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By Robert R. Walden, LaMont West

KENTUCKY'S first acid-grade fluorspar flotation mill, shown in Fig. 1, was placed in operation Aug. 1, 1952, by the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. at Mexico, Ky. During 1951 a critical shortage of acid-grade fluorspar developed and it became necessary for the company to produce part of its fluorspar requirements. In 1951 the company purchased the Crider and Lennen metallurgical fluorspar mill and an adjacent stockpile of tailing at Mexico, Ky. The tailing, assaying about 26 pct calcium fluoride, originated from log washer and jig mill concentrators in the area. As the mill did not have a fluorspar dryer or convenient rail facilities, the company leased the Burleson concentrator at Marion, Ky., where these facilities were available. At Marion, Ky., on the Illinois Central Railroad, dry acid-grade fluorspar is transported direct to the company's Calvert City, Ky., hydrofluoric acid plant.

Jan 5, 1954

By J. L. Humphrey

The origin of roof bolting is obscure, but is believed to have begun some 40 years ago in the mines of St. Joseph Lead Co. in southern Missouri. It was not until after World War II, and more particularly after 1949, as a result of the concentrated effort of the USBM, that roof bolting attracted widespread interest. It is estimated that at the end of 1954, 26 pct of all bituminous coal mining in the U. S. was being done under roof bolts. Those mines alone use nearly 2,000,000 roof bolts per month, according to USBM statistics. Uses in metal mines are increasing rapidly, as confidence and knowledge grow. The application has found equal success in other fields, such as tunneling work for dam and waterway construction and right of way maintenance on highways and railroads.

May 1, 1956

By John Boardman

THE latest metal-mine accident report available for the United States is that of the Bureau of Mines for the calendar year 1919. Quoting from Table 20, p. 53, of that report, we find that there were 468 men killed, 7 permanently totally disabled, 321 permanently partially disabled, 7848 injured seriously (more than 14 days disability), and 23,330 of 1 to 14 days disability. We have no records to show what the average days lost per case of accident is, but the records for the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. show that, leaving out the fatalities and total permanent disabilities, and counting those in which the lost time was one or more days, the actual days lost due to accidents, for the Butte mines and shops for five years, 1917-1921, were as follows: Accident Statistics, Butte Mines and Shops of A. C. M. Co. Rate Shifts Days Lost Year Accidents Total Shifts 10,000 Shifts Days Lost Per Acci-dent 1917 2,661 3,169,720 8.395 26,734 10.05 1918 2,765 3,545,149 7.799 39,199 14.17 1919 1,381 1,853,143 7.452 22,797 16.50 1920 1,376 1,879,410 7.321 20,164 14.65 1921 376 776,461 4.842 8,287 22.03 Total... 8,559 11,223,883 7.625 117,981 13.80 In order to place an economic value. on this loss, we will assume that all the 468 fatalities and the 7 total permanently disabled in the United States were com-pensated for at the rate which applies in the State of Montana, that is, $5000 each, and that the 8169 serious accidents in the United States were compensated for at an average of $70 per case, thus bringing the estimated compensation paid by metal-mining companies in the United States to the enormous total of $2,946,830 for the year 1919. The figure of $70 per case was obtained by dividing the total amount paid by metal-mining companies under Plan No. 1 of the Montana Compensation Law, for the first five years of its operation, by the total number of serious accidents for those years.

Jan 9, 1922

By George Weaton

Two years ago the general features of the St. Joseph Lead Company's zinc-smelting process were described.1 At that time the discussion was limited to a description of the production of high-purity electrothermic zinc oxide. The present paper will describe the commercial production of electrothermic zinc metal. Since a fairly complete description of the plant of the Josephtown smelter was given in the earlier paper, the brief recapitulation given here will be limited to mention of additional equip-ment recently installed and a bare outline of the preparatory process. The raw material is zinc sulphide concentrate received from the com-pany's mines in St. Lawrence County, New York. An average dry-weight analysis of this material is: Zn, 58.28 per cent; Pb, 0.56; insoluble, 1.6; Si02, 1.12; Fe, 6.4; CaO, 0.47; MgO, 0.27; S, 31.9; Cd, 0.1; Cu, 0.06; Mn, 0.24. Moisture content is usually about 3 per cent. Three 21-ft. 6-in. diameter, 12-hearth Nichols-Herreshoff furnaces roast the concen-trate to a calcine of average composition (first 10 months of 1938) : Zn, 67.69 per cent; Pb, 0.06; insoluble, 1.75; Si02, 1.26; Fe, 7.24; CaO, 0.47; MgO, 0.36; S, 1.88; Cd, 0.1; Cu, 0.07; Mn, 0.27. The sulphur dioxide gas, after passing through a waste-heat boiler, proceeds through a recently redesigned low-resistance gas-purification assembly to the contact sul-phuric acid plant, of which the capacity is 200 tons of concentrates per day. The calcine is mixed with a portion of returned furnace residues and sintered on 42-in. by 44-ft. Dwight-Lloyd sintering machines, gas-fired. Wind-box gases pass through air coolers before filtering in a 1440-bag Dracco unit, and thence to stack. The Dracco fume is mixed with Cottrell dust, from roaster gas cleaning, and sent to the leach plant, where it is roasted (SO2 to acid plant) and leached with sulphuric acid to recover, as end products, lead sulphate, zinc sulphate and cadmium.

Jan 1, 1939

By Barry D. Lichter, Pierre Sommelet

High-temperature heat contents of InAs and GaAs were measured over the temperature range 400°K to temperatures above the melting points using a di-phenyl ether drop calorimeter. Smoothed values of the thermal properties have been derived and tabulated at even temperature interuals . The heats of fusion of InAs and GaAs were determined as, respectively, 8790 ± 200 and 12,590 ± 300 cal per g-atom at the respective melting points of 1210º ± and 1513º ± 1°K, yielding entropies of fusion of 7.26 * 0.16 and 8.32 ± 0.20 cal perºK per g-atom, respectively. A general discussion of the thermal properties of III-V com-pounds is given. THE low-temperature heat capacities of InAs and GaAs have been determined by Piesbergen.1Using a dynamic temperature modulation technique, Miller2 has determined the heat capacities of the compounds as well as GaSb and Ge between room temperature and 650°K; however, it has been observed that values determined by drop calorimetry for GaSb3 and for germanium4 are consistently about 5 pct lower than Miller's results. Cox and Pool10 report values for the heat content of InAs and GaAs and the heat of fusion of InAs. No value for the heat of fusion of GaAs appears to have been previously reported. This paper reports results of high-temperature heat content investigations of InAs and GaAs measured in the range 400" to above 1500°K employing a diphenyl ether drop calorimeter. These results, together with our previous results on III-Sb compounds3 as well as heat-content measurements5 of solid InP and Gap, are used in a general discussion of these compounds. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES High-purity samples of the compounds, stoichio-metric to ±0.1 at. pct, were supplied in the form of crushed crystal fragments by Dr. Carl Thurmond of the Bell Telephone Laboratories. The sample preparation, description of the calorimeter, and details of the heat content measurement have been previously described.3 Samples were sealed in evacuated silica capsules and suspended by a Pt-Rh wire in a Pt-wound vertical tube furnace, heated to temperature

Jan 1, 1970

By Paul M. Tyler

HISTORICAL concepts of the economics of the glass-sand industry are changing rapidly. The greatly expanded demand for glass containers combined with higher freight rates on raw materials and manufactured products have induced a migration of glass factories toward densely populated centers and the creation of new standards of place value for sub- standard sand deposits. This migration has been facilitated by the construction of pipelines to bring cheaper natural gas and liquid fuel to large cities and may be further speeded by the adoption of modern mineral dressing methods to permit economical utilization of local raw materials. Our national resources of naturally high-grade 1 silica sand are abundant, but most of the best de- posits are situated so far from large centers of population that it now costs $3.00 to $5.00 a ton to carry the sand from the mine to the optimum site for a 1 factory making beverage bottles, scientific and electrical glassware, and miscellaneous blown and pressed ware for local markets. It follows that on the basis of freight savings alone it may be economical to use material from inferior deposits closer to the factory even though the f.o.b. cost of mining and treatment may be much high

Jan 1, 1950

By H. William Ahrenholz

The coal industry had another prosperous year in 1966. Since the turn of the decade, production has been climbing at an average rate of 6% per annum. Although the fast pace slackened somewhat, 1966 production showed a gain of almost 3 % over that of 1965. An impressive record can be drawn from the fact that output per man-day in 1966 was more than twice that of the early 1950's, and more than three times that of the early 1940's. And even though man-power requirements lessened, those men retained by the industry worked longer hours and benefited through higher hourly pay rates. However, cost to the customer increased a little. Such statements can only be made for a healthy industry -one that is constantly improving its efficiency. Coal currently provides more than 25% of the total U.S. energy output. About 50% of all U.S.- mined bituminous coal goes directly to the electric utility market. It should be noted that, now, well over one trillion kwh of electricity is generated annually. Dependence of the giant electric utility industry on coal is based on economy and an abundant, dependable supply of this fuel.

Jan 2, 1967

J. J. MCLELLAN, Webb City, Mo.-The Media mill, at the time it was built, was the largest mill that had been designed in the Joplin district. It was put up in a hurry, to take advantage of the high prices for zinc ore in 1915, by the owners of an adjacent plant, which had been very profitable. They owned a compound Corliss engine, and to take advantage of a single-unit drive it was necessary to build the mill in the form chosen, which involved making the hopper feed directly through the breakers and rolls, the undersize from the screen passing at once to the jigs, the oversize going through the rolls and returning to the original trommels. The mill was built in fairly good proportion; crushing was done by jaw breakers, Webb City pattern,' and three sets of 42-in. (106.7-cm.) Cornish rolls for reducing the oversize. The jigs were larger than the usual practice. The roughers were two six-cell jigs, with 42 by 48-in. cells. The cleaner jig was the largest ever constructed in the district up to that time, having seven 36 by 48-in. cells, for treating the rougher jigs. There was also a chat rougher. "Smittem," as used in our district, is the partly concentrated product from the rougher, which is finished on the cleaner jigs. "Chats" are the middlings proper, that is, they are the grains of chert with included particles of sulphide; the very low-grade smittem is sometimes included among the chats. When drawing chats from a jig, we also draw about ten times greater quantity of barren chert in order to insure complete recovery of mineral. This mixture of middlings and tailings is taken to a set of 30-in. rolls, the crushed product then going to a chat rougher, a comparatively small jig, with 26 by 36-in. cells. The principal departure of the Media mill from the usual practice was to build a hopper sufficiently high to give gravity feed to the jigs, without using elevators. The sludge plant, for table treatment of sand and slime, also contained several innovations in the manner of distributing the feed. The tables were arranged in two rows and the feed ran around the outside in a launder having two or three cone classifiers

Jan 1, 1918

By NEWTON B. KNOX

THE war has forced the principal industrial nations of the' world into the strait jacket of a closely controlled economy; taxes have been heaped upon all enterprises in order to maintain the armed forces and to deprive the people of the ability to bid for goods now unavailable. These restrictions, controls, and taxes are unlikely to disappear entirely after the war has been won, for debts will remain to be paid with a long period of difficult readjustment. Although the new economy will doubtless offer plentiful opportunities for the advantageous use of capital, no investor can ignore the favorable conditions offered by industry in Latin America, where taxes are relatively low and the restrictions on free enterprise comparatively mild. In mining in South America, the great international corporations have

Jan 1, 1944

By HORACE H. EJIRICH

(New York Meeting, February, 1912.) PREFATORY NOTE.-The first part of this paper was sent to me by Mr. Emrich nearly nine months ago ; and. I held it, waiting for the second part, which he had promised to forward soon, so that I might submit the whole to some of his former professional associates, and advise him of their criticisms and suggestions before offering his work to the Institute. But, five days before the second part reached me, I received by telegraph the news of Mr. Emrich's sudden death. The paper has therefore not had the benefit of such a revision by the author as might have made it in some respects clearer and more complete. Nevertheless, I believe that experts in the branch of metallurgy with which it deals will find it both original and suggestive.-A. EILERS. I. PARTIAL REFINING IN THE ANODE-FURNACE. During my connection with one of the large New Jersey copper-refineries, and probably before that period, from 15 to 20 per cent. of the copper-bullion received was the very foul, leady blister-copper produced from lead blast-furnace matte. It had been customary to mix a small part of this blister with each charge of purer pig-copper, in the effort to dilute it as much as possible before casting into anodes; but tank-house conditions were such that I was led to try making entire furnace-charges of this blister, and refining it as much as possible in the furnace-afterwards casting to anodes and refining electrolytically, in tanks and solution separate from the main bulk of the purer copper. In making this experiment, notes were made, for several furnace-charges, of everything thought to have a bearing on the question, and some interesting facts were brought out, both in the furnace-working and afterwards in the tanks.

Jun 1, 1912

By Alan Stanley

The MacIntyre Development of the National Lead Co. is located at Tahawus, N. Y. The operations involve the mining and concentrating of a titaniferous iron ore to produce an ilmenite concentrate and a magnetite concentrate. Construction of the MacIntyre plant was commenced during the summer of 1941, when world conditions threatened to cut off the supply of Indian ilmenite. An open pit mining operation was developed and the crushing and milling equipment put in operation in July 1942. A general description of the operation was given in the Adirondack Issue of Mining and Metallurgy for November 1943. The metallurgy of the mill operation was described by Mr. Frank R. Milliken,* Plant Manager, National Lead Company, MacIntyre Development, and presented at the AIME New York Meeting, February 1948.

Jan 1, 1949

By G. M. Lee

SEVERAL improvements have been made in Granby smelting practice since the company abandoned the direct smelting of raw ore in the blast furnaces in June, 1927, in favor of sintered concentrate. These improvements have been made in several fields, but the most novel and outstanding change was the development of a process of concentrating most of the gold, and a somewhat smaller fraction of the silver present, in a small portion of the blister copper produced. The practice of making "copper bottoms" is usually associated with the reverberatory smelting of copper ores containing high percentages of impurities, or of copper matte high in precious metals. It has for its object, in the one case, the production of a major part of the copper relatively free from impurities and, in the other case, the production of a small per¬centage of the copper carrying the major part of the precious metals. Although the blister copper produced at the Anyox plant of the Granby company is remarkably free from deleterious impurities and normally contains no great amount of precious metals, certain economic considerations made it advisable to concentrate the existing precious metals into a relatively small percentage of the blister copper produced. The process devised took advantage of principles and reactions of the usual bottoms processes, but was carried out in the converters instead of in a reverberatory furnace.

Jan 1, 1935

By Robert T. Chapman

The revolution in equipment for blasthole drilling, ore loading, and ore hauling has been so rapid over the last ten years that it has generated an important new profit potential in the mining industry. With the new high-capacity machinery now available, it is possible for a mining enterprise to earn a profit from larger and lower grade orebodies than ever before despite the ever-increasing burden of rising costs. Just what such equipment can accomplish when coupled with improved mining practice has been demonstrated with startling success at the No. 1 mine of Minerva Oil Co. near Cave-in-Rock in Hardin County, Ill. The No. 1 is an underground operation which has been producing fluorspar and zinc ores and concentrates continuously since 1944. A few years ago, when the mine neared the familiar cross-roads where rising costs, increasing tonnages, and relatively static product prices converge, company officials decided to bolster the operation with new mobile equipment. They chose three machines which proved so effective that output at the No. 1 doubled between 1963 and 1965,while costs dropped by about 40% in the same period.

Jan 11, 1966

By A. L. Slaughter

The Homestake mine, located in western South Dakota, was discovered in 1876. The first reported production was in I 878. Total production through 1965 is 6,554,249 troy ounces of silver and 27,961,276 troy ounces of gold, worth $987,000,000 at present prices. Precambrian sedimentary formations at Lead total 20,000 feet. The Poorman Formation, the oldest, is chiefly ankerite carbonate. The Homestake Formation is iron-magnesium carbonate. The younger formations are argillaceous with some quartzites. The Cambrian Deadwood Formation unconformably overlies the Precambrian. All are cut by Tertiary intrusives. Sideroplesite schist of the Homestake Formation was converted to cummingtonite schist in the zones of higher-grade metamorphism. The Precambrian rocks show the effects of extreme isoclinal folding. A second stage of folding ( cross folds) may have been caused by the Tertiary intrusives. All folds plunge to the southeast. The Homestake ore bodies are pipe-like replacements of the Homestake Formation in zones of cross folding. It is believed that dilatation of the schists has increased permeability in these zones. Chloritization of the schists is the most widespread effect of the mineralization which is divided into four stages. Principal minerals of the first stage are quartz, chlorite, and arsenopyrite; in the second stage, quartz, ankerite, and pyrrhotite. In the third stage only pyrrhotite was deposited. The fourth stage followed the intrusions of Tertiary dikes and deposited mostly pyrite and calcite. Gold accompanies all stages and is always the last mineral to be deposited. It is most closely associated with arsenopyrite of the first stage but can be interpreted as having been deposited during the fourth stage and superimposed on the products of the earlier stages.

Jan 1, 1968

By Wm. A. Haven

As soon as the likelihood of American participation in the war was established, and in spite of the fact that we can produce almost as much as all other countries combined, the demand for prompt deliveries of iron and steel products from American factories began to exceed their utmost capacity, and, after fifteen months of practically full operation, has continued to do so. Therefore, it would seem worth while to review some of the aspects of the supply and demand for steel as well as the efforts that are being made to bring them into balance. It is still being debated as to whether the situation should be defined as a real shortage that will persist through the emergency period or as a temporary one than can be relieved by less drastic measures than a Government-sponsored program of expanding existing plants and building new ones.

Jan 1, 1942

By AIME AIME

WHEN I was getting data for my books on ore dressing, I traveled across the continent, visiting a great many mills, always accompanied by my vanning shovel, and I got to be a joke among the millmen. They would say "Here comes the Professor with his vanning shovel." With the aid of this vanning shovel, I examined the tailings of all the mills I visited and I found it to be universally true that they contained some extremely fine, free mineral. I looked everywhere to see if I could find a machine or a process that would save this fine mineral. But nowhere did I find anything that made any bid for success until I visited the Kennedy mill, with its Gates canvas plant, on the Mother Lode of California. There I found that the tailings of the Frue vanners were put into a one-spigot classifier of good design which yielded a spigot product entirely free from this fine, free mineral which only assayed 40c. to the ton in gold. The overflow was extremely fine and as¬sayed $3 to the ton. This overflow was fed to ten canvas tables each 10 ft. square, with the grain of the canvas running across the table to make for the roughest surface. The canvas used was No. 6 cotton duck sail cloth.

Jan 1, 1934

What has happened to the basic coal industry during the past year? Has it been a better year for coal than 1961? What striking new developments have occurred in mining, preparation and utilization? Are there positive signs that production will go up? What has happened in the utility market, the metallurgical market and the export market? Is the controversial question of coal transportation nearer to a solution? What progress has research made for coal during the year? The answer to these and many other important questions are offered in the following review of the Coal Industry-1962.

Jan 2, 1963

J. E. Stead, Middlesborough, England (communication to the author): Prof. Howe's valuable paper on cast-iron brings forward most prominently the correct explanation of the part played by combined carbon in pearlite and cementite, in determining the strength and hardness of cast-iron. On a previous occasioil I have shown that castings made by melting a white Cleveland iron and glazed iron, one containing 1.5 and the other from 4 to 5 per cent. of silicon, and each about 3 per cent. of carbon, were stronger than those made of ordinary foundry-iron; the difference in the final castings being a differ-

Jan 1, 1902

By E. J. ENGEL

The New York talc deposits of commercial importance are in St. Lawrence and Lewis counties, in the northwest Adirondack Mountains (Fig 1). All of the deposits are of pre-Cambrian age and occur within highly deformed and recrystallized marble of the Grenville series. The deposits in St. Lawrence County, near Gouverneur, are the largest and most productive of their type known in the Western Hemisphere. In 1948 the seven mines which are in operation will produce about 130,000 tons of ground talc. All talc production in Lewis County is from one mine. There the annual production ranges from 15,000 to 30,000 tons. These so called talcs of New York State include earth materials of differ- ent chemical and mineral compositions. In general the mineral talc is sub- ordinate in amount to other minerals in both the Gouverneur and Natural Bridge deposits.

Jan 1, 1949

By R. A. Deju, R. B. Bhappu

The basic structural unit of all silicate minerals is a tetrahedron with a silicon atom at the center and four oxygen atoms at the corners. The oxygen-silicon distance is about 1.6 & and the oxygen-oxygen distance about 2.6 &. The different types of oxygen-silicon frameworks in the various silicates are based entirely on the combinations of the tetra-hedral oxygen-silicon groups through sharing of oxygen atoms. In recent years, infrared spectroscopy has permitted estimation of the ratio of the ionic character of the oxygen-silicon bond to be a few times that of the oxygen-carbon bond and the ratio of electro-negativity of the two bonds has also substantiated this finding. On this basis, it is generally accepted that the oxygen-silicon bond is the strongest one occurring in silicate minerals. As the oxygen-silicon ratio increases from quartz to the olivines, a greater percentage of the oxygen bonding power is available for bonding to cations other than silicon. Hence, with an increasing oxygen-silicon ratio, there is increasing oxygen-to-metal bonding. Upon the fracturing of a silicate mineral crystal, the oxygen-metal bond, which is almost entirely ionic in character, should break more easily than the stronger oxygen-silicon bond, resulting in a greater number of unsatisfied negative forces on the surface. If, then the mineral is immersed in a liquid containing hydrogen ions, these negative forces should tend to be neutralized by hydrogen ions from solution, resulting in a change of the pH of the solution. An increase in the degree of adsorption of hydrogen ions is to be expected as the oxygen-silicon ratio in the crystal structure increases. This study attempted to correlate the oxygen-silicon ratio for various representative silicate minerals to the adsorption of hydrogen ions. Experiments to determine the effect of surface area on this adsorption and to investigate the effect of surface iron were also conducted. It is believed that such studies of the surface properties of silicate minerals will supply pertinent information about their behavior in froth flotation systems. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Ion Exchange: Carefully selected, hand-picked samples of the minerals investigated were dry-crushed in a ceramic ball mill and sieved to obtain a minus 100 plus 200-mesh sample. The sized samples were then run through the electro-magnetic separator to remove any iron-bearing particles. A 10-g sample of each mineral was placed in 100 ml of freshly deionized water previously adjusted to a pH of 3.50 with HCl. The beaker containing the sample and the water was placed under a bell jar from which the air was displaced at once by nitrogen gas from a tank. All experiments were carried out in a nitrogen atmosphere. The sample and solution were stirred gently but continuously during the entire experiment, the stirring speed being kept about the same for all runs. Changes in pH were followed with a Beckman Zeromatic pH meter and recorded on a

Jan 1, 1967