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By L. Douglass Anderson

For some years past the annual reviews of the metallurgy of lead have almost uniformly stated that there have been no great changes, such as there were being more particularly noticeable in the refinement of details. While this is quite true, nevertheless these changes in details are gradually bringing about a condition that, taken as a whole, constitutes a considerable advance in the art. Local circumstances have often compelled metallurgists to adopt certain peculiarities of practice which upon trial have been found advantageously applicable to more than the restricted district of origin. This paper will deal with some of the more novel features developed in recent years at the United States smelter, Midvale, Utah, particularly with reference to the influence of the bag house. The plant is equipped with six blast furnaces, 48 by 160 in., mechanically fed; four Wedge furnaces for roasting matte and sulphide ores; four Dwight-Lloyd sintering machines; 20 converter boxes for blast roasting; storage bins for ore, fuel, and fluxes; "oxide" and "sulphide" sampling mills; bag house taking all the gases of the plant; arsenic plant for treating the dust gathered there; laboratory, shops, etc. The most marked feature of the plant is its complete bag-house system. Of the many schemes thus far tried for preventing damage to surrounding agricultural interests the writer is aware of none as yet quite as efficient as the bag house. A common remark of visitors upon approaching the plant and viewing the clear stacks is that it appears to be shut down, whereas once inside all the evidences of industry are found. Bag-housing blast-furnace gases presents no peculiar difficulties. The gases from properly run furnaces are comparatively cool, contain scarcely a trace of acid and do not burn the filtering medium. All that is required is a proper mechanical design of the bag house and its accessories, the provision of ample filtering area, and of convenient means for handling and treating the product. While cotton or duck bags have been used, on the whole woolen bags woven of the raw wool appear to give sufficiently longer life to warrant their heavier expense. As for the filtering

Jan 1, 1915

By S. Razi

Injection luminescence of single crystals of rare-earth-activated CdS was investigated. Crystals of CdS:Nd, CdS:Er, and CdS:Yb, grown by the vapor transport technique, were suitably etched and hetero-junctions of Cu2S-CdS were fabricated on one side of the CdS substrate by chemical reaction. The device was then heated to 200°C in an inert atmosphere for 5 min. Static V-I measurements show that at low voltages (V < 1 v) the current is controlled by the junction, while at higher voltages the bulk Properties of the CdS substrate effectively control the current. Because of the large thicknesses no negative resistance was found. Reverse breakdown voltage varied from 5 v, for junctions that were not heat-treated, to 100 v, for diodes that received the proper heat treatment. The rectification ratio, measured in the range of 2 to 10 v, varied from 300 to 3000. Capacitance- voltage measurements indicate a weak dependence of the junction capacity on applied voltage. The capacity was found to increase appreciably with room light illumination. The variation of capacitance with frequency is indicative of a p+-i-n structure. An open-circuit voltage of 0.4 v was measured under an illumination of 100 mw per sq cm. Under forward bias, the bluish-green edge emission characteristic of CdS was observed. No sharp rare earth emission line was observed, which is in contrast to our results using ZnS:Tb, where, under high-voltage excitation, the rare earth emission was dominat over the lattice emission. The absence of rare earth emission implies that either the nature of the rare earth ion is different at the het-erojunction than in the bulk or the probability of energy transfer to the rare earth ion is small. RARE earth elements are playing an increasingly important role in the Synthesis of materials for a variety of purposes, e.g., solid-state lasers, color television screens, and so forth. Interesting systems result when wide-band-gap photoconducting lattices are activated with rare earths. A study of the lumines-

Jan 1, 1969

By R. A. Liddle

Intermitt&apos;en&apos;I&apos;ly during the past 10 years showings of oil and gas in tests drilled in the eastern part of Texas have stimulated the search for production. Tests on the flanks of the long-known salt domes, principally Keechi and Butler, have found oil in small quantity in the Woodbine formation of the basal part of the Upper Cretacrous. In the central part of Cherokee County, Colliton et all in 1926, in their Clapp No. 2 found a good showing of 37" B6. oil at about 3500 ft. Several wells were drilled in 1926 and 1927 as a result of this showing. On Jan. 22, 1927, Humble Oil & Refining Co. wildcatting on Carey Lake salt dome, obtained commercial production in its Clark No. 1. This inaugurated intensive exploration both for salt domes and for other types of structure. As a result several new domes and a few promising structures of other types have been discovered. Development in East Texas durinG 1927 Carey Lake Dome Location.—On the Neches River in Anderson and Cherokree counties, 10 miles west of Jacksonville, Cherokec (lounty. (Fig. 1.) date of Discovery.—During 1925 geologisls of the Humble Oil & Refining Co. working in the Neches River valley discovered slight surface fracturexs, cratic dips, and slickensided clays and sands in green-sands of the Mount Selman formation north of Carey Lake. A number of core tests were drilled by the Humble Oil & Refining C&apos;o. during 1925 and 1926, some more than 1500 ft. deep, to check their surface obsuvations of faulting, and the possibilities of a salt dome. On May 16, 1927, solid rock salt was reached at 2142ft. in the first deep test on the prospect. Surfacc Indications.—Surface indications of the Carey Lake dome, though not as evident as manifestations at the previously known domes of Palestine, Keechi, Butler, Grand Saline, Steen and Brooks, are more noticeable than on any of the domes discovered in 1927. F. E. Poulsen, of the Pure Oil Co., who examined the area before the deep tests were drilled, noted the alignment of erratic surface dips which suggested faulting, especially in conjunction with slickensiding, and the local deflec-

Jan 1, 1928

By P. G. Shewmon, J. Y. Choi

The surface-diffusion coefficient for , has been measured on (111) and (100) surfaces of copper from 1000" to 620°C. D,(Ge) on the (111) is two to three times that on the (100) as was found earlier for copper and gold on copper. D, (Ge) on both (111) and (100) is about thirty times that found for gold or copper tracers on the same surfaces, while in the temperature range where both D,(Ge) and Ds(Au) have been measured the activation energy for germanium is the same as that for gold. The apparent activation energy for Ds(Ge) is not a constant, but decreases with temperature. In a recent paper we reported on the application of a new tracer technique to the determination of the surface-diffusion coefficient (D,) for gold and copper on (111) and (100) surfaces of copper.&apos; In this paper, we shall give the results obtained when the same technique was used to measure Ds for germanium on the (111) and (100) surfaces of copper. In addition to providing data on D., for an additional element on copper, the longer half-life of germanium (275 days) meant that Ds could be measured down to a much lower temperature and thus over a much wider temperature range (1000" to 620°C) than was used in our gold-tracer work (1060" to 780°C) or copper mass-transport studies (1060" to 800). The apparent activation energy for D, (Ge) is essentially the same as that found for gold or copper in the same temperature range, though the values of D, (Ge) are thirty times greater than those found for gold or copper tracers. The most interesting new result found is that the apparent activation energy for Ds(Ge), and thus Do, definitely increases with temperature. Such a trend was much more apparent in Gjostein&apos;s mass-transport work on copper than in our own, though in an earlier paper we mentioned the difficulty of fitting all of our points with one straight line:= No real explanation of this is given though experiments done on grain boundary groove growth at various ambient pressures demonstrate unequivocally that vapor transport plays no part in the increase in activation energy with temperature.

Jan 1, 1964

By Robert R. Boyd

The gravity discussed here is that of the clean oil produced. Gravities of fluids containing water, free or in the form of emulsion, sand, drilling mud or mineral salts of a nonbituminous nature do not represent the gravity of crude oil as considered in this paper. During recent years it has become a frequent occurrence for operators to be called upon to explain to landowners the reasons for variations in gravity on shipments of oil from wells in which they are interested as royalty owners. In regard to single well leases it has been noted that marked changes in gravity frequently have occurred for no apparent reason. Data collected on the subject and correlated with production methods reveal interesting facts. It is the purpose of this paper to present some of the highlights on the subject. These gravity changes in the natural crude oil are with a few exceptions the result of the liberation under varying conditions of the volatile hydrocarbons from the natural oil-gas solution contained within the pool. The subject of the liberation of gases from natural oil-gas solution has been investigated by Ben E. Lindsly, of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, and the observations recorded here are in the main consistent with his conclusions. Investigators have recognized two methods of liberation of gas from solution—flash and differential. In the latter method the vapors are removed from the liquid as rapidly as formed and have no opportunity to come to a condition of equilibrium with the oil. In flash liberation an equilibrium condition between the oil and the gas exists at the pressure of separation. Mr. Lindsly has found that the method of liberating the gas from the oil has a pronounced effect on the final gravity and that differential liberation results in a higher A.P.I. gravity due to the higher ratio of gasoline producing hydrocarbons left in the oil. Under actual production practices with high velocities in flow strings, it is our contention that conditions of perfect equilibrium between gas and the oil rarely exist, and that gas separation is made under varying conditions, sometimes approaching that of equilibrium and at other times departing from it.

Jan 1, 1937

By Joseph Jensen

No outstanding example of an important producing unit operation exists in California today where the competitive drilling drainage feature is or was entirely eliminated We need not feel, however, that the thought of unit operation had its birth in 1924, when Henry L. Doherty named and sponsored it so strongly before the American Petroleum Institute and our own organization. No man or company in California ever drilled a wildcat well without exerting every possible effort to get all of the structure, so as to control drilling and avoid competition. Overproduction did not begin in 1923, so there has always been the wish to avoid it. In this state the practice of selling acreage around a wildcat has not been followed, except possibly in rare instances. The operator drilling the wildcat knew he must pay the bill alone, so he endeavored to get the benefit of his effort by tying up all of the land around his well and by so planning his different lease obligations as to avoid as much offsetting as possible. If he failed to get all of the land, it was because someone&apos;s price was too high, some other oil man also had the same idea and already held some lands, a competitor took leases away from him while his work was still incomplete, or (as was so often the case) the hidden structure when developed did not prove to be where the wildcatter thought it would be. The last named condition often led to a forced drilling campaign by the last leases secured and thus to serious drilling drainage problems. Ownership of the Land The land situation differs a great deal in various parts of the state. In the San Joaquin Valley, all the land is surveyed into sections and townships. Railroad land grants embraced a part of the land. In the areas that were developed at an early date, as at Kern River, Coalinga, McKittrick and the Sunset-Midway field, such land as the railroad company&apos;s diligent land department had been unable to sell for a song as grazing land still remained in its ownership. Operation and ownership

Jan 1, 1930

By T. B. Brooks

THE iron ores of the Marquette region are mostly extracted in open excavations ; hence the process is more properly quarrying. Several attempts at underground work have been made, which have not, on the whole, been successful. The Edwards mine has been almost entirely wrought by candle-light. The slate ore pit, No. 1, of the New England mine, is now worked in the same way, as is also the Pioneer furnace pit of the Jackson mine. The Champion mine was opened systematically for underground work, with two levels, 60 feet apart, and three shafts at distances apart along the bed. of 200 feet; but this idea has been practically abandoned, the greater part of the ore in that mine being now taken out in open pits. Several other mines have occasionally worked underground stopes, but only temporarily; if such stopes could not be opened out to day-light, they have usually been abandoned. In brief, it may be said that no considerable amount of ore has as yet (1870).been extracted underground in the region, and of that so mined very little has been taken out at a profit; and I may add that it seems to be the belief of the most experienced mining men that this state of things will hold for some time to come for reasons which will appear. Nearly the same remarks may be applied to the mines of the Iron Mountain region, Missouri, the ores of which are very similar in character to those of Marquette. Some of the New York and New Jersey magnetic deposits are wrought open, but this is the exception, underground mining there being the rule. The following brief sketch of the geological structure of the Marquette deposits will indicate some advantages of the method of mining employed. The iron-bearing (Huronian) series of rocks, are stratified beds, the principal ore formation being overlaid by a quartzite, and underlaid by a diorite, or greenstone. This ore formation is made up, first, of pure ore ; second, of a mixed ore" (i. e., banded * A second part of this paper was read before the American Society of Civil Engineers. Both papers are embraced in Chapter IX, Part I, Vol. II, Geological Survey of Michigan.

Jan 1, 1873

By H. C. Otis

DURING the past year or two considerable time and money have been spent in developing equipment for tubing large-volume high-pressure oil and gas wells without loss of production. That the efforts have met with success is proved by the fact that any properly cased well, regardless of its production or regardless of its rock pressure or working pressure, can now be safely tubed with no appreciable loss of production, provided experienced crews handle the new equipment. It is conceded that a far better gas-oil ratio can be secured by flowing a well through tubing of a proper diameter-the diameter of the tubing depending, of course, upon the volume of fluid and gas and the depth of the well-than by the more usual method of installing a choke at the mouth of the well. Where possible it is becoming the practice to bring wells in through tubing, though in the majority of instances this is not feasible. In many instances it has developed, after a well has been brought in through tubing, that the tubing installed is either too large or too small for the most efficient operation or that the well had not been drilled deep enough. The equipment described in this paper, in the hands of experienced men, permits the tubing of these wells after they have been brought in, with the size of tubing then determined by actual observation to be best suited for each particular well, and with no danger of the well getting out of control, of catching fire, of drilling itself deeper, or of any loss of production. The deeper the flowing production with the consequent future higher lifting costs, the more essential it is that the size of tubing used be such as to give the best possible gas-oil ratio. The ability to bring in these deep wells through the casing and then, immediately after their completion, regardless of volume or pressure, to tube them with the size of tubing that permits the most efficient use of the gas present will doubtless save many dollars.

Jan 1, 1929

By H. Landsberg

IN a previous report1 it was pointed out that a successful attack on roof troubles has to be preceded by extensive scouting. As Lord Kelvin once said, scientific progress can be made only if accurate data are available: "unless you measure, you do not know.? THE CONVERGENCE RECORDER For the observation of roof movements in mines the convergence recorder has shown that it will enable us to get some of the necessary information. Results with convergence recorders were first published by Winstanley and other English investigators for rapidly moving longwall faces. In their investigations the speed of work and the heavy over-burden produced a considerable amount of absolute values of convergence in a short time. Under the conditions frequently encountered in our investigations in Central Pennsylvania, under shallow, overburden and in mines with slowly proceeding extraction, the movements observed were much less in absolute value, for an equal interval of time. This was partly because the mines in which our studies were carried on frequently had idle days, sometimes four or five in succession. Therefore continuous records were not employed and a simple convergence gauge was built. In its first models, it consisted only of two telescoping tubes pressed against roof and floor by a coil spring. At the side of the lower tube a rule divided into 1/-mm. divisions was fixed and a knife-edge, which was attached to the upper tube, was slid over the scale in case of convergence between roof and floor. While the larger motions could be read on this device, it seemed to be desirable to increase the accuracy by inserting between the two tubes a dial meter reading in 1/1000 in. Such a gauge was first built in April 1937 and installed for experimental purposes in a bituminous coal mine in Pennsylvania (Fig. 1). It was read at least once daily, 24 hr. apart, and if feasible at shorter intervals. After several months of experience it can be said that this type of gauge answers the scientific as well as the practical needs. It is easier to handle than the recorder; no clock is used, there are no pen troubles. The price of

Jan 1, 1938

By H. S. Gibson

A PROCESS that has come to be known locally as "multistage stabiliza-tion" has been developed in the Haft Kel field of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. in southwest Iran, for the recovery of casinghead gasoline. It con-sists in releasing the dissolved gases from the crude by stages, a practice common in many fields, but which, so far as is known, has nowhere been carried to the extent to which it is employed in Iran. It has been in use there for nearly nine years, during which time some 200 million barrels of crude have been handled by the process. This process of gasoline retention consists in preventing the greater part of the casinghead gasoline hydrocarbons (the butanes and pentanes) from ever leaving the crude, instead of allowing them to be vaporized and then recovered from the lighter gases by the usual compression or absorption processes. Its efficiency is fully equal to that obtained by the absorption process; its disadvantage is that it increases the quantities of ethane and propane in the crude sent to the refinery, but with the growing demand for propane this drawback is vanishing. When casinghead gasoline is recovered as a separate liquid in the Iranian fields, it is blended with the crude, as the only outlet is through the refinery, and the crude-oil pipe line offers the cheapest means of transportation. It is under these conditions that the retention of the butanes and pentanes in the crude by multistage stabilization is a most attractive process, possessing as it does the following advantages: (1) extreme simplicity, (2) low first cost, (3) easy installation, (4) practically 100 per cent operating-time efficiency, (5) no operators required, (6) no water or other services required, (7) negligible maintenance, (8) once established, very little routine testing is necessary. The one essential for reasonably efficient multistage stabilization is that the flowing pressures of the wells should be relatively high; i.e., they should not be less than about one-third the saturation pressure of the crude in the reservoir. This is a very general statement, of course, and much depends on the type of crude and its temperature.

Jan 1, 1939

By L. W. Kempf

DURING the recent development of aluminum alloys for free-cutting screw-machine rod, it became desirable to know something of the solubility of lead and bismuth in liquid aluminum and in some aluminum alloys. The literature is not particularly helpful in supplying this information. These portions, therefore, of the constitutional relationships of aluminum-ismuth and aluminum-lead alloys were investigated by thermal analysis and by chemical analysis of samples taken from aluminum-rich melts in equilibrium with precipitated lead or bismuth. The solubility of lead and bismuth in some liquid aluminum-copper alloys was also investi-gated. Some consideration was also given to the solubility of these elements in solid aluminum. Among the earliest investigators of the aluminum-lead and aluminum-bismuth systems was Wright,1 who reported that melts of aluminum and lead formed two layers indicating limited liquid solubility. Under his conditions, the aluminum-rich layer was reported to contain 1.91 per cent Pb and the lead-rich layer, 0.07 per cent Al. Subsequently, Pecheau2 found that in aluminum-rich alloy melts with more than 10 per cent Pb three layers were distinguishable. He reported that the middle layer contained from 3 to 10 per cent Pb. He also found that the melting point of aluminum appeared to be lowered slightly by the addition of lead. Gwyer3 investigated these alloys and found evidence of a slight lowering of the freezing point of aluminum by the addition of either lead or bismuth. He found no evidence of solid solubility in either case and made no attempt to determine the liquidus curves. Hansen and Blumen-thal4 reported that the addition of lead distinctly lowered the solidifica-tion point of aluminum. They also found that bismuth lowered the melting point of aluminum. Guillet5 reported almost complete mutual immiscibility for the aluminum-bismuth alloys in the liquid state. Bohner6 examined the effect of various concentrations of lead and bis-muth on the electrical conductivity of aluminum. He found decreases in conductivity on annealing at 500° C. as compared with the conductivity of the same alloys on annealing at 300° C.

Jan 1, 1938

By E. W. Edson, F. W. Hertal

In some fields the problem of mud fluid is simple and easy of solution. But in the Ventura Avenue field the acquisition and disposal of good drilling mud is not the least of the problems that confront the operator. In fact, mud fluid in the Ventura Avenue field is a very important factor in the drilling of the wells. It is quite probable that many of the factors affecting mud in this field will not be found in most of the fields with which the reader is familiar. However, in the fields where the mud fluid causes no apparent problem it is probable that some of the points brought out in this paper could be used to economic advantage. In fields where caving and squeezing formations and high gas pressures are present, as in the Ventura Avenue field, it is believed that application of methods outlined will be of great assistance in drilling wells. On account of the sandy nature of the formation and the lack of suitable shale bodies in the strata drilled through in the Ventura Avenue field, the wells make practically no mud during drilling. It is necessary therefore to supply drilling mud to the wells that will carry the drill cuttings to the surface, and also will " wall up" the drill hole and prevent the sandy formations from caving. Mixing and Handling Mud Fluid The clay used to make the mud fluid is obtained from a shale stratum in the upper Pico (Plioccne) formation found about a mile on either side of the field. Since high gas pressures and caving formations were first encountered in the Ventura Avenue field and mud fluid was needed to combat them, the mixing of this mud fluid has gone through a process of evolution. First, the clay was mined and hauled to the derrick, where it was shoveled into the well and left for the churning action of the bit to mix into a mud in the hole. The next move was the construction of a mixer to mix the clay to a mud fluid which was pumped into the well. These mixing

Jan 1, 1930

By Cecil J. May

The importance of a knowledge of the physical laws involved in the production of oil from a reservoir has come to be generally realized in recent years and it is therefore unnecessary to elaborate on the many problems which still await complete solution. Among them the vertical flow of mixtures of oil and gas has attracted considerable attention and a number of papers have appeared in the literature from time to time. The complete solution of the problem would cover such aspects of oil-field technology as the calculation of bottom-hole pressures from purely surface data; the estimation of natural flowing lives; the design of gas-lifts and the selection of tubing for natural flow, and so on. It is still true, however, that the results so far published have not been particularly consistent and there are no generally accepted data available of universal applicability. It is, in fact, by no means easy to obtain a sufficiently wide range of variables under the operator&apos;s control to determine the laws of flow without ambiguity and much of the published research has been directed towards the solution of the specific problems of individual fields representing only a partial treatment of the whole subject. It was with a similar object that work was commenced on the Masjid-i-Sulairnan field of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. towards the end of 1930 and has since continued as opportunity offered. Of course, the results obtained cannot necessarily be applied elsewhere without modification and, in some cases, considerable extension. At the same time conditions in this field are somewhat unusual in allowing certain aspects of the problem to be isolated and examined without the disturbing effects of a large number of independent or partially independent variables. For example, since the field is under unit control, it is possible to maintain steady conditions on any particular well over long periods. Moreover, the structure of the limestone reservoir is such that the gas-oil ratio for a given well is sensibly constant over very wide ranges of production rates, and in many cases the bottom-hole differential pres-

Jan 1, 1935

John Chipman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.)—After looking over the authors&apos; shoulders for several years and after many discussions on the interesting diagrams of the types shown, it is a pleasure to see a formal paper published on this subject. There can be no doubt of the practical usefulness of the concepts shown. Inclusion formation in steel is such a highly complex matter that any system for understanding the subject is bound to be welcomed by those who must work with steels and who see in their day-to-day experience the good and evil effects of inclusions. A feature of the work with which the discusser has been concerned, and which he would now like to attempt to explain, is the relation between the schematic diagrams which the authors use and the phase diagrams for related systems. Obviously, the authors&apos; diagrams are in no sense complete phase diagrams. However, there is a relation between this type of diagram and the true phase diagram, and the understand- ing of this relation ought to help in understanding the general picture which the authors are presenting. Consider the authors&apos; Fig. 4, which shows the liqui-dus relations in the Fe-Mn-S-0 system. To show the complete relations between temperature and composition in these four ternary systems would require four triangular prisms, the vertical axes of which would represent temperature. The four triangles of Fig. 4 represent basal projections of certain lines from the four prismatic phase diagrams. Readers of the paper are all more or less acquainted with this type of projection and its usefulness and limitations are generally understood. In order to concentrate on the interesting parts and to minimize the less interesting features, the composition scale may be shifted to de-emphasize regions containing gaseous sulphur and oxygen. Such a diagram is shown in Fig. 16, which is a distorted version of the authors&apos; Fig. 4. Here the oxide of iron is wiistite, denoted by W, and it is to be noted that between W and MnO lies the entire MnO-FeO "binary" system. Similarly, between MnS and FeS lies another binary whose

Jan 1, 1956

By P. Nicholls

Patent records show that the attempt to improve the burning of fuel by mixture or pretreatment with chemicals dates back to the early years of the last century. By 1845 English and French patents had included the specific beneficiations of elimination or reduction of smoke, soot and clinker; reduction of the ashes; elimination of sulphur fumes; increase of the rate of burning; increase of the time a given charge of fuel would last; and, in most patents, a saving of fuel. The earlier patents specified additions up to 80 lb. or more per ton of fuel, but after 1860 the quantity was seldom more than 4 lb. There is no record of the extent to which these patents were commercialized, but after 1874 many American patents were assigned to companies specializing in treatment of coal, so it is probable that the products were marketed on a considerable scale at least as early as that date. From 1900 on, many proprietary products were marketed under the general name of "fuel savers," the principal sales being in small packages for the use of householders; savings of from 10 to 40 per cent of the coal were promised. Starting with 1927, the use of proprietary or other mixtures of chemicals was extended to power plants and to treatment of coals at the mines, the claims of saving of fuel being subordinated to those of general improvement and, in particular, to reduction of clinker-ing. Such expectations are attractive and a number of companies experimented with or adopted the practice. There were reports of improved operation, but, apparently, few were confident enough that these improvements were due to the salts to publish the results of tests or their records of operation. There are no data on the yearly tonnage of coal treated but indirect reports suggest that it has been relatively large. Since its establishment in 1910, the U. S. Bureau of Mines has continually received inquiries about these products. At the request of other governmental departments it made tests in 1910, 1916 and 1930, using certain proprietary products applied according to the instructions of the vendors; these tests were made with eastern coals in domestic and

Jan 1, 1938

By H. S. Gipson

A process that has come to be known locally as "multistage stabilization" has been developed in the Haft Kel field of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. in southwest Iran, for the recovery of casinghead gasoline. It consists in releasing the dissolved gases from the crude by stages, a practice common in many fields, but which, so far as is known, has nowhere been carried to the extent to which it is employed in Iran. It has been in use there for nearly nine years, during which time some 200 million barrels of crude have been handled by the process. This process of gasoline retention consists in preventing the greater part of the casinghead gasoline hydrocarbons (the butanes and pentanes) from ever leaving the crude, instead of allowing them to be vaporized and then recovered from the lighter gases by the usual compression or absorption processes. Its efficiency is fully equal to that obtained by the absorption process; its disadvantage is that it increases the quantities of ethane and propane in the crude sent to the refinery, but with the growing demand for propane this drawback is vanishing. When casinghead gasoline is recovered as a separate liquid in the Iranian fields, it is blended with the crude, as the only outlet is through the refinery, and the crude-oil pipe line offers the cheapest means of transportation. It is under these conditions that the retention of the butanes and pentanes in the crude by multistage stabilization is a most attractive process, possessing as it does the following advantages: (1) extreme simplicity, (2) low first cost, (3) easy installation! (4) practically 100 per cent operating-time efficiency, (5) no operators required, (6) no water or other services required, (7) negligible maintenance, (8) once established, very little routine testing is necessary. The one essential for reasonably efficient multistage stabilization is that the flowing pressures of the wells should be relatively high; i.e., they should not be less than about one-third the saturation pressure of the crude in the reservoir. This is a very general statement, of course, and much depends on the type of crude and its temperature.

Jan 1, 1940

By John Ryan

SIR HUMPHREY DAVY&apos;S epoch-making treatise delivered on Nov. 9, 1815, before the Philosophical Society of London, first announced and demon¬strated a flame safety lamp for detecting methane in mine air. Coal mining was known in England as early as 1180, more than 600 years before the advent of a safe lighting and gas-detecting appliance. Mining, no doubt, took place first in outcrop coal, and danger from gas did not become apparent until the workings became deeper and more extensive. Davy&apos;s lamp did much to increase the safety of miners, and a modified Davy lamp is still widely used for detecting the presence and approximate amount of combustible gas in mine air. No factor in coal mining has improved more rapidly during the past 15 years than safety measures. This progress came about not only as a result of the work-men&apos;s compensation laws now in force in most of the states of the Union, but because the research work of the U. S. Bureau of Mines has demonstrated some dan¬gers incident to coal mining which were not considered to be serious matters prior to that time. Electric power and explosives are necessary but 1-potential hazards in American coal mines. A general mechanization program is now under way, while the mines are growing deeper and more extensive. Conse-quently ventilation problems are more complex and a demand has been created for positive detecting devices for carbon monoxide as well as methane. Scientists and manufacturers, working hand in hand during the past 10 years, have invented and developed appliances which make systematic and effective examination of mine air possible. The object of this paper is to describe briefly the approved testing devices in use today, with the hope that they may lead to the saving of life. Dangerous coal mine gases may be placed in two groups: (1) those that are dangerous because of their explosive properties, and (2) those that are dangerous because of their toxic properties. Methane (CHI) is the important gas of the first group, and in so-called gaseous mines constantly exudes from the coal and rock; it may accumulate and form an explosive mixture.

Jan 2, 1927

By Morris Muskat

ALTHOUGH the problem of well spacing is one of the most important involved in the production of oil, it must be considered at the present time as still subject to further development. The published literature on this question is so voluminous that we cannot enter here into a review of it, except to refer to the recent papers by L. L. Foley1 and E. A. Stephen-son,2 where other references are cited. However, a decisive and conclu-sive answer to the problem of well spacing in any general form does not seem to have been developed. And while we shall be unable to present the desired solution in the present paper, it is nevertheless felt that the material to be given here not only provides the physical ground work for the ultimate solution, but shows qualitatively the essential factors that enter the well-spacing problem. Field studies of the well-spacing problem, in which the ultimate recoveries from different fields with different well spacings have been compared, have generally suffered from the lack of knowledge as to the similarity of the inherent characteristics of the producing reservoirs being compared, such as the sand volumes, the sand porosities, the sand permeabilities, the original reservoir pressures, the presence or absence of gas caps, the presence or absence of effective water drives, and the economic limits of production rates at which the various fields were considered to have yielded their ultimate recoveries. Certainly no one who is evaluating originally the economic significance of any oil reservoir would deliberately ignore these phases of the problem. And it is equally certain that no one would reasonably expect the ultimate recoveries from two reservoirs, even with the same well spacing, to be identical regardless of these other factors. More reliable results might be expected from comparisons of the recoveries obtained from different leases with different well spacings, but producing from the same reservoir sand. Unfortunately, however, even conclusions for such studies may be subject to serious errors. The reason simply is that however much one may insist that an operator is entitled only to the oil immediately underneath his surface acreage he will nevertheless drain the surrounding properties as long as his reservoir

Jan 1, 1939

By Henry F. Adams, Guy H. Ruggles

In this paper the authors aim to chronicle the experience and salient points brought out in changing flotation reagents at a concentrator which had probably been using a minimum amount of oil at a minimum cost per ton, to a more complicated system requiring a partial chemical control. The original oils were coal tar and pine oil. The new reagents are lime, xanthate and pine oil. It was found that there were no insurmountable difficulties and eventually the cost of the new reagents per ton of ore proved to be very little more than that of the old. Lime Plant When the question of handling lime came up there were two propositions open: (1) to handle the lime dry; (2) to handle it wet in the form of an emulsion. Granting that a dry lime feeder would function properly, delivering lime uniformly, the chief objection was the dust that would be raised when these feeders were being charged or operated, as the only possible location was on a gallery beneath which men were working. With this objection the handling of lime as an emulsion seemed to be the better scheme. The lime plant which was first installed was for experimental work on one section. This was gradually changed and developed until it was of sufficient size to accommodate 20 sections. The various changes will not be discussed and the following description deals only with the fully developed plant. Crude as it is, and perhaps somewhat expensive to operate, the lime-handling plant has been quite successful. Much has been learned which will pave the way for a better installation in the future. Burnt lime is received loose in standard gage box cars. This is the product of the kilns and has had no screening or sorting. A grab sample is taken from each car as it is unloaded. An average of the analyses of samples from 44 cars gave the following: Available CaO Total CaO, Oxide and Hy- MgO, Fe²O³ + Al²O³, Insoluble, Per Cent. drate, Per Cent. Per Cent. Per Cent. Pek Cent. 88.3 79.2 1.6 &apos; 1.3 2.2

Jan 1, 1928

By R. E. Rick-Secker, W. M. Baldwin, R. McC. Baker

The development of residual stress in strip during rolling has not been systematically studied. A few scattered papers1 -3 mention the existence of residual stresses in rolled strip or touch upon some of their consequences,4 but there is no report of experimental studies in the literature describing the effect of roll diameter, strip thickness, reduction per pass, metal or metal temper on the magnitude of residual stresses developed in strip. A knowledge of the effect of these factors is of utmost importance since the present trend in some mills to roll thicker castings brings the rolling operation directly into that set of conditions which, as will be brought out in the present paper, can develop residual stresses of a high order of magnitude. Fundamentally, residual stresses are developed when a metal is inhomogeneously unloaded from a plastic stress state. A quantitative treatment of the problem requires a reasonably complete understanding of both the plastic stress state existing in the metal during deformation and the elastic stress state that would exist in the metal if the metal deformed as a perfectly elastic body. Our knowledge of either state during rolling is so meager that we can make no more than certain limited predictions. The external stress state* operating between the roll and the metal consists of Fig i—External stress state operating on metal being rolled (after siebel and LUEG5) compressive stresses acting almost perpendicularly to the strip surface but varying in intensity both across the width of the strip and along the length of contact between the roll and the strip. An example of such a stress distribution is shown in Fig I. The nature of the internal stress state, produced by this distribution, is not known. Various investigators,5-7 however, have felt that a qualitative similarity must exist between the internal stress state so produced and that produced in a wide strip that is compressed between two flat-nosed punches. In the latter case the external stress state is represented by a uniformly distributed compressive stress acting per-pendicularly over the face of the tool. The

Jan 1, 1949