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By M. W. Von Bernewitz

AN important regional meeting of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers was held, at Salt Lake City on Aug. 22 to 26, jointly with the fifth annual meeting of the Western Division of the American Mining Congress. The whole meeting was marked by enthusiasm, keen attention to the subjects under discussion, and many renewals of personal contacts. The trips to the various plants were well attended and the local press paid much attention to the meeting. The A. I. M. E. sessions began Aug. 23, with a non-technical morning session. J. 0. Elton, manager for the International Smelting Co., presided. The purpose of this session was to present in a non-technical manner the relation of flotation to mining, smelting, and the State. Ernest Gayford, metallurgist with the General En-gineering Co. of Salt Lake City, gave the definitions of flotation as suggested by Rickard, the dictionary, Weinig, and Taggart. The active agent in flotation is the air bubble, and the two prime requisites are the formation of bubbles and the creation of selective action of the bubbles for metallic particles instead of for gangue particles. Broadly, all the sulfides are floatable minerals, but the oxides, carbonates, silicates and sulfates are not. As far as Utah is concerned, flotation has been one of the greatest means of conserving its natural re-sources, because it has converted millions of tons of waste rock into pay ore; it is recovering millions of pounds of metal formerly lost in tailings; it has con-verted the zinc from a liability into an asset; and has kept thousands of men at work and distributed millions in dividends for the benefit of the State. As to the future of flotation, Mr. Gayford can con-ceive that the next 5 or 10 years may see as much, if not more, advance than was made in the preceding period. The big problem is dressing oxides, carbonates, silicates, and sulfates, and simplification of the number of reagents, also the separation of different gangue min-erals from one another.

Jan 10, 1927

By H. J. Wasson

DEVELOPMENTS in Venezuela during the past few months have been obscured by the hap-penings in Seminole and, more recently, those in southwest Texas. The question has been asked whether or not the opening of these vast new, prolific areas in the United States may not have depressed prices to a point so low as to give the developments in the Caribbean countries a serious setback. Nothing of the kind, however, has taken place, and on the contrary, there has been demonstrated the fact that Venezuela can profitably produce great quantities of oil under existing market conditions, and at the same time finance the foundation for further large expan-sion in the future. The three big factors which contribute to place Venezuela in a unique position and tend to insure the steady expansion of its oil industry are, in the order of their importance: I. Reasonable oil laws backed by a sound govern-ment, which comprehends the all-important fact that the country's prosperity depends on the prosperity of its industries, in a word, perceiving that the goose which lays the golden egg merits considerate treatment. II. The low cost of placing Venezuela oil on our At-lantic seaboard; not over $0.60 per barrel. III. The uniformly high average production per well and the large area of some of the individual pools. Under these conditions Venezuelan producers may be expected to continue steady and profitable ex-pansion even in the face of further market slumps. Their position is analogous to that of the low-cost copper producers, and unless artificial barriers, such as tariffs, come into play, Venezuela will steadily grow in importance. Within less than five years it should be second only to the United States among the oil-producing countries of the world.

Jan 10, 1927

By Frederick Vickery

THE discovery of oil on the Goleta anticline has extended the petroliferous areas of California 18 miles west of the previous limit at Summerland and 35 miles south of the fields at Santa Maria. In each of these localities the oil is found in the Miocene-Pliocene strata, but as the oil at Goleta is found in the Sespe formation, which is generally considered as Oligocene or lowermost Miocene, the Goleta field extends the production of that horizon 52 miles west of South Mountain, the previous western outpost. Two horizons of high-gravity, paraffin-base oil have been found at shallow depths, and the exploratory well, Goleta No. 1, is now being drilled to test the productivity of an expected horizon in the Meganos formation. The Goleta structure is 12 miles west of the city of Santa Barbara and 2 miles north of the coast. Although it is within part of the old Spanish Rancho, Los Pueblos, it corresponds to T. 4 N., R. 29 W., S. B. B. and M., Santa Barbara county, California. The discovery well, Goleta No. 1 was drilled by the Miley Petroleum Ex-ploration Co. on the Tecolote ranch in the part of the Spanish grant corresponding to the sw. 1/4 of the nw. 1/4 of Section 3. Despite the apparent isolated position of the Goleta field, it is within the Ventura basin. The idea that the Ventura basin terminates at the ocean beach near the city of Ventura is neither sup-ported by the geologic structures nor the sequence of strata west of that city. This basin at the present time is known on the land as the Santa Clara valley and beneath the sea as the Santa Barbara channel. It extends westward to Point Concepcion. The Ventura basin, before the Miocene and Pliocene epochs of deformation, was much broader than at the present time. It is bounded by two lines of uplift, the Santa Ynez range on the north and the Santa Monica mountains with their extension, the Channel islands, on the south. Both of these ranges trend east and west. The Ventura basin and the mountains that bound it are part of a remark-able east-west orogenic unit, which interrupts the pre-vailingly northwest ranges along the Pacific Coast.

Jan 10, 1927

By R. M. Raymond

RECENTLY one of the Welsh coal companies, which has an excellent plant of up-to-date ma-chinery both on the surface and underground, operated under modern methods, sent one of its engi-neers to the United States to study actual operations in the mines. He visited several of the most important and best conducted collieries, went back, and reported that the greatest difference between operations in England and in the United States was. the closer con-tact between management and workmen. By manage-ment he meant management all the way through; close cooperation between office management, superintend-ents, foremen, shift-bosses, etc., and the workmen. A visit to some of the coal mines in that country by the writer made this fact rather impressive. The feel-ing on this side of the water that the methods in use in the coal mines in England are not up-to-date was found in many cases to be quite erroneous. Many mines, particularly those with very thin beds, in which profitable operations are doubtful under the best con-ditions, have necessarily had to adhere to old methods instead of making mechanical improvements. The Powell-Duffryn mines, in the center of the South Wales district, are certainly operating successfully, and have planned their business excellently. Sufficient areas of contiguous land have been leased for extended opera-tions. Mine plants are laid out in the valley, for work-ings on both sides, on a reasonable tonnage of 1500 to 3000 tons to each operation. The beds are from 30 to 48 in. thickness, and a 3-ft. seam is considered an ex-cellent thickness of coal; in fact, the miners prefer to work on the thinner beds rather than the thick ones, where they consider it more difficult to control the backs. This company is making use of its fine coal for produc-ing electric power, which is distributed to its own operations, and for use in the communities adjoining. For this purpose methods of cleaning the fine coal are being put into use. Compressed air is generated at the central power plant and is transmitted over long dis-tances to various mines in each valley. A byproduct coke plant uses more of the fine coal and gives further returns from non-commercial coal. The long-wall system applied in sections of limited size is popular in working the small seams, and me-chanical cutting is used, also handling either by shaking chutes or belt conveyors, or a combination of both. In some mines mechanical cutting is not necessary. The backs are so handled that in the softer or somewhat crushed seams hand cutting can be carried on effec-tively.

Jan 10, 1927

By Thomas Read

IN speaking of immaterial problems of industry I am using the word immaterial in its original sense, not consisting of matter; not in its derived sense, unimportant. There is nothing of a paradox in saying that immaterial problems are the most important in human life, for His a matter of everyday observation that much of the news in the daily papers, and most of the world's best literature and drama, deal with human conduct that has for its motive forces that are but little concerned with material things. The engineer's preoccupation with physical forces, in extending his control over them, has not blinded him to the impor-tance of forces that, for want of a better word, I call immaterial; but he has considered that dealing with the one is his job and the other is not. All the evidence of the past decade indicates that the latter are so in-extricably interwoven with the former in modern in-dustrial life that the engineer will have to concern himself with them whether he wants to or not. Some of the most important of the problems arising from the action of these forces relate to the mental hygiene of the workers in industry. Mental hygiene in industry was concisely defined, in terms of the best present knowledge, by Dr. C. Macfie Campbell, speaking last April before the executive com-mittee of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, and as his statement can scarcely be bettered, I quote it below: "The term mental hygiene is apt to appear vague. The actual stuff with which mental hygiene deals may be briefly reviewed.

Jan 9, 1927

AT the meeting of the Board of Directors held on June 25, 1926, and in response to numerous in-dividual suggestions for changes, a committee on Re-vision of the Constitution and By-Laws of the Insti-tute was appointed, consisting of C. F. Rand, Archi-bald Douglas and H. Foster Bain. Various confer-ences were held, much correspondence conducted and a preliminary draft was prepared. It proved imprac-ticable to complete the work in time to submit the matter to the membership for approval or disapproval at the annual meeting in 1927, and the Committee was continued with instructions to prepare a report as a basis of action in 1928. After Mr. Rand's death George Otis Smith was appointed in his place and the tentative draft herewith submitted has been pre-pared in its present form by Messrs. Smith, Douglas and Bain, though not differing in any material mat-ter from an earlier draft approved by Mr. Rand. In preparing this the Committee has kept in mind primarily the desirability of simplification and of making the By-Laws conform to the actual practice of the Institute as worked out through experience. The Constitution and By-Laws adopted in 1912, and which with minor amendments only still govern the Insti-tute, are full of specific provisions regarding pro-cedure; such as that laid down for guidance of the Papers and Publications Committee. Many of these have proved unworkable and in practice have not been always strictly followed. It now seems wise to write into the Constitution and By-Laws only the general fun-damental principles to he followed and to provide for such easy change in methods of following them out as will permit efficient conduct of the business. It is this thought that has guided the Committee in rewrit-ing many of the sections. With this in view also the Constitution, as such, has been shortened to the brief-est feasible statement of fundamentals. All matters relating to means of making these principles effec-tive have been put into the By-Laws or in the hands of committees whose work is subject to control and whose rules are subject to approval or disapproval by the Board of Directors. Many suggestions for changes have come to the Committee that have not been incorporated in this draft. Some of these are in themselves excellent but have not been incorporated here because the Commit-tee discovered no sentiment for them such as would be likely to secure their approval, or found them out of harmony with the general plan followed herein.

Jan 9, 1927

By C Woodward

AT the Belmont mine of the Anaconda Copper Min-ing Co., Butte, Mont., a new double-drum electric main hoist and a single-drum electric auxiliary hoist have recently been placed in operation to meet the demand for greater hoisting depths, and to replace a steam-driven hoist which was inefficient and inade-quate for the new conditions. The ease of operation, safety, and efficient consumption of power of the main hoist all tend toward improved hoisting conditions. It consists of a 2150 hp. d. c. motor, directly connected to a shaft carrying two drums equipped with clutches and brakes. The auxiliary hoist consists of a 1000 hp. d. c. motor directly con-nected to a single drum provided with the necessary brakes. Fig. 1 shows the general arrangement of the complete installation, with idler towers and head-frame. The headframe is built of Bethlehem H and G rolled sections, equipped with two 12-ft. dia. cast steel sheaves for the main hoisting ropes. The sheaves are mounted 129 ft., 6 in. above the collar of the shaft; and above them trolleys are provided for their removal or repairs. Between the headframe and the hoist machinery are two idler towers for supporting the ropes on 3-ft. man-ganese steel idlers provided with roller bearings which fleet on a fixed shaft. As a city street is between- the mine headframe, and hoists, it is necessary to protect the thoroughfare from drippings of the preservative compound used on the ropes which pass over the street. For this purpose, at the point where the hoisting ropes cross the street ,a bridge of trusses, supported on columns and roofed with corrugated iron, is provided from property line to property line. Since one of the idler, towers is set close to the street, a part of the structure is built in-tegral with the street covering. The general design of idler tower as well as the covering over the street is shown at A in Fig. 1.

Jan 9, 1927

By John Dilworth

IN considering the valuation of industrial properties in general, and of developed coal properties in par-ticular, it is assumed as fundamental that they have but one true value regardless of the object for which they are appraised. As regards developed coal lands, this value is only very approximately indicated by the recent sale price of neighboring lands, for the reason that it is rarely possible to find a sale of a coal property sufficiently similar in essential mining conditions to the one under consideration to serve as a measure of its value; and if such a one is found there are frequently incidental conditions peculiar to this particular transaction which invalidate the use of the sale price as a measure of general values. The true measure of the value of a coal mining opera-tion is the amount and rate of earnings it will afford with intelligent and experienced management. Prac-tically all of the features of a property which are gen-erally recognized as affecting its value relate either to the cost of producing the coal, or to the price it will bring, and so are intimately associated with earnings. In practice it is customary to appraise those portions of a developed coal property which are produced -by the industry of man-mine plant, equipment, development, town, etc.-at their cost of replacement at prevailing prices of materials, machinery, and labor, with such deductions for age, condition, obsolescence, and lack of usefulness as conditions warrant. Surface is appraised at the estimated cost of similar land in the district. Coal value is the difference between the worth of the entire property; considered as an industrial unit and

Jan 9, 1927

By Hugh Marriott

MANGANESE and its ores have been recently dealt with in comprehensive papers to the Iron and Steel Institute by Sir Robert Hadfield, and in a series of papers read before the A. I. M. E. at the Cleveland meeting. I have taken the opportunity of adding this mineral, to my records of the "World's Mineral Production and Consumption," as recently pub-lished in the Economist ?. The tables bring out the following significant facts: The world's production has increased by 10 per cent since 1913. India's production has increased by 3 per cent since 1.913, the supply from this source now being 31.1 per cent of the world's output. Russia is now producing at about half its pre-war rate and yields 19 per cent of the world's production. West Africa supplies 12.5 per cent of the world's total output. Brazil's present output is 2.5 times that of the pre-war period, being 11.3 per cent of the world's output.

Jan 9, 1927

By Alfred Fisher

CONSERVATION of mine timber is becoming in-creasingly important, and the consumer is en-couraged to use treated wood to permit longer life of mine timbers, and attempts are also made to substitute other material for wood. The great diffi-culty in substituting metal and concrete props for wood is the inability of these to give yielding resistance to roof pressure as wood supports do. In Europe, where mine timber costs are somewhat more important than in America, many designs of steel props have been tried, but have been unsuccessful, chiefly on account of inability to give yielding resistances. A metal pit prop that gives the desired effect has been extensively used in European mines and has caused a considerable reduction in accidents from falls of roof. Where mining operations have been sus-pended on account of strikes, conditions were found to be much better where such props were used instead of wood props, and machinery, which would have been destroyed by roof falls had wood props been used, was protected by the use of these yielding metal props. As this prop is adjustable, all the work of adjusting and transferring long props through narrow ways is done away with. It can also be drawn with greater ease and safety than wooden props; when properly used it is practically indestructible. European users have reported savings as against wooden props as high as 80 per cent. It gives audible warning of its working because the sliding action takes place in minute jerks. As the prop yields gradually to pressure its force is taken up by friction between the H sections, and this movement progressively increases the resistance of the prop to the increasing roof pressure. In the early development of the prop, it was designed with two steel members a and b of standard H steel sec-tions of equal dimensions provided with guide claws a' and b', held in frictional contact against each other by two differential wedges, f and g, and a floating link, e. In setting up the prop its two members are drawn out to the required length, the loose wedge, g, is then fitted into the space between the left-hand roller of the link d and the lower member of the prop b, and tapped suf-ficiently tight to prevent any relative movement of the two members from taking place prematurely. The prop is then raised to its intended position and secured in the usual way.

Jan 8, 1927

By J. V. N. Dorr

DEADWOOD and the Black Hills were familiar names to me from childhood, for. I had an uncle who was among the earliest eastern investors there and I used to hear of the Uncle Sam mine and its rich ore back in the eighties. The spring of my junior year at college, in 1893, brought me an offer of summer work at the Deadwood & Delaware smelter, in Deadwood, and full of the thrill of the long journey from New Jersey, I went out as chemist and stayed four months. Within a week or two of my arrival, I went through the tragic experience of seeing an associate drink cyanide by mistake and die within a few moments. I shall never forget the horror of feeling that my lack of knowledge of an antidote might be responsible for his death, but I found later that the solution he drank was so strong that nothing could have been done. A year after graduation, when I had settled down to chemical research work in New York, an offer came to go back to the smelter in Deadwood, and within a few days I was again tramping down "the Gulch" with my lunch bucket and putting in the standard assay office shift of that day, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a half-day off on Sundays. During my absence East, the D. & D. smelter had been changed from a pyritic smelter, using native pyrite, and Homestake concentrate to matte the siliceous gold ores, into a copper-matting smelter using copper ores brought from Butte, over the newly-completed Burlington rail-road. The work was interesting, and the laboratory offered many opportunities for making improvements. I remember also undertaking experiments at home on a new method of gold precipitation for the chlorination process and leasing a mine in Strawberry Gulch that promised great things, but soon petered out.

Jan 8, 1927

THE following statement is contained in an article entitled "Mortgaging the Future." by Walter C. Teagle, president of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jer-sey, appearing in the current issue of the Lamp, the official organ of the Standard Oil Co.: "During the last eight months the domestic daily production. of crude oil has risen 300,000 bbl.. which means that no less a volume than 2,500,000 bbl. now are coming to market each day. . . . Every twenty-four hours 250,000 bbl. more than the consumer required are being added to our surplus oil storage. The temporary advantage of cheap petroleum products and the availability of fuel .oil, for a widespread use as a substitute for coal are not being weighed against the time when scarcity may follow on the heels of plenty and the public of tomor-row may have to pay for today's excesses. The over-production of crude and its consequences constitute a problem of national import which far outweighs the temporary advantages either to a part of the industry or to sections of the public.

Jan 8, 1927

By Sherwin Kelly

RED LAKE has suffered from its over-zealous friends, who had something to gain by their zealousness and were, for the time being, friends indeed. Now, what was once hailed as a new El Dorado is anathema to many. Neither extreme view was justi-fied, and in time a new gold district may be expected to develop slowly, but surely. The marvel is that little streaks of valuable metal are ever uncovered by the few men who roam that tre-mendous, almost unexplored area that is the "North Country." The area to be explored is so immense, and the men who can do it so few, that once they leave the "steel," take their canoes and packs, and disappear into the bush, they may travel the innumerable watercourses that are the highways of the wilderness for days or weeks, and never see one of their own kind. Patricia, for example, is one of the mining districts of Northern Ontario, lying at the western side of the

Jan 8, 1927

By W. L. Zeigler

THE tailing from the gravity concentration plant of the Hecla Mining Co., Gem, Idaho, was former-ly loaded into railroad cars to be used for ballast, highway surfacing material, or concrete work, or dis-posed of by an aerial tramway, which dumped it into another gulch. The tailing averages about 1.2 per cent lead and 0.8 oz. silver to the ton. Further treatment for the recovery of the valuable metals had been investigat-ed several times with results that did not warrant the construction of a retreatment plant; but early in 1925 experimental work was again started with small tests, and later with a 10 tons per day flotation test plant. This showed that the tailing could be ground and treat-ed by flotation at a profit. It was decided to make the new flotation plant an addition to, rather than incor-porate it in the old concentrator, the original capacity of which had been increased many times, the present arrangement being by no means ideal. The old mill buildings were of timber and board contruction, creat-ing more or less fire hazard, so all new construction was made fireproof. Construction work on the new plant was started in the middle of July, 1925, and the plant was placed in operation early in December. The building is of concrete and steel with hollow tile walls, steel sash and corrugated asbestos roofing. The ball-mill floor has for its foundation a cellular reinforced concrete block about 14 ft. deep, extending to cemented river gravel, and the cells filled with tailing to give weight to the block. Overhead, built into the steel frame, is a 5-ton hand-operated traveling crane. With both ball-mills running fully loaded, there is not the slightest trace of vibra-tion in the foundation or building. The flotation floor is of reinforced concrete beam construction and spans Canyon Creek. Adjustable plunger feeders are arranged under the the tailing-bin, which feed by gravity to a 14-in. eleva-tor, discharging to a short 18-in. conveyor. From the conveyor the tailing is discharged into a dividing hop-per, from which point the plant is arranged in three separate units. Each unit consists of a ball-mill in closed circuit with a classifier, and an 8-cell flotation machine and has an approximate capacity of 300 tons per 24 hours.

Jan 8, 1927

By G. H. Ruggles

POPULAR opinion, as it might be termed, has always been of the trend that a flotation reagent added to the ball mill during grinding would be more thoroughly mixed with the pulp and for that reason more effective in the production of low tailing. That there are other effects, inimical to good flotation, when using so-called chemical reagents, is brought out by the series of tests outlined in Table 2. It was defi-nitely proved that if either the T. T. mixture (20 per cent thiocarbanalid-80 per cent orthotoluidin) or po-tassium xanthate were added to the ball mill the result-ing flotation concentrate would be lower in copper and higher in insoluble than the concentrate produced by adding these same reagents without the ball mill cir-cuit. With the T. T. mixture four sets of tests were made. The screen analyses of the flotation feed show that there was very little difference in the original grind-ing. When the T. T. mixture was added to the head of the flotation machine the flotation concentrate had a little over 61 per cent solids -200 mesh. If the mix-ture was put into the ball mill the flotation concentrate had but 40.7 per cent of the solids -200 mesh for one set of tests, and 49.0 per cent for the other set. With the mixture at the head of flotation the total concen-trate was high in copper (34.715 and 36.525 per cent) and low in insoluble (13.20 and 11.61 per cent). The assay of the concentrate when the T. T. mixture was introduced into the ball mill was what might be termed low in copper (29.389 and 30.833 per cent). In one of these 'sets of tests (periods 8 to 11, third column) the insoluble was high, 16.81 per cent. The other run (peri-ods 12 to 15, fourth column) for some unknown reason shows a low insoluble, 12.72 per cent. With similar grinding the addition of potassium xan-thate to flotation produced a concentrate having 62.8 per cent -200 mesh, whereas with the potassium xanthate added to the ball mill the flotation concentrate was very coarse, only 36.4 per cent passing 200 mesh. The difference in the total assay of the concentrate is remarkable ; 35.847 per cent copper when the xanthate went to flotation and 30.44 per cent copper when the xanthate was added to the ball mill; insoluble, 10.94 per cent in the former instance, as 22.15 per cent in the latter.

Jan 8, 1927

By R. W. Diamond

THREE mills are now operated by the Consolidated Mining & Smelting Co. of Canada, Ltd:: (1) The Sullivan concentrator, Chapman, B. C. (near Kimberley, B. C.), (2) the St. Eugene concentrator, Moyie, B. C., and (3) the Tadanac (customs) concen-trator, Trail, B. C. Differential flotation is the only concentration method employed in all three plants. Tables are used for pilot work only. Flotation equip-ment and control are similar in the three mills, and the flow sheets at the St. Eugene and Tadanac mills, while much simpler, are modeled after that of the Sul-livan concentrator. Successful differential flotation of Sullivan ore com-menced in the spring of 1920, in the pilot concentrator at Trail. During 1920, 193,804 tons were treated by this process. This operation continued without interrup-tion and with steady growth. For the first 7 months of . 1923, which concluded the pilot plant operation, ap-proximately 1100 tons were treated daily. I believe the Sunnyside plant of the United States Smelting &. Refining Co. was the only successful and large scale operation practising differential flotation prior to 1920. in North America. The Sullivan ore, because of its high iron content, was quite a different problem from that at Sunnyside. The entire tonnage of Sullivan ore had to be separated into three sulfide concentrate products-lead concentrate, zinc concentrate and iron concentrate. The choice and arrangement of equipment, and the original flow sheet for the Sullivan concentrator were controlled by the results of the exhaustive pilot mill test. These covered a continuous period of 3 1/2 years and involved the treatment of 1,076,368 tons of Sullivan ore. Satisfactory recoveries are made from feed; 11.0 per cent lead and 7.5 per cent zinc in the form of lead concentrate containing 69 per cent lead, 4.5 per cent zinc, and zinc concentrate containing 3.0 per cent lead and 49 per cent zinc. (The pure zinc mineral in Sulli-van ore is marmatite, 'containing approximately 54.5 per cent zinc and 10 per cent iron. It is apparent, there-fore, that 49 percent concentrate is high grade for this particular ore.)

Jan 8, 1927

By John Lovejoy

As the Seminole area, Seminole and Pottawatomie Counties, Okla., appears to be the chief danger zone of overproduction in the United States, it may be of interest to review the production records of the various pools which make up this area; also to dis-cuss the future prospects of these pools, together with the structurally "high" points which may develop into new pools. It is also of interest to appraise the effect of the curtailment program in this general area, which was agreed to in principle by the various Seminole op-erators at a meeting held on May 23 at the offices of W. C. Teagle in New York. There are four large pools in the greater Seminole area. They are, in the order of their importance Seminole City, Bowlegs, Earlsboro, and Searight pools. A glance at the accompanying general map of the area will show their relative situation. The detail maps show the extent and area of these prolific spots. Seminole production comes from the Wilcox sand of Ordovician age, found at a depth of 3900 to 4300 feet. Semninole City Pool:-This pool was discovered in Wilcox sand in July, 1926. By Jan., 1927, there were 123 wells completed, making 146,000 bbl. per day. The field reached its peak of 253,000 bbl. per day the last week of Feb., 1927, with 211 completions and a per well average of 1200 bbl. On July 4 there were 304 wells completed, producing 102,000 bbl., with a per well aver-age of 336 bbl. per day. This pool will cover an area of approximately 3500 acres. It has produced approxi-mately 38,000,000 bbl. to. July 1. Estimates of total ultimate production are around 55,000,000 bbl. or somewhat better than 15,000 bbl. per acre. Some of the individual leases have already yielded 30,000 and 40,000 bbl. to the acre. Bowlegs Pool:-This pool shows 175 drilling wells and 131 completions making 180,000 bbl. per day, with an average per well production of 1380 bbl. It appears that this pool will develop into nearly as large an area as Seminole City. The wells, however, do not give up

Jan 8, 1927

By A. T. Tye

WHEN the roughing tables operated in 1923 were abandoned, all the coarse iron pyrite for-merly removed by the tables had to be ground to flotation size, which caused an increased power con-sumption of 2 kw.-hr. per ton. Recently, by increasing the tonnage, this has been reduced to a total of 16.6 kw.-hr. per ton. The cost of repairs has been slightly reduced by using an alkaline circuit instead of the acid mine water used in 1923. Other economies from elim-inating roughing tables and the finishing tables have more than compensated for the extra grinding and the total costs have remained practically the same, until the first part of 1927, when, with increased tonnage, the total cost has decreased to 72 cents and the repair cost to 9 cents. In 1923, with a combined gravity and bulk flotation flowsheet, the grade of concentrate was only 4.38 per cent copper. With preferential flotation this has in-creased to over 17 per cent copper. The tailing has decreased from 0.29 per cent -copper to 0.18 per cent. The copper recovery, instead of decreasing; as might be expected, has increased from 87.4 per cent to, 91.5 per cent. The silver recovery has also increased from 88

Jan 8, 1927

THE fall meeting of the Petroleum Division of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers will be held in Fort Worth on Oct. 19 and 20. The Texas Hotel will be headquarters. for this meeting, the technical sessions being held in the ball-room of the hotel. During the evening of the nineteenth a smoker will be held at the Fort Worth Club. In working out the program for this meeting, J. B. Umpleby, vice-chairman for production engineering, considered it especially desirable to offer as complete a discussion as possible of the subject of air-gas lift, its theory and practice, and its relationship to gas-oil ratios. The entire first day will be devoted to sessions on this subject. One session of the second day will be devoted to the use of electricity in oil-field operations and the second to the handling of congealing oils and paraffin. In addition to this program there will be one or more sessions when petroleum engineering research problems will be discussed. This meeting of the Division is primarily devoted to production engineering, as will be seen from the pro-gram. During one of the sessions, however, a brief review with forecasts of the production situation will be presented.

Jan 8, 1927

By Oliver Bowles

AMONG mining men as well as in the popular mind the conviction has held sway that mining is pre-eminently a western industry. True it is that gold, silver, copper and other metals have made the States of California, Colorado, Montana, Utah. Nevada and Arizona famous. The prominence attained by these States as mineral producers is, however, not measured alone by the money value of the products of their mines. While the metals are without doubt indispensable in industry, the glamour of the precious metals, and the lure of copper, lead and zinc have given to their ore deposits a sentimental interest that often quite out-weighs their commercial importance. Today a great group of more commonplace minerals are finding a place in commerce and industry rivaling that of the metals, but there is little sentiment attached to them, and,. therefore, they attain relatively little publicity. This is the great group of the non-metallic minerals, exclusive of fuels and oils, including stone, sand and gravel, cement, lime, gypsum, asbestos, mica, phos-phate rock and many others. Almost unnoticed they have grown in production to almost unbelievable pro-portions. The estimated value of metal production for 1925 is given as $1,380,000,000, of the non-metals (ex-cluding fuels) $1,294,000,000. The non-metallic industries are not new, many of them date back almost to pre-historic times; but, as the greatest of them (on a tonnage basis) provides raw materials for the construction industries, it required the activities of the present age of construction to bring about their enormous development. Many of them enter manufacturing as well as con-struction. Non-metallic minerals constitute the back-bone of our great chemical industries. While construction and manufacture reach to all parts of the country their widest development has been in the great industrial centers of the eastern Seaboard and the middle West. Consequently the raw materials of mineral origin required for these great industries have attained a remarkable growth in the eastern half of the- United States. In compiling figures of mineral production for 1924, for which more complete data are available than for later years, the surprising fact is brought to light that the non-metallic mineral produc-tion alone of some of the eastern and middle-western States exceeds by a substantial margin the total min-eral production of some of the western States that have been classed as essentially mining States. Thus the non-metallic mineral production, exclusive of coal and petroleum, of the State of Ohio, was approximately $150,000,000; of Pennsylvania $175,000,000; and of New York $107,000,000. For the same year, 1924, the total mineral production of Utah was $84,357,000; of Montana $70,632,000; of Colorado $61,488,000; and of Nevada only $26,226,000. Even Minnesota, with its enormous iron ore production, reached only $107,845,-000, or a sum about equivalent to the non-metallic min-eral production of the State of New York.

Jan 8, 1927