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By Harlan A. Walker

This paper on the mines of El Potosi Mining Co. is one of a series being prepared by the United States Bureau of Mines on mining practices, methods, and costs in the various mining districts of North America. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the helpful suggestions and criticisms offered by the management, together with the assistance of the mining staff in preparing maps and drawings and of C. L. Thornburg, mine geologist, in preparing the section on geology.

Jan 1, 1934

By B. W. Gandrud

The upper part of the Alabama deposits of crystalline graphite consists of an oxidized ore derived from the underlying unoxidized ore through prolonged Weathering. The degree of oxidation in different sections and at different depths within the bed is not uniform. The original ore is hard and blue-gray; the weathered product is soft and brown and is the only part that has been mined to any extent. Samples of both oxidized and unoxidized ores were obtained from two of the large graphite deposits of Clay County. Three additional samples of oxidized ore were obtained from different portions of a third property in the same region. In this report, ores 1 to 5 are of oxidized material and ores 6 and 7 of unoxidized.

Jan 1, 1934

By G. L. Oldright

The studies previously made on Smelting in the Lead Blast Furnace have dealt with the custom smelter of the International Smelting Co. at Tooele, Utah,4 and on the smelter of the Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mining & Smelting Co.5 at Kellogg, Idaho. The International plant may be considered representative of the traditional custom smelter. The lead smelter of the future seemingly will have to treat increasingly richer lead charges. This feature was then stressed in describing the Bunker Hill plant.

Jan 1, 1934

By H. S. McKnight

One phase of Canada's rapid development in mining and metallurgy during the past few years has been the creation of Canadian Copper Refiners Ltd., and the establishment of its modern electrolytic copper refinery at Montreal East, Quebec. Canadian Copper Refiners Ltd. is made up of three well-known metal firms whose combined activities cover the entire industry from the mine to the market. They are Noranda Mines Ltd., Toronto, Nichols Copper Co., New York, and British Metal Corporation, Ltd., London. Noranda Mines is the principal owner and provides the greater part of the raw material received by the refinery for treatment. Nichols Copper Co. designed and built the plant and is operating it under contract. British Metal Corporation acts as sales agent and markets the refinery's products. Montreal East was chosen as the site of the new refinery only after a careful survey had been made of the entire eastern part of Canada. The location chosen offers many advantages, chief of which arc the relatively low costs of power, labor, fuel and bupplies, and the fact that it is situated on Montreal harbor, the nearest seaport to the points of origin of the ram materials. All incoming material is received by rail. A majority of the plant's product is exported through the port of Montreal to European markets, being handled to the docks in railroad cars. A large proportion of the product is delivered by means of an industrial railway to the adjacent rolling mill of the Canada Wire & Cable Co., Limited. The refinery was designed to treat primarily the copper produced by Noranda Mines, Ltd. and Hudson Bay Mining &. Smelting Co., Ltd., and its rated capacity is 75,000 short tons per year. A general layout of the plant is shown in Fig. 1. Its capacity can be readily doubled, as shown by the dotted lines. Figs. 2 and 3 are sections taken through the furnace department and the tank house respectively. Except for the main office and laboratory and an auxiliary building containing the stores, warehouse, change rooms, compressor room and machine shop, the entire plant is under one roof. The type of building construction consists of reinforced concrete foundations supported on concrete piles, a steel structure covered with Robertson Protected Metal siding and a 3-in.

Jan 1, 1934

By Chas. F. Jackson

This circular is an abstract of a manuscript-completed in August 1932, which cannot be published in its entirety due to lack of printing funds. It was originally planned to publish the manuscript as one of a series of bulletins dealing with the mining and milling of ores of the principal metals. Because of the common association of lead and zinc minerals in many ore deposits, and because a considerable proportion of the zinc produced in this country is obtained as a by-product of lead mining or vice versa, it seemed necessary to treat the mining and milling of lead and zinc ores in the same volume.

Jan 1, 1934

By H. S. Martin

The Phosphate Recovery Corporation operates three flotation plants, NOS. 1 and 2 concentrators about three miles northeast of Mulberry, Florida, and No. 3 plant at Wales, Tennessee. These plants represent the first commercial phosphate flotation operation and are also believed to be the largest nonmetallic flotation operation in the world at the present time. The details of this paper will be confined to plant No. 2, this being the newest and largest concentrator in Florida, and the flow sheet being practically the same as at plant No. 1. The No. 3 plant has been operated but a short time and has been shut down since December, 1932, on account of the decrease in phosphate rock production. The phosphate washers usually are located centrally on a known deposit so that about two hundred acres of ground can be mined economically to each washer location. The washers are moved to new areas when the distance becomes too great for economical pumping. The flotation plants are built either adjacent to a washer, so that current debris may be utilized, or on the site of a former washer where there is sufficient accumulated debris available for mining, and the flotation plants must also be moved from time to time. Most of the water used in the Florida flotation plants is recovered after passing through a circulating system where most of the fine SUSpended matter is settled out, but some make-up water is obtained from deep wells near the plant. Power is obtained from the Tampa Electric Co. through the distribution facilities of the International Agricultural Corporation. Flotation concentrate is hauled from the plant by trolley over the International Agricultural Corporation's trolley system, to the drying plant at Prairie, one mile northwest of Mulberry. Ore Treated In the pebble phosphate district of Florida, the phosphate mineral, or collophane, is usually found in horizontal beds of varying thickness

Jan 1, 1934

By E. D. Gardner

This paper is the third of a series of three on placer mining in the western United States. The first paper4 discusses the history of placer mining in the Western States and the production of placer gold, geology of placer deposits, location of placer claims on public lands, sampling and estimation of gold placers, and classification of placer-mining methods, together with hand-shoveling and ground-sluicing. The second papers deals with hydraulicking, sluice boxes and riffles, recovery of gold and platinum from placer concentrates, treatment of amalgam, and marketing of placer gold. The discussion of sluice boxes and subsequent subjects in the second paper applies to all forms of placer mining. The present paper treats of dredging and other forms of mechanical handling of placer gravels, and drift mining.

Jan 1, 1934

By E. D. Gardner

This paper is the second of a series of three on placer mining in the western United States. The first paper4 discusses the history of placer mining in the Western States and the production of placer gold, geology of placer deposits, location of placer claims on public lands, sampling and estimation of gold placers, and classification of placer-mining methods, together with hand-shoveling and ground-sluicing. This paper deals with hydraulicking, sluice boxes and riffles, recovery of gold and platinum from placer concentrates, treatment of amalgam, and marketing of placer gold. The discussion of sluice boxes and subsequent subjects in this paper applies to all forms of placer mining. The third paper deals with dredging and other forms of mechanical handling of placer gravels, and drift mining.

Jan 1, 1934

By E. D. Gardner

Placer mining is the mining and treatment of alluvial deposits for the recovery, of their valuable minerals. The method has been used principally for mining gold, but a large proportion of the world's production of tin, platinum, and diamonds and other gem stones and minor quantities of other heavy minerals have been won in this manner. In the United States, as in the world at large, gold has been the principal mineral obtained by placer mining. Minor quantities of metals of the platinum group are recovered with the gold in some localities. Important quantities of sapphires have been produced at placer mines in Montana, and tungsten minerals have been obtained on a commercial scale from placer deposits in California and Colorado. Other heavy minerals or gem stones, however, have not been mined to any important extent by this method in the United States. The search for placer gold and the working of the deposits when found have had much to do with the early development of the West. Placer mining has been gradually overtaken and surpassed in importance by lode-gold mining, until in 1932 less than a quarter of the country's total gold production was from placers or about an eighth, excluding Alaska. In 1932 about 76 percent of the placer gold produced in the United States was recovered by dredging. Although other forms of placer mining still are important, they have been declining for many years, as the richest and most readily mined deposits of gravel along the stream courses have been exhausted. During 1931 and 1932 there was a revival of small-scale mining, but few new deposits were discovered.

Jan 1, 1934

By Anthony Anable

HOOVER DAM, rapidly nearing completion in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River at Boulder City, Nev., taxes the superlatives of the vocabulary to describe. For by all odds, it is the largest construction project of its type ever essayed by man and the plants providing the essential materials of construction are also in a class by themselves not only in size but in advanced design, mechanization, and accurate control. Picture, if you will, the great aggregate plant, as it is called, situated about 4 mi. upstream from the site of

Jan 1, 1934

By GERALD A. WARING

ALASKA'S coal consumption is now about 130,000 tons annually. About one-quarter of this amount is used in the southeastern part of the territory and in settlements on the western coast and comes from Seattle and from British Columbia mines. About 60,000 tons is sub-bituminous coal from the Healy River mine in central Alaska, and is used mainly at Fairbanks, sixty miles to the north, for heating and the development of electric energy, for the city and the gold-dredging operations of the Fairbanks Exploration Co. The remaining 40,000 or 50,000 tons is bituminous coal from Matanuska Valley, in the south-central part of the territory. These coal deposits extend intermittently for about forty miles along the valley, which trends eastward from the upper end of Cook Inlet.

Jan 1, 1934

By Sherwin F. Kelly

PLAIN mining engineers usually avoid any gathering of geo¬physicists because of the incomprehensibility of their discussion to the uninitiated. This being so, gradients, gravity and gammas will be deferred to the end of this review, the first part of which will be devoted to what has been done in applying geophysics to the solution of real field problems. From the West, J. J. Jakosky reports that International Geophysics has had its activities fairly well 'divided between mining (both placer and lode), oil structural work, and clans-site and reservoir investigations. In oil exploration, electrical methods are used for depths down to 2500 ft., beyond which they utilize seismic methods. They find in their placer work that the many 'magnetic anomalies encountered in the bedrock of the Southwest render the electrical techniques more satisfactory, and with them they are obtaining thickness and tonnage of gravels, depth to and contour of the underlying bedrock as well as important structural features therein, and water-table elevations.

Jan 1, 1934

By Vincent P. Gi. ccnella

GOLD was discovered in Gold Canyon on May 15, 1849. Following this discovery placer miners worked the gravels in the canyon for-ten years, finally discovering the outcrop of the Comstock lode at Gold Hill in May, 1859, and in Ophir ravine on June 12 of the same year. Before long large quantities of gold and silver, were taken from the lode and one of the West's most spectacular mining booms drew thousands of fortune seekers to Nevada. After a long period of production activity waned and in late years little mining was done. The recent reopening of the old mines and the discovery of ore in other parts of the vein, and in other veins of the district, has led to a revival of interest in the Comstock. Virginia City, Gold Hill, and Silver City, situated along the great vein system, are enjoying a period of prosperity and a large influx of people.

Jan 1, 1934

By Oliver Bowles

THE ADVERSE CONDITIONS that have gripped industry during recent years have to some extent submerged technical developments under the more pressing demands of economic problems. Progressive operators, nevertheless, have given attention to improvements in processes and equipment even when sales were at a low ebb. The array of facts relating to technical advancement here presented, although doubtless incomplete, is sufficient to indicate that the spirit of inquiry and research has not been quenched by adversity. During the latter part of 1933 a new element has focused interest more fully on improved methods of quarrying, mining, and preparation of nonmetallic minerals. Codes established under the NRA have fixed minimum wages, reduced working hours, and tended to establish selling prices .on a basis of reasonable profit. Labor adjustments will in many instances increase the cost of production, and stabilization of selling prices will tend to emphasize quality and service rather than price as sales arguments. These new conditions point to a growing necessity for improving technique in the interest of reducing cost of production and improving the quality of products. Thus, technology is linked with economics more firmly than ever.

Jan 1, 1934

By M. W. BERNEWITZ

DURING my recent extended visit to Australia and New Zealand, these notes on oil and gas prospecting in that part of the world were compiled from recent reports-press and government, from conversation with one of the financial leaders in the search for oil, and from personal observation of operations of the principal importers, blenders, and distributors of oil products; also from the astonishing testimony given by them to the Petrol Commission. Australia and New Zealand have practically no petroleum production beyond a few thousand gallons a year from wells in the latter Dominion. Everything is imported, Table 1. showing the quantities for 1929-30 in Australia and for 1930 in New Zealand,

Jan 1, 1934

By Sherwin F. Kelly

THIS is intended as a simple review of the principles and practice of geophysics, so will not be of interest to the geophysicist, who is hereby warned of its elementary character. The engineers for whom it is written are those who, having glimpsed the formidable formulas and discussions of the geophysicists, give all publications on the subject a wide berth. For a few years now the geo-physicists have had a tendency to be ingrowing at their meetings, going deeper and deeper into theory and instrument construction, and forgetting to present the topics that would interest the practicing engineer who desires merely to know how geophysics can help him, not why.

Jan 1, 1934

By F. L. Bosqui, A. D. Wilkinson

EVEN though the world has not been crying for more copper for the last three or four years there has been some important mill and smelter construction. Discovery and development of large new high-grade copper deposits in Africa has led to the construction of extensive reduction facilities there, prominent among which is the concentrator and smelter of the Rhokana Corporation at N'Kana. Northern Rhodesia. The 3000-ton concentrator adjoins the central shaft. A little over half a mile to the southeast, at an altitude of 40,010 ft., is the smelter, designed on the site by 1. H. Wynne. It is arranged primarily to treat N'Kana copper concentrates, but can also handle concentrates and direct-smelting ore from outside sources. Excavations were started late in 1930; concrete was first poured on Jan. 6. 1931; and the first blister cop¬per was cast on March 1.9, 1932, less than fifteen months later. During this period, which included several months of heavy tropical rains, some 10,000 cu. yd. of concrete was poured and 41000 tons of structural steel erected under the supervision of construction engineer, A. Ek, with a labor force of 60 to 30 Europeans and about 300 natives. The steelwork was fabricated by Head Wrightson & Co. in England, and the boiler plant equipment furnished and erected by the International Combustion Co. Ltd.

Jan 1, 1934

By Fred C. Bond

JUST four years ago, in March, 1930, Gilbert LaBine discovered the rich deposit of pitchblende and silver ore on the east shore of Great Bear Lake, 30 -miles south of the Arctic Circle, which brought a new mining district into being. His original discovery is now the property of Eldorado Gold Mines, Ltd., but other groups have been active. Vigorous prospecting has outlined a mineralized zone that extends at least 100 miles from north to south. In this area silver discoveries have been relatively common; pitchblende, as might be expected, has been harder to find, though a deposit has been located this spring nearly 100 miles south of Eldorado that may be of great importance.

Jan 1, 1934

By G. L. Oldwright, F. K. Shelton, W. E. Keck

"INTRODUCTION Zinc must be of high grade to satisfy the present demand. Even when the amount of premium paid is small, the purer metal as the buyers' preference. The following specifications for spelter were taken from the American Society for Testing Materials for 1927, Part I, pane 524. (The specifications for 1930, p. 582, are tile same.)Another specification for zinc of a much higher grade than any of the above has been established lately by the same society. The committee on zinc die-casting (Proc. Am. Soc. Test. Mat., vol. 31, 1931, p. 263) reached the following, conclusions: I. ""That the purest of zinc is necessary to produce stable zinc-base die castings, and as a result requested specifications for zinc spelter .with total impurities not over 0.02 percent."" Their tests showed that the die castings made of the purest zinc had the least elongation and the greatest tensile strength, and exhibited the least changes with temperature.Still more far-reaching claims are made for the properties of zinc containing over 99.99 percent metal. Zinc foil, for instance, may someday be made as a common commercial product. It would seem likely that the demand for zinc of high grades rill continue and that even purer varieties may be desired. This demand fits in with the modern trend in manufacturing plants of reducing the number of variables to a minimum by using pure materials, and of controlling the processing of metals during their various stages of fabrication by mechanical means instead of by expert laborers."

Jun 1, 1933

By C. A. Mehring

[This paper, which describes the milling practice at the San Guillermo concentrator of the Compania Industrial "M Potosi", S.A., located at Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, is one of a series of similar papers being prepared by the United States Bureau of Mines. The concentrator treats lead-zinc-silver ore at the rata of 2,300-2,400 tons of dry material daily and produces lead concentrate and zinc concentrate by selective flotation methods. The lead concentrate is smelted at the Chihuahua plant of the American Smelting & Refining Co., and the zinc concentrate is shipped to various European smelters.]

Jan 1, 1933