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By AIME AIME

NEW place was assigned to the women for their headquarters at the annual meeting of the Auxiliary but they, as usual, occupied a large place in the activities of the annual meeting. The alcove on the Thirty-ninth Street side of the building was a busy place on Monday morning, as the members of the various sections from New York to California greeted each other. The registration was conducted under the supervision of Mrs. Wolfes, Miss Georgene Davis and Mrs. Jennings, while Mrs. Hursh, Mrs. Hyde, Mrs. Charlton Reynders, and others dispensed tickets to the various functions that had been provided for entertainment. There seemed to be the usual number registered, but when only one member of the District of Columbia Section made herself known everyone wondered why the large delegation of last year had so dwindled. The explanation appeared next day, when a number of others from that Section arrived, telling of a delightful reception on the night before, at the White House. Mrs. Hoover had honored the "Canaries"¬(the organization of Lone Girl Scout' workers) the officers of the Section, and their husbands, who for once became only "so and so's husband." Luncheon was served on the fifth floor on Monday, the hostesses for that day being Mesdames C. F. Ayer, Willis Burns, G. W. Farny, H. G. Moulton, and T. T. Read. A number of sight-seeing trips had been arranged for the afternoon. The most popular proved to be an expedition to the new Riverside Church; where Dr. Fosdick is pastor. Guides were there to conduct

Jan 1, 1931

By R. W. Raymond

THE sudden death of Dr. Drown, on Nov. 17, 1904, brought to multitudes the pang of personal loss. Of all those who, as students at Lafayette College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lehigh University, were brought under his influence, not one can have forgotten him, and all will now acknowledge, with an unfading gratitude, what they owe in professional equipment to his wise, clear, skillful guidance, and in character to his sympathetic, stimulating personality. Outside of this wide circle, the experts of both hemispheres will lament the departure of one who, in his department of scientific inves¬tigation, both knew what work was needed, and how to do it so that it needed not to be done again. The older members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers will remember with gratitude the part he took, as Secretary from 1873 to 1884, in promoting the interest of that organization, and in shaping the plan and policy which it has followed with such noteworthy success. And, in addition to all these (though partly included among them), there are a host of friends; who can scarcely think of the public loss by reason of their own. Thomas Messenger Drown was born March 19, 1842, at Phil¬adelphia, Pa. His parents were natives of New England; and. he was the youngest of their three sons. He received his preliminary education in the public schools and the High School of Philadelphia, from which he was graduated in 1859. Be-

Jul 1, 1905

Prof. A. Ledebur, Freiberg, Saxony :* Mr. Sauveur has presented and enriched with original observations a valuable summary of the theories advanced hitherto concerning the hardening of steel; but in one particular, it seems to me, his statements call for correction. He says:

Jan 1, 1898

By C. A. Heiland

THIS year's review of geophysical activities has a somewhat different complexion than usual. With the ending of the war, the time seems opportune to supplement the customary report on operations and discoveries in oil and mine exploration by a review out-lining the contributions of geophysicists to the. war effort. To give as much space as possible to the latter, presented as Part 2, some of the usual review features have been omitted from the statistical section, given as Part 1 immediately following.

Jan 1, 1946

By J. S. UNGER

A LARGE proportion of the coke used is made in the by-product oven from the high-volatile coals mined in the adjacent district. At the beginning it was feared good by-product blast-furnace coke could not be made with our coals. By experimenting with various mixtures of coals, coking time, oven design, and coking temperatures, much has already been accomplished. The results show that a hard, dense coke, not easily broken by handling, can be produced. In its present state it is not all that could be desired, but it is being constantly improved. Such coke has been used alone as the fuel on several of the blast furnaces producing the highest daily production in the Pittsburgh district. Many of the coals in the Pittsburgh district when coked in the by-product oven yield a gas which contains a high percentage of sulfur, which is objection- able for many metallurgical operations. As this fuel is gradually replacing the ideal fuel, natural gas, which is becoming less plentiful, studies are being made of the best methods for purification. Some metallurgists believe sulfur to be a very injurious element in steel. Recent investigations by Government bureaus, scientific bodies and private firms, seem to indicate that a reasonable amount of sulfur may exist in steel without detriment. Without wishing to provoke any metallurgical controversy on the subject of sulfur, the fact remains that the daily purification

Jan 1, 1926

By AIME

IN the parlance of Hollywood, it was a super-colossal meeting. In the more restrained language of engineers, the Institute's 75th Anniversary Celebration attracted the largest crowd ever; was the longest Annual Meeting ever held, occupying a full week; had more important papers, more important people, more of an international flavor, and more glamour than ever before. And in the minds of those who came to the big city from the wide open spaces, one other record should be mentioned: for those not on an expense account, it was the most expensive affair ever staged by the Institute! To state the attendance down to the last digit for a meeting such as this is impossible. The total names registered on cards, plus those who attended the Annual Banquet but were not otherwise registered, came to 3149. But a few were registered twice, and probably a still larger few did not register at all, but just dropped in for a session or two in which they were interested. It would appear that 3200 would be about as close an estimate of attendance as could be made, and that is some 300 more than came to the biggest Annual Meeting of the past-in 1944. A considerable number of members brought their wives, but most were delegates at large.

Jan 1, 1947

By Jasper L. Stuckey

PYROPHYLLITE, first identified as soapstone,' later as agalmatolite,2 and finally as pyrophyl-lite, has been known to occur in North Carolina for more than 130 years and has been produced intermittently in commercial amounts for the past 100 years. Pyrophyllite mining, however, has become a major industry in North Carolina only during the past 25 years. North Carolina and California are the chief producing states. Current annual production averages 125,000 tons, of which slightly more than 90 pct comes from North Carolina. Distribution and Geologic Setting: All known pyrophyllite deposits in North Carolina are associated with rocks of the Carolina Slate Belt,' which is composed of a vast series of metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary materials, occurring as two zones extending in a northeast-southwest direction across the state. The larger of these zones, lying in the central Piedmont region, varies from 8 to 50 miles wide. The smaller zone lies along the eastern edge of the Piedmont region and is partly covered by coastal plain sediments. The rocks in both zones consist of a great volcanic-sedimentary series, composed of air-laid and water-laid tuffs and breccias, lava flows, and slates. On the basis of composition, they may be classed into three groups: 1) tuffs, breccias, and lava flows of acid or rhyolitic composition; 2) tuffs, breccias, and lava flows of a basic or andesitic composition; and 3) water-laid slates composed of fine grained materials derived chiefly from the acid tuffs and breccias and

Jan 1, 1959

By Nathan C. Rockwood

WHILE mining engineers have been searching in far corners of the country and of the world for hidden wealth there has grown up around us in nearly every city great wealth-producing mines calling for the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars and yielding products now sold for over half a billion dollars yearly-largely unknown and almost wholly neglected by mining engineers. But this neglect is explainable and excusable. They are industries of very recent origin-practically the growth of the last 25 years. They are in a very large measure the result of tremendous developments in engineering construction and the rapidly expanding use of portland cement concrete for structures of every description. Concrete as a material of construction is going through an evolution very much as did cast iron and other metals used in engineering; and this phase of the industry should appeal to the imagination of metallurgical engineers. At first iron was iron-a material of uncertain properties, owing both to small differences in chemical composition and in methods of manufacture. By successive steps iron was studied and knowledge of its properties developed-the striking effects of very small percentages of other minerals and of various heat-treatments.

Jan 1, 1924

By AIME AIME

LOCAL COMMITTEES. GENERAL RECEPTION COMMITTEE.-Mr. and Mrs. H. S. Chamberlain, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Lupton, Mr. and Mrs. T. H Lasley, Mr. and Mrs. R. S. Faxon, Mr. and Mrs. H. Clay Evans, Mr. and Mrs. C. E. James, Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Thomas, Air. and Mrs. H. S. Probasco, Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Lasley, Mr. and Mrs. L. W. Llewellyn, Mr. and Airs. T. G. Montague, Mr. and Mrs. E. B. Thomasson, Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Milburn, Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Raht, Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Notting¬ham, Mr. and Airs. Z. C. Patten, Mr. and Mrs. Willard Warner, Mr. and Mrs. S. R. Read, Mr. and Mrs. Carl White, Mr. and Mrs. M. M. Allison, Air. and Mrs. C. E. Buck, Mr. and Airs. H. F. Temple, Air. and Mrs. M. M. Hedges, Mr. and Airs. X. Wheeler, Mr. and Airs. John A. Patten, Air. and Airs. N. T. Montague, Mr. and Mrs. R. H. Williams, Mr. and Mrs. T. R. Preston, Mr. and Airs. Morrow Chamberlain, Mr. and Airs. T. C. Thompson, Mr. and Airs. T. L. Montague, Mr. and Mrs. O. L. Hurlbut, Air. and Mrs. C. A. Lyerly, Mr. and Mrs. Garnett Andrews, Air. and Mrs. M. B. Ochs, Mr. and Airs. Webster James, Mr. and Mrs. D. P. Montague, Mr. and Mrs. Z. C. Patten, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Sadd, Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Pound, Air. and Mrs. George D. Lancaster, Air. and Airs. J. F. Johnston, Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Barr, Air. acrd Mrs. W. B. Davis, Mr. and Airs. Douglas Baxter, Air. and Mrs. W. R. Crabtree, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis M. Coleman, Mr. and Mrs. Newell Sanders, Mr. and Mrs. E. Y. Chapin, Mr. and Mrs. W: B. Riddell,. Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Frazier, Mr. and Mrs. John A. Moon, Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Mitchell, Dr. and Airs. J. H. Race, Mr. and Airs. A. W. Chambliss, Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Smartt, Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Tarwater, Mr. and Mrs. L. D. Drewry, Capt. and Mrs. A. B. Putnam, Mrs. Minnie C. Ewing, Mr. G. F. Meehan, Mr. Sam S. Gerstle, Mr. P. A. Brawner, Mr. C. M. Preston, Air. George M. Guild, Mr. L. M. Mansfield, Dr. J. W. Johnson, Dr. J. AI. Hogshead. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.-H. S. Chamberlain, Chairman; H. S. Probasco, C. M. Preston, H. Clay Evans, J. T. Lupton, M. B. Ochs, C. C. Nottingham, Al. Al. Alli¬son, R. S. Faxon, C. E. James, C. A. Raht. EXCURSION TO CHICKAMAUGA PARK.-T. C. Thompson, Chairman; B. F. Thomas, G. F. Meehan, Morrow Chamberlain, W. J. Bass, J. K. McGoodwin. EXCURSION TO HALES BAR LOCK AND DAM.-R. H. Williams, Chairman; John A. Patten, Newell Sanders, George M. Guild, Capt. A. B. Putnam. EXCURSION TO ROCK-WOOD.-F. H. Clymer, Chairman; T. L. Brown, T. A. Wright, J. P. Tarwater, T. L. Peterman. INSTITUTE HEADQUARTERS.-The Hotel Patten. THE first session, held Thursday evening, Oct. 1, in the Banquet Hall of the Hotel Patten, was called to order by Capt. H. S. Chamberlain, Chairman of the Local Committee, who, in behalf of the city of Chattanooga, extended a hearty welcome to the members and guests of the Institute.

Nov 1, 1908

By G. W. Josephson

JUDGING by the progressive atmosphere prevailing in the nonmetallic mineral industries during the past year, postwar conditions were healthful though inflationary. Demand for most industrial mineral products has been exceptionally high and many new production records were attained. Severe shortages of some commodities existed, especially building materials and fertilizers. Production costs and prices increased and profitable operation was general. Under these conditions expansion programs were the order of the day. Ample funds were available to finance the purchase of good equipment; and, as wages and other operating costs were increasing, primary emphasis was placed on attaining maximum efficiency in new installations. These efforts were hampered by shortages and slow delivery of desirable equipment, so compromises in design were often necessary. However, on the whole, production practice improved.

Jan 1, 1948

By W. Lawrence Austin

Jan 1, 1884

By H. H. Moss

OXYACETYLENE .cutting has experienced rapid development in the last few years and greater advances and expansion and broader application may be expected in the immediate future. Marked changes in cutting practice may be expected as a result of the advances in metallurgical science that have produced special alloy steels with properties requiring different cutting techniques than for ordinary low-carbon steels. Much current attention is being directed to those problems of modified cutting practices. Cutting has thus ceased to be merely a shaping problem. It is rapidly coming to have a predominantly metallurgical aspect. The problem is no longer how to cut a given shape, but how to cut a given steel. The answer

Jan 1, 1936

By R. J. Brison, W. C. Bleimeister

The International Salt Company has long been interested in finding an efficient process for the removal of impurities from rock salt, and particularly from the rock salt produced at the Detroit mine. Methods which have been used previously at the Detroit mine included both hand sorting and differential crushing in a Bradford breaker with rejection of the oversize. Neither of these methods was adequately effective. The development of a new process for removal of impurities from rock salt has been described in the preceding article." Basically, the process consists of exposure of crude rock salt to radiant heating which selectively heats the impure particles. Subsequently the heated particles are removed by adhesion to a heat sensitive-coating on a conveyor belt. This method was found to be effective in improving both the quality and appearance of rock salt by the rejection of the dark, impure particles. The first commercial unit employing the new thermoadhesive method of dry separation of minerals was installed at the Detroit mine of International Salt Company in Detroit, Mich. (Fig. l). This unit was first put into operation in March 1957. The purpose of the Detroit installation was 1) to serve as a pilot plant for evaluating the process on a commercial scale and 2) to produce marketable quantities of rock salt of improved quality and ap- pearance. The design of this plant was based on the results and information obtained from a 1-tph pilot plant at Battelle Memorial Institute. DESCRIPTION OF PLANT Location: The separation plant was installed underground near the crushing and screening plant, for this was the most suitable location from the standpoint of material handling. Furthermore, ample space was availabe at this location. Because the process requires a relatively constant temperature, the uniform year-around temperature of the mine (57°F) gave an added advantage to an underground operation. Feeding: The rock salt is conveyed to a surge bin, from which it is fed to the heating unit by a conveyor. The feed-rate control consists simply of an adjustable gate at the bottom of the surge bin. The plant may be fed either No. 1 grade of rock salt (0.279 to 0.375 in.) or No. 2 grade (0.375 to 0.500 in.) with a maximum input capacity of 500 tons per 15-hour day. Heating Unit: The heating unit (Fig. 2) consists of a panel of infrared lamps suspended inside a low-speed revolving screen. The radiant-heat panel, which is curved for most effective utilization of the heat, holds 240 infrared lamps of standard industrial type, each rated at 500 watts. The position of the panel is adjustable so that it can be placed centrally over and to within 6 in. of the salt bed on the screen. The entire heat panel is suspended by rollers in ¦ R. J. Brison and O. F. Tangel: Development of a Thermo-adhesive Method for Dry Separation of Minerals.

Jan 1, 1961

By AIME AIME

CERTAINLY in point of attendance, and doubtless in several other ways as well, the 147th meeting of the A.I.M.E. was the best ever held. In times of depression, mining engineers and metallurgists have plenty of time to come to the Annual Meeting but money is scarce; at the height of industrial activity they have plenty of money but no time. "The current period of transition seemed to provide ideal conditions for' both the preparation of papers and attendance at their presentation. The weather made even the Californians present envious though the weather man gets no credit, for rain and snow was what he willed. Among the elevator men, the miners have the reputation of being the toughest crowd to handle, though the best natured, withal, of all the engineering groups that meet in the Engineering Societies Building. This year Your inquiring reporter was told, "it was the damnedest meeting I ever saw; they

Jan 1, 1937

By Felix Edgar Wormser

JUST as the ancients used the products of their crude mining endeavors to fashion tools with which to make digging easier, so today mining enterprises are dependent upon the very metals they mine for the efficient conduct of mining and metallurgical operations. In fact, the outlet afforded by the production of minerals in the United States is no mean market for the nonferrous metals. I believe that mine managers frequently lose sight of the opportunity they have to select from competitive products those which will help the market for their own metal output. For example, some years ago a large lead mine used storage-battery locomotives for its haulage, common practice, of course, throughout the United States. These particular locomotives, however, were powered not with the ordinary lead storage battery but by a competitive battery product made from an imported metal. After studying this situation, the manager saw how he could help himself by purchasing a product made from his own mineral output, and in his next order turned tip the use of the lead storage battery.

Jan 1, 1935

By J. T. Ryan

FIGURES for the first 11 months of 1935 indicate that the total coal production of the United States for 1935 will be approximately 416,000,000 tons, or almost identical with the production figures for 1934. Bituminous production will show a gain of about six million tons, and anthracite production a loss of about the same tonnage, compared with the previous year. This does not take into account so-called "bootleg" anthracite coal amounting to approximately 5,000,000 tons. Twenty-nine years ago, in 1906, the production of coal was almost identical with this year's production. At that time, 626,000 men were employed in producing this tonnage, which took a toll of 2138 lives from accidents. In 1935, approximately 540,000 men were required to produce the same tonnage with an estimated loss of 1155 lives. This shows definite safety advancement in the industry, but even so accidents are still costing an average of 3c. a ton more than they should.

Jan 1, 1936

By James K. Richardson

STATISTICAL evidence shows that continued efforts made by Government and industry to make mining safer during the last two decades have had most favorable results. In the copper-mining industry an accident frequency of 146 per million man-hours worked in 1925 dropped 71 per cent by 1945 to 43. This downward trend was relatively consistent except for a high period in 1937 which was probably due to a resumption of large-scale operation with many untrained miners. The iron-mining industry showed a similar trend, but at the relatively lower accident frequency of 66, which dropped to 24 in 1945. The close relationship between the steel and iron-mining industries may be one reason for the lower accident frequencies, because the steel industry is noted for its greater recognition of the fact that safe working conditions are an important part of labor-management relations.

Jan 1, 1948

By J. J. Jakosky

THE method of electrical mapping of oil structures to be described possesses certain limitations, as well as certain definite advantages. It, in common with other geophysical methods, is not a panacea for the solution of all subsurface geological problems. It operates on differences in electrical conductivity of the geological strata, whereas the other most-used methods operate on (1) differences in magnetic properties, (2) differences in gravimetric properties, or (3) differences in seismic properties. This modification of the resistivity method is therefore able to obtain subsurface information under conditions not favorable to the other methods mentioned. Where the other methods have been employed with ambiguous results it may act as a complementary method.

Jan 1, 1936

By Claus G. Goetzel

POWDER metallurgy is known as the art of producing metal powders and fabricating them in a nonfusion process by a simultaneous or consecutive application of pressure and heat under controlled operating conditions. Before the advent of powder metallurgy, the high melting points of the refractory metals and nonmetals made their manufacture and use practically impossible. Today, however, the uses of refractory materials in high-speed cutting tools, surgical instruments, brake linings, electrical contact switches, and filaments in incandescent lamps are commonplace in industry. Lately designers have even been turning to powder metallurgists to develop new techniques of fabricating refractory materials for extreme-service use in high-temperature zones of such modern products as gas turbines and jet engines. The new techniques being born will undoubtedly provide industry with a great number of new alloys and materials for future designing.

Jan 1, 1948

The growth and influence of Sherritt Gordon Mines Ltd. in the nickel producing industry has been quite phenomenal. Although the company's Lynn Lake deposit in Manitoba was actually dis- covered in 1941, it was not until 1945, when men and materials were more readily available as a result of the end of World War II, that the area was staked and news of the discovery leaked out. As a result of the discovery, Professor Frank Forward of the University of British Columbia was commissioned by Eldon Brown, then President and Man- aging Director of Sherritt, to develop a new nickel refining process. A pilot plant, based on the results of Professor Forward's research, was constructed in Ottawa, and after the successful testing of the Lynn Lake ore, Chemical Construction Co. was given a con- tract in 1952 for construction of a producing plant. By 1954, the Fort Saskatchewan refinery was operating at an annual production of 15 million lb of nickel metal in the form of briquetts or powder. Capacity has since been increased to 30 million lb.

Jan 10, 1968