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By AIME AIME

CONVENTION plans for the A.I.M.E. Regional Meeting to be held on the Minnesota Iron Range Aug. 12 to 1.5 are being completed to give the visiting member?s from all parts of the country a wide variety of technical and recreational features. High spots of the social events are the official dinner, dance, luncheon and golf: and of course, special provision is being, made for the entertainment of visiting ladies. The technical sessions will fit in with scheduled trips to view all phases of mining, beneficiation and transportation of iron ore. Men from the West and Southwest will find much of interest in the detail of the mining operations. A trip to the steel plant of the

Jan 1, 1941

By Russell B. Cornell, William B. Plank

AT the close of the academic year 1940-'41 the largest number of students ever recorded received their first or bachelor degree in the mineral technology schools of the United States. The total of men thus prepared to enter their professional careers in the mineral industries was 1601, a number nearly 12 per cent larger than two years ago and nearly 75 per cent larger than four years ago. Notwithstanding this increase in the number of graduates and as had been predicted in the preliminary report in February, there was a slight decrease in the total student population of the schools in both the United States and Canada. During the college year 1940-'41, 9133 students were enrolled in the 54 schools of the United States and 764 in six of the seven schools of Canada.

Jan 1, 1941

By L. A. Cranson

WHEN I came out of Stanford University in 1922, the out-look for men trained in geology, petroleum engineering, and mining was indeed dismal; in fact, so much so that most of us looked upon our future in those fields as pretty hopeless. Neither our professors nor those men in industry with whom we came in contact gave us any enthusiastic encouragement as to the future of ourselves or the fields we had chosen for our labors. I believe that the attitude of pessimism which saturates everyone about graduation time is lament able and short-sighted, and may often start a young man on his way with an attitude of defeatism. Instead, he should be starting out knowing that he can expect hard work and keen competition, but that the fields of his labours are expanding at an accelerated rate, and that strong, energetic efforts will as always accomplish highly satisfactory results.

Jan 1, 1941

By William B. Plank

NEVER before have so many men chosen the mineral technology field for their college training. In the college year 1936-'37, 7190 such students were enrolled in the 53 schools of the United States. My last study of the mineral technology schools of the United States and Canada was made for the year -1934-'35, and the current study, as the previous one was made for the A.I.M.E. under the auspices of the Division of Mineral Industry Education. Altogether, four studies of enrollment have been made. The first three were for successive college years beginning with 1932-'33. This present one covers a two-year period, for the purpose of these studies may he served satisfactorily if they are made biannually. The data on the schools were collected in the same way as for former studies, 'namely, by questionnaire, dated in this case Nov. 18, 1936. The figures reported are therefore comparable with those of former cars.

Jan 1, 1937

In the Bowen Basin of central Queensland, coal production has gone from virtually nothing in 1961 to more than 24 million tons today4ut there's a cloud over this success.

Jan 1, 1977

By S. J. Swainson

PHOSPHATE ROCK is a low- priced commodity. This fact has influenced the choice of mining and beneficiating methods to a greater degree, perhaps, than in most other low-grade mining operations. The fact that many yards of everburden and matrix must be stripped and mined per ton of salable "rock" produced and sold has necessitated he development of relatively simple btneficiating plants having high capacity and low capital and operating costs. The law of diminishing returns must always be reckoned with in phosphate mining and washing, and often recovery must be sacrificed in favor of costs in order to achieve the highest over-all economic efficiency. The phosphate-bearing formation, known as "matrix," is composed of (1) phosphate pebbles, which are somewhat rounded in shape and which vary in size from 1-in, to micron sizes, (2) rounded quartz grains usually smaller than 10 mesh, and (3) clay, of varying "stiffness," which is the binder of the matrix. The phosphate pebbles vary in hardness. Their color, which varies from white to black, is not a reliable indicator of the Bone Phosphate of Lime (B.P.L.) content of the

Jan 1, 1944

By Howard N. Eavenson

The mines of the United States Coal & Coke Co. are located in the Pocahontas coal field, in McDowell County, West Virginia. Twelve plants have been opened and equipped, of which, by reason of the present business depression, only nine are now in operation. These twelve plants serve eighteen mines; some of the plants having several openings, in either the same seam or in different seams, tributary to the same tipple. Only nine of these mines are now being worked at the plants in operation. Construction work was begun in 1902, and coal from the first three plants started was shipped in December of that year. An additional plant was opened in 1903, two in 1904, two in 1905, two in 1907 and the last two in 1908. On Jan. 1, 1915, the plants have been in operation an average period of 8.8 years. The rules of the company, which have been in operation since work was first begun, are similar to those in use by the H. C. Frick Coke Co. at its mines in Pennsylvania, in which " Safety First" was incorporated as early as 1907; and it has always been the policy of both companies to look carefully after the safety of their employees. Although the field is an extension of the old Pocahontas field, the mines, located upon a new branch railroad, are away by themselves, and, as is usual in such cases, the class of labor attracted at first was temporary in character. The rapid development of the mines required the employment of many new men and officials each year; and, while the accident record from 1904 to 1909 was as good as the average of the field, it was felt to be not as good as it could be made, and a determined campaign was inaugurated for preventing accidents of all kinds. Fig. 1 shows the tonnage of coal produced per fatality, both total and for inside accidents only, at our mines; the tonnage per fatality of all West Virginia mines, and of those in the Pocahontas field. The purpose of this paper is not one of congratulation on the results so far accomplished, since the operating officials are not at all satisfied that the maximum is in sight, to say nothing of its having been reached; but to describe the organization and methods that have produced these

Jan 1, 1915

By Vernon A. Mrak

The Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming was the first area in the state to receive attention during the early days of uranium exploration. Although the uranium occurrences are many and widespread, most of the known ore deposits are quite small and difficult to mine. As a result of this, detailed regional exploration in the Powder River Basin has been neglected. The uranium ore deposits occur in that part of the Wasatch Formation that is of earliest Eocene age, and they are scattered over an area of about 400 square miles. All uranium ore deposits are associated with red beds or altered sandstones within the Wasatch Formation. Uranium ore was first shipped from the region in 1953. Total production through June of 1965 is 506,257 tons of uranium ore containing 1,922,527 pounds of U3O8. The average grade of ore is about 0.19 per cent U3O8. The major producing area of the Powder River Basin is the Monument Hill district where about 91 per cent of the basin's total uranium ore has been mined. The source of uranium is presumed to have been the Oligocene, Miocene, and perhaps Pliocene tuffaceous rocks that once overlay the area. Joints, fractures, and permeable beds or zones were the passageways for the migration of uraniferous waters from the overlying beds to the Eocene host rocks.

Jan 1, 1968

APPROXIMATELY 3500 people thronged the Hotel Statler from February 18 to 24 for the 173rd general meeting of AIME. It was a technical extravaganza in that 82 technical sessions were held, at which 500 authors presented some 350 papers. Fortunately, Jerry Peirce, outgoing President, didn't have, to preside at all the events although after his year's stint as President, he has more than a nodding acquaintance with some of the latest problems in the mining, metals, and petroleum industries. Although the Welcoming Luncheon on Monday noon was the official opening of the meeting, Local Section Delegates and the Board of Directors convened on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. The large attendance and business like demeanor of these two groups was in accord with the energetic and competent service they have rendered the Institute through the year. To the applause of engineers and their wives who thronged the grand ballroom of the Statler for the Welcoming Luncheon, President Peirce introduced Oliver B. Hopkins, president of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and C. Gerow, secretary of CIM. Dr. Hopkins brought greetings from the CIM and expressed his satisfaction in the splendid spirit of cooperation that exists between the two Institutes. Dr. Hopkins is president, Interprovincial Pipe Line Co., Toronto, and counts as a close personal friend M. L. Haider, who is the 1952 President of AIME and lately of Toronto where he was a director and general manager of Imperial Oil Ltd. Mr. Haider will be known shortly as Mike to thousands of AIME members as he makes his Local Sections presidential tour. There was a pause in luncheon proceedings when Judge Harold R. Medina arrived amid the applause of the audience and somewhat breathless from his trip via motorcade from an antitrust trial against investment bankers at the courthouse downtown. With the Judge at his elbow, President Peirce took the opportunity in his introduction to good humoredly chide the Judge for the vixenish habits of public servants in their treatment of astute businessmen. The successful inventor who patents his inventions is a monopoly; the copper manufacturer who buys his competitors a drink is in collusion; but the business failure need only look to the government for a subsidy, Mr. Peirce pointed out. Judge Medina, quickly captured the admiration of his listeners. He spoke about justice, deploring partisan deals on nominations for judge-

Jan 1, 1952

By W. J. McGee

Most nations and states have conducted geological surveys, generally with the view of discovering and developing natural resources, sometimes with the aim of promoting science. In some cases, as in the first survey of Pennsylvania, the official geologist so far preceded the prospector and miner as to guide the discovery and exploitation of the commoner ores, mineral fuels and structural materials; but in most instances statesmen have only been awakened to the need of such a survey by the successful extraction of minerals;

Jan 1, 1893

By B. E. Grant

THE major metal mine operations of the United States Smelting Refining and Mining Company in Utah are in the Bingham area. The Company also owns and operates metal mines in the Ophir district, twelve miles south of Bingham, and in the Tintic district, 28 miles south of Ophir. Operations of the Company in the Park City area have been idle since early in World War II. These mining camps, lying at moderate elevations, serviced by railroads, hard-surfaced highways, in close proximity to mills, smelters, cities and towns, fertile valleys, winter and summer vacation areas, and airports are probably as favorably situated as any mining camps in the world. The Bingham district, known principally for its copper production from

Jan 1, 1948

By AIME AIME

TUESDAY afternoon the annual meeting was devoted to a general session, in the auditorium, on production control. George Otis Smith presided and in opening the meeting recalled that the session in 1920 on the stabilization of the coal industry was the first time this subject had been discussed by Institute members in a general session and then introduced Carl Snyder, of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who spoke on "Long-time Growth and the Factors In Its Variations." He spoke without notes and a full presentation of his views must be deferred until the stenographer's report is available. He said that of the total production some 80 to 90 per cent represents goods for consumption and the other 20 to 10 per cent for construction. He discussed various indices of production, concluding that bank clearings are the best, and showed by charts that when they are plotted, allowing for various disturbing factors, they are seen to increase quite regularly at the rate of about 4 per cent per year. The production curve rises at only 3y2 per cent per year, because agricultural production does not in- crease as fast as manufacturing postal revenues in- crease at the rate of 5 per cent per year while the use of electricity increases twice as fast.

Jan 1, 1929

Plans for a multi-million dollar uranium mill in southeastern Utah were confirmed by Vanadium Corp. of America officials. Atomic Energy Commission has been dickering with two private firma for mill construction at Hite, Utah and Shiprock, N. Mex. Colorado Fuel & Iron has contracted to purchase all manufacturing business, plants and inventories of John A. Roebling's Sons Co., through a wholly owned subsidiary. CF&I currently the nation's ninth largest steel producer, will operate the new subsidiary under the Roebling name.

Jan 1, 1953

By Robert S. Williams

NO new ferrous alloys have been produced in the last five or six years that are as outstanding contributions to civilization as were the high-speed steels of the early part of the century or the stainless steels announced at the close of the World War. There have been, however, many developments of major importance having to do either with modifications of existing alloys or with new methods of treatment of older iron or steel alloys. Only a limited number of these new developments can be discussed and their selection does not necessarily imply that these are the most important but merely that they are of general interest rather than perhaps of greater importance in highly specialized fields.

Jan 1, 1939

By HARRISON W. CRAVER

THE principal purposes of library-catalogs are to enable a reader to find a book of which the author, the title, or the subject is known; to show what the library has. by a given author, or on a given subject; and to assist in the choice of a book, as to its edition, or as to its character. The author, in a narrow sense, is the person who writes a book; in a wider sense it is applied to him who is the cause of the book's existence, e.g., editor, translator, compiler, etc. Bodies of men, societies, and countries are, from a cataloging point of view, con¬sidered the authors of their official publications, memoirs, transactions, etc. All names selected as author names are arranged in strict alphabetical order. A subject catalog fulfills its purpose by entering or registering each book under the name of that subject or topic of which the book chiefly treats. It may or may not be alphabetical in arrangement. If the arrangement is not alphabetical, the catalog is commonly called a classed subject catalog, although this name might with equal propriety be applied to some alphabetical arrangements.

Jan 1, 1920

We have received from L. S. Cates, the following translation, by S. W. Mudd, of early mining methods in India: In Herodotus one finds a description how Darius by aid of his good horse and his good groom Oebares got himself the Kingdom of the Per-sians. He then set up in Persia twenty satrapies assigning to each a governor and fixing the tribute which was to be paid to him by the several nations. The following description of the method of getting the gold demanded of the Indians as tribute is copied directly from Book III Thalia, paragraphs 94 to 105 omitting the diversions of Herodotus which in one case consisted of a lapse of two pages following a semicolon before the author returned to the subject. The Indians, who are more numerous than any other nation with which we are acquainted paid a tribute exceeding that off every other people, to wit, three hundred and sixty talents of gold-dust. The way in which the Indians get the plentiful supply of gold, which enables then to furnish year by year so vast an amount of gold-dust to the King, is the following: Eastward of India lies a tract which is entirely sand. Here, in this desert, there live amid the sand great ants, in size somewhat less than clogs, but bigger than foxes. The Persian king has a number of them, which have been caught by the hunters in the land whereof we are speaking. These ants make their dwellings under ground, and like the Greek ants, which they very much resemble in shape, throw up sand-heaps as they burrow. Now the sand which they throw up is full of gold. The Indians, when they go into the desert to collect this sand, take three camels and harness them together, a female in the middle and a male on either side, in a leading-rein. The rider sits on the female, and they are particular to choose for the purpose one that has just dropped . her young; for their female camels can run as fast as horses, while they bear burdens very much better.

Jan 12, 1919

By Thomas R. Stauffer

The principle that conventional schemes for taxing petroleum or mineral resources are "inefficient" is illustrated using simulation calculations tested against an "ideal" system. Inefficiency is defined as the relative success in maximizing expected government revenues from the resources. Most systems fail because: 1) they leave oil in limbo, i.e. unproduced because of excessive fiscal burden; or 2) they unnecessarily increase the variance in the explorationist'c, rate of return by undertaxing large fields and overtaxing smaller but infra-marginal fields. This increases his discount rate and reduces taxable surplus. An "ideal" tax system is specified which maximizes government revenues while minimizing risk to the operator. Two criteria are developed: 1) the tax falls to zero on fields which yield only the minimum necessary rate of return ("marginal" fields); and 2) the after-tax present value of all fields is the same for all fields above a threshhold size. In particular, marginal fields, while contrib- uting little to expected values, do contribute to reducing variance and hence risk praemia by distributing the exploration costs over a higher probability of successful outcomes.

Jan 1, 1982

By George S. Rice

IN other countries, research involving testing in various phases of ground movement and lessening its damaging effects, as by roof control, is going on more intensively than in this country, as evidenced by official mining papers and general articles appearing- in .Great Britain, Germany, France, and South Africa. One most important bulletin, "Some Aspects of Deep Level Mining on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines with Special Reference to Rock Bursts,"' was published by the Association of Mine Managers of the Transvaal, Johannesburg, under date of June, 1933, though not received in this country until 1.934. Since the deepest mining in the world is being done on the Rand-several mines over 7000 ft. deep and the Robinson mine 8000 ft.-the studies made are of intense interest to all mining men who have to deal with heavy ground pressure. In the discussion following the papers differences of opinions are shown on a number of problems; for example, on the ade¬quacy of sand-filling to prevent rock bursts and whether compressible or rigid artificial supports are best; also whether pressure bursts are due to the doming of strata and collapse of a lag of the dome or to induced shear cracks in the hanging wall. The problem of obtaining some means of warning of an impending rock burst led to testing with height indicators to find whether warning might be obtained by the lessening of distance between hanging wall and footwall. The indicators used are similar in idea but not in detail to the "convergence recorders" developed by the Safety in Mines Research Board of Great Britain for their roof-control studies in coal mines. Success at several Rand mines is claimed in that indicator records give some degree of warning when the lessening of height is rapid, although, on the other hand, when this happens bursts do not always occur.

Jan 1, 1935

By H. L. Teicliman, E. M. Sipprelle

ENACTMENT of Public Law 290 by the 78th Congress authorized the U. S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, to conduct an experimental program to develop the technology for obtaining oil from oil shale. In adopting and later extending this legislation, the Congress recognized the impending necessity of supplementing ground petroleum reserves with synthetic fuels. Under the provisions of this legislation, the Bureau of Mines, among other things, was charged with the responsibility of developing mining techniques, methods, and equipment for mining the oil shales of the Green River formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

Jan 1, 1950

By William P. Shinn

Jan 1, 1880