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By S. E. Craig

UPON entering the Uranium Field it was a pleasant surprise to find almost absent two factors that have always been a problem to the lead-zinc miner: 1) milling cost per ton, and 2) transportation cost to the milling site. Another interesting condition was the fixed price for the product. Under such conditions it seems rather simple to calculate the economics of a mining venture when grade and tonnage of a uranium ore deposit is known. That is assuming, of course, there is a market for the ore. It has been quite generally assumed by operators that a guaranteed price carried with it a guaranteed market, a subject about which there has been a great deal of discussion in the past several months. The fixed price for uranium in crude ore, calculated to U3O8, varies only slightly in value per pound from rather low grade ore to rather high grade ore. It is by taking advantage of this slight variation in price per pound in certain ranges that miners and shippers may increase substantially the monthly returns from ore shipments.

Jan 7, 1958

By R. B. Fuller, E. T. Casler

MANY changes were made in the methods and equipment used in the mining of pebble phosphate rock in the generation immediately preceding the present World War and it would be extremely interesting to note the improvements that will be made during the next generation. Literally, much water has gone over the dam since the days when we used local cordwood for generating steam and drying pebble phosphate rock. belt-driven centrifugal pumps operated by steam engines. and floating dipper or centrifugal dredges; when we removed overburden by small steam shovels and transported it by dinkey locomotives and six-yard cars; when washing machinery was installed on wooden structures the washers being replaced every four to six years. Those were the days when men were plentiful, and 47 different mining companies were selling their products, based on .decidedly meager information; and. like so many mining operations, little thought was given to conservation. As the importance of phosphate rock has become more prominent in the thoughts of our economists, a more intelligent approach has been made to mining problems. Vast improvements have been made in the technique and processing of the phosphate matrix and stripping of overburden, which, in turn, have brought developments in machines and equipment and a more

Jan 1, 1944

By T. A. Rickard

Slovenliness is as reprehensible in words as in clothes. Much writing that we recognize as poor in style is merely sloppy. Just as some students postpone the necessary shave or forget to change their collars, so young engineers in writing drop their articles, definite and indefinite, or omit prepositions where they are required, possibly to compensate for these they use unnecessarily The work will begin [on] Saturday. The work will begin [on] Saturday. `Influenza seriously affected many mines [during] the last three months. Flotation in America [during] the last two years has made tremendous strides. Construction of the mill started [on] August 12, 1915, at which time 75% of the excavation was completed. The idea I wish to convey is [that] there are mineral deposits to which the present law applies badly. For this reason, if there was [for] no other, the ownership of the ore below and [of] the surface above should go together. When a unit of mapping is furnished, be the unit a claim or [a] group of claims, it is necessary .. . A fully stocked store was started in Park City and all employees [were] sold merchandise on a strictly cost basis. The word "merchandise" is left without government or agreement. I suggest: ". . . and merchandise] was sold to all the employees on a strictly cash basis.". The verb `be' is serving concurrently both as a principal and as an auxiliary in the following: At first the work was interesting and [was] liked by most of the men. The sulphide ore was more complex or [was] milled at an increased cost. The failure to repeat tie auxiliary verb in successive clauses is a common error, as in The filter is filled with liquid allowed to empty, and then ignited.

Jan 1, 1931

By Frederick Bacorn

THE paper of Reno H.. Sales on Ore Deposits at Butte, Mont.,' is a careful and painstaking work, an important contribution to the literature of the subject. As is almost inevitable in a work of such magnitude, a few misstatements occur; and some of these I shall endeavor to point out. Mr. Sales has also fallen into error, as I think, in the application of his theory of ore deposition; and while the modification which I venture to suggest is a minor one geologically, it is of great economic importance. I refer to Mr. Sales's idea of an outward migration of mineralizing solutions from a supposed central copper zone. In order that I may make myself plain, I must first epitomize the theory as a whole, which I understand to be this: All of the Butte ore deposits (save those along the Continental fault, not herein considered) are derived from solutions of magmatic origin, which, at the beginning of their ascent from a great depth, were, acid in reaction, hot, and were carriers of copper, zinc, manganese and other metals. As they departed from their point of origin they lost heat, and, because of reactions with the wall rock, became more and more alkaline. The metal deposited from these solutions in their hot condition was principally copper; and, as they cooled, they deposited less and less copper and more and more manganese and zinc, until the copper practically disappeared. With this theory in general I have no fault to find, nor have I, it must be stated, the qualifications necessary to enable me to pass upon it critically; but it seems to me to be reasonable and probable, and is one which I am quite willing to accept.

Jan 8, 1914

By L. L. McDaniel

Copper smelters of various kinds have operated in the Morenci district since 1872, but all have been abandoned with the exception of the present Morenci Smelter of Phelps Dodge Corporation, which was completed in 1942. During the five-year period starting in 1937, the Morenci ore body was prepared for open pit mining, pilot mill test work was carried out, and a complete reduction works, of which the Smelter is a part, was designed and erected. Actual construction work on the Morenci Smelter was started in the fall of 1940, and warming up of the units began on April 1, 1942. Charging of the reverberatory furnaces commenced on April 18, 1942, and the first anode copper was produced on April 26, 1942. The smelter was originally designed to handle the production of the Morenci Concentrator on a 25,000 ton per day program, but by the time the smelter was in operation, plans were already underway to increase the smelter capacity to handle the production of the concentrator which was being enlarged to 45,000 tons a day capacity as a war-time necessity. This extension to the smelter was completed and the new units were put in operation toward the beginning of 1944. The original smelter consisted of a smelter crushing plant, bedding plant, two direct-smelting reverberatory furnaces with two waste-heat boilers on each furnace, three converters, an anode department, a stack, and all of the usual accessory smelting equipment. The extension consisted of increasing the bedding plant from three to five beds, the reverberatory department from two to four furnaces, and from four to eight waste-heat boilers, and the converter department from three to six converters. A third converter aisle crane was added and additions were made to the flue systems and conveyor systems throughout the smelter; but no change was made in the smelter crushing plant or the anode department, and the same stack was used for all additional Smelter units. A blister casting machine was installed at that time in the south end of the converter aisle to handle excess and emergency production above the capacity of the anode department and in 1947 a converter aisle skull breaker and a lime burning plant were added as the final units for a complete plant. The choice of direct smelting over calcine smelting for the Morenci Smelter was made after careful study by members of the Western organization of Phelps Dodge Corporation and after test runs on direct smelting of Morenci concentrate had been made at the Douglas Smelter of Phelps Dodge Corporation. The Morenci furnace charge is made up of comparatively high grade concentrate with no ores of smelting grade available and with only flux, a small amount of copper precipitate and the usual amount of smelter secondaries to be smelted with the concentrate. The simplicity of direct smelting for this charge and the large amount of waste-heat steam available from direct smelting operations were factors influencing the decision to adopt direct smelting for Morenci. The design of the Morenci Smelter and the type of units selected followed best experience at the Douglas Smelter of Phelps Dodge Corporation. A description of the original smelter before operations started was given in an article in the May 1942 issue of Mining and Metallurgy. The purpose of the present article is to describe the enlarged Morenci Smelter, with a discussion of metallurgy and operating practice and to show tabulations of operating and metallurgical results obtained. Because of beginning operations during the early years of World War 11, many problems caused by labor shortage were encountered, but no major difficulties developed in starting the new plant. However, because of labor shortage, full scale Smelter production was not reached until the fall of 1946. Fig 1 shows a general plan of the Morenci Reduction Works. The arrangement of the smelter equipment is shown in Fig 2, a sectional view of the smelter is shown in Fig 3, and the smelter flow sheet is shown in Fig 4. Metallurgy The metallurgy of direct smelting, being more or less fixed by the character of the charge, is not subject to the control available in calcine smelting. Slags may be modified by the addition of suitable fluxes, but the grade of the matte is determined almost entirely by the iron:copper ratio of the concentrate. The direct smelting operation involves distributing the wet concentrate along the sidewalls and in the bath of a reverberatory furnace by means of some suitable feeding device and raising the temperature of the charge so that first the moisture is driven off, then the first-atom sulphur is eliminated, and finally the sulphide portion of the charge melts and runs into the bath, carrying with it the non-sulphide portion which has been partially fluxed to form a suitable slag. The fusion of the non-sulphide portion is completed by contact with the irony converter slag which is regularly being poured into the reverberatory furnace. The smelting rate of the charge is influenced by the mineralogi-cal composition of the sulphide portion of the concentrate and by the composition and amount of the non-sulphide portion including the fluxes added. The copper in Morenci concentrate is chiefly in the form of chalcocite, intimately associated with pyrite, and non-sulphide content is very low so that

Jan 1, 1950

By W. S. Ayres

I. INTRODUCTION. THIS cavern was discovered Oct. 22, 1904, by Mr. Charles H. Deutschman, in company with whom I made, May 29 to June 3, 1905, at the request of Mr. Howard Douglas, Superintendent of the Canadian National Parks, the first exploration of it for the Canadian government. The results were stated in a paper, orally presented, with lantern-views from my photographs, at the British Columbia Meeting of the Institute, Victoria,, B. C., July 5, 1905.* The present paper embodies also the results of a second examination, made Oct. 25 to 29, 1905. The accompanying map, Fig. 1, will serve as a guide to the following description. II. LOCATION. The cavern is situated at snow-line, at the head-waters of Cougar creek, on the west slopes of the Selkirks, about 2 miles north from Ross Peak water-tank, and 5.5 miles west from Glacier House, on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was then reached by an arduous climb from the water-tank, up the ravine of Cougar creek, for 8,000 ft. (2,000 ft. of altitude) over rock- and snow-slides, and through a thick tangle of alders. But an easy and very picturesque trail has, during the past summer, been opened by the government from Glacier House. Figs. 2, 3 and 4 represent views, not heretofore published, of the grand scenery of this region, so rapidly becoming the-object of attraction to thousands of tourists from all parts of the world. These views, as well as those shown in. Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8

Jan 1, 1907

By Klaus-Peter M. Hanke

INTRODUCTION In early 1979 Jim Walter Resources, Inc. (JWR) of Brookwood, Alabama approached TMCI Construction, Inc (TMCI) to make a proposal on a program that involved the sinking of up to 10 ventilation shafts of approximately 6.7 m (22 ft) diameter and ranging in depth from 500 to 700 m (1650 to 2300 ft) for the JWR coal mines in Alabama. At this time TMCI was already constructing the first spiral underground bunker (capacity 2000 tons) in North America for the JWR organization at their No. 4 mine in Alabama. The TMCI proposal was based on the use of the mos modern large diameter shaft boring machine rather than sinking the shafts using the conventional drill blast-muck technique. The proposal was made based o: the experiences by the parent company, Thyssen Schachtbau, which has been using this type of machin in Germany for shaft boring since 1971. As a result of the TMCI proposal JWR issued a purchase order to TMCI for the construction of four 6.7 m (22 ft) diameter, concrete lined, unfurnished ventilation shafts ranging in depth from 500 to 700 (1650 to 2300 ft). An order was thus placed with WIRTH Machinen- and Bohrgeraete Fabrik GmbH, in Germany for the manufacture of a model 650/850 E/Sch "Schachtbohrmaschine" (Vertical Shaft Borer = V-mole which arrived on site in Alabama in early 1981. The first V-mole GSB 450/500 was introduced in Germany in 1971 and was capable of enlarging in one step a pre-drilled 1.2 m (4 ft) pilot hole to 4.5 - 5.0 m (14.7 - 16.4 ft). This machine has sunk 9 staple shafts and deepened one surface shaft for a total of 2360 m (7740 ft) of shafts. On the last shaft boring operation in 1978 the machine was converted as an experiment to drill without a pilot hol using a hydraulic pumping system to remove the cutting debris. A second generation machine, the SB VI 500/650, was introduced in 1977 for enlarging the pilot hole to a range of 5.0 - 6.5 m (16.4 - 21.3 ft) diameter. This machine is still in operation and has already drilled well over 2000 m (6500 ft) of shaft. The third generation of V-mole, the SB VII 650/85( for diameters from 6.5 to 8.5 m (21.3 to 27.9 ft) was: commissioned in May 1980 and has been used for two surface shaft deepenings totalling 606 m (1990 ft) with another scheduled for 1982. The main advantages favouring the use of such V-moles were identified as: 1) A reduction in manpower to the crew required in a conventional shaft sinking operation. 2) A considerable reduction in time to complete a shaft compared to conventional techniques. 3) The use of the V-mole eliminates many of the hazards encountered in conventional sinking. Based on the successful performance of the first three V-moles in Germany, Thyssen Schachtbau decided to employ this principle abroad. In 1980 a second machine of the third generation was built and is now operated by TMCI Construction, Inc. in Alabama. The first shaft was completed at the end of 1981 and this paper describes the method of operation including some unique aspects not attempted on prior V-mole operations and some of the statistics arising out of the experiences during the first shaft boring operation. THE NO. 7 MINE FAN SHAFT SITE Jim Walter Resources, Inc. was formed in 1970 to exploit the coal field in Alabama on the southern tip of the Appalachian coal field. The coal reserves amount to around 650 million tons of mainly good quality coking coal of which about 350 million tons are to be extracted over the next 30 years. Shaft sinking and preparatory work began in 1972, and at present 6 mines are producing around 5.4 million t.p.a. Annual production is to expand to 10 million t.p.a. as soon as possible, and the ventilation shafts to be sunk by TMCI play a vital role towards attaining this goal. The first shaft site is located at the No.7 mine, near Brookwood, Alabama. The actual location of the shaft relative to the production shafts is shown on the mine plan (Fig. 1), which also shows the room-and-pillar extraction system used at present. The mine plan further shows the conveyor route used for the muck removal. The geological survey showed that the strata consisted of horizontal layers of mainly sandstone, sandy shale and shale interspersed with several coal seams. The seam being extracted at the No. 7 mine is a combined seam made up of the Blue Creek and Mary Lee seams at a depth of 513 m (1682 ft) and having an average seam thickness of about 2 m (6 ft). At the beginning of September 1980 the surface site preparation and pre-grouting work was completed by JWR, and TMCI was able to commence with Stage I of the shaft sinking program - the drilling of the pilot hole.

Jan 1, 1982

By F. B. Plummer

THE physical properties of oil-producing sands, such as grain size, porosity, and permeability, are becoming more and more important in petroleum production engineering as oil fields are being repressured and rejuvenated. A number of excellent papers have been published recently on all three of these properties. Faucher, Lewis and Barnes1 give a com-plete survey of the work done through 1932 and contribute also much information on sands that they themselves have examined. Muskat and Botset,2 Wykoff, Botset, Muskat and Reed,3 Hurst,4 and Muskat5 have contributed a great deal to the theory and actual measurement of flow of liquids and gases through porous media. Muskat and Botset have measured the permeabilities of different sands with gases and liquids. They find that the radial is always slightly under the linear permeability. However, in most of the previous experiments small samples of the sand were used, and the method of production of fluid or gas through the sands has not been very close to actual oil-field conditions. In addition, so far as the authors are aware, no measurements of linear and radial permeabilities have been made simultaneously under exactly the same conditions. The multiple permeability apparatus described here is a part of the equipment being acquired by this laboratory for thorough investigation of the physical properties of producing sands. It possesses certain advantages for comparative studies of liquid flow. Additional data and descriptions of other instruments will follow in papers to be written later on. The essential features of the permeability apparatus are as follows:

Jan 1, 1934

By A. W. WALKER

All branches of production engineering showed steady and definite progress during 1941. Most of it has been of the slower and more conservative type rather than the sensational. To a large degree the changes have been influenced by the expanding war economy, and this tendency will probably be even more marked during the coming year. The stress of the times is placing more emphasis on the principles of engineering and conservation, with the object of obtaining the greatest possible recovery with a minimum waste or expenditure of equipment. Also available material supplies are often being turned to new uses.

Jan 1, 1942

By J. F. Smith

ELASTIC constants of yttrium and eleven of the rare earth elements have been measured. This has been accomplished by measuring the propagation velocities of ultrasonic pulses. The velocity measurements were made by noting the elapsed time between an applied pulse and the appearance of successive echoes. The pulse-echo technique has become relatively common, and the basis of the measurement is outlined in several standard tests, e.g., Heuter and Bolt.1 Two important assumptions are made when using this method for the determination of elastic moduli. First, the pulse is assumed to propagate as a plane wave. To justify this assumption, the cross section of the test specimen should be large compared to the wave length of the transmitted pulse. For these measurements on the rare earth elements the minimum cross section wave length ratio was about 20. A second assumption which must be made when using polycrystalline specimens is that the grains are sufficiently numerous and randomly oriented so that the specimen may be approximated as elasti-cally isotopic. The grain size in the as-cast specimens which were used is believed to be sufficiently fine for this approximation, and the degree of preferred orientation is believed to be small. Supporting this viewpoint is the fact that elasticity measurements by the pulse-echo technique on as-cast specimens of other metals give results which are in satisfactory agreement with values obtained by other techniques. Hence, it is believed that the measured elasticity values for the rare earth elements are not apt to be seriously in error due to the assumption of elastic isotopy. The apparatus used in this determination was a modified Sperry Reflectoscope with a precisely calibrated time base circuit. Piezoelectric transducers were used both to generate the pulse and to detect the echoes. X-cut quartz crystals were used for the longitudinal modes, and Y-cut quartz crystals were used for the shear modes. Frequencies of 2.25 and 5 megacycles per sec were employed. Most of the specimens were 2.5 to 5.0 cm in length. Results Table I is a tabulation of the measured propagation velocities of longitudinal waves and of shear waves, together with densities obtained by Sped- ding, Daane, and Herrmann2 from lattice parameter measurements. The shear modulus, Poisson's ratio, and Young's modulus were calculated from the data in Table I through use of the following relationships: µ = pv32 [1] s=2-(vb/vs)2/2[1-(vb/vs)2] [2] and Y= 2µ(l+s) [3] where s is the shear modulus, Y is the Young's modulus, s is Poisson's ratio, p is the density, V0 is the longitudinal wave velocity, and v, is the shear wave velocity. The calculated quantities are shown in Table 11. Compressibility values can be computed from the relationship and the computed values may be compared with measured values obtained by Bridgman.8 Table III lists the data for such a comparison. The agreement is satisfactory, being particularly good for neodymi- um and gadolinium, poor for samarium, and intermediate for the other elements. Some variation is expected since Bridgman's measurements are isothermal, whereas the present measurements are adiabatic. In addition there may be some effect due to small variations in purity. Though most of the rare earth metals measured by Bridgman and all of the metals used in the present measurements were prepared at this laboratory, minor purity variations might exist since the samples came from different lots. Also, any imperfections such as dislocations, vacancies, voids, grain boundaries, microcracks, etc., should contribute to the volume change of a com-

Jan 1, 1958

By Evan Bennett

ALMADEN is Arabic for "the mine." The definite article is properly used, for no mercury mine in the world compares with it for richness and volume of ore, produced and potential. After more than twenty centuries of exploitation, intensive throughout the last lour, ore from Almaden is about five times as rich as that of its closest competitor. We drove to the mine one April afternoon, across Don Quixote's plains of the Mancha, up the bleak, arid valley of the Rio Valdeazogue where we passed tenth century Moorish workings and their ruined castles. At dusk, we came to the Hacienda de Castilseras, a large farm where Almaden miners work their land on off days. Then we drove through the whitewashed, well-ordered town to the Castillo de la Direccion where we were challenged at the iron gate by two picturesquely costumed Guardias Jurados.

Jan 1, 1948

By N. C. Gay, P. J. Van Der Veever

The Klerksdorp gold mining district, South Africa, experiences a relatively high level of seismicity with many seismic events of magnitude greater than 4. These large events appear to have foci close to fault planes, most of which displace the strata by several hundred metres over a wide area. To help understand the mechanism of these large mining- associated seismic events, in situ stress measurements were made at 4 sites using "CSIR doorstopper" strain relief techniques. The sites were chosen close to, or some distance from fault planes and other structures. The results show that at all 4 sites a relatively large horizontal stress is oriented approximately north- west. The magnitude of this stress ranges from 0,78-1,O of the vertical stress. A marked horizontal stress anisotropy, varying from 13-30 MPa is also present. The dominant structural features are large, north-east striking normal faults which extend across the entire length of the goldfield. Displacements across these faults vary from a few centimetres to several hundred metres. Bedding plane faults across which large displacements may occur are also common as are north and north-west striking dykes. The majority of the faults strike at approximately 90º to the maximum horizontal stress and at all sites a large compressive stress plunges in the direction of dip of the strata and fault planes. Thus a significant shear stress may act across suitably oriented planes causing them to be in a state of potentially unstable equilibrium. This abnormal stress situation would exist along the entire length of the fault

Jan 1, 1982

By C. H. Hewitt, J. T. Morgan

The Fry cocurrent in situ combustion project was carried out in a 3.3-acre portion of a lenticular body of Robinson sandstone of Lower Pennsylvanian age. This particular sand body is about 12,000 ft long and 3,500 ft wide; it varies in thickness from 0 to 55 ft, trends northeast-southwest, and occurs at depths between 880 and 936 ft. The reservoir is made lip of three distinct types of sandstone, each having characteristic reservoir properties. (See Table I.) Textural gradients, sedimentary structures, erosional basal contact, absence of marine fossils, and geometry of the sand body all indicate that the sandstone is of fluvial origin and part of an extensive complex of river-deposited sedirnents. Geographically oriented cores reveal that the direction of depositing currents was to the southwest, parallel with the sand-body trend. Directions of maximum pernleability also parallel the northeast-southwest trend. The layered nature of the sandstone reservoir and its directional properties have controlled the areal distribution of produced gas, the ignition behavior, and the vertical profile and horizontal extent of the conbustion zone. INTRODUCTION This paper is the first of a series of three papers that describe Marathon Oil Co.'s Fry in situ combustion test. This first paper contains the results of a detailed study of the geology and reservoir characteristics of the Robinson sandstone reservoir in which the Fry test was conducted. The second and third parts of this series report on the field operations' and performance. The geologic work reiated to cores cut through the combustion zone, and to the effect of reservoir properties on the combustion process is included in the third paper.' GEOLOGIC STUDY OF THE FRY RESERVOIR The close spacing of continuous cores in the Fry combustion site provided an unusual opportunity to study the details of distribution of lithology and reservoir properties within a petroleum reservoir. The objectives of the study were: 1. To determine the distribution of rock types within the Robinson sandstone in the Fry area; 2. To determine the relationship of porosity and permeability to rock properties and establish the distribution and homogeneity of reservoir properties; 3. To determine the origin of the Robinson reservoirs so that attempts could be made to predict the size, shape, distribution, extent and continuity of Robinson reservoirs; and 4. To determine what effects, if any, the reservoir rocks might have on the combustion process, so that the process might be better evaluated. AVAILABLE MATERIALS Continuous cores were cut from 14 wells in the vicinity of the Fry site. Ten of the cores are from within the 3.3-acre pattern; six of the 10 were cut prior to combustion, and four were cut through the combustion zone. Cores from the Emma Fry No. 15, Wampler 0-2 and Fry B wells (Figs. 1, 2 and 9) were geographically oriented by the Eastman Oil Well Survey Co. Maps, electric

Jan 1, 1966

By R. J. Grissom

PHOSPHATE deposits have been worked in many countries of central and south central Tennessee, but only ht ebrown rock deposits of Maury and Giles Counties will be discussed at any length in this articles, as all of the major opeations are now located there. They are: Mt. Pleasant District-Federal Chemical Co., Hoover and Mason Phosphae Co., International Minerals and Chemical Corp. (Maury and Giles Counties), Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corp. (formerly Charleston Mining Co.), and Victor Chemical Co. Columbia District-Armour Fertilizer Works and Monsanto Chemical Co. In the near future, the well-known, extensive deposits of blue rock in Lewis and Hickman Counties,also the brown rock in Hickman, Willamson, Summer and Davidson Counties, will again come into production. Certain physical peculiarities of the Tenessee deposit have played an important part in the design and use of mining and milling equipment.

Jan 1, 1944

By A. D. Hill, R. S. Schechter, M. P. Walsh, I. H. Silberberg, M. J. Humenick

There are many uranium deposits which are too deep, too poor in quality or too small in extent to be economically strip mined. It now appears that this uranium can be mined using in situ leaching processes. A number of field tests have been, are being or will be conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of In site leaching. Preliminary results are encouraging, but a major question concerns the restoration of the mine site, which is generally contained within an aquifer. It is necessary to ensure that the quality of the water is not adversely affected by the mining operation. One component of the lixiviant is necessarily a cation and, during the course of mining, the ion exchange sites of the minerals in the mine zone become saturated with this cation. Ammonium is the cation now commonly used. Clearly, any restoration procedure or question involving the rate of cation migration with the groundwater all necessarily involve the process of ion exchange coupled with flow in porous media. The equations describing this process are presented in this paper and numerical solutions obtained. Preliminary results showing the effect of isotherm shape, cation exchange capacity, flow and dispersion are presented. These results demonstrate that in many situations cation migration in ground water will be slow.

Jan 1, 1979

By Jack Parker

The White Pine mine site lies five miles south of Lake Superior in Ontonagon County, Mich. Copper sulfide, mixed with some native copper, is mined by a room-and-pillar system from gently dipping Upper Kewee-nawan sediments. Depth of mining now varies from 700 to 1800 ft and the ore body continues to a depth of at least 3400 ft. An area roughly 21/2 miles square has already been mined. Mining height has varied from 61/2 to 22 ft. A rock mechanics program was set up in late 1963 to promote safety and mining efficiency. This note reports some of the findings. Rock Strength Compressive strength of small, dry specimens of sandstones, siltstones, and shales from the ore zone varies from 20,000 to 30,000 psi. This is intermediate between the softer coal mine sediments and the meta-morphic and igneous rocks of hard rock mines. Annual Cycle of Rock Failure Since 1963, every roof and pillar failure involving more than a few tons of rock has been examined and documented. Some 1500 stations have been installed for measuring convergence, -c1/1000 in., with Invar extensometers. At first it was thought that there was some kind of a cycle of roof failures; perhaps annual, perhaps even elated to the moon or to earth tides, but records (see

Jan 1, 1971

By Alfred R. Powell

LATE in 1944 a group of petroleum and coal technologists was organized in Wash¬ington under the sponsorship of the Petroleum Administration for War and the U. S. Bureau of Mines. This group, known as the Technical Oil Mission, was placed under the authority of the Technical Industrial Intelligence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was then promoting the organization of other missions to be sent to Germany to obtain technical information regarding various industries in that country. The objective of the Technical Oil Mission was to obtain technical data on German production of synthetic oil from coal and all other commercial practices and research projects connected with the oil industry. The primary purpose was to obtain such data as were immediately essential to assist the war against Germany and Japan, with secondary emphasis on technical information that would assist American industry after the end of the war. Since oil-production facilities in Ger¬many and the occupied countries con¬trolled by Germany were the top targets for strategic bombing, the Technical Oil Mission was the first group under the Technical Industrial Intelligence Com¬mittee to enter Germany. A few members of the group flew to London in February 1945 and the majority of the remainder followed in March. In London they were joined by an equal number of British investigators and the combined, mission was then sent into Germany under the authority of the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS). A sum¬mary of the more important information gained by this combined British and American mission is presented below. GERMAN OIL PRODUCTION The oil available to Germany, both natural and synthetic, and including pro¬duction from occupied countries, reached a peak in late 1943 and early 1944. Pro¬duction at this time was at the rate of 1,200,000 metric tons per month, equiva¬lent to i00,000,000 bbl. per year, or about 7 per cent of the wartime production in the United States. Of this production, 50 per cent was crude oil from Romania and Hungary, 12 per cent was crude oil from Germany itself, including Austria, 9 per cent com¬prised coal-carbonization products, that is, tar and light oil, and only the remaining 29 per cent was synthetic liquid fuel made from coal or tar. Synthetic liquid fuel made in Germany was equivalent therefore to less than 2 per cent of war¬time production of crude oil in the United States. The success of the strategic bombing campaign against German oil-production facilities is demonstrated by the fact that by September 1944 the Ploesti fields of Romania and much of the syn¬thetic oil production had been eliminated, so that the amount of oil available to the German war machine was only 25 per cent of the peak quantity mentioned above. By early 1945, when the combined British and American oil mission was entering

Jan 1, 1946

By A. L. Mular

Two equations express the integral rate at which fines are produced from a homogeneous material: It has been demonstrated that the Gaudin-Meloy distribution for single fracture is equally applicable to multiple fracture and is related to the Gaudin-Schuhmann distribution at least when the distribution modulus a is close to unity. A, xoY was found to be independent of starting mass over the range studied when particle size was held constant. The equations are related to the input energy to the mill. In an earlier paper,' it was shown that when Mo g of uniformly sized homogeneous material is ground dry in a batch rod mill, the energy-size reduction equation is expressed at any time by the mass of unbroken starting material left at time t, ku is the size modulus of the portion Mo - Mt, and P is a constant that is generally equal to the distribution modulus a. If the power to the mill is constant, Et is proportional to time and Eq. 1 is rewritten where (Mo -Mt)/t is actually the integral rate at which fines are produced from a parent material, and A, is another constant. The size modulus, k,, is determined from the Gaudin-Schuhmann equation:2 where y is the cumulative fraction finer than any size x. Recently, Gaudin and Meloy derived a distribution equation for single fracture on the assumption that the random fracture of a homogeneous material produces daughter particles of similar shape. Their equation is given by where y is the cumulative fraction finer than size X, x, is the size of the unfractured parent, and r is designated the size ratio. Although Eq. 4 is derived for a single event, it should also approximately hold for a series of com-

Jan 1, 1962

By Norman Weiss

The need for more efficient utilization of labor in the metal-mining industry has been the subject of several recent editorials in the mining press, and one attractive possibility for such improvement lies in the designing of future milling plants particularly with economy of manpower in mind. We are accustomed to think of mill design as the selection and coordinated arrangement of process equipment, but if labor is to be efficiently utilized it must be given early consideration in planning the new mill. There are three good reasons for economizing in labor: (I) to reduce costs, not only in the form of wages but also in housing, hospital, welfare, and other obligations that a company accepts when a new man is added to the payroll; (2) to prepare for recurrent periods of manpower shortage, during which a well-designed plant can manage to get along with skeleton crews; (3) because a milling plant that must depend upon an inordinately large labor force for its operation and maintenance is certain to be inefficient in other respects, for many of the shortcomings in design that make necessary the excessive use of labor are generally not corrected merely by having too many men. A simple example of this is a poorly designed ore-feeding system : if this is inadequate to the extent that one man must be constantly unclogging feed chutes, it may help the situation to put two men or three at this task instead of one, but the feed rate will still be inconstant. First of the factors that affect labor saving is the location of the mill. This is often determined by transportation costs alone, and as a result the mill may be placed close to the mine regardless of the nature of the terrain. The designer must then adapt his layout to the conditions, favorable or not. This happens often at small properties, where capital investment may seem more important than operating expense. In most instances, however, a mill site carefully selected for the advantages it gives the designer in laying out the plant is the most economical in the long run, even if it involves a slight increase in cost of ore haulage. Given some freedom of choice, the design engineer may be able to find just the piece of ground that provides the proper gradient for the needs of the flowsheet, permits installation of essential yards and trackage, and perhaps supplies an excellent site for a tailing dam. Further justification for having placed the mill not too close to the mine sometimes emerges only years later as an opportunity to treat ores from other properties. When it is known from the beginning that the new mill will serve a number of scattered mines, a free choice of mill site is naturally stimulated. The most important single factor in limiting the labor requirements of a mill is its materials-handling system for bring-

Jan 1, 1947

By Norman Weiss

The need for more efficient utilization of labor in the metal-mining industry has been the subject of several recent editorials in the mining press, and one attractive possibility for such improvement lies in the designing of future milling plants particularly with economy of manpower in mind. We are accustomed to think of mill design as the selection and coordinated arrangement of process equipment, but if labor is to be efficiently utilized it must be given early consideration in planning the new mill. There are three good reasons for economizing in labor: (I) to reduce costs, not only in the form of wages but also in housing, hospital, welfare, and other obligations that a company accepts when a new man is added to the payroll; (2) to prepare for recurrent periods of manpower shortage, during which a well-designed plant can manage to get along with skeleton crews; (3) because a milling plant that must depend upon an inordinately large labor force for its operation and maintenance is certain to be inefficient in other respects, for many of the shortcomings in design that make necessary the excessive use of labor are generally not corrected merely by having too many men. A simple example of this is a poorly designed ore-feeding system : if this is inadequate to the extent that one man must be constantly unclogging feed chutes, it may help the situation to put two men or three at this task instead of one, but the feed rate will still be inconstant. First of the factors that affect labor saving is the location of the mill. This is often determined by transportation costs alone, and as a result the mill may be placed close to the mine regardless of the nature of the terrain. The designer must then adapt his layout to the conditions, favorable or not. This happens often at small properties, where capital investment may seem more important than operating expense. In most instances, however, a mill site carefully selected for the advantages it gives the designer in laying out the plant is the most economical in the long run, even if it involves a slight increase in cost of ore haulage. Given some freedom of choice, the design engineer may be able to find just the piece of ground that provides the proper gradient for the needs of the flowsheet, permits installation of essential yards and trackage, and perhaps supplies an excellent site for a tailing dam. Further justification for having placed the mill not too close to the mine sometimes emerges only years later as an opportunity to treat ores from other properties. When it is known from the beginning that the new mill will serve a number of scattered mines, a free choice of mill site is naturally stimulated. The most important single factor in limiting the labor requirements of a mill is its materials-handling system for bring-

Jan 1, 1947