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By AIME AIME

THE United Electric Coal Companies, operating large strip mines at various points in Illinois, pioneered in developing and perfecting the strip method of mining coal by use of large shovels and drag-lines. Coal stripping was first started on the properties owned by this company near Danville, Ill., in 1885. The first mechanical' excavating machine used for the purpose was really a dredge minus the hull, which had been purchased from the Marion Steam Shovel Co. It was erected on a wood frame supported by wheels and was referred to as a dry-land dredge or stripping machine. Wood was used throughout in the construction of this primitive excavator, even for the boom which was 50 ft. long. A single-cylinder vertical steam engine furnished power to hoist the %-yd. dipper arid swing the boom. 400 cu. yd. of overburden moved in a day was a great record.

Jan 1, 1936

By George S. Rice

ARIAL maps of prospective mineral-bearing territory have become almost indispensable in all the branches of exploration, and have proved particularly useful in the great oil area of the Southwest. About nine years ago aerial photographic mapping in this area was begun. The early product was lacking in scale accuracy and other control features, which limited its effective use. Since then, the evolution of the technique of such mapping has been steady, with several mapping companies collaborating with five of the leading oil companies, and aerial maps have been prepared covering practically the entire area.Improvements in cameras, film, and developing equipment and practice have resulted in more uniform and clearer photographs, but the outstanding development has been the accuracy obtained with respect to scale and all other control features. Maps are no

Jan 1, 1936

By James E. Howard

AT the request of the Council of the Institute, I have the honor to submit the following remarks upon the Program of Tests under which the current work of the Watertown Arsenal Testing Laboratory is carried on, which comprises, among other items, the tests of steel ingot metal and derivative shapes. The intended scope of the tests may be illustrated by extracts from the descriptive part of the program as submitted by the Laboratory under date of April 17, 1907, and subsequently approved by the Chief of Ordnance, U. S. A. Under Item 1, Ingot Metal-Open hearth, acid and basic; Bessemer, acid and basic; crucible; fluid compressed and uncompressed-descriptive remarks were made as follows ; " A thorough, fundamental inquiry into the physical properties of steel necessarily begins with the ingot metal. Investigations, having for their object the improvement of steels, should also begin with the ingot. A knowledge of the ingot structure is essential for judging of the subsequent behavior or appearance of the metal. Under ordinary conditions, so little information is obtained from the ingot in individual cases that practically none of importance is acquired. These remarks have particular reference to the state of physical and structural soundness of the steel. Questions of chemical composition, segregation, piping and the grosser cavities have frequently been given attention. Defects of continuity of structure, which manifest themselves in the working; of the metal, and at the final stages cause distrust in the finished forging, have generally been neglected. ? The range in physical properties in a given composition of metal, as shown in Tests of Metals, 1902 and 1903, is very great. Tests are there found which, when the results are

Mar 1, 1908

By Arthur Baker

The orebodies are long bedding-plane lenses of chalcopyrite and sphalerite, associated with garnetite masses. Most of the orebodies are within a 50-ft thickness of Cambrian limestone; other Paleozoic limestones and dolomites are locally metamorphosed but only slightly mineralized. Pre-mineral faults are numerous, but shallow folds were the main ore-localizing structures.

Jan 12, 1953

By K. BRUCE DAVIDSON

-The North Central Texas area includes the following counties in Railroad Commission of Texas District 7-B: Brown, Callahan, Coleman, Comanche, Coryell, Eastland, Erath, Fisher, Hamilton, Haskell, Hood, Jones, Lampasas, Mills, Nolan, Palo Pinto, Parker, S

Jan 1, 1946

By AIME AIME

THERE is a constant reiteration in some quarters that technical societies are autocratic and that democracy is utterly lacking and that members would welcome democratic societies in which they had full, control of affairs. While we may not speak for other societies, than our own, in so far as th's Institute is concerned such charges- can only come from people uninformed as to the circumstances. It. is no curtailment of the democratic privileges of the members that a -slate is prepared by the Nominating Committee to be voted on at the annual meeting. The Constitution of the, institute stipulates how the nominating committee shall; be chosen and who shall compose it, which prevents anything like- a- clique controlling- the situation. The Constitution further provides how the nominees shall be distributed geographically and the by-laws specify geographical boundaries: for-these nomination districts. Further more, any man or complete ticket can be placed in nomination by means of a petition signed-by only; twenty-five members,- and three or four times such an independent slate has been so nominated and elected.

Jan 1, 1920

By Steven Mitchell

BACKGROUND Homestake Mining Company began milling operations at the Bulldog Mountain Mine near Creede, Colorado in 1969. The Bulldog Mill, rated at 350 tpd, produces a bulk flotation condentrate assaying about 180 oz/T Ag and 20% Pb, from heads of about 16 oz/T Ag and 2% Pb. The circuit is straightforward with two-stage grinding to 1-5% plus 65 mesh, followed by rougher and cleaner flotation. Reagents used are Z-6, Z-11, Aerofloat 242 and Aero Promoter 404, with an Aerofroth 65-MIBC mixture for a frother. Additional information on the geology, mine and mill are available in references (1) and (2). A flow sheet for the mill and CIP plant together is attached as Figure 1. Final flotation tailings normally vary from 1.5 - 2.0 oz/T Ag. These tailings are cycloned to produce sand for underground backfill. After cycloning, the sands are repulped and given a final scavenger float. This sand scavenger recovers a small additional amount of silver which recycles back to the main flotation circuit. The tailings are recycloned and pumped to the mine or, if the mine cannot accept sand, to tailings. The majority of the silver in the flotation tailings exists in the fine fractions; cycloning upgrades the slimes and lowers the assay of the sand. The sand, after scavenging, typically assays 0.5 oz/T Ag, and the slimes assay about 3.0-3.5 oz/T Ag. From 1969 to 1976 all of the slime tailings and the sand tailings not used underground were impounded in a tailings pond located about

Jan 1, 1983

By Edward H. Robie

PROBABLY nowhere in the United States or its possessions is mining development more active at present than in the Philippine Islands. Only a few years ago only one company was of any importance, the Benguet Consolidated. Now, five companies are paying dividends, five others have reached the producing stage, some seven others may produce this year, and a score or so are being actively developed. Gold production in 1933 was valued at about $8,000,000, last year at about $11,000,000, and this year an output valued at about $17,000,000 is envisaged. At the beginning of 1934 about 1750 tons of ore was being milled daily; at the end of the year, the tonnage was approximately 3400. In 1933 there were only thirteen Institute members in the Philippines; a year ago there were 27, and now there are 46. About fifteen thousand amen were employed in the mining industry last year, with mine payrolls amounting to $3,500,000. An immense amount of new machinery has been required. One difficulty has so far hindered gold-mine development to some extent-lack of adequate power. Each company therefore finds it necessary to generate its own power, and for this purpose diesel engines are generally adopted.

Jan 1, 1935

By AIME AIME

THE Fall Meetings of the Institute of Metals Division and of the Iron and Steel Division were held in Cleveland from Tuesday, Oct. 20, to Thursday, Oct. 22, as a part of the National Metal Congress. The registration at the technical sessions was something over 450 and the attendance at the joint dinner of the two Divisions on Wednesday evening taxed the capacity of the dining room. The president of the British Institute of Metals, W. R. Barclay, consulting metallurgist to the Mond Nickel Co., Ltd.; of London, was in attendance at several of the technical sessions and was one of the after-dinner speakers at the banquet. He commented on the desirability of greater international amity and cooperation in these troubled times and of the role that technical societies, such as the A. I. M. E. and his own British Institute of Metals, can and indeed are playing in bringing this to pass, with their membership and contacts reaching to all parts of the world. He also referred to the new reciprocal membership arrangements in effect between the A.I.M.E. and the British Institute of Metals.

Jan 1, 1936

By Joseph T. Roy

MINING revival during the last few years has brought about a considerable increase in the number of gold and silver determinations made, noticeable in all branches of the industry but especially so in the business of a custom smelter. At East Helena, solely a custom smelter the assay department found that the four assay furnaces available were inadequate to handle the increased amount of work. These furnaces were of a standard design, having duplex muffles, one superimposed on the other; each muffle was 12 1/2 in. wide, 18 1/4 in. long and 6 in. high, and could handle 72 cupels or 20 fusions. Since the heat varied considerably between the upper and lower muffles, cupellations were not ruin in both at the same time. To speed up assaying, E. A. Meale, chief chemist, had the happy idea of enlarging a muffle furnace, originally designed by the Montana Power Co., so that one muffle would acconmmodate at least as many determinations as the duplex muffles. An order was given to the Denver Fire Clay Co. for a Carbofrax muffle of the size required and the local engineering department enlarged the furnace to accommodate the muffle. Details of the

Jan 1, 1938

By James E. Harding

AT just about the geographical center of the peninsula of Lower California is the El Arco gold mine. It is small and spotty, and three separate attempts to operate it in the past have failed. The only reason the present operation is possible is because of the higher price of gold and because the previous operators had spent about $300,000 developing the property with shafts, four levels, machinery, and a complete mill, all of which was acquired at a bargain price. All the known ore in the mine, to say nothing of the cost of recovering it, is

Jan 1, 1937

By Ernest F. Burchard

(Pittsburg Meeting, March, 1910.) IN connection with the work of testing structural materials for the use of the U. S. Government at the laboratories of the technologic branch of the U. S. Geological Survey at St. Louis, Mo., from September, 1904, to April, 1909, and since then at Pittsburg, Pa., large quantities of sand, gravel, and crushed stone have been needed from time to time, besides samples of building-stone, clays, and other quarry-products. In many instances it has been necessary to obtain single samples of sand, gravel, or crushed stone in lots of a car-load or more. For obvious reasons all these collections have had to be made by a representative of the Survey. As the work progressed it was found essential that numerous geologic data should be gathered regarding the materials collected, in order that they might be properly classified as to kind of material, source, geologic age, etc., and that they might be rated according to quantity available, accessibility to transportation facilities, approximate costs, suitability for special purposes, etc., and that notes might be taken regarding undeveloped deposits of possible value. Furthermore, it was desired that the selection of materials for tests should be made broadly, so as to cover, first, the representative types of material, and later, if possible, the typical materials of the more important building-centers in the United States. In order to insure a certain degree of uniformity in this work and economy of effort and expense, it was decided that as much of the sampling as was practicable should be done by a member of the. geologic branch, whose regular field-trips could be combined conveniently with those necessary for procuring materials for the laboratory. During parts of the last three years I have been engaged in field-work of this sort.

Jun 1, 1910

By AIME AIME

STEADY advance has been made in the art of lead smelting and refining during the year. The bringing of natural gas to the Salt Lake valley has led to its adaptation to lead smelting operations. The Tooele plant of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. has put into practice the high blast pressure and constant volume for lead blast furnaces, which we understand was first advanced by John F. Austin. It would appear that within limits, capacity is nearly proportional to the volume of air. If the charge is dense, a constant pressure, as in the old practice. did not get much air through the charge and the furnace slowed up. The constant volume idea makes the charge smelt at the same rate as if the charge were porous. The cost of a little additional power insures capacity operation at all times.

Jan 1, 1932

By F. G. Cottrell

(New York Meeting, February, 1912.) ABOUT a year and a half ago, at the San Francisco meeting of the American Chemical Society, in connection with the excursions to local smelting-works, I had occasion to show some lantern-slides illustrating the recent commercial development of electrical methods for precipitating the suspended matter from smelter-smoke, the underlying phenomena of which were clearly brought to the attention of the technical public by Sir Oliver Lodge as long ago as 1884. In the Journal of industrial and Engineering Chemistry, August, 1911, most of these views were reproduced, together with an account of the work from its beginning up to July, 1911. To-day I wish particularly to show you some of the further developments of the work since that time; but in order to make these clear they will be prefaced by a brief abstract of the article above referred to. The removal of suspended particles, front gases, by the aid of electric discharges is by no means a new idea. As early as 1824 we' find it suggested by Hohlfeld 1 as a means of suppressing ordinary smoke, and again a quarter of a, century later by Guitard.2 These suggestions, which do not seem to have stimulated any practical study of the question, were soon entirely forgotten, and only brought to light again by Sir Oliver Lodge,3 many years after he himself had independently rediscovered the same phenomena and brought them to public attention 4 in a lecture before the Liverpool Section of the So-

Jul 1, 1912

By E. Gybbon Spilsbury

(Pittsburg meeting, March, 1910.) THE recovery of gold and silver from their ores by means of the cyanide process has been so successful in the last few years that any radical improvement would seem impossible; yet the appliance to which I wish to call attention in this paper is really a radical departure from the methods now in general use. The most modern and approved of these, known as the all-sliming method, depends for its success on the grinding of the. ore so fine that practically 90 per cent. of it will pass through a 200-mesh screen. The slimes thus produced are then agitated and aerated in tanks of various types. The main object of this treatment is to insure such a thorough admixture of the pulp and solution that every particle of the ore is surrounded by a volume of solution sufficient to insure the dissolving of the whole of the gold- and silver-content. In addition, in order to expedite the action of the cyanide, and to oxidize such elements as would, if left in their active state, become cyanicides, air is blown in under pressure. In the Pachuca tank, this air is the active and sole means of agitation. The chief objections to all the methods off agitation used heretofore are the expense of operating and maintaining the mechanical devices for keeping the pulp in suspension, and the length of time required to obtain a fairly complete extraction. of the values. These objections are inherent to any method of agitation effecting a circulation of the pulp and the solution together, by giving the whole mass a circular movement, as in the low-tank system, or a vertical circulation, as in the Pachuca-tank system. In both methods, the particles of ore are kept traveling in the same direction as the solution, and with very little difference of speed; so that, while the whole mass is in

May 1, 1910

By John Birkinbine

(New Haven 'Meeting, February, 1909.) AWAKENED public interest in efforts to conserve natural resources will certainly be appreciated by the members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and a discussion upon conservation may well form a part of one of the Institute meetings, for the records of papers and discussions which appear in the 38 volumes of its Transactions are replete with evidence of effort's in this direction. Every process which reduces the fuel consumed or the power applied per unit of product; every utilization of waste material, or employment of that formerly rejected, to obtain something of value ; every feature of construction or operation which lessens the labor required or increases the output per employee, is an advance in the direction of true conservation. This may not appear from the records of late conferences or from published articles, in which the effort seems to be concentrated upon reducing the consumption and presenting to the people of the country estimates of exhaustion of natural resources. I rejoice in the awakening of public interest in a matter so important for the present and future welfare of our nation; I appreciate the possibility of much good following conferences of the Governors and delegates from various States and from national societies; and I recognize the interdependence, not only of different States, but of contiguous nations. In fact, the marvelous development of transportation by land and by water, and the decreasing rates at which commodities can be moved great distances, have in many cases practically obliterated geographical boundaries, and nearly every country on the globe can either market its product in other lands or draw upon them for raw or manufactured materials ; hence, conservation is an international subject.

Apr 1, 1909

By AIME AIME

ONE hundred and eighty-three A.I.M.E. members, W. S. Morris with an excellent technical program, John Suman, "oil" President of the Institute, and a Texas norther blew into Dallas for the fall meeting of the Petroleum Division at the Adolphus Hotel, Oct. 16-18. and the most successful result will give future meeting committees a high mark to equal. People were still talking of the terrific heat the week before and it was quite noticeable that with the lowered temperatures, the members were in fine fettle for the technical sessions. The total attendance on Friday noon was

Jan 1, 1941

By H. M. Wilten

THIS article presets a view of a problem encountered in petroleum refining in the deterioration of equipment used in condensation of vapors and cooling of liquids. Discussion is limited to the problems of shell- and tube-type exchangers and condensers. In this service shell- and .tube-type equipment is gradually displacing other types and, for this reason, its economic importance ill oil-refining practice is also increasing. Considering oil - refinery practice during the last two decades one can readily see many important improvements in the apparatus used. Briefly, the present equipment is safer, more efficient, and Ignore economical. Improvement in apparatus used for the condensation of distillates has, in my opinion, been less than that in other essential distilling apparatus. So it is hoped that this discussion will stimulate research among the producers as well as among the consumers of this equipment with a view to ameliorating this condition.

Jan 1, 1937

By W. E. Howlett, R. L. Slobod

Jan 1, 1965

By Thomas Read

AMONG the large number of deep mines in the world there are several which do not differ much in depth. The St. John del Rey mine, in Brazil, has reached a vertical depth of 6726 ft. below the top of its shaft; miners enter it, however, through an adit which intersects the shaft 324 ft. below its top, wherefore it might be said that the mine is really only 6400 ft. deep. In the Kolar gold field of India there are a number of deep shafts, one of which reaches to a vertical depth of 6140 ft. below surface. In South Africa also there are a number of deep shafts, the Village Deep being 6100 ft. early in 1921. The City Deep, Ltd., proposes to sink to a depth of 7000 ft. but pre-sumably by the time it does so the St. John del Rey will be deeper than that, since it has been increasing in depth at an average rate of about 150 ft. per year. The deepest shaft in the United States, the Tamarack No. 5, although it is only 5308 ft. deep, actually approaches nearer to the center of the earth (4100 ft. below sea level, as against 3958 ft. , at St. John del Rey). The deepest workings in the Calumet & Hecla go down to 4600 ft. below sea level. The St. John del Rey is not only the deepest, mine in the world, but it also is worked by the oldest registered English mining company, which was organ-ized in 1830 to work a mine at a considerable dis-tance from this one. That mine proved unprofitable, and in 1837 operations were transferred to the. deposit now under discussion, where operations have been prac-tically continuous ever since.

Jan 6, 1923