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By H. H. Power

THE PETROLEUM DIVISION of the A.I.M.E. continued with its diversified activities during 1.935. Sessions at the New York meeting in February were devoted to production engineering, domestic and foreign oil production, and petroleum economics. The symposiums on domestic and foreign production proved their increased usefulness. The data accumulated for 1935 were added to those published during prior years in "Petroleum Development and Technology." A joint session on the use of metals in the petroleum industry was held by the Institute of Metals, Iron and Steel, and Petroleum Divisions. W. S. Farish, chairman of the board of the Standard Oil Co. (N. J.), was the principal speaker at the annual dinner. The October meeting, held in Hous¬ton, was characterized by an excellent program and large attendance. Four sessions were devoted to problems in estimating reserves, reservoir energy, properties of drilling muds, electrical logging, water flooding, and other subsurface studies. Foreign representatives of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. presented a paper on surface tension and specific gravity of crude oil under reservoir conditions. The address by President Buehler, the dinner at San Jacinto Inn, a trip to various lo

Jan 1, 1936

By Oliver Bowles

STRIKING new developments in the field of industrial minerals include the employment of lime, salt, coal, and air for the manufacture of stockings, and the substitution of paper for granite and marble in making tombstones. Certain minerals that have heretofore been regarded as valueless except as museum or laboratory specimens, are now being applied commercially. Serpentine, in forms neither fibrous nor ornamental, massive topaz, pinite, and zoisite are examples. For certain other minerals, notably pyrophyllite, bentonite, vermiculite, and sulphur, extension of established uses into new fields has occurred. Substitution takes a toll in many industries, but producers of industrial minerals as a class have gained more than they have lost in recent years. Encouraging progress has been made in developing at long last a suitable substitute for certain of the uses of mica, the only industrial mineral on the strategic list of commodities established by the War. and Navy Munitions Board. Some of the more important developments in process, equipment, and use .that have come

Jan 1, 1940

By Clinton M. Young

(Pittsburg Meeting, March, 1910.) I. INTRODUCTION. THE experiments herein. described were carried on in 1908-9 . by the State Geological Survey of Kansas. Some months before taking up work on black powder the Survey had resumed work on an interrupted investigation of explosions in coal-mines, a subject which is engaging the attention. of numerous investigators. An unusual number of serious disasters has directed to. the subject a study which discloses the disquieting fact that, in the. United States, the ratio of lives lost per ton of coal mined has been on the increase. Methods of coal-mining have changed to some extent with the great increase of output, attained in, comparatively recent years. These changes involve the working of very extensive mines, with increased difficulty of ventilation, increased accumulation of coal-dust, and. a very great increase in the amount of explosive used.. . This last point assumes truly startling proportions when it is carefully observed. In the fields of the Middle. West it is not now uncommon for a miner to use six ,kegs (150 lb.) of black powder in a "pay" of two weeks, while within the memory. of men still active, one keg (25 .lb.) would last two men for a " pay." So. great has . the use of explosives become in some fields that the skilled coal-miner is hard to find, and the coal is not mined, but blasted. A preliminary study of the subject. of explosions in coal-mines has. led to the belief . that the use of, large -quantities of explosives, in some cases by slightly-trained men, had not been * Associate Professor- of Mining Engineering, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Ran.

Aug 1, 1910

By T. S. Washburn

THE grades of commercial steel produced in large quantities can be divided into two general types from the standpoint of ingot structure-killed and rimmed. Killed steel covers a wide variety with carbon contents throughout the range of the steel portion of the iron-carbon diagram, and is the kind usually used in the production of alloy steels. Rimmed steel is normally associated with carbon ranges under 0.30 per cent, and is not yet used to a large extent in alloy practice, except for copper-bearing steels. The fundamental differences in the ingots made from these two types of steel can be seen most easily in Figs. 1 to 7. In the rimmed ingot shown in Figs. 5 to 7 there are two lines of blowholes approximately parallel to the sides and coming together at the top and at the bottom of the ingot. In the killed ingots shown in Figs. 1 to 4 these blowholes are not present. Also, the rimmed ingot has no well defined pipe, as com-pared to the deep pipe on the killed ingots, and there are numerous pri-mary blowholes in the lower portion of the rimmed ingot perpendicular to the surface and close to it, while on the killed ingot there are no blowholes of this type in the ingot shown in Fig. 1 and very small ones close to the surface in the lower part of the ingot shown in Figs. 2 to 4. With respect to the presence of pipe and the primary blowholes, the structure may vary considerably in both rimmed and killed ingots, therefore these cannot be considered as fundamental structural characteristics differ-entiating the two types of steel. The primary blowholes in rimmed ingots may be much less pronounced than those in the ingot shown in Figs. 5 to 7-as, for example, in "ingot iron," which is entirely free from them. An example of a cross section of an ingot-iron ingot is shown on page 16 of "Research and Methods of Analysis of Iron and Steel," published by the American Rolling Mill Co. (1920). A certain amount of pipe may also occur in rimmed ingots, though it is normally porous and not as well defined or deep as in the killed ingot of Fig. 1. In killed ingots, pri-mary blowholes may occur near the surface, as in Figs. 2 to 4, and

Jan 1, 1937

By V. F. Parry, J. B. Goodman

The low-rank coals containing 10 to 50 pet natural bed moisture represent over half of the tonnage reserve of the available solid fuels of the United States, but only about 2 pet of United States coal production is derived from these fuels. Increased utilization of these large reserves will result if the bed moisture can be removed at the mine in high-speed low-cost processes. This paper presents a theoretical and experimental study of the factors affecting high-speed drying of coal dusts. The time required to heat particles of coal is proportional to the square of their diameter, and it is calculated that the probable time in minutes is equal to 6D2. In other words, a 11 a in. coal particle should be heated to drying temperature in 1.5 to 2.0 sec. Likewise, 1/8 in. particles should be heated in about 6 sec. The net heat required to dry subbituminous coal and lignite varies from 240 to 375 Btu per pound, depending upon the moisture removed, and this heat can be obtained from 42 to 61 cu ft of hot gases at 600°F.

Jan 1, 1949

By T. K. Perkins, W. W. Krech

Jan 1, 1969

By John B. Hastings

THE occurrence of such a large amount of gold in the Hartsel granite, even though the surmised existence of similar areas is not new, brings freshly to mind the pegmatite type of magmatic differentiation lately brought again to attention by occurrences at Silver Peak, Nev., described by Spurr; and in Alaska, described by both Spurr and Brooks. In both localities graunitic rocks or dikes are thought to pass into metalliferous quartz-veins. An interesting association in this connection is the occurrence of diamonds in residual pegmatitic clay of San Juao de Chapado, Brazil, described by Derby :1 (P. 142) "Bodies of pegmatite are quite common in the older rocks of Brazil, both in the. diamond regions and elsewhere, occurring not only in the gneiss and granite, but in the schistose series as well. Those that have been examined are dike-like in their mode of occurrence and granitic in composition." (P. 143) "The question of the eruptive or secretionary origin of pegmatites has long been a subject of discussion among geologists. . . . The recent studies . . . seem to have clearly established that most if not all of them are essentially eruptive masses, though possibly modified in some way by aqueous agencies. Even before becoming acquainted with the literature of the subject this view had seemed to me to be the only acceptable one as regards the typical pegmatites of Brazil." What is pegmatite ? J. F. Kemp says ". . . veins or dikes-it is an open question which is the more correct term-are met formed of very coarsely crystalline aggregates of the same minerals that constitute granite. These are called pegmatite and in them is the home of graphic granite, the curious intergrowth of quartz and feldspar, such that a cross fracture of the blades of quartz suggests cuneiform characters. . . . In regard to the larger veins or dikes it seems improbable that true igneous fusion could have afforded such coarsely crystalline aggregates, and so we are forced to assume such abundance of steam and other vapors, i.e, mineralizers, as to almost, if not quite, imply solution."

Jan 5, 1908

P. H. Dudley, Yew York, N. Y. (communication to the Secretary*) :—The characteristics of Professor Home's metallurgical papers are, that he is able, from the mass of confusing evidence on the subject, to make an analysis and present hypothetical and essential principles in concrete form for consideration and discussion. I can appreciate, from the practical side of the subject, the labor of collecting and investigating the data which was essential to prepare the paper. Much of it necessarily came from material of preceding years of manufacture in which time was allowed for chemical reactions of the re-carburizer, and for the elimination of the oxidation-products before teeming the ingots. This practice gave a favorable time-element to free the metal from slag and other impurities— a requisite condition for the production of sound steel in the ingots. But, in allowing them to become cold before they were charged into the furnace, a subsequent time-element entered as a detrimental factor in the development of the pipe or shrinkage-cavities, which gave an ingot-structure deficient in soundness, at least in the upper portion. (The term slag is used in a general rather than in a strictly technical sense.) Traces of manganese sulphide are often associated with manganese silicates in the same thread or seam, and at other places they are separate and distinct. Interpretations from material thus manufactured must be made with due allowances for the methods of fabrication and the requirements of service. The only way we now have to estimate what the degree of soundness of the ingot-structure was, in the early foreign and American manufacture of steel rails, is by examination of the worn and failed material after years of service. We must remember also that the poorest material was long since consigned to the scrap-heap without any full record of its history. The rails from a given ingot cannot now be identified ; and in many

Jan 1, 1909

By H. C. LIVINGSTON

At the Hanna No. 4-A mine of The Union Pacific Coal Co. a new system of trackless mining is being utilized to extract a 26-ft coal seam. By using shuttle cars and a conveyor belt for haulage in the rooms and panel entries instead of pit cars and panel hoist a saving of 12 cents per ton is expected. Mining is conducted in a 26-ft coal seam laid down on a synclinal structure with active workings on a pitch of approximately ten to twelve degrees. The coal seam is interbedded between a shale bottom and sand- stone top. The coal is friable, high in moisture, and subject to spontaneous combustion. The mine is rated gassy by the State Coal Mine Inspection Department. Mining is conducted at the present time by unbalanced rope haulage an main slopes spaced on approximate 4300-ft centers with the three-entry system driven to boundary lines, strike entries being turned on approximate 1300-ft centers. Panels are driven to the rise between entries at approximately 750-ft intervals with panel rooms driven on the strike 500 to 600 ft long, leaving 150 ft of barrier pillar between each block of panel rooms.

Jan 1, 1949

The growth and influence of Sherritt Gordon Mines Ltd. in the nickel producing industry has been quite phenomenal. Although the company's Lynn Lake deposit in Manitoba was actually dis- covered in 1941, it was not until 1945, when men and materials were more readily available as a result of the end of World War II, that the area was staked and news of the discovery leaked out. As a result of the discovery, Professor Frank Forward of the University of British Columbia was commissioned by Eldon Brown, then President and Man- aging Director of Sherritt, to develop a new nickel refining process. A pilot plant, based on the results of Professor Forward's research, was constructed in Ottawa, and after the successful testing of the Lynn Lake ore, Chemical Construction Co. was given a con- tract in 1952 for construction of a producing plant. By 1954, the Fort Saskatchewan refinery was operating at an annual production of 15 million lb of nickel metal in the form of briquetts or powder. Capacity has since been increased to 30 million lb.

Jan 10, 1968

By Arthur R. Still, Paul Gilmour

The ore deposit of the Iron King mine occurs in a group of steeply-dipping metamorphosed eugeosynclinal volcanic and sedimentary rocks of Precambrian age. Within this sequence, the ore deposit lies at the contact of a unit made up of rhyolitic tuff and interbedded andesite and a structurally underlying series consisting of andesitic tuffs, minor rhyolitic tuffs, and argillaceous sediments. Field evidence suggests that these rocks have been overturned. The ore deposit is made up of a series of overlapping, conformable or bodies consisting of massive pyrite and associated lenses of massive quartz. These contain recoverable amounts of gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper. A parallel zone of copper mineralization occurs within the hanging-wall rocks. The deposit is considered to belong to a large and important group characterized by mineralogical composition and the lithology and structural type of the host rocks. Evidence regarding the origin of the deposit is reviewed, and it is concluded that the ore bodies were formed through the agency of volcanic hot springs on, or near, a submarine surface of deposition

Jan 1, 1968

By H. A. Pearse

NORMALLY, the Britannia ore mixture contains chalcopyrite and pyrite as the chief sulfide minerals, together with minor amounts of gold and silver and a low zinc content. Reduction is accomplished by jaw crushers underground, followed at the concentrating plant by Symons cone crushers, rolls, and ball mills. The standard flotation practice, evolved during several years of experimentation, provided for bulk flotation of the two sulfides, after primary grinding to only approximately 35 mesh, followed by regrinding of the bulk concentrate, with subsequent separation of the chalcopyrite and pyrite to make a marketable concentrate of each mineral. This so-called standard milling practice has previously been described in detail in U. S. Bureau of Mines Information Circular 6619. A modification will he discussed here. In the face of a constantly increasing world surplus of copper and a steadily falling price during 1930 and 1931, it was obviously undesirable to continue unprofitable production of large quantities of this metal. On the other hand, company officials were

Jan 1, 1934

By W. A. Forbes

OUR present-day geological surveys show that 36 of our States are underlain with bituminous coal, covering a total area of 496,709 square miles. The North American continent possesses 69 per cent of the world's coal reserves, with the United States alone having an estimated 55 per cent. The American coal reserves, in tons, are calculated to he about 3,500,000,000,000 tons, of which we have exhausted about 1 to 1 1/2 per cent. If this coal were mined at the rate of the 1918 production-a record output of 579;000,000 tons-it would not be depleted for 4,000 years. The more easily accessible and high-grade coals would obviously be consumed much before this; some estimates are 100 years. The natural progress of the nation's industries up to 1910 encouraged on every hand the development of new mines, especially where cheap and easy access to coal measures was coupled with short hauls to the consumer. Over-development resulted, which is perhaps today one of the fundamental causes for the many difficulties faced by the coal industry, which is highly competitive; about 70 per cent of the production cost is labor. Salient statistics for 1930, recently issued by the U. S. Bureau of Mines, follow:

Jan 1, 1932

By J. D. Price, W. M. Bertholf

In preparing a paper on coal washing in Colorado and New Mexico, it is difficult to refrain from entering into a discussion of the historical aspects of this subject, for the story of coal washing in these states goes back well into the last century. This phase of the subject could well make a complete paper in itself, and of necessity this present discussion must be limited to current operations. Therefore, we are taking into consideration only those washing plants which have operated for some period during the years of 1947 and 1948.

Jan 1, 1949

By CLAYTON C. BALL

In the year 1948, more than ever before, the coal industry established itself on the threshold of a new and exciting future expansion. While production did not equal the wartime and peacetime peaks of 1944 and 1947, it was, in review, a good coal year. During the latter part of the year a combination of mild weather, record stock piling, and general business slackening reduced coal demand to the extent that marginal mines suspended operations, while mines remaining active found it necessary to renew their attention to producing better products at lower operating costs.

Jan 1, 1949

Jan 1, 1933

By M. K. Foster

Ten horizontal retort zinc blocks of a modified Hegeler design are in operation at Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, Mexico, and produce approximately 170 t of spelter daily, or 62 000 t/year. A block consists of two furnaces of 448 retorts each, making 8960 retorts as the plant complement. Each furnace block is fired with natural gas and air maintaining the combustion mixture in the furnace always slightly reducing. No attempt to recover energy through waste heat boilers is made. The spelter moves to market by rail and truck either in palletized bundles weighing approximately 1060 kg, as loose slabs weighing 26.5 kg each, or as 1088 kg ingots. At present 46% of the metal is exported and 54% is consumed domestically in Mexico. The present day trend toward equalized or alloyed spelter, as well as special shaped castings results in sales of 35% of the entire plant's production. Sulfuric acid is also produced by the Contact Process using vanadium pentoxide as the catalyst. The plant is basically a Monsanto contact system, producing approximately 68 t of 100% sulfuric acid daily. Both 98.5% sulfuric acid and 20% oleum are available. All of the acid made is consumed in Mexico. Shipments are made in 26,900 dm3 tank cars.

Jan 1, 1970

Aamot, Olav Crone, Chem. Engr., Norsk Elektrokemisk, Kongensgt. 18, Olso. Norway. '29 Abadilla.-Quirico A., Dir., Bureau of Mines Manila, P. I. '38 Abbott, Clarence E., V.P., Charge of Raw Materials, Tennessee Coal, Iron & R.R. Co., 1212 Brown-Marx Bldg., Birmingham, Ala. '04 Abel, Raymond L., Prof., Dept. of Pet. Refin., Univ. of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pa. '29 Abel. Walter D., Cons. Engr 1839 Holmby Ave., W. Los Angeles. Calif. '32 Abele, Louis T R. F. D. 5. Susquehanna Trail, N., York. Pa. '31 Abell, Leo M., Ore Dressing Investigator, School of Mines Adelaide, S. Australia. '31 Abenius. Hakan V., Mine Supt., Bolidens Gruvaktiebolag Boliden, Sweden. '37 Aborn, Robert H., Asst Met., Research Lab., U. S. Steel Corp. Lincoln Highway, Kearny, N. J. '19 Abraham, W. E. V., East India United Service-Club, 16 St. James' Sq., London, S. W. 1, England. '28 Abrams. Charles Jackson 1624 17th St., Denver, Colo. '36 Abstein, Henry T., Engr. & Mgr., Profile-Tamarack Mines Co Yellow Pine, Idaho. '27

Jan 1, 1938

By J. J. Forbes

Probably the newest thing in mining safety, or safety for mines, is the apparent dissatisfaction on the part of the mineral industries, as represented by both management and labor, and the general public of the Nation, with the safety record of the mining industry. This is reflected by published comments and papers in the technical press;1-8 in labor periodicals, 10 11 in popular journals and periodicals,12 13 and in the daily press; also by discussions of the Safety Committees sponsored by the National Safety Council, 9, 14-15 the American Mining Congress, 1, 16 the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 2, 4 the Mine Inspectors' Institute of America,6,8,17,18 the Coal Mining Institute of America, 5, 19, the American Standards Association, and others.20,21

Jan 1, 1949

By Richard H. Mote, W. C. Schroeder

The endlessly changing pattern of mineral supply and demand offers opportunity to the alert and can bring disaster to the unwary. The discovery of ore bodies, the invention of extractive processes, the provision of new transport facilities, the political stabilization of underdeveloped areas, and many other changes can increase supply dramatically. Such new outpourings of mineral wealth from ore bodies bring fortunes to their developers, and consumers frequently find their competitive positions decidedly improved by new and cheap sources of supply. On the other hand, operators of marginal properties can find competition from newly opened high-grade mines intolerable. Consumers that have depended on the products of nearby, high-cost mines may find new, remote, low-cost supplies advantageous only to their competitors. The invention of new prospecting methods can have spectacular effects. Shortly after World War I the discovery rate of petroleum pools began to decline. The leading prospecting technique of that day, the projection downward of surface reflections of geologic structure, was proving less rewarding. Prophets foretold an oil shortage in the near future. But at that very moment scientists were perfecting the application of seismic waves to reveal underground oil-bearing geologic structures. As these geophysical methods were put into commercial use the whole outlook changed-the problem of the 1930's became how to cope with the surplus from discovery, not how to meet the ever rising demand. Many lead mines were being abandoned as unprofitable about this same time because the penalties charged by smelters for the zinc in the ores and concentrates more than counterbalanced the payments for lead and silver. Then selective flotation (at the time called differential flotation) appeared,

Jan 1, 1959