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By Paul C. Merritt

The story now unfolding on the Mesabi Range is more than just another chapter in the continuing history of iron mining. It is an epic of foresight, research and pioneering instinct just now culminating in the rapid growth of a new industry hardly more than ten years old. And that growth has been impressive. In the decade that has passed since Reserve Mining Co. blazed a trail as the first successful large- scale commercial taconite operation, the number of plants now existing or soon to be operating has grown to six. From Reserve's initial capacity of 3 million tons of pellets per year, total production capacity on the Range has surged to 31.5 million tons while capital investment has leaped from $300 million in 1955 to almost $1 billion today. During the past year alone, more than $500 million has been committed to these projects, an amount probably greater than that going into any other single mining area in the world. There is more yet to come.

Jan 10, 1965

By E. P. Pfleider

Important economic planning by industries, companies, financial firms and governments is predicated on estimates of future growth potential. Prior to the passage of the Taconite Amendment by the people of the State in November 1964, various admittedly conservative forecasts were made of the future of Minnesota's iron ore industry. Since that date, 3 new taconite plants are under construction, 2 are being expanded, one has just gone "on stream," and a seventh is in the design stage. These plants have a total capacity of about 35 million tons of pellets annually. The pessimism of 1964 today is being replaced by unbounded optimism. In the light of such recent developments, it becomes essential to update forecasts related to production, employment and capital investments. New projections show 50 to 58 million tons of pellet production from Minnesota by 1975. This tonnage, together with some 6 to 8 million of natural ores, should provide an annual full-time employment of 15,000 by the mining companies, plus 700 in related railroad and power producing activities and 1000 in plant construction. Total capital investment in new plants should reach $1.5 billion by 1975 and $2 billion by 1990. These current estimates indicate that the conservative goals as set in 1964 for the year 1990 should actually be achieved by 1975 or 1980. BACKGROUND Various forecasts1,2,3 have been made of the future consumption and production of iron ores within the United States. The most recent of these is by Harrison,1 delivered at the American Mining Congress meeting in Las Vegas in October. His estimates reflect the latest iron ore developments on a world wide front as well as the accelerating trend toward pellets. Minnesota's Natural Resources council prepared a detailed report in 1964 outlining the various factors that affect the future of Minnesota's iron ore industry. It presented estimates predicated on the

Jan 1, 1967

By Richard J. Lund

Stock piling-and by that I mean well-organized stock piling on a substantial scale-is almost as old as the hills themselves. It was back in early Biblical times, as recounted in the Book of Genesis, that Joseph was charged by Pharaoh with the responsibility of stock piling food during the seven years of plenty to guard against the seven subsequent years of famine that were revealed by the Pharaoh's dream. And this same policy of storing up food or materials to provide for future anticipated emergencies can be traced repeatedly down through the ages. So our own efforts are anything but new. Our modern concept of stock piling-the purchase and storage of strategic materials to assure supplies needed in time of some future war- stems from our experience in World War I. In 1920, the War Department was charged by Congress with the responsibility of procuring all War Department supplies and mobilizing industry in the event of another war. During the two decades that followed there were many authoritative studies made of our deficient mineral problem, all of which pointed out the urgent necessity of stock piling certain strategic materials as a reserve against future war. One such study, made in 1925 through the combined efforts of the Mining and Metallurgical Society and the AIME, was done at the ex- press request of the War Department. Eight years later another more de-

Jan 1, 1949

By AIME AIME

APROXIMATELY one third of the world's iron ore is mined in the United States; and about 80 per cent of this third is mined in the Lake Superior ore region, and about 60 per cent in Minnesota. The Lake Superior iron ore region covers a vast area in the vicinity of Lake Superior that contained in early geological times large areas of iron-bearing sediments, which today form metamorphosed iron-bearing rocks, such as jasper, chert, taconite, and slates. Concentration of the iron content chiefly through solution and resultant removal of silica produced the ore bodies we find today in rock folds as on the Menominee range, at dike or impervious wall intersections such as on the Gogebic range, and blanket-type enriched ore bodies ly¬ing on or within the ore formation, such as occur on the Mesabi and in steeply pitching ore lenses elsewhere. In many places, folding and subsequent erosion of the tops of the folded areas has resulted in steep dips in the ore formation and contained ore bodies. The upper eroded edges are mostly buried under glacial over-burden. The slightly dipping Mesabi formation is the principal exception as to steeply dipping ore bodies.

Jan 1, 1941

By H. W. Gillett

MAINTENANCE of membership by the technical so¬cieties and the activity of these societies in spite of the adverse business situation have been noteworthy. This forcibly brings home the fact that industry recognizes that sound technical guidance is well worth its cost. The numerous difficulties and losses due to defects of various kinds arising from gas-metal reactions are now generally recognized and interest in these problems is widespread. The forthcoming A. I. M. E. round-table discussion of gas-metal problems will do much to clarify the situation and will permit us to assay our present knowledge and to suggest the proper direction for profitable future research. "The Age Hardening of Metal" was the title of the annual I. M. D. lecture delivered by Dr. Paul D. Merica. A critical review of the known facts relating to age-hardening phenomena was first given, followed by the presentation of a theory correlating the detailed observations which have been made regarding the mechanism of the hardening.

Jan 1, 1933

By M. R. Geer

Coal washing assumed an important role in the mining industry of the Pacific Northwest long before washing practice became firmly established in the Appalachian field. A Scaife washer was operated in the state of Washington in 1887; and by 1927, the fist year for which complete statistics were compiled, nearly a third of the state's coal production was washed, in comparison with only about 5 pct for the country as a whole. Mechanical preparation was adopted in Alaska in 1922 in a plant constructed by the United States Navy at Chickaloon to provide bunker coal for naval forces operating in northern waters. Many of the coal beds mined in Washington and Alaska contained more impurities than those mined elsewhere, and this circumstance contributed to the early interest in mechanical cleaning. A much more important factor, however, was the inclination of the coal beds. With steeply pitching beds, hand sorting by the miner at the face is impossible; consequently, all material must be loaded and dealt with on the surface, just as is now proving the case with mechanical mining of flat beds. Thus "full-seam" mining afforded the same stimulus to the early development of coal washing in the Northwest that - it is providing under mechanization in the rest of the country today.

Jan 1, 1949

By Paul C. Merritt

Samuel Hopkins, an 18th century inventor from Philadelphia, has been little noted nor long remembered by History, but it was he who on July 31, 1790, obtained what no other man can ever achieve -the first patent issued by the Government of the United States. Signed by President George Washington, the patent guaranteed to Hopkins the protection of the American Government for his "improvement, not known or used before, . . . in the making of Potash . . . by a new Apparatus and Process." The patent itself is no longer important, but it serves as a milestone in the development of an industry that is now rapidly moving to fulfill its role as a mineral to feed the world. Potash ranks as one of the oldest products of Man, having been used as a condiment by the habitants of Gaul a thousand years before Athens achieved its Golden Age of culture. By Hopkins' time, the uses of potash had changed considerably, going primarily into glass-making, tanning, soap, and explosives, yet the same sources and techniques of manufacturing potash used during the earlier 2000 years-that is, leaching of plant ashes in iron pots with water, followed by water evaporation and crystallization of the potassium salts-were still being used.

Jan 10, 1966

By Leo Ranney

ANY years ago a prospector came to a Nevada town and built himself a shack. Day after day he searched the hills for gold -but he found none. He closed his shack and hurried north, where a strike had been made. Next he tried to trap the flour gold that floats down the Snake River. He panned the black sands along the Oregon coast. He ranged over the mountains and up the gulches of far-off Alaska. At last, broken in health, six years ago he came back to his old home in Nevada. There his shack still stood-nobody wanted it. One day he started a garden in the rocky soil that he owned. His spade turned up a chunk of quartz, and in that quartz were stringers of gold. He had found a rich gold vein, running right under his own house. You gas producers who have hurried to Oklahoma, Louisiana, East Texas, South Texas, West Texas, even to California to drill wildcat holes a mile or two miles deep-why not, like the old gold prospector, have a look in your own back yard? Some of your coal seams contain 20,000,000 cu. ft. of natural gas per acre.

Jan 1, 1943

By C. K. Leith

OTHERS here are far better qualified than I to discuss some of the specific proposals for government regulation of the oil industry. I shall make no attempt to carry oil to Oklahoma. The question of public control, however, is inherent in other branches of the mineral industry in varying degrees, and my comments will be directed mainly toward some of the trends affecting the mineral industry as a whole, as a background for your more specific consideration of oil legislation. A proud American tradition has been the insistence on freedom of competition, on equality of economic opportunity, on a policy of laissez faire. Nowhere has this principle been given wider application than in the mineral industry. The mineral field has been open to all comers, and the job of mineral exploitation has naturally attracted daring and independent spirits. The laws governing conditions of discovery and development, as well as the anti- trust laws, have been devised to foster the spirit of private initiative. The result has been the building of a mineral industry on a scale never before approximated anywhere in the world. The impetus thus gained, the methods, the technique, the financial resources, have been projected be- yond our boundaries and have made the American mineral industry the purveyor to the world for many essential commodities and first in the exploitation of the world's minerals. Our habits of individual self-reliance and success are deeply ingrained, and there is hardly an individual in the entire mineral field who does not instinctively recoil fro111 the extension of collective control, whether public or private.

Jan 1, 1932

By W. H. C. SIMMONDS

The mining, metallurgical, and petroleum industries can be viewed as financial or as social institutions or both. The differences between these two conceptions of their businesses will influence their environmental 'and social actions. During the next 10-20 years western industry will be subject to a drop in the growth of a more highly educated labour force and to the emergence of holistic economics, new national goals, and a new ecological perspective. The profitability of the mining industry may therefore be influenced by the human side of its business to a greater degree. The increasing human, social, and environmental responsibilities can be discharged by improving the miner's equipment; by learning to look at situations through the eyes of all those involved; by developing common 'languages' which governments and the public can understand; and by mediating where feasible on the international scene.

Jan 1, 1978

By S. Frederick Ravitz

IN most applied sciences there are two distinct methods of carrying out research and development work. One of these, the theoretical, attempts to solve problems that may arise and to predict facts of practical importance by the application of the various laws of science, the other, the experimental method, attempts to each the 'same goal by obtaining data and trying out various processes in the laboratory. Since individuals frequently find themselves better adapted for one or the other type of procedure, it is natural that -two groups should 'arise, both working toward the sane objective but with somewhat different points of view, although many in each group are thoroughly competent in both fields. Metallurgy, in particular, offers an excellent opportunity for a comparison of the two methods.

Jan 1, 1935

By W. J. Schuster

Safety in coal mines depends largely upon adequate training of the foreman. Although management must provide modern and safe equipment and at all times keep mines in first class condition from a safety viewpoint, final results will be determined by the quality of supervision. HANNA COAL CO., Division of Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Co., operates three large underground mines in eastern Ohio. The section of Pittsburgh No. 8 coal seam in which these mines are located varies in thickness from 52 to 64 in. It is immediately overlain by a stratum of shaly material 12 to 15 in. thick locally known as draw slate, which is structurally very weak and which disintegrates rapidly upon exposure to atmosphere. Immediately above the draw slate as it is normally found is a band of extremely high ash material 6 to 12 in. thick known as roof coal or rooster coal, and above this is a stratum of conglomerate material varying from 4 to 10 ft in depth. Overlying the conglomerate is a relatively thick stratum of limestone, the first stable material above the Pittsburgh coal seam in eastern Ohio. With the method of full-seam mining that has been adopted, draw slate is shot down, loaded with the coal, and removed in the preparation plants. The roof coal then becomes the permanent roof. The major problem in mining the No. 8 seam in eastern Ohio is control of the roof. Since the strata above the draw slate contains no material with a structure firm enough to provide self-support, the roof begins to sag in a relatively short time after the coal and draw slate have been removed. The problem thus becomes one of getting temporary safety posts under this roof as quickly as possible to prevent a break or separation from occurring either in the roof coal or in the conglomerate above it. Haulage System The Pittsburgh No. 8 seam in eastern Ohio is relatively level, with only minor local dips. Throughout the Hanna Coal Co. mines, entries are generally 12 ft wide. Rooms are driven on a 60" angle on 30-ft centers and are 22 ft wide. No attempt is made to extract the 8-ft pillars between. The entire length of main line haulage is gunited in one mine, and a major portion in another. Two of the mines have single-track main haulage roads with passways. The third, a new mine, is double-tracked, and the roof is supported by steel crossbars, 60 lb or heavier, spaced on 4-ft centers and lagged. In recent years timbering on main line and secondary haulage roads has been accomplished by one of two methods: 1—crossbars are supported on a small section of post set in a hitch hole in the rib, or 2—or a hole is drilled in the rib about 12 in. below the roof, of sufficient depth to fasten securely a short length of 40-lb rail, the bottom of the rail facing the roof, on which a short post is set directly under the crossbar. At present the hitch-hole timbering method is favored. At two of the mines the main line haulage locomotives are 26-ton, 8-wheel units. These locomotives are of the axleless type, each wheel being individually mounted on the frame. The motorman's compartment is encircled by 3-in. armor plate for the protection of the occupants. At the third underground mine conventional 15-ton locomotives are being used. However, these locomotives have been completely rebuilt in the company's shops. Equipment has been streamlined and quarters have been provided for two people, who are protected by heavy steel plate in much the same way described above. This modernization program has been completed on all secondary haulage locomotives at the three mines, and the company is well on the way to similar equipment of the 6-ton section locomotives. The following additional features have been included in their modernization: 1—additional support for the motors to prevent their falling to the middle of the track and derailing the locomotives should a break occur in the suspension bar support; 2—installation of additional bracing to prevent brake rigging from becoming displaced and causing derailments; 3—enclosure of all electric wiring in conduit or raceway; 4—provision of an enclosed compartment for the storage of re-railers, jacks, and other equipment, so that they need not be carried on the outside of the motor; and 5—redesign of the end of the locomotive opposite the operator's compartment to prevent anyone's mounting from that direction. It is interesting to note that some

Jan 1, 1955

The problems confronting the development of Latin America's mineral resources have hinged largely on the political and economic climates-in short, the investment climate--existing and often changing in each nation. .The attractions and risks confronting today's investors in such mineral developments have been described and debated to considerable length during the past two decades, the arguments pro and con colored by the previous experiences incurred by the would-be investor, whether company or individual. In an effort to shed light on the investment climates existing today throughout Central and South America, the Council of Economics brought four experts together at the AIME Annual Meeting last March to give their views on this subject.

Jan 7, 1966

A comprehensive, systematically structured mineral evaluation system is a prime requirement for objectively assessing mineral supply impacts on the economy. The Minerals Availability System developed by the US Bureau of Mines is a step in the right direction-a well-organized unraveling of the mineral supply network, structured in format to allow quick retrieval for rapid listing, supply analysis, and other uses.

Jan 9, 1977

By R. Laird Auchmuty

A NUMBER of factors, of varying importance, should be considered in assessing mineral land-here specifically coal land -for tax purposes. (1) Is the coal developed or un- developed'! (2) If undeveloped, is it surrounded by active development in adjoining properties? (3) Accessibility of railroad facilities to the property. Sometimes the railroad itself is of importance. (4) Cost of development of the seam under consideration, whether it can be developed by a drift from the outcrop or whether it will require deep and costly shafts or slopes. (5) Is it definitely known that the coal seam being assessed is of minable thickness and quality on the property? (6) Thickness of recoverable coal from the seam. (7) Quality of the coal. (8) Is the seam being assessed likely to be more costly to mine than other seams in the same district? (9) Is there an active market demand for coal from the seam being assessed? (10) Is the coal held only as protection to surface structures and in such location that it can never be mined? (11) Is the coal in a solid piece or is it in pillars that have been standing for some years as a result of incomplete mining in an old operation? (12) Expected percentage of recovery from the seam being assessed as determined by present mining practice in similar properties. (13) Value of the seam as indicated by sales of similar mineral rights in the immediate district. (14) Current royalty rates of leases for coal in the seam under consideration.

Jan 1, 1939

By Willard L. Cumings, Benjamin L. Miller

(Glen Summit Meeting, June, 1911.) I. THE CAMAGUEY DEPOSITS. 1. Location. THE Camaguey brown iron-ore deposit covers the top of San Felipe hill, the nearest point of which lies 14 miles NW. of the city of Camaguey. While there are several low flat-topped hills in the vicinity covered with a more or less continuous mantle of brown iron-ore, the deposit of San Felipe hill is the only one of any size and importance, and the name "San Felipe district " is proposed for the region. The deposit extends in a NW-SE. direction for a distance of about 10 miles, with an average width of 5 miles. The location is shown in Fig. 1, a sketch-map of the eastern part of Cuba. Fig. 2 is a map of the San Felipe district. 2. Description. The district is mentioned by Spencer,1 who says: "The Cubitas iron-ore fields are situated from 12 to 15 miles north of Camaguey City, in the province of Camaguey Within an area measuring roughly 10 miles east and west and 4 miles north and south, there are several flat-topped mesas rising 300 to 400 ft. above the level of an almost featureless plain which extends for many miles in all directions except toward the north." With the exception of the discrepancy in his statements as to the distance from Camaguey and the area of the hill, which is over 50 sq. miles, his description is a very good one. Kemp 2 has the following to say of ores in Carnaguey Province * Geologist, Bethlehem Steel Co. + Professor of Geology, Lehigh University. 1 Bulletin No. 540, U. S. Geological Survey, p. 324 (1908). 2 The Iron Ore Resources of the World, printed by the Eleventh International Geological Congress, vol. ii., p. 795 (1910).

Mar 1, 1911

By Joseph Hyde Pratt, Douglas B. Sterrett, CHAPEL HILL

I. DESCRIPTION. MONAZITE is one of the minerals which, for a long time, was considered rather rare in its occurrence, but, upon a commercial demand arising for it, prospectors and engineers soon located large deposits of it in the Carolinas and Brazil, and the supply has always been able to meet the demand. During 1908 further sources of supply of monazite have been discovered and developed in Idaho. North and South Carolina, however, are the only States that have thus far put any monazite on the market. Monazite is essentially an anhydrous phosphate of the rare-earth metals, cerium, lanthanum, and didymium (Ce, La, Di)PO;. There is nearly always present a varying but small percentage of thoria, ThO2, and silicic acid, SiO, which are very probably united in the form of a thorium silicate, ThSiO4 Some monazites contain but a fraction of a per cent. of thoria, while others have been recorded that showed the presence of from 18 to 32 per cent. ; but the majority contain from 3 to 9 per cent. of this oxide. It is the presence of the thorium oxide that gives the monazite its commercial value. The analysis occasionally shows also the presence of other constituents, as the yttrium and erbium oxides, zirconia, alumina, magnesia, lime, iron oxides, manganese oxide, and titanium oxide. Monazite is light-yellow, honey-yellow, reddish-, brownish-, or greenish-yellow in color, with a resinous to vitreous luster, and is translucent to subtransparent. It is brittle, with a conchoidal to uneven fracture, and is from 5 to 5.5 in hardness, and from 4.64 to 5.3 in specific gravity. It crystallizes in the monoclinic system, and some crystals have been observed that were 6 in. in length. The more perfect crystals are, however,

Jun 1, 1909

By W. A. Tiller, W. C. Johnston

A high-temperature electromagnetic stirrer is described in which heating and stirring are accomplished by independently controlled power sources. The appavatus is suitable lor use at temperatures up to 1700°C in a variety of ambient atmospheres. Some typical examples of the homogenizatimz capabilities of the system are given. THERE are few processes in solidification that are not markedly affected by motion in the melt during freezing. In many instances, the mechanisms are diffusion-controlled, and the transport in the melt may be greatly accelerated by deliberately stirring the melt. In zone-refining, stirring1 assists the removal of rejected impurities from the interface, so the process proceeds at a faster rate. The transition from a planar to a cellular interface is caused by constitutional undercooling in the melt ahead of the interface: and stirring delays its onset. Stirring is valuable for homogenization of melts: and chemical reaction with sluggish kinetics may be accelerated. Finally, it has been observed that grain refinement is related to motion in the melt. Fine grain castings are usually produced by the addition of catalysts to the -melt,' catalysts which are thought to act simply as hetereogeneous nucleation centers. Even here motion is important. Richards and Rostoker 5 applied ultrasonic vibration to a solidifying A1-Cu alloy which had been innoculated with a catalyst and found that the grain diameter fell linearly with the amplitude, the peak acceleration and the power input to the melt from the transducer. Finally, mechanical and electrical stirring alone have been used to generate a fine-grained structure.6,7 Johnston ef a1.' have carried out a series of systematic investigations of grain refinement by electromagnetic stirring in a number of low melting point alloys. They found, for example, that the number of grains per unit volume in Pb-Sn alloys could be increased several orders of magnitude by stirring an undercooled melt at the moment of recalescence. In general, a relation AT .H = constant prevailed for a given grain size, where AT was the undercooling of the melt and H the field strength. In more recent work, deliberate homogeneous nucleation of slightly undercooled melts established that the mechanism of refinement must be one involving crystal fragmentation and subsequent multiplication, rather than a "shower" of nuclei effect.9 It is the purpose of this note to describe a stirring device suitable for use up to 1700°C. At low temperatures mechanical stirring and direct-current methods are feasible, but at high temperatures the problem of a protective atmosphere and of electrode corrosion rules out such procedures. The most convenient method for high temperatures is to use externally generated ac fields for both stirring and heating. With rf induction heating alone, considerable stirring and agitation can be achieved, but in general the penetration of field into the melt is small, and the stirring cannot be controlled independently of the heating. In the present experiments, separate power sources of different frequencies for heating and for stirring were used. A susceptor design was chosen so that the 450 kc rf heating field was completely absorbed in the susceptor. The stirring frequency, 400 cps, hereafter called the af field, was chosen so that a high penetration of the melt proper was achieved. EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS The apparatus, Fig. 1, consists of a quartz tube and end plates, surrounded by an rf induction coil and six equally spaced af stirring coils, four of which are shown in full and a fifth in section. Each af stirring coil is a transformer of which the secondary is a single-turn water-cooled copper loop and the primary is composed of two 10 amp-117 v Variac cores as shown. These cores are cooled by forced air, as each of the six pairs will carry maximum currents of 15 amp for short periods. Each set of Variac windings are connected in series, but opposite sets are connected in parallel with a three-phase 400 cps 400-v source. By properly phasing the coils in this way, a rotating field is produced. Capacitors C1, C2, and C3 in Fig. 2 are used to match this inductive load to the generator. Fig. 3 shows a cutaway view of the quartz tube. The sample (1 in. diam by 1 in. high) is placed in a tapered alumina crucible. An axial W-26 pct Re thermocouple, enclosed by a protection tube, is provided. The cruci-

Jan 1, 1968

By W. R. Ingalls

IF, in this study of the outlook for the copper industry of the United states, I find myself assuming to be prophetic in some respects I shall express myself with hesitation and with the foresight that after the end of the war with Germany the war with Japan may continue; anyway there is sure to be an uneasy period before copper and the other metals begin to flow smoothly through the natural channels of consumption. It is mainly my purpose to survey conditions and suggest some probabilities, or possibilities, rather than to prophesy. In interpreting them it will be necessary to make certain aasurnptions, among which will be (1) expectation of a rise in the general price level,, which so far has been one-sided; (2) continuance of the k. tariff on copper imports; and (3) lock-up of government-owned copper as a military re- serve. Of these assumptions the first is indicated by the lessons from economic history, and by current symptoms. The second and third depend upon political action by Congress.

Jan 1, 1944

By Wilhelm Borchers

IN all special branches of the chemical and metallurgical industries, in which large electric furnaces became necessary for carrying out new processes or for the improvement of old ones, the development of the electric furnaces took place on much the same lines. The endeavors to make a success of a new idea brought forth many ingenious designs, which, however, almost without exception, furnished the proof that the safest and shortest way to practical success is the utmost simplicity of construction of the necessary apparatus. Our knowledge of the qualities of materials for building electric furnaces and of the constituents of the furnace-charges, especially their electric conductivity and their chemical affinity . towards one another at high temperatures, is still far from being complete, and from this fact we must conclude that the smaller the number of elements in the construction of a furnace, the fewer the number of unreliable factors both in the construction and in the operation of the electric furnace. This conclusion deserves special attention when an electric furnace for making steel has to be chosen from the constantly growing number of inventions, inasmuch as the chief con¬stituent of steel, the element iron, is a substance which in its liquid phase has so great an affinity fir those elements which are to be removed from the charge, that it is very difficult to comply with the following conditions: 1, to beat the refining-slag to the highest point of its chemical activity ; to prevent the iron from entering the slaw, or, where this cannot be done, to make it enter so that it finally appears in the end-product

Jan 1, 1910