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Jan 1, 1902

By W. H. Blauvelt

THE subject of fuel-briquetting has attracted much attention on the part of engineers and investors for the past 15 or 20 years, and especially in recent years, during which a number of plants have been built, with more or less commercial and technical success. Our technical literature contains numerous descriptions of certain processes, and discussions of the industry in general. For a history of the development of the art in the United States, and for descriptions of many of the processes which have been tried, reference may be made to the files of our Transactions, and, for more recent information, to a paper by C. T. Malcolmson, read before the First Annual Convention of the International Railway Fuel Association in June, 1909. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the briquette-plant of the Solvay Process Co. and the Semet-Solvay Co. at Detroit, Mich., which, after a period of long and costly evolution, is now operating satisfactorily on a commercial basis. I believe that it will be of interest to some of our members to have the details of operation, lower-consumption, labor, etc., as worked out on a practical and commercial scale in a going operation. The briquette industry has had a somewhat checkered career in the United States, and much the larger portion of the failures has been due entirely to commercial causes. It seems axiomatic to say that before undertaking the installation of a plant for manufacturing briquettes it is necessary that the local situation should be carefully examined : First, to determine the kind of briquettes, if any, the local market will consume; that is-to say, whether the available fuel-supply is such that briquettes would be a welcome addition, and whether the most promising field is the industrial or the domestic market. Second, if there is an available supply of raw material, as coal,

Mar 1, 1910

By AIME AIME

THE following paragraphs comprise such information as the Secretary has been able to obtain concerning the members and associates whose deaths have been reported. Further particulars or corrections of errors, and biographical data concerning deceased members or associates not already noticed in this way, are solicited. Pat Doyle was born in 1849. At the age of fifteen he entered the Civil Engineering College of Madras, India, and left it at seventeen, having achieved special distinction in mathematics, chemistry,. and geology. Before be was eighteen years old he was in charge of two of the most important Sub-Divisions in the Madras Presidency, where he had ample opportunities for acquiring a preliminary knowledge of his profession, which was his chief object in joining the Public Works Department. In 1867, his energetic measures saved the island of Seringham from disastrous inundation. At this period he began contributing to the press ; and after a varied practical experience he came into public notice again in 1876, with an article in the Colliery Guardian on Indian Mines and Mining. In 1877 he became a Fellow of the Statistical Society of London. He was a founder of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and a life member of the parent Society of Great- Britain and- Ireland, as well as a member of the Independent Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 1878-9 he was Chief Superintendent of the Public Works of Perak; was active in having the Associate Member Class added to the Institution of Civil Engineers; and became a member of the Society of Engineers of London and of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. In 1880 he went to the Southern Colonies and held several appointments in Australia, where he became a member of the Johnsonian Club, Brisbane, and the Queensland Philo-

Jan 5, 1908

By T. W. Turk, S. A. Sass

The engineering design features of the Mercur Gold Project crushing, grinding, carbon-in-leach, bullion, reagent, and tailings disposal areas will be discussed in this paper. It presents a project overview and flowsheet along with selected design alternatives. During the engineering phase, major equipment and other features were selected to optimize design within site location and environmental constraints. The project team organization and procedures were adopted to accommodate multiple optimization studies while maintaining a tight engineering schedule.

Jan 1, 1985

By A. V. UDELL

OF all the metals that have from time to time been called the "Wonder Metal," mercury, often called quicksilver, is probably the most deserving of this designation. A wonder metal it must have been to those workers of an earlier day who named it after that Latin god of commerce and gain, characterized as the fleet messenger of the gods and the conductor of souls to the lower world. The word mercury has been used to indicate a carrier of tidings, a bearer of news, a nimble or clever person, a hawker, and a skillful thief. All of these attributes, and more, are recognizable in this metal, the technical terminology of which is "Hydragyrum," meaning water-silver, and from which the chemical symbol "Hg" is derived. Fickle in its occurrence in nature, simple in its metallurgy, illusive in captivity, it serves man in life or death, in war or peace, in commerce, science and arts, in mining, agriculture, and forestry with a versatility found in no other element.

Jan 1, 1929

By Sydney H., Ball

ONE of the important mineral discoveries of the eighteenth century was , that of the Minas Geraes, Brazil; diamond fields. The production of this and of .other diamond discoveries in neighboring states made Brazil the premier producer of diamonds, succeeding India; its 140 years of supremacy finally passed to- South Africa- 60 years ago. Three times have diamonds contributed heavily to Portugal's somewhat checkered financial history; first in the sixteenth and seventeenth- centuries when the diamond trade of India was controlled by its citizens residing in ,Goa, later in the late eighteenth and the first 75 years of the nineteenth century when the Brazilian fields were the world's source of diamonds, and now, when the Angola diamond mines are the principal source of revenue of its colony, Portuguese West Africa. Certain phases in the history of the administration of the Brazilian field are sufficiently curious to warrant description.

Jan 1, 1929

By NORMAN EBBLEY

NUMEROUS references have been made recently to "Alaska's oil reserves," and in view of the wartime petroleum situation sober thinking demands a dispassionate and scientific study and investigation of these reserves or supposed reserves. The question naturally arises, "Is there actually oil in Alaska, or are the reserves there a supposition?" True, in 1923 President Harding established Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 in Alaska, certainly implying that oil was there. This reserve, embracing about 35,000 sq. mi., was set aside on the advice of the Bureau of Engineering of the Navy Department and was based upon the existence of known petroleum seepages at Cape Simpson on the Arctic coast. The Cape Simpson seepages have been known for more than fifty years, but in spite of persistent rumors of other seepages in northern Alaska no definite evidence of their existence has been available.

Jan 1, 1944

By John Wellington Finch

WHAT is an engineering opportunity? To the mining .engineer the natural assumption is that the first requisite 'is a mineral deposit, but, of course, it is not so simple as that. There are at various points on the earth really very great mineral deposits which, on account of geographic location, backwardness of the country, or hostility of its natives, are now, and for a long time to come will be, quite valueless. The mining engineer, and for that matter the civil engineer, is more dependent upon the decisions of capital than upon any other factor in his profession. Ordinarily it is to be assumed that money will go to any place where it is clear that an adequate return upon its investment can be secured, but for many years it has not been safe to depend upon this. ' As already stated, there are many places where local conditions are such that mining is not safe to engage in and there are still other places in which conditions have been so aggravated by the Great War and by the social unrest which has upset the Asiatic region that capital is naturally most reluctant to venture, even when engineering data makes the undertaking appear attractive. It will be evident, I. believe, that there are many factors vital to the success of a mining enterprise in some of the remote countries which we do not have to consider in the United States and which do not, in fact, exist here.

Jan 1, 1924

By John Wellington Finch

THE- impression which the public has of northern Canada is that it is a' vast wilderness of forests; river's, and. lakes, sparsely inhabited by. a few Indians and `containing a few, scattered trading posts of the Hudson Bay Co. This is far from the facts. The building of the Canadian Pacific Railway led to the discovery, in 1883, of the nickel deposits of Sudbury, Ont.; these are the largest known nickel deposits in the world and produce about 90 per cent. of the world's output of nickel. The building of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway north, from North Bay, to open up farming lands along Lake. Temiskaming, resulted in the discovery and development of the great silver deposits of the Cobalt area, Ontario. Since the discovery of these deposits in 1903 to Dec. 31, .1923, Cobalt has produced a total of ' 327,301,897 oz. of silver, valued at $212,668,434, and paid in. dividends $88,338,185. In 1923 the production of Cobalt amounted to 10,285,247 oz. of silver. Just south of Cobalt, in South Lorrain,. a. new silver district has recently been developed and mills have started production. These deposits are of such extent that 'a branch railroad is under construction from Cobalt to that area. Northwest of Cobalt is the Gowganda silver area which is also a producer of silver ore and is now attracting outside attention. This area is not connected by railroad.

Jan 1, 1924

By R. K. Iyengar, G. C. Duderstadt

An investigation was carried out to determine the effect of Ca-Si additions on the dissolved oxygen content of liquid steel. An apparent equilibrium was reached after holding the melt for some time when the total oxygen content of the melt was identical with the dissolved oxygen. Results of the investigation show that for deoxidation with silicon and manganese the apparent equilibrium is reached after 8 to 12 min and the oxygen content of the melt is in good agreement with values reported in the literature for similar steel compositions. Ca-Si additions decrease the dissolved oxygen content appreciably below that obtained with Si-Mn deoxidation. It is postulated that some calcium dissolved in liquid steel at the time of its vaporization combines with dissolved oxygen to form CaO which then fluxes the manganese silicate, thereby lowering the activity of the deoxidation products. Slow flotation of calcium silicate inclusions is attributed to their slower growth rate. An addition of aluminum (to yield <0.005 pct Alsol) prior to introduction of Ca-Si improves the kinetics of removal of resulting deoxidation products. WITH the introduction of continuous casting of billets and blooms, application of calcium-containing alloys for deoxidation purposes has gained new interest. More so than in conventional ingot casting, the degree of control of the dissolved and total oxygen contents in steel for continuous casting can determine the success or failure of the operation because these affect both surface (pinholes) and internal quality of the billets. Of the available deoxidizers, only silicon has so far found wide application. However, in the typical range of application (0.20/0.30 pct Si), it is too weak a deoxidizer to suppress pinhole frequency to the level desirable for all but the least demanding appli-cations (approximately 10/50 pinholes per sq ft, de-pending on degree of subsequent reduction). On the other hand, Vincent&apos; has shown that it requires ap-proximately 0.007/0.008 pct A1 soluble in the steel to suppress pinhole formation to <10 pinholes per sq ft. In view of the difficulty of consistently maintaining this aluminum level and the associated problem of tundish nozzle constriction2 when aluminum is added to the ladle, steelmakers have searched for other de-oxidation alloys to circumvent the problem. Calcium-containing alloys offer such a possibility. When employed as a partial substitute for silicon, CaSi (30 pct Ca/60 pct Si) additions are reported to yield adequate pinhole contro1.3 Its use simultaneously preserves the "fluidity" of the steel and ensures good castability.4 Oxygen contents as low as 0.007 to 0.014 pct have been obtained with CaSi additions varying between 3 to 8 lb per ton.5-7 Due to the high degree of vaporization of calcium at the temperature of molten steel and the different methods used to introduce it into the liquid, the reported results show considerable scatter and lack of consistency. According to several investiga- deoxidation tors, the flotation characteristics of CaSi products are not as favorable as those found for alumi-num but are similar to those established for silicates with low alumina content.678 Thus, cleanliness ratings were improved when CaSi was replaced by a com-bination of Si + A1 followed by CaMnSi additions.5,9 In view of the lack of a comprehensive description of the deoxidation potential of CaSi alloys, a study was undertaken of the effect of CaSi additions on oxygen content in comparison to Si + Mn and Si + Mn + Al. The alloy chosen for this study contained 63 pct Si, 32 pct Ca, <3 pct Al, and 2.5 pct Fe. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE The experiments were divided in three groups as shown in Table I. In each group, the CaSi addition was increased successively while maintaining the melt composition constant. The experiments in the third group were designed to determine the effect of prede-oxidation with small amounts of aluminum. Ingot iron, containing 0.02 to 0.03 pct C and 0.03 to 0.05 pct Mn, was melted in a 100-lb magnesia crucible. Pig iron was added to the melt under air in an induction furnace to attain the desired carbon content of 0.05 to 0.15 pct and thereby control the initial oxygen content of the melt between 0.04 and 0.015 pct. After removal of the slag, the furnace was sealed and argon was introduced through an opening in the graphite cover, Fig. 1. When the desired temperature was reached, electrolytic manganese was added to the melt and pin samples were taken (7 mm silica tubing) to establish initial oxygen content. To obtain maximum efficiency, CaSi and metallic silicon were introduced in a sealed steel pipe into the bath. This procedure assured minimum loss of calcium through vaporization as the deoxidants were always released at the bottom of the melt. Samples were taken at regular intervals and quenched in water. Temperature of the bath was measured with a Pt/Pt-10 pct Rh thermocouple. Portions of the pin sample were used for oxygen analysis; five determinations per sample were made to obtain average oxygen content. Oxygen analyses were made by the inert carrier gas fusion method with frequent cross checks with the vacuum fusion method.

Jan 1, 1970

By Charles Will Wright

I. INTRODUCTION. THE application of the camera as an adjunct to topographic mapping began practically with its invention, and it has been employed with varying success since that time. With the exception of the camera to be described, the plate-camera has been universally used in this work, thus giving a projection of the area photographed on a flat surface. From such projections or photographs, by the rules of geometry and of perspective, points defining topographic features and seen from at least two camera-stations may be projected upon a ground-plane-the map.1 In 1904 I employed the plate-camera for this purpose in Alaska, but found that the labor necessary to plot the maps, even in a general way, was long and tedious. In 1905 a small Eastman panoramic camera was fitted with spirit-levels, a sightalidade and a transparent scale, introduced inside the camera to register the degree-points in the sky-line of the film-negative; also, arrows to indicate the horizon-line. This was, on the whole, successful; but the details in the topography were not brought out in the views with sufficient clearness, and the photographs were too small. These difficulties were overcome by obtaining a larger and more carefully constructed instrument, which was satisfactorily employed in the field during the year 1906. A panoramic view is made up of an integral number of perspective views upon flat surfaces, and logically is the most ac-

Jan 1, 1908

By Thomas L. Kesler

Essentially all of the barite produced in Georgia has come from the Cartersville district in the northwest part of the state. The earliest recorded shipment of ore, 60 tons, was made in 1894.1 With the exception of the four-year period 1931 to 1934, the separate yearly output has been recorded and published since 1915, whereas the total yearly output of the United States has been published since 1880. The separately recorded production of Georgia (Cartersville) through 1947 is 2,232,544 short tons valued at $14,900,746,2 but unpublished data on the period 1931 to 1934, plus the estimated unrecorded output prior to 1915, make the actual total about 2,400,000 short tons. This is about 21 pct of the total production of the United States, which, through 1947, is 11,328,440 short tons valued at $71,683,386.2

Jan 1, 1949

By A. W. Fahrenwald

FLOTATION practice in Idaho is now about 13 years old. The advance has been steady during these 13 years. The operators have been alert to take advantage of the newest developments and they have themselves made a constant effort to improve their work. The metallurgical improvements are clue to the development of (1) better equipment, (2) better reagents, and (3) better understanding and control of the process. During the 8 years which the writer has been in this district, there has been continuous experimentation by several companies to improve the ore dressing by flotation methods. Gravity concentration has fought hard to hold its place, and although it is true that gravity processes have been improved during this period, nevertheless, in several of the important mills of the district the few tables that managed to hang on have finally given way. On the straight-lead ores, tables and jigs are still used; and, due to better classification, their hold on this job has been strengthened.

Jan 1, 1927

By Wllliam D. Davis

C OMMERCIAL production of oil in northeastern Oklahoma began in 1897 and in the next two decades this area became one of the greatest oil districts of the time. Its importance is now secondary, but thousands of wells in this area have produced uninterruptedly for more than thirty years. They are now classified as stripper wells. By means of what is known as water flooding their L. production can be considerably in- creased. This practice consists in injecting water under pressure into the sand surrounding an oil well, thus displacing the oil in the pores of the sand and forcing it into the oil well.

Jan 1, 1940

By H. M. Chance

Jan 1, 1887

By John B. Hastings

THE origin of the watery vapors of vulcanism has always been an object of interest and speculation to the seismologist, and as theories of the genetic origin of ore-deposits have of late years been pretty well narrowed down to the expiring forces of plutonic action, the same question has had a lively interest for mining engineers and geologists, as is well shown by the discussions of the subject in our Transactions. The important part taken by volcanic emanations in the origin of pegmatites and quartz-veins, described in my paper, Origin of Pegmatite,1 and their latent power to concentrate into useful deposits such scattered gold as occurs in the Hartsel granite, make a discussion of their derivation but a natural third and final step. It is conceded that enormous amounts of vapor accompany volcanism, though perhaps we are apt to forget that steam has 1,700 times the volume of water, besides which the column seen over Vesuvius and other volcanoes is greatly mixed with air; the immensity of such volumes compared with solids and liquids is shown by the experiment of Gautier, who, by heating dessicated granite to 100° C., evolved from it uses 20 times, and steam 90 times, its own volume. Dana appraised the average amount of water left in ordinary rocks as 2.5 per cent. T. M. Read estimated that the Mississippi river carries to the sea annually 150,000,000 tons of rock material. If these Mississippi sediments, as deposited, contained 20 per cent. of water, it would be 600,000,000 cu. ft., or 4,500,000,000 American gallons, annually. Allowing the vapor suspended over a volcanic cone to be mixed with 80 per cent. of air, this amount of water converted into steam would replenish anew, every 9 min., a column 15,000 ft. high, 2,000 ft. in diameter at the base, and 10,000 ft. at the top. Read&apos;s estimate is only half of the amount given in a more recent and probably correct one .2

Jan 5, 1908

By A. L., Bailey

All who are even generally aware of the tremendous rate of increase in coal washing operations must realize the growing importance of the float-and-sink test. I believe it is conservative to estimate that, in the past decade, the dollar volume of float-and-sink testing has increased tenfold. It is a simple matter of economy, then, to examine the factors that determine the cost of adequate float-and-sink testing. When the Coal Preparation Section of the Bureau of Mines entered upon a greatly expanded program of such work in connection with the synthetic liquid fuels investigations, it seemed advisable to examine these factors experimentally. The principal consideration that differentiates float-and-sink test sampling from general purpose sampling, is that the original particle size must be preserved. Therefore, the total cost of the test will be directly affected by any standard that might be proposed to limit sample bulk reduction at any given particle size. For this reason, the relationship of sample size to variability of results was the first factor to be studied experimentally.

Jan 1, 1949

By W. C. PAGE

AS the pioneer operation treating the mixed lead- zinc-iron ores from the district tributary to the Salt Lake Valley, the International Smelting Co.&apos;s plant has offered an extremely interesting and instructive opportunity to study some phases of this problem. Basically, there were two main reason for our attempting to work out a successful operation for the separation and concentration of the values contained in the rather widespread deposits of these so- called lead-zinc ores. In the first place, the time was ripe and demanded some method of curtailing the economic waste resulting from the costs of past and present practice of smelting ores of this character, or rather, those ores which could stand the charges inherent with smelting them. Secondly, but rather primarily with us, we believe that such a solution would greatly in- crease in general the production of lead in the district tributary to the Salt Lake Valley. It is generally known that there were and are three relatively large lead smelting plants in the Salt Lake Valley and the decreasing production of correspondingly clean lead ores was not efficient to justify the existence of all three. We could not hope for better lead smelting metallurgy nor more efficient business management than was being practised, so the only prospect was to at- tempt to work out some way to increase the primary production and thus widen the scope of operations.

Jan 1, 1926

By H. C. George

IN 1901, the United States produced 69 million barrels of crude oil, which was 41.4 per cent of the world production. By 1931, these figures were 850 million barrels and 62.1 per cent respectively, showing over this period of thirty years an increase in the world production of 718 per cent. Over this same period, the increase in the demand for technically trained men in the industry was much greater than the increase in crude-oil production. This was because much of the increase in production was secured by the application of geology and physics to the finding of new oil fields and by .the development of engineering methods and equipment incident to drilling and producing from much greater .depths.

Jan 1, 1934

By Kyle Wightman

INTRODUCTION CRA Limited is the largest mining group in Australia by value of sales and the second largest company in Australia in terms of share market capitalisation. In the past 25 years, CRA, its predecessors and affiliates have been involved in a number of mining and further processing developments in Australia and elsewhere. Many of these have been financed using project financing techniques. These include Comalco&apos;s development of the Weipa bauxite deposits in Northern Queensland in the late 1950&apos;s, the Hamersley iron ore developments in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the mid 1960&apos;s, the Queensland Alumina Limited alumina refinery in Gladstone, Queensland, at about the same time, and the Bougainville copper project in 1969/70. In the past three years CRA has again utilised project financing techniques to fund its Tarong steaming coal project in Queensland, the Blair Athol steaming coal project also in that State and CRA&apos;s interest in the Argyle diamond project in the Kimberley region of Western Austrlia. PROJECT FINANCE DEFINED Nevitt Definition Nevitt&apos;s is the most frequently quoted definition - "A financing of a particular economic unit in which a lender is satisfied to look initially to the cash flows and earnings of the economic unit as the source of funds from which a loan will be repaid and to the assets of the economic unit as collateral for the loan." Risk and Balance Sheet Treatment It is important to focus in more detail on two aspects of project financing, risk and balance sheet treatment. The assessment of the various elements of risk in a project and the sharing of that risk between sponsors and lenders is the most critical feature. At one end of the spectrum is full absorption of risk by the sponsor(s). This can be described as "on risk" or "on credit" or "full recourse" to the sponsor(s) and is effectively a corporate financing. At the other end of the spectrum the lenders absorb the whole risk in a non-recourse financing which is "off risk" or "off credit" for the sponsor. The other aspect is the sponsor&apos;s balance sheet treatment. If the balance sheet of the economic unit undertaking the project and the financing need not be consolidated into the balance sheet of the sponsor (because ownership does not exceed 50%) then the financing may be described as off-¬balance sheet. If consolidation is required then the financing is described as on-balance sheet. Most project financings involve some recourse to the sponsor, i.e. they are limited recourse. Very few are non-recourse or off credit to the sponsor. Limited recourse financings may be on-balance sheet although many may also be off-balance sheet insofar as consolidation is concerned. However, sponsor support may very well be a contingent liability to the sponsor and require disclosure by way of note to the balance sheet should consolidation not be required. CORPORATE FINANCE CONTRASTED A financing which is on credit or full recourse to the sponsor, whether it is directly borrowed or guaranteed by that sponsor, is a corporate financing. Lenders will tend to base their credit assessment on a historical assessment of the sponsor&apos;s activities and its financial results rather than an assessment of the project or a detailed assessment of the future activities and prospects of the sponsor. PROJECT FINANCE - A BORROWER&apos;S PERCEPTION Although CRA could choose to arrange all finance on a corporate basis (except perhaps for the very largest projects or acquisitions), project financing techniques provide a number of specific advantages which CRA has noted and which should be carefully considered by a project sponsor. Advantages

Jan 1, 1985