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By T. MacDONALD

ATHOUGH flotation has been a commercial process for over twenty years, the last two years have witnessed a sudden and phenomenal increase in our knowledge of how to separate minerals heretofore not considered amenable to flotation at all. As remarked by Professor Locke in the January issue. "Either commercial or laboratory flotation is reported on zircon, ilmenite, carnotite, kyanite, scheelite, chromite, fluorite, feldspar, cassiterite, wolframite, barite, and clay. Attractive patents on soap flotation are U. S. Nos. 2,000,656 and 2,040.187. A survey by Ralston in the February E. & M. J. adds many other minerals to this impressive list. The simple but pregnant fact is that any mineral can be coated, directly or indirectly, with a water-repellent coating, and since this is true, it follows that any mineral can be floated. Fundamentally, this is no new discovery, where, for instance, is the mineral that cannot he washed from a pair of dirty hands by means of soap and water, given the absence of refractory greases or oils which would have no proper place in flotation ?

Jan 1, 1937

By CLYDE M. EYE

THE Sub-province of Benguet is in the North Central part of the Island of Luzon. Baguio, the capital, is situated on a piateau 5000 ft. above sea level, and is the main health resort of the Philippines. It is rapidly becoming the favorite resort for the China Coast as well, and has many miles of beautiful, curving drives with nearly every pine-covered knoll surmounted by a summer home. The United States Army has a recreation post here, known as Camp John Hay, with a well-equipped hospital, and there is a Country Club with a good golf course adjacent. The weather during the winter months and until late spring is ideal. The business center consists mainly of Chinese and Japanese stores, several hotels, and a large public market, in which are displayed all of the vegetables of the temperate zone, which are flown near Baguio, and many tropical and other products brought up from below. This district is reached from the Coastal Plain either by the old Benguet road built in 1904 by the United States Government, or by the Naguilian road, built some years later. The former is now a toll road, with a line of stages operating over it to and from Des Mortes in connection with the government-owned rail- road. Auto travel from Manila is also along this road, the trip from Manila to Baguio requiring about seven hours, following up the great valley north of Manila for nearly 150 miles to the lower end of the Benguet road, and thence to Baguio, 25 miles. This is an interesting, scenic trip; the road is especially famous for the zig zags where it climbs out of the canyon of the Bued River to the plateau. In the September number of the National Geographic Magazine, a fine aerial picture of this road, as well as of other interesting points in various parts of the Philippines, appears. Freight for the district is taken in mainly over the Naguilian road connecting with the railroad at Bauang. This route follows the ridges of the mountain slope with broad vistas and views of the coast.

Jan 1, 1930

By Lucius W. Mayer

The iron-mines of the Ilsede Hütte Co. are at a town called Peine, about 20 miles east of the city of Hanover, on the railroad to Brunswick (Braunschweig). Hanover, the capital of the province, is a military city, of approximately 250,000 inhabitants, and Brunswick, 33 miles to the westward, has half this number. The mines here described are located in a hamlet called Bülten. The Ilsede Hütte Co. operates two mines, 1.5 miles apart, in this district, Gruber Bülten Adenstadt and Gruber Lengede Bodenstadt. It also operates an iron-mine north of Hanover, known as Eiserhaven, and one in the Harz mountains, the Georg Friedrich, at Grauhof. At Bülten a coarse conglomerate, a, Figs. 1 and 2, contains nodules of limonite, cemented together by calcium phosphate. The ore contains Fe, 25 to 45; Mn, 3 to 4; P, 0.6 to 1.4; S, 0.02 to 0.09; and CaCO3, 40 per cent. Directly above the conglomerate is limestone, b, followed by a mixture of clay and sand, c. Below the conglomerate is a hard clay floor, d. The ore-body, from 10 to, 12 km. long, and from 3 to 4 km. wide, has a maximum thickness of 20 m. It clips approximately 10° S.E., and strikes N. 45° E. Diamond-drill prospecting shows that the thickness diminishes to 1 m. as the end of the deposit is approached to the northward. At this point the deposit is 250 m. below the surface. In Fig. 2, the arrow, A, indicates the general direction of the work along the face, a, which is carried forward in a straight line for its entire length. At B, a train is approaching, which has come from the bench-track, shown at G, by a circuitous route, and is dumping the overburden behind the face, in the space left by the excavated rock. Formerly the work at this mine was essentially open-cut, the deposit having a very strong outcrop. Figs. 1 and 2 show also

Sep 1, 1908

By A. I. Krynitzky, Henry S. Rawdon

The most commonly used material for terminals in spark plugs is commercial nickel wire, because of its relatively high temperature of melting, excellent heat conductivity, and slow rate at which the metal is oxidized, even upon continued heating at high temperatures. The grade commonly used for this purpose averages 97 per cent. nickel, the remainder being manganese, cobalt, iron, copper, with traces of other impurities always found in commercial nickel. A peculiar and interesting type of deterioration that occurs in these nickel terminals during the service life of the spark plug was recently brought to the attention of the Bureau of Standards. Commercial spark plugs vary greatly in their size and shape and the terminals differ considerably as to their relative size, shape, number, and arrangement with respect to one another. Although this defect was studied in detail in only one form of spark plug, the deterioration is a characteristic of the material, i.e., of nickel wire, rather than of the particular type of spark plug in which it was noted and studied. The mechanical features of the plugs, however, have a considerable bearing on the time required for the deterioration to become serious. The results of this study of the deterioration of nickel terminals in service should be of value to the makers of all types of spark plugs in which the terminals are made of this metal. CharacteR of Deterioration of WIres During Service Macroscopic Appearance and Properties of Changed Wire.—The nickel terminals in which the deterioration was studied were taken from spark plugs having a central terminal with the ground or side terminals attached firmly at both ends to the shell of the plug. In some of the plugs, two side terminals were used, one on each side of the central one. Although both terminals were found to have deteriorated to some extent, the attack of the central one was quite negligible compared to that of the side ones. These latter wires had developed, in service, transverse cracks that, in many cases, were as sharp and definite as a knife-cut. After a separation occurred, the breach widened by loss of material from the

Jan 1, 1921

By AIME AIME

INSTITUTE members attending the Annual Meeting in New York who want to see one of the mining engineers' newest aids, photoelastic stress analysis, are due for an interesting afternoon on Thursday, Feb. 15, when open house: will be held at the Columbia University mining laboratory. Information as to the direction and distribution off stresses in mine structures, which has been developed by Professor Bucky, associate professor at the Columbia School of Mines, and David Sinclair, research assistant, is useful in the design of pillars and in the placing of openings relative to working places such as gangways and haulage levels.: This work has been sponsored during the last ten years by the Engineering Foundation.. It is fully reported in T. P. No. 1140.

Jan 1, 1940

By W. R. Shimer

In his valuable report on Finishing Temperatures and Properties of Rails,l Dr. G. X. Burgess, Chief of the Division of Metallurgy, U. S. Bureau of Standards, has begun a line of investigation which should be continued by those interested in the subject, and who have proper facilities for carrying out the work. For the past year or more the Bethlehem Steel Co. has been conducting experiments to learn the effect of rail finishing temperatures on their physical properties and microstructure and the results are here given for the consideration of those interested in the rail situation. Considerable differences of opinion have been expressed by various authorities, in the past, as to the effect of large or small grain size and high or low finishing temperatures of steel rails on their physical properties and wearing qualities. Low finishing temperatures and, therefore, low shrinkage, have been advocated on the theory that the wearing qualities would be improved. Others have recommended high finishing temperatures. The generally accepted cause for rail failures, due to the development of transverse fissures, is excessive wheel pressure on hard rails. One of the causes advanced for hard rails has been that they contain too high percentages of carbon and manganese; another that the rails were finished at too low a temperature, i.e., at or near the critical point. In the experiments herein described the rails were rolled from reheated blooms. All the rail blooms were charged hot in a reheating furnace and brought up to about the original ingot-rolling temperature before rolling into rails. These rails gave better results in deflection, withstood a greater number of drops before breaking, and showed greater ductility than rails of identically the same composition and section which were rolled direct from the ingot. Rails rolled from reheated blooms, finished at somewhat higher temperatures than when rolled direct from the ingot, have a different microstructure, which the writer does not believe is due so much to the difference in finishing temperatures, as to the difference in

Jan 1, 1915

By W. S. Tower

STEEL is the basic metal, the main metallic prop of the modern industrial world, a good gage for measuring the state of our complex economy. Any who had doubts on that score should have had them dispelled by the many evidences of public concern over the affairs of the steel industry in recent months. I do not need to relate the various criticisms of the industry, nor the questions about its policies and performance which have come in a rising flood, especially from unthinking and irresponsible sources. But judged from the standpoint of production, or from plans to improve and expand facilities, or from technical progress, the facts about the steel industry are proof of

Jan 1, 1948

By V. F. Swanson

At the AIME meeting in Tampa in Oct. 1966, an empirically developed equation was presented which allowed the calculation of free settling velocity for any sized particle: 1 [ ] This equation requires the use of two parameters a and p which are coefficients derived from boundary layer theory.2 It was possible to develop values of a and p for several minerals by back calculation of published data. The original equation had one major flaw. When the fluid density exceeds the density of the solids, the solution to the equation becomes imaginary. A flaw was indicated also by the fact that galena and sylvite both having cubic cleavage, did not have similar values for a and b. Galena gave calculated values of a = 1.082 and g = 3.11, while sylvite gave values of a = 1.870 and p = 2.56. These flaws prompted further study of the equation, resulting in the following empirical modification: [ ] It is obvious a real solution of the equation is possible for all values of ps and p. When PL > PS, V is negative, indicating that the particles will rise against the attraction of gravity. The validity of the modification is borne out by the fact that when values of a and p were back calculated for galena and sylvite using the modified equation, both minerals gave values of a = 1.038 and p = 3.01. With the modification shown in Eq. 2, Newton's friction factor becomes [ ]

Jan 1, 1976

By Euzebio P. de Oliveira

One of a recent batch of samplcs from the Serra da Baliza, in the state of Paraná, Brazil, contained asphalt and a dark heavy oil; and workmen on the railway from Porto Uniáo to Uruguay discovered asphalt coming from eruptives that outcrop along the Rio de Peixe. The occurrence of asphalt in the triassic eruptives of southern Brazil, however, has been known a long time, according to Dr. Gonzaga de Campos. It is generally believed that the Botucatd sandstone is always a hard vitrified rock, from the metamorphic action of the overflowing eruptive contacts. In this region, howeyer, the contact metamorphism is almost nil; the sandstone is slightly hardened in a narrow zone about 20 to 30 cm. wide. In many places, the sandstone is so friable as to be easily reduced to sand, which is used in mortar for building in Guara-puava and Palmas. South and west from Porto Uniáo, this bench of sandstone is about 50 m. thick, and is capped by a heavy bed of basic eruptives, many of which are amygdaloids. Nature of Rocks Dr. Geo. P. Merrill, after studying the triassic eruptives collected by the Coal Commission, reached the conclusion that "All these rocks are of typical basalt-diabases, not in any essential different other than in structure. An interesting mineralogical phase is its paucity in olivine, which in many cases is completely lacking." Professor Hussak, who carefully studied these rocks and their accessory minerals, decided that in the dikes they are granular (diabase) and that in the lava sheets, porphyritic (augite-porphyrite or melaphyre), and that the latter pass evidently to normal diabases and are always typical of effusive rocks. The examination of many slides from dikes and sheets leads us to adopt the opinion of Professor Hussak; the rocks of the dikes are of ophitic structure, while that of the sheets show a great variety of structure and may vary from almost granular to basaltic. The great paucity in olivine had been noted by Hussak, who classes as melaphyres, the porphyritic triassic rocks in Brazil which contain olivine.

Jan 1, 1921

By John Goodell

CIVIL engineers seem to number in their ranks more advocates of licensing than are found among the practitioners of other branches of the pro-fession. Licensing was not originated by civil engineers but it was forced upon them in two ways. In the first place, the civil engineering profession has hangers-on like every other profession. The first legislative result of their imperfect accomplishments with which I am familiar occurred in the far West. It was found that early irrigation works were so badly planned in some cases that not only were water rights made very uncertain but considerable sums were invested in structures and ditches which proved inadequate and occasionally complete failures. Water was too valuable to be wasted in that way and money too hard to obtain. In those sections, therefore, laws were passed many years ago which made it obligatory for the design of irrigation works and other structures utilizing water to be made by engineers who had satisfied a board of examiners that they possessed the technical qualifications to plan such works properly. The basic thought on which such laws rest is the same as that on which laws governing the licensing of boiler operators rest, namely, the safety and welfare of the public. While boiler explosions still occur and irrigation works are built which are not wholly satis-factory, these laws have helped the, public, it is gener-ally agreed.

Jan 4, 1922

By Arthur Notman

YEAR ago, the Committee on Mineral Economics ventured to predict a more realistic attitude by the public toward the folly of seeking to have more by making less under the guidance of the Blue Eagle. A unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States has now laid that embattled bird to rest. De rnortuis nil nisi bonum. In spite of dire predictions of disaster to follow its early demise, the metal industries and many others have improved substantially. One could name many indications of that improvement, and on the strength of stock-market activities might assume

Jan 1, 1936

By George M. Fowler

MINING geology is a progressive study, so we must look to the future for the solution of many of its most significant problems. These problems, world-wide in scope, offer ample opportunity for the exercise of the utmost skill and intelligence by all that attempt to solve theta, as it is generally recognized that many ore deposits of the future will he found only by months or years of combined intelligent effort by the several engineering groups. Renewed appraisals are continually being made to better understand the relationship of physical-chemical processes to ore deposition and other mineralization and to interpret the findings of the geophysicists and others in terms of economic results. A study of current geologic activi¬ties clearly reflects the growing tendency for cooperation between the different branches of geology in order to appraise their united efforts. In line with these activities arrangements have been made to transfer the geophysical section of the U. S. Bureau of Mines to the Geological Survey.

Jan 1, 1936

The annual meeting of the Woman's Auxiliary was held on February 19, at 10 a. m. The president, Mrs. Sidney Jennings, said in her greeting "it is a matter of congratulation that during the past year when the demands upon women for work of all kinds has been so large our membership has grown from the 50 enrolled at the first meeting a year ago to over 300 today. Some women, when. asked to join the organization, say that they are doing so much work in other ways that they have no time for work in a new organization, but the director for Canada struck the right note in her report when she told us of the splendid work the wives of mining engineers are doing in Canada, as individuals and as leaders and members of various organizations doing patriotic work. We do not want to divert such women from the work they are now doing, but we do want them to enroll as members of the Woman's Auxiliary and let us know what they are doing, that they play give inspiration to others." Reports were made by the directors of the following sections: Canada, Chicago, Colorado, Columbia, New York, Puget Sound and St. Louis, in some of which sections excellent progress has been made in food conservation, foreign war relief, including the adoption of fatherless French children, and in work for our own engineering regiments. These reports were read, accepted, and placed on file. The reports of the corresponding secretary, of the recording secretary, and of the treasurer, were read, accepted, and placed on file. Various amendments to the Constitution were proposed and accepted, and copies of the Constitution, as amended, will be mailed to all the members of the Woman's Auxiliary.

Jan 4, 1918

By Herbert W. Graham

IRON ORE is widely distributed throughout the world. Ores sufficiently high in iron content to be practical for the operations of iron and steel making occur in so many places that it is only by the accident of political subdivisions that any given nation does not have adequate and suitable iron ore. Data prepared by various authorities show that in the Lake Superior region alone there are reserves of 1,200,000,000 tons of iron ore of an iron content and at the level of production cost to which the industry has been accus tomed. At an annual consumption of 80,000,000 tons these reserves will last fifteen years. Taken alone these figures would be alarming, but over a considerable period of years the total reserve tonnage has been more or less steadily increased by improvement and extension of mining and beneficiation methods. The rate of depletion of reserves has been only about one third of the rate of consumption. On this basis the cheap high-grade ores of Lake Superior would last 45 years.

Jan 1, 1947

By James W. Wade

THIS discussion of the future supply of lead refers only to the next ten-year period. Beyond that no prediction can be made that would be of sufficient accuracy to serve any purpose. When any commodity is by an unsatisfied demand forced to a higher price level, and the profits of those who are able to produce the commodity are greatly increased, there is awakened a new interest in the commodity on the part of both producer and consumer. The consumer attempts to reduce his costs by developing substitutes or assisting in the development of new sources of supply. Lead is now going through this stage. The lead producer is increasing development expenditure and searching for new mines. The consumer is developing substitutes as illustrated by the increasing use of zinc oxide as a pigment, and the use of dry batteries in radio sets. The search of the Ford interests for lead, by prospecting in Missouri and Idaho, is induced by the effort to develop a new source of supply. Considering the index figures of the Department of' Commerce, it is evident that lead is on a substantially higher price level. For February, 1926, the index figure of lead is 209, while the general commodity price index is only 156, 100 being taken as the base for 1913.

Jan 1, 1926

By AIME AIME

THE Coal Division holds its fall meeting in the Pocahontas coal field, at the West Virginian Hotel, Bluefield, W. Va., Oct. 9 and 10. The first day will be a busy one-two sessions for the presentation of papers and a dinner in the evening. Hon. E. Fudge, Assistant Undersecretary, Mines Department, and R. V. Wheeler, head of the Mines Research Board of Great Britain, will be the guests of the Division. Mr. Wheeler will discuss the British Mining Act as relates to the coal industry. George S. Rice, Chief Mining Engineer, U. S. Bureau of Mines, will present an account of the recent meeting at Buxton in England, of representatives of England, Germany, France, Belgium and the United States to formulate a plan and to correlate research work now in progress in the various countries. The second day the members will be the guests of the operators on a trip through the Pocahontas field. The work of preparation for the meeting is being actively pushed by committees headed by T. H. Clagett, R. M. Lambie and H. D. Smith, and a good attendance, both local and from the general membership of the Division, is anticipated. Because many will make the trip by car the principal automobile as well as rail-road connections to Bluefield are given here. The program for Friday, Oct. 9, follows:

Jan 1, 1931

By Thomas Leonard Watson

SULPHIDE ore-bodies of more or less lenticular shape occurring in metamorphic crystalline schists, gneisses, and. slates, and conforming closely in strike and usually in dip to the inclosing rock, have been recognized and described along the, Atlantic seaboard from Quebec to Alabama. The ore-bodies do not entirely conform, in all cases, to the structure of the inclosing schists, but they sometimes cut across the foliation in dip, though conforming more closely with the direction of strike. In composition the principal sulphide mineral is usually pyrite or pyrrhotite; or both, accompanied by copper, frequently gold, and almost always some sphalerite and galenite. Other. metallic ores are, so far as these sulphide bodies have been investigated, less common; silver is not uncommon, and in some of the pyrrhotite masses nickel is present in quantity sufficient to be commercially valuable. Cobalt frequently accompanies .the nickel, usually in smaller amount, and the two vary much in relative proportion. Quartz and calcite are probably the most common of the, non-metallic minerals. A number of silicate minerals are frequent representatives in one place or another; garnet, amphibole, biotite, pyroxene, zoisite and others. The sulphide bodies of Virginia, comprising both pyrite and pyrrhotite, are among the most extensive along the Atlantic seaboard. Among the pyrite bodies may be mentioned the well-known and extensively worked mines of Louisa and Prince William, counties, located on' the main pyrite belt (A, Fig. 1) of the middle and northern, eastern Piedmont region in Virginia, and among the pyrrhotite bodies is the famous " Great Gossan Lead "(B, Fig. 1) of the Floyd-Carroll-Graysou coun-

Sep 1, 1907

By AIME AIME

The following financial report of the Treasurer of the United Engineering Society is published for the information of members NEW YORK, February 15, 190S. To the Board of' Trustees, United Engineering Society I beg to submit herewith the report of the Treasurer as of December 31, 1907. Your attention is called to the fact that the resources and liabilities, receipts and disbursements statements cover all the financial transactions of the United Engineering Society from its organization up to December 31, 1907. The income and expenses of operating the building during the whole operating period from December 1 to December 31, 1907, somewhat in excess of twelve months, are given. Included in the expenses, amounting in all to $52,647.11, will be found an item entitled "Building Equipment (construction account)." The expenditures under this item were not made for the operating expenses of the building, they represent a construction account, properly speaking, covering expenditures for furnishings and equipment of the building. The Founders' Agreement specifically provides for this class of expenditure under the provision that the Founder Societies shall each be liable for a charge not to exceed $200,000 of principal, which shall include the land and building completed and ready for occupancy, together with the " furnishings, equipment and personal property therein." Certain details of equipment are yet to be supplied, and it. is proposed in the near future to call upon the Founder Societies for an assessment on their respective land and building funds to cover this item of building equipment. Such action would enable the item of $10,039.85 to be transferred to the income account and reduce correspondingly the assessment

Mar 1, 1908

By E. S. Machlin, W. R. Yankee

IN a previous study1 of the effect of heating com-mercial titanium in air on its subsequent friction coefficient against other metals, as well as itself, it was found that the friction coefficient markedly decreased from a value of about 0.7 to about 0.3. A tentative explanation was given that surfaces normally produced at room temperature are not contaminated sufficiently to prevent seizing or welding of the titanium to the softer mating metals. The latter tend to cleanse themselves during rubbing over the harder titanium. It was thought that the lack of a contaminant protective film on the titanium was due to the high solubility of titanium for oxygen and nitrogen and hence an inability to form a contaminant oxide or nitride. This explanation requires the ratio of the surface absorption rate to the diffusion rate to become much lower at room temperature than it is at high temperatures. In order to check the phenomenon further, commercial titanium specimens were nitrided or oxidized at 800°C for 20 hr in flows of prepurified N2 and 01, respectively, at about 1/2 in. H2O above atmospheric pressure. Friction runs were made in argon using a freshly cut copper hemisphere (cut in argon) on surfaces cut successively into the diffusion layers in the titanium (cut in argon) using the techniques described in a previous publication.' DPH values (100 gram load) were made as a function of depth into the diffusion layer using a Tukon tester. Also, micrographs were taken at separate cross sections to indicate the diffusion layers. The results obtained are presented in Figs. 1 and 2, which show the "static" friction coefficient vs hardness for the nitrided and oxidized specimens, respectively. A separate measurement of the friction coefficient of clean copper vs iodide titanium also was made. From results reported in the literature' giving the oxygen and nitrogen contents as functions of the hardness, cross plots were made showing the friction coefficients as functions of the amount of interstitial solute. These plots are given in Figs. 3 and 4. From micrographs of the diffusion layers and the phase diagrams, it was deduced that the data in Figs. l through 4 correspond to the single phase a region. The points observed on the compound regions have been excluded from the figures. It is apparent that nitrogen or oxygen in solution in the a titanium markedly affects the friction coefficient against a softer mating metal. Discussion of Results These results are extremely interesting from both a practical and theoretical viewpoint. The theoretical implications will be discussed first. According to Bowden, the friction coefficient should be given to a good approximation by the relation where a is the fraction of contact area that has welded, a is the shear strength of weaker component, and H is the hardness of softer component. Using this relation alone, it is difficult to understand the results because none of the terms should be affected by a variation in the oxygen or nitrogen content of the harder and stronger metal, titanium. Even if the ratio of S/H for titanium is used in Eq. 1, the ratio has been shown to be independent of oxy-gen or nitrogen content.' If a more rigorous equa-tion is used combining Eq. 1 and a result given pre-viously" for the case where welding is absent, then the relation obtained is µ = a S/H + (1-a) a W aß/H where a is constant and Waß is the work of adhesion between the two metals comprising the friction couple. This relation states that if a is less than 1/2 or so, variation in the work of adhesion Waß between copper and the titanium should affect the friction coefficient markedly. It is reasonable to expect that the work of adhesion will depend on the oxygen or nitrogen content of the titanium. Available data4 show that clean metals and oxides have much lower works of adhesion than the same metals against the

Jan 1, 1955

By AIME AIME

AT A meeting of the Boston Local Section of the Institute, on Oct. 3, approval was voted to the work done by its representatives on the Committee opposing the passage of a bill by the, Massachusetts Legislature to license engineers. The report is as follows: The Joint Committee on Licensing of Engineers, which included a Committee of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers and representatives of seven other societies,* submitted to the members of the respective societies, on Jan. 8, 1921, a report in which it was stated that on Jan. 4, 1921, a petition was filed in the Legislature of Massachusetts by the Boston Chapter of the American Association of Engineers accompanied by a bill to provide for the registration of professional engineers and land surveyors. This report also stated that at a meeting of this committee, held on Jan. 7, 1921, it was voted:

Jan 1, 1921