should have worked in the production end of the mines as workmen and also in an official capacity. They are then in a position to have practical and first hand knowledge of the accident hazards of the industry, how to prevent them, and in general the problems of both the workmen and officials. Some men are appointed as safety inspectors when they are physically unable to carry on as mine officials. Such men may know the safety end of the industry and even be safety-conscious, but if they are physically unable to be mine officials they are also physically unable to be safety inspectors, as a safety inspector in our mines must walk from 2 to 4 miles on each daily inspection-and visit each working

Jan 1, 1948

By J. D. Cooner

Since my working life of 32 yr has been spent in and about the anthracite mines of the Hudson Coal Co., and the previous 4 yr in a college school of mines, I can write best about the safety program of a coal mining company. However, most of the suggestions, statements and practices mentioned herein are applicable to the members of a safety organization and program of almost any industry. It is realized that industrial officials actually interested in real safety work are fully acquainted with the requirements of a practical safety program. Therefore, for such persons there may be nothing new in this paper. The Hudson Coal Co. of Scranton, Pa., employs 7000 men and produces 5,000,000 tons of anthracite annually at nine collieries scattered for a distance of 40 miles throughout the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys of northeastern Pennsylvania. For the past 17 yr of the above mentioned 32, I have been engaged in safety work as a safety inspector, assistant mine superintendent, and at present the safety engineer. I have also had the privilege of visiting coal and metal mines in other parts of the United States and Canada. We Americans are the most careless people in the world. If any one doubts this statement why are 100,000 of our people killed accidentally annually? Or why during the almost four years we were engaged in World War II were more of our people killed accidentally at home than were killed in our army, navy, marine corps, coast guard, and other services during the same period? We are careless everywhere— in our homes, on the highway, at work and at play. The purpose of this paper is to outline the requisites of a safety department and its program to stop the accidents occurring to employees at work in mines or industrial plants. The first requisite for a safety program is that the management must be convinced of the need and value of a real safety program. By "management" is meant each department head from the president down. Otherwise a good safety department with a good safety program will not succeed because it will not have the proper personnel and equipment to work with, its rules and regulations will not be enforced, and the members of the safety department will be belittled in the eyes of most of the workmen and supervisors. Next, a safety engineer and his inspectors should have worked in the production end of the mines as workmen and also in an official capacity. They are then in a position to have practical and first hand knowledge of the accident hazards of the industry, how to prevent them, and in general the problems of both the workmen and officials. Some men are appointed as safety inspectors when they are physically unable to carry on as mine officials. Such men may know the safety end of the industry and even be safety-conscious, but if they are physically unable to be mine officials they are also physically unable to be safety inspectors, as a safety inspector in our mines must walk from 2 to 4 miles on each daily inspection and visit each working

Jan 1, 1949

By Thomas T. Read

REVIEWING the events of the year in mineral industry education, a certain amount of either amusement or irritation, depending upon one's viewpoint, can be derived front the section dealing with mining engineering in Walter B. Pitkin's "New Careers for Youth" which appeared during the summer. On p. 102 Prof. Pitkin says "The mining engineer is disappearing .. . because . . . the profits of mining decline rapidly with the age of the mine." In his "Are Too Many Students Taking Mining Courses?" published in the May issue of this journal, W. B. Plank presents statistics showing that there was some decline in student enrollment in mining and metallurgical courses in 1932-3 and 1933-4, compared with 1930-31, but that the decline was proportionate to that in all lines of engineering study combined. Informal reports from Institute officials that have visited tinning schools during the fall indicate that nearly all schools showed an increase in enrollment for the current school year. Pre else statistics will be made available by Prof. Plank at the Annual Meeting. His study last year provided, for the first time, accurate and complete information on the enrollment in mining schools, as well as the number of various courses and the degree granted, and it will be interesting to have comparable figures for this year. Prof. Pitkin's views on the future opportunities for mining engineers were discussed at some length - on pages 439-4.40 of the November issue of MINING AND METALLURGY.

Jan 1, 1935

By A. B. Stickney

UPWARDS of 200,000 engineers in this country are sufficiently interested in engineering as a profession to have joined a society, but not over 10% of them belong to any one society. There is a widely-felt need of an over-all organization of all the societies to act as spokesman for all engineers on matters of common concern. On a local basis, over 100,000 engineers in 35 metropolitan areas have organized themselves into local councils, and are doing an effective job of intersocietal co-operation within their sphere of activity. In the last few years much has been said and written about a similar organization on a national scale. Everybody wants iteverybody is talking about it-it's in the air-it's coming-it's inevitable. Although it is no longer necessary to talk about why or whether there should be such an organization, there is no such unanimity about what it should be like. This paper outlines a proposed organization by answering four questions-who, how, what, and who will pay for it.

Jan 1, 1946

By Lysle E. Shaffer

INCREASING attention has been given in the last decade to the possibilities of mine leasing in the West. The practice as described in this article does not refer to the leasing of entire properties for corporate operation. It is intended to deal rather with the advantages and problems incident to leasing portions of properties to individuals who themselves, individually or in groups, do the actual mining and transportation of the ore. These individuals are sometimes called "leasers" and sometimes called "tributors." The contracts under which they work set up an independent relationship of lessor and leaser, between themselves and the mineowner or operator. This relationship has many advantages to both sides over those created by the ordinary relationship of employer and employe. From the standpoint of the owners there is no liability on independent contractors for industrial injuries, social security taxes, unemployment taxes, or the manifold restrictions of the Federal Labor Relations and Wage Hour Acts and similar state acts where they exist. As the leaser's income depends on the quantity and quality of ore produced, there is a distinct incentive for maximum production of a good grade of ore. This in turn promotes careful mining of the areas under lease. Ordinarily in mining, labor cost is a high percentage of the total cost of operation. Under a leasing system, even if the leasers be allowed to retain half of the gross values that they produce, and the owner or operator gets half, in the case of marginal ore bodies this is ordinarily more than the lessor would realize if the property were worked by day labor. In some instances mineral deposits under a leasing system may become ore, whereas under a day-labor system they would

Jan 1, 1948

By Alfred H. Brooks

LESS than a decade ago the consumption of coal in Alaska was practically limited to the salmon canneries and the few lode-mines and settlements along the Pacific coast of the Ter¬ritory. The sparse population of the interior depended on the forests, that of the shores of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean on driftwood for fuel. All this has changed. The thousands who have sought and mined gold on the Seward peninsula since 1898 have much impoverished the long-accumulated supply of driftwood, and at the same time the constantly increasing demand for fuel, on the part of the placer-camps and steamers, has resulted in heavy inroads being made on the accessible timber of the Yukon and its tributaries. While on the one hand the immediately available store of wood has decreased, on the other the consumption of fuel because of the rapid expansion of the mining and fishery industries and the attendant growth of population has much increased. Alaska, therefore, offers a constantly growing market for coal and other fuels. As the local coal-production has been insignificant, the demand has been met by importations from Washington, British Columbia, and even from Pennsylvania and Australia. Fuel-Consumption Mr. D. H. Jarvis, Collector for Alaska, has kept systematic records of the trade of the Territory since 1903. The statistics of the coal-importations of the past two years are shown in Table I. If data were available for a longer period of years, the increase of coal-importations would be much more striking.

Jul 1, 1905

JAN. 17-In what appears to be a general spirit of post-Christmas emotional malaise, most adult Americans have bidden farewell to the Forties and turned with no perceptible enthusiasm toward the Fifties. The dying decade had started amid a phoney war which verged on the romantic, stirred the pulse with excitement and seemed far away. A phoney peace dominates the new decade. The romance is no longer there. Nor is the excitement. Nor is the distance. While most of the world preferred to be chronologically correct and hold off for another year before celebrating the demise of the first half of the twentieth century, the United States with true competitive enterprise and a great whirl of words scurried into the second half a year early. This undue haste might perhaps have been dictated unconsciously by a yearning for the pattern of history to be repeated. For many centuries, ever since Roman times, the second half of most centuries tended to be far more tranquil than the first half. In Washington, Mr. Truman got on both sides of the mid-century line with all the aplomb of a good politician. He told Congress early in January that "the state of the Union continues to be good," as it nears "the midpoint of the twentieth century." Later he spoke of moving forward into the second half of the century. He promised an infinitely better life for everyone, whichever side of the mid-century line, and reaffirmed his prescription toward that end: assistance for small businesses; more houses for the middle-income groups; tougher anti-monopoly laws, retention of rent controls; development of natural resources; better insurance against the hazards of old age, idleness and unemployment; better medical care and education, civil rights legislation; new labor relations law and production payments to support farm incomes. All this was to be coupled with suggestions on how to balance the budget. The bloody and confusing 1940's had brought to most men's minds a fear of the future such as they had not known for centuries, and Mr. Truman's objective is to temper that fear. Only time will tell whether the terminal point of such a philosophy would or would not belie the old English proverb citing inability to both eat and have a cake. Brave words to the contrary, the national budget persisted in sliding off into the red. The smell of further inflation was equally persistent. And just to impart a little more zip to the trend, the American Federation of Labor announced its intention of seeking "substantial" and "large" wage increases this year. The AFL forewarns of a business slump after June and a 10¢ an hr wage in¬crease for each worker "will be enough to reverse the prospective downward trend and start a rise." Thus it goes-"the way to halt a drop in demand for labor is to raise the price of labor." Elsewhere in the harassed world, beleagured individualists in New York achieved a local triumph of sorts for one of the freedoms denied by the Soviet and Nazi systems-the right of escape, some escape at least, from the servitude to decibels. Grand Central Station weakened perceptibly at Christmas on its 5-min commercials and bore down heavily on "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing," and on New Year's Day capitulated entirely by abandoning the broadcasting of canned music and slugs of advertising slogans. In Europe, M. Bidault's Assembly majority fell away and newspaper accounts of the incredible monstrosities of political trials beyond the iron curtain were supplanted by headlines marking the birth of Princess Yasmin. The latter was surrounded by Byzantine splendor but otherwise showed no apparent deviation from the accepted norm. In Western Germany, Dr. Adenauer began to speak up more boldly, and the whole fabric of Allied policy towards the defeated enemy further dossolved under the impact of rivalry with the Russians. In the Far East both the Americans and British seem somewhat embarrassed by Chiang Kai-shek's refusal to lie down. Dual thinking regarding the "squalid and useless struggle in the China seas" is such that newspapers give sympathetic accounts to an American ship running supplies to the Communists at Shanghai while calling for help for the recognized Chinese government in Formosa. And with Britain recognizing Communist China they may well have to team up with Russia against the United States to kick the Chinese representative off the UNO Security Council, the Far Eastern Commission and the Allied Council in Tokyo. Far Eastern policy has never been a bipartisan matter and as General Chiang retreated to his final redoubts in Formosa and Hainan, a number of Republicans pecked away at Administration lassitude. Senator Smith advocated the occupation of Formosa and Messrs. Hoover and Taft asked for use of the Navy. Mr. Acheson has stood firm, however, against military aid. None the less, a study will be made of the Generalissimo's chances. Mr. Truman has a private purse of $75 million for the Far East and some $94 million in frozen ECA funds. Mr. Truman will likely trade some of this money for support of new Marshall plan appropriations, always mindful, of course, of Mr. Acheson's plan to drive a wedge between the Chinese and Moscow, and his wish to avoid any revival of imperialist nightmares throughout the Orient. Mr. Acheson is very convinced that the victories of Communism in China will be short-lived and South Asia will not fall

Jan 2, 1950

By Eugene Stephenson

IN most instances the fluids produced from underground reservoirs have been described as they appear at the surface, and usually it has not been necessary to distinguish between surface and reservoir phases. More recently it has become imperative to recognize the fact that changes in phase may occur between the reservoir and the receiving unit. The simple terminology of "wet" and "dry" gases and "crude petro-leum oil" served our needs fairly well in the shallow, low-temperature and low-pressure fields. It has been left to the legislatures, regulatory com-missions, and courts to decide whether a field is or was a gas field, an oil field, or both. This they have done by direct definition and also by implication. For example, in Texas:1 (d) The term "gas well" is any well (a) which produces natural gas not associated or blended with crude petroleum oil at the time of production, or (b) which produces more than one hundred thousand (100,000) cubic feet of natural, gas to each barrel of crude petroleum oil from the same producing horizon, or (c) which produces natural gas from a formation or producing horizon productive of gas only encountered in a well bore through which crude petroleum oil is also produced through the inside of another string of casing. (e) The term "oil well" is any well which produces one (1) barrel or more of crude petroleum oil to each one hundred thousand (100,000) cubic feet of natural gas.

Jan 1, 1938

By Oscar H. Hershey

COMPLAINT has been made that in the literature of economic geology the work of the "company or practical" mining geologists does not get enough attention. I propose to attempt to overcome this com¬plaint in reference to one important lead-mining district, that of the Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho. Furthermore, I will assume that the reader is not so much interested in the geology of the district as in the methods of application used and incidents that have arisen in the work. All the important discoveries of ore in the Coeur d'Alene were made without benefit of geology. Certainly I would not claim the reputed discoverer of the Bunker Hill mine as a fellow geologist. It appears also that the mines were operated quite successfully for many years without geological specialists, though doubtless certain properties were visited at long intervals by such men as Waldemar Lindgren. It was known that the ores occur in quartzite, graywackes and slates as stated by J. R. Finlay in 1903. (TRANS., VOL. 33.) He described the ore as occurring in typical fissure veins that occupy fault-planes of indeterminate displacement. The Bunker Hill lode was based on a definite fissure with the mineralization all on the hanging-wall side, extending as far as 300 ft. from the fissure.

Jan 1, 1933