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By C. F. Cornell, Henderson, A. F. Dunyon, D. A. Dahlstrom

IN processing magnetic taconites several steps of crushing, grinding, classification, and magnetic separation are required to produce a 60+ pct Fe concentrate. Usually the final concentrate is in a slurry form of 55 to 70 pct solids by weight and is further characterized by a particle size of 60+ pct -325 mesh. In taconite plants already completed or under construction the conventional method used to obtain pellets suitable for blast furnaces is to filter the concentrate slurry, ball the filter cake, and then harden the green pellets in a traveling grate or in a vertical shaft furnace. Large tonnages must be handled in minimum floor space, with reduced maintenance and lowest possible operating cost. Filtration must therefore achieve two objectives: 1) high filtration rate-in terms of pounds of dry solids per hour per square foot of filtration area-at a low filtrate solids concentration, and 2) a filter cake moisture that will always permit efficient balling within the normal fluctuations of plant operating conditions. If moisture contents are too high, balling may be impossible or result in a mushy ball without enough green strength for the firing operation.

Jan 3, 1957

By Warren T. Smith

The Phelps Dodge Corp. Lavender pit is located in the Bisbee mining district near the town of Lowell, Ariz. A quartz monzonite porphyry exists as an intrusive stock and was the source of mineralization for the limestone replacement orebodies being mined by underground methods. Leaching of the upper portion of the stock, and precipitation of the copper as chalcocite on the finely dispersed un- oxidized pyrite in the monzonite porphyry, formed a low grade ore zone below a leached capping varying from 50 to 300 ft thick. Churn drilling starting in 1916 and supplemental churn drilling begun early in 1950 indicated a mineable area about 3100 ft long by 2400 ft wide. In general drilling was on 100-ft centers. The pit was planned with 50-ft benches and wall slopes varying from 1 to 1 to a flatter slope of 1 1/3 to 1 dependent on the character of the ground. Materials within the pit limits, using a 0.6 pct minimum grade cutoff, were estimated at 41 million tons of 1.14 pct copper ore, 31 million tons of low grade sulfides suitable for leaching with an average grade of 0.42 pct, and 70 million tons of waste.

May 1, 1956

By W. T. Turrall, D. Porter

THE crystal laboratory, Dept. of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was confronted with the problem of obtaining a supply of optical grade calcium fluoride (CaF2) for use in growing synthetic CaFe2 crystals. A search of the known fluorspar deposits did not indicate that any quantity of optical spar could be obtained. Even the best material had to be sorted by hand to remove impurities. The process for growing CaF2 crystals developed by Professor D. C. Stockbarger of the Dept. of Physics, M.I.T., necessitates very pure feed materials. Exclusion of impurities is required, even in amounts detectable only spectrographically. The impurities occurred as minute inclusions of SiO2, BaSO4, CaCO3, FeS2, water or air. Crystals up to 4 in. in diam and weighing several pounds are made by the Harshaw Chemical Co. in Cleveland. Since the time required to grow a 4-in. crystal is about one week, and since the cost of manufacture is high, removal of impurities by any concentration method appeared practical. The mineral engineering section of the Dept. of Metallurgy undertook to investigate the possibility of concentrating clear optical fluorspar, -4 mesh +10 mesh, from a feed containing over 99 pct CaF2. Various innovations of the known methods of concentration were considered, but in each case the minute amount of impurities associated with the crystal produced such extremely small differences

Jan 1, 1952

(Members are urged to send in for this column any notes of interest concerning themselves or their fellow-members) The following is a partial list of members and guests who called at Institute headquarters during the period Mar. 10, 1917, to Apr. 10, 1917. George S. Blair, Pittsburgh, Pa. E. P. Mathewson, Toronto, Canada. H. M. Boylston, Cambridge, Mass. T. Poole Maynard, Atlanta, Ga. F. J. Brule, Toronto, Canada. . W. J. Mead, Madison, Wis. M. B. Cohen, Miami, Ariz.. D. G. Miller, Denver, Colo. W. M. Corse, Buffalo, N. Y. P. N. Moore, St. Louis, Mo. F. G. Cottrell, Washington, D. C. R. H. Morris, Ansted, W. Va. E. C. Cross, Cleveland, 0. W. J. Morrison, Toronto, Canada. Nelson Dickerman, San Francisco, Cal. M. F. Ortin, Petrograd, Russia. F. N. Flynn, Chuquicamata, Chile. G. W. Paymal, New York, N. Y. F. L. Garrison, Philadelphia, Pa. Edward H. Perry, Boston, Mass. J. S. Grasty, Charlottesville, Va. 0. G. Petersen, Somerset, Ky. H. D. Hibbard, Plainfield, N. J. H. C. Price, Bartlesville, Okla. H. L. Hollis, Chicago, 111. C. A. Richardson, Toronto, Canada. F. H. Jackson, Marysvale, Utah. Hallet R. Robbins, Vancouver, B. C., Can. W. Strickler Jones, Silver City, N. M. A. H. Rogers, Boston, Mass. E. B. Kirby, St. Louis, Mo. H. G. Smith, Princepulca, Nic. J. M. Lovejoy, Electra, Tex. Edwin G. Steele, Van Horn, Tex. A. F. Lucas, Washington, D. C. 'S. A. Taylor, Pittsburgh, Pa. Edwin Ludlow, Lansford, Pa. A. P. Thompson, Salt Lake City, Utah, E. Francis McCrossin, Birmingham, Ala. Milton A. Allen is now engaged in the New York office of Messrs. Arthur L. Pearse & Co. Percy E. Barbour, managing editor of the Engineering & Mining Journal, has been appointed, by Governor Whitman, Deputy Superintendent of Police of the State of New York.

Jan 6, 1917

By A. T. Janssen

Production planning of direct-shipping ore from a number of relatively small deposits serves to sequence development and mining of these deposits so that both long- and short-range demand can be met while the timing of development cost is such that the average annual rate is minimized. Hand-computed methods have the disadvantage that they require substantial effort and time and cannot be exhaustive. The application of operations research and computers not only overcomes these disadvantages, but opens up additional applications, such as feasibility studies involving alternative mining strategies and changes in the ore market. The method employed concerns linear programming and specifically the Big-M algorithm applied to the variant on the simplex technique with penalties applied to deviations from the desired ore grade. Acceptable 20-year production schedules could be generated in relatively little time, i. e. , in less than 200 seconds for the central processor of the Control Data Corporation 6400 system of the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Jan 1, 1969

By Dorsey Hager

THE rapid increase of water troubles in the Mid-Continent oil fields is causing much alarm. Troubles occur at Towanda, Eldorado, Augusta, Cushing, Blackwell, and Healdton, although they had, not been acute in the Mid-Continent field until about two years ago, when the unusual conditions in the deeper oil fields were first encountered. California faced the same situation, but, thanks to aggressive measures, has largely overcome the dangers. The following analysis of water trouble may throw some light on the subject and be of assistance in solving the problems involved. WATER TROUBLES CLASSIFIED The presence of water in large quantities in oil sands has the following results: 1. Diminishes oil production. 2. Diminishes casing-head gasoline production: (a) By curtailing the gas flow. (b) By making the use of vacuum pumps unsuccessful. 3. Increases lifting costs: (a) By making it necessary to pump large quantities of water, which requires. a fast motion and long stroke (third hole). (b) By requiring the use of compressors for air lift. (c) By causing break-downs and delays due to the high speed necessary to pump water. (d) By making it necessary to treat "cut" or emulsified oil. Oil production is seriously curtailed by the presence of large quantities of water. Lease records show that wells are shut down 40 to 60 per cent. of the pumping time where serious water trouble occurs. While a small quantity of salt water may cut the paraffine and keep the oil moving, several hundred feet, or a hole full of water, effectually "kills" the oil

Jan 10, 1918

The Library of the above-named Societies is open from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. on all week-clays, except holidays, from September 1 to June 30, and from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. during July and August. The Library contains about 55,000 volumes, including sets of technical periodicals and the publications of scientific and technical societies. Members of the Institute, with few exceptions, are forced to spend a portion of their time in localities isolated from sources of information. To these the Library can render valuable service through correspondence; letters requesting information will receive special attention. The Library is prepared to furnish references and copies of articles on mining and metallurgical subjects; to determine the existence of mining-maps, and to furnish general information as to the geology and mineral resources of all countries. All communications should be made as definite as possible so that the information received may be what is desired and not include collateral matter which may not be of interest. The time spent in searching for such collateral matter will be saved, and the information will be sent more promptly and in more usable shape. The members of the Institute can be of service to the Library by forwarding copies of mining-reports, maps privately issued, and similar material, which will be classified, indexed, and made available to other members. Suggestions for additions to the Library, either by purchase or personal solicitation as gifts, will be welcomed. It is hoped that members while in the city will use the Library freely, and assurance is, given that most careful service will be rendered to them.

Jan 9, 1913

By J. W. Dougherty, J. M. Douglas

THE Hollinger gold mine is in the Porcupine mining division, District of Cochrane, in the northern part of the Province of Ontario. The adjacent town of Timmins, with a population of 25,119, lies 490 miles by railway north of the city of Toronto. GEOLOGY The property is situated on the northwest limb of a major syncline, which pitches northeast at approximately 50°. The principal rocks of the Hollinger area are of pre-Cambrian age and consist of altered, schistose, Keewatin lava flows intruded by stocks of schistose, quartzfeldspar porphyry generally assigned to the Algoman period. The structure of the Keewatin series is extremely complex as a result of close folding and some faulting. The schistosity, trending north 70° east and dipping steeply to the southeast, is most highly developed along a subsidiary anticline in which the major porphyry bodies occur. The ore bodies, which exhibit three principal structures, consist of quartz veins and associated pyritized wall rock. Some lodes are composed of en echelon veins, others exhibit a main quartz body with branching stringers and a third consists of a single definite lead. Gold, in a coarse visible form, may be confined to quartz in some ore bodies but in others it is finely divided and is found not only in quartz but also associated with pyrite in the adjacent wall rock. In many veins the distribution of gold is such that there are several ore sections, separated by areas of low-grade material, in the same vein although its physical appearance remains unchanged. The veins form a very complex pattern in an ore zone which in places attains a length of 6000 ft. and a width of 4000 ft. They are most abundant in the Keewatin lavas in the neighborhood of the porphyry bodies. Few of the veins are persistent for long distances, though some

Jan 1, 1940

By Edward Thomas

THE late George S. Rice was active in the investigation of bumps, particularly in the last ten years of his career as chief mining engineer of the U. S. Bureau of Mines. Since most of his investigation was carried out in Great Britain, continental Europe, and-to a lesser extent-Canada, his thinking on prevention was influenced considerably by the experience of those countries. It is not surprising, therefore, that when he was called upon a few years before his retirement to investigate bumps in the U. S. and suggest ways to prevent them, he turned to longwall mining. A longwall method had been most successful in combating the bump hazard in mining coal under deep cover, especially in Great Britain, but the prevailing method there at the time was advancing longwall mining, which he knew was uneconomical under U. S. mining conditions. For this reason he proposed a modified retreating longwall system that he believed included the best features of the advancing method. As brought out by Rice,1 if the cover is 2000 ft and 50 pct of the coal is extracted, the static load on the remaining pillars will be about 4000 psi, which exceeds the ultimate crushing strength2 in most instances. If the pillar coal is overloaded before a pillar line is established, then the abutment zone preceding a line of extraction is no place to split pillars or extract them by any method other than an open-end system. Rice therefore advocated open-end mining, preferably by longwall, but he was willing to compromise with long-face mining if the longwall method was not acceptable.

Jan 8, 1958

By H. S. Cannon, F. N. Rhines

IT. H. Hausner( Sylvunia Electric Products Inc., Bay-side, N. Y.)—The results reported by the authors are interesting because they contribute some information on the principles of sintering and also because of a certain practical value for the manufacture of powder . metallurgical parts in production. Pressed powder compacts are frequently sintered in a boat in several layers so that the lower layers are actually sintered under the weight of the upper layers and, therefore, are frequently deformed. The authors gave information on this deformation process by determining the effect of the load on the density. The experimental setup of the authors, however, has a disadvantage—that the sintering occurred in a cylindrical container so that the deformation was stopped in the direction of the diameter. The authors should have rather called this a study of hot-pressing than of sintering. I want to call the attention of the authors and others interested in sintering under load to the experimental work described by Dawihl and Rix.' These authors sintered cylindrical compacts under a lengthwise ten-sional load of 0 to 25 g and found that the shrinkage in length and diameter changes considerably with the load, but that the volume shrinkage is affected very little by the load. H. S. Cannon (authors' reply)—We wish to thank Dr. Hausner for calling attention to the experimental work of Dawihl and Rix. The fact that they found volume shrinkage little affected by varying tensional loads during sintering seems to support the contention that the forces due to loading are equivalent to and additive to the forces which cause densification. This contention is the basis of our comparison of sintering and creep.

Jan 1, 1952

This discussion of the paper of Chester W. Washburne should have been printed following the remarks of H. A. Wheeler, in Bulletin No. 100, April, 1915, pp. 835 and 836, but was inadvertently omitted. ROSWELL H. JOHNSON:-There is one reason why the hydrostatic interpretation of gas pressure is not wholly acceptable. As we go clown in the sands we seem to get excesses of gas. Particularly in this field it becomes excessive in quantity relative to the amount of water in the sand. If this holds in other fields as well it must mean that there has been an ascension of water, because these sedimentaries when laid down, were filled with connate water. If we do get an ascension of connate water, produced by some such phenomena as its expansion by heat or by the formation of new gas by pressure upon organic materials at great depth, we can hardly expect the pressure to be controlled merely hydrostatically. * In reply to Mr. Wheeler's inquiry as to gas wells with pressure higher than hydrostatic pressure, I would cite the original wells given by Orton on which he based the hydrostatic theory. He used in his calculation a head of 600 ft. above tide, assuming the outcrop of the Manitoulin Islands to be in Lake Superior, whereas the Trenton does not outcrop at Lake Superior. The Manitoulin Islands are in Lake Huron, the level of which is 580 ft. above tide. No allowance is made for the lower density of the fresher water near the outcrop, the weight taken for the whole column being the water of high density found at the wells.

Jan 5, 1915

By M. B. Holt

At this time, when electricity in its various applications is attract- ing so much interest, and with such good reason, it has been suggested to me that, as the Aspen Mining and Smelting Company, of Aspen, Pitkin county, Colorado, was the first mining company in America to employ electrical power for hoisting, a record of what has been accomplished by this company would be of interest. Early in the year 1888 the question of power for the development of the ore-horizon lying below the level of the tunnel through which the property is worked, became one of importance. The conditions under which it was proposed to use power were as follows (See Fig. 1): The company's mines lie upon the northwestern slope of a mountain, the ascent of which is at an angle of 28' from the horizon. The ore, consisting of argentiferous galena and other silver-bearing mineral, is found at or near the plane of contact of a superincumbent mass of blue limestone, with an underlying bed of dolomite. This contact plane dips north 30° west, at an angle of 60' with the horizon. A tunnel 1000 feet in length, driven south into the mountain near

Jan 1, 1892

By R. E. Cech

Particles -3 to 30 µ diam of a 29.5 pet Ni, 70.5 pet Fe alloy after being melted and solidified while falling through a hydrogen atmosphere were found to contain a distortion-free body-centered-cubic phase. In most particles, the amount of body-centered-cubic phase approaches or equals 100 pet. It was shown by a series of experiments that this phase forms directly from the liquid. It is pointed out that a mechanism previously suggested in recent papers on the theory of the liquid-solid transformation can account for the solidification of body-centered-cubic phase in a temperature range where face-centered-cubic is the stable phase. IN the course of an operation to produce powders for a study of the martensitic transformation in Fe-Ni alloys, an unexpected phenomenon was observed. Powders of a 29.5 pet Ni alloy, which has a subzero M, temperature, were found to contain considerable amounts of a body-centered-cubic phase at room temperature. The experiments to be described were designed to elucidate the mode of formation of this unexpected phase. Experiments and Discussion An alloy containing 29.5 wt pet Ni, balance iron, was vacuum melted from high purity electrolytic iron and carbonyl nickel shot and solidified in the crucible. The metal was converted to oxide, ground to 100 pet <37µ, pressed to a cake, and homogenized 20 hr at 1350°C. To insure homogeneity the grinding, pressing, and homogenizing heat treatment was repeated a second time. The oxide was then ground to 100 pct <37µ and hydrogen reduced at 500°C. The reduced powder was given a spheroidizing treatment to produce spherical cast particles. The treatment consisted of dispersing the particles in hydrogen and allowing them to drop through a vertical hydrogen furnace set to a temperature higher than the liquidus of the alloy. This operation, commonly known as shotting, has been described more fully elsewhere.&apos; The powder produced by this method was found to contain approximately equal parts of body-centered-cubic and face-centered-cubic phases. A magnetic separation technique, previously described,&apos; was applied, and it was found that particles were either completely face-centered-cubic or nearly completely body-centered-cubic. The microstruc-

Jan 1, 1957

By C. O. Burgess, A. B. Kinzel

Although vanadium is an important constituent of almost every brand of high-speed steel manufactured today, little is known as to its role in this series of alloys. The now standard 18 per cent tungsten and 4 per cent chromium constituents were the result of developments and improvements before 1903. In that year, vanadium was added to the steel by Dr. J. A. Mathews. This proved to be an outstanding contribution, so that the standard high-speed steel of today is generally referred to as the 18-4-1 type—18 per cent W, 4 per cent Cr and 1 per cent V. Various modifications have been attempted since then, but with the exception of the introduction of cobalt, no striking improvements have occurred. Vanadium has been increased to 2 per cent in many of the common brands, and at least one brand contains 5 per cent V in addition to the usual tungsten and chromium. The carbon has been gradually increased so that it is not uncommon to find 0.80 per cent in the standard grade, although the carbon in the 5 per cent vanadium steel mentioned above is approximately 1 per cent, and even 1.2 per cent has been made experimentally. The role of vanadium has never been well understood, and although vanadium has been increased to 2.5 and even 5 per cent in certain high speed steels, it has not been generally established that the higher vanadium contents result in superior cutting properties. However, in all of the investigations, of which the writers are aware, the interrelation of the vanadium and carbon contents was not considered as a prime factor. The carbon content was held at 1.2 per cent or less—generally at the usual 0.65 to 0.75 per cent. Theoretical Aspects Although the role of vanadium is not understood, there are theoretical considerations which indicate definite reasons for the improved cutting effciency due to vanadium. Refinement of the secondary grain is one distinct possibility. The well-known action of vanadium in limiting grain size might well be expected to operate in high-speed steels, and even though its action were not evident in the parent austenite grain.

Jan 1, 1932

By Thomas A. Hendricks

The object of this paper is to give a brief description of the coals in the different districts of Arkansas and Oklahoma, their present commercial classification, and the need for a scientific classification that shall be more nearly in accord with their physical and chemical properties and shall place them in their proper position in a general scheme of classification. The paper is based on two seasons of field work in the Oklahoma coal field in 1930 and 1931 and on several weeks spent in visiting most of the operating mines in Arkansas in the same years. Most of the productive districts of the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal field lie in an east-west trending belt immediately north of the Ouachita Mountains, but the northwestern districts in Oklahoma trend northward toward Kansas. With the exception of the Muskogee district, where very little coal has been mined, the coal beds of the last-mentioned districts are all younger than those of the districts in the east-west trending belt. Description of the Coal by Districts Lehigh District, Oklahoma (5).1—In the Lehigh district mining has been extensive, but only three or four mines are operating at the present time. Two coal beds of workable thickness, Atoka and Lehigh, are known in this field. The greater part of the mining has been in the Lehigh, or younger bed, and all analyses available for the field have been of that coal. The Lehigh coal is very tough and blocky, the moisture and ash contents are fairly high, 6.5 and 10.7 per cent respectively, the volatile content is 39.5 per cent, fixed carbon 43.4 per cent, B.t.u. value 11,525, and the fuel ratio 1.1 (average 15 analyses). So far as the writer has been able to ascertain, laboratory attempts to coke this coal have been unsuccessful and no attempt has been made to produce coke commercially. Tulsa District, Oklahoma (l).—All commercial mining in the Tulsa district has been by stripping from the Dawson bed, and production has never been very great. The coal is blocky, contains 6.5 per cent moisture, 36.8 per cent volatile matter, 48.4 per cent fixed carbon, and 8.3 per cent

Jan 1, 1932

By Byron W. Cheever

While engaged in experimenting with the usual methods for estimating phosphorus in iron and steel, it occurred to me that potassium chlorate might be used to oxidize the carbon, and thus avoid the tedious and vexatious evaporations necessary for successfully carrying out the usual methods. After many trials, the following plan was adopted : Take, for analysis, of Bessemer or other low-carbon steels, from 3 to 5 grammes; of crucible steel, 10 grammes; of pig-iron, 1 to 5 grammes, according to the percentage of phosphorus supposed to be present. Of iron, high in phosphorus (1 per cent.), take 1 gramme. Place in a No. 4 evaporating dish the amount of iron or steel decided upon, cover with a funnel which will just fit inside the dish, and then add gradually HNO3, (1.20 specific gravity), using 12 C.C. of acid for each gramme of steel or iron taken. (A larger quantity of acid will be required for small samples.) When the full amount of acid has been added, and the violent action has ceased, place the evaporating dish on a sand-bath, add 10 C.C. HNO3, (1.40 specific gravity), and boil till the bulk of the solution is reduced about onehalf. Then add 10 C.C. HNO3, (1.40 specific gravity), continue the boiling, and add from time to time, during the next 15 minutes, small portions of pulverized KCIO3, till about 2 grammes have been added. (If the solution shows signs of going dry, more strong acid must be added.) This will precipitate the manganese, with some iron. Sometimes it happens that the manganese does not come down readily, and more KCIO3, or further concentration, or both, will be required. The process is not complete till the manganese is precipitated, which may be known by the appearance of a dark, mirror-like deposit on the dish, at the edge of the solution. Boil the solution 5 minutes after the last addition of KCIO3, and then add cautiously (to prevent sudden explosions) 5 C.C. strong HCl. This will dissolve the precipitated manganese and iron. Continue the boiling till the chlorine is all expelled, adding from

Jan 1, 1885

By G. C. Waterman, W. E. Hawes

Mr. Grieves&apos; paper on "Shaft Sinking Today --A Boring Business Tomorrow" in the Dec. 1981 issue of MINING ENGINEERING is an excellent description of recent improvements in speed and costs of shaft sinking. However, shaft boring techniques are not a recent development. In 1935-36, the Idaho Maryland Co. (gold), Grass Valley, CA, bored the vertical 1.5-m-diam Idaho No. 2 ventilation and supply shaft to a depth of 346 m. The equipment was designed and perfected by Branner Newsome and was, I believe, described in "Transactions." Pickands Mather later bored a 1.8-m-diam shaft to a depth of about 305 m using Newsome&apos;s design. The Idaho No. 2 shaft cut through hard gabbro, diabase dikes, soft serpentine, very incompetent ankeritized serpentine and a strong fault zone. The completed shaft did not require timber support; the fault zone was cemented. Equipment consisted of a rotating 1.5-m or 3-m core barrel with a slotted bottom which cut a 76-mm kerf. The cutting agent was chilled steel shot introduced into the slot as needed. The driving mechanism and core barrel were lowered into the shaft, the former secured to the wall and the inshaft "engineer" operated the motors which controlled core barrel rpm and advance. After an advance of 1.5-3 m the equipment was lifted out of the shaft, a half(?) stick of powder cut off the drilled core, and it was hoisted to the surface with a cable attached to an eye bolt at the tope of the core. A "shift" consisted of three men: hoistman, equipment operator (down the shaft), and a surface laborer. Advance was variable as equipment and techniques were perfected. Near the end of the job advance was, as I remember, 1.5-3 m per shift. Costs were, as I recall, about $115/m. Up to 4 m cores were lifted out in one piece and swung to the dump by a stiff leg derrick. The Newsome equipment was relatively inexpensive to build and operate and his method should be (more than?) competetive with the methods described by Grieves.

Jan 1, 1983

By Robert C. Mackenzie

EXAMINATION by the differential thermal analysis technique of a large number of samples of soil and other clays from various parts of the world has demonstrated that the occurrence of cold-precipitated hydrated ferric oxide (the identification of which in soil clays has previously been reported5) is not confined to any limited locality; e.g., it has been found in varying amounts in clays from Britain, France, South Africa, and Mexico. The conditions necessary for its formation have not yet been elucidated in spite of the number of samples examined, and, since this mineral is so easily prepared in the laboratory, it has been considered that a study of its constitu¬tion and of the conditions under which it could be prepared might. lead to a better understanding of the factors involved. These experiments form the subject of this short paper, and while they do not supply a definite answer to the mode of formation of this mineral in nature, they may, it is hoped, add something to our knowledge in this direction. EXPERIMENTAL WORK Materials Employed The a-Fe2O3.H2O (goethite) and B-Fe2O3.H2O (Weiser and Milligan") were obtained from the Department of Geology, University of Aberdeen, and Rothamsted Experimental Station, respectively. The beta material had been prepared by the method described by Fernelius.1 y-Fe2O3.H2O (lepidocrocite) was prepared at the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research by the method of van Schuylenborgh.6 The method employed for preparation of the cold-precipitated hydrated ferric oxide* was as follows: 1: 1 NH4OH was added (moderately fast with rapid stirring) to a solution of 5 grams FeC13.6H2O in 250 ml distilled water at room temperature (ca. 15°C) until red litmus turned blue, and then 2 to 3 drops in excess. The resultant precipitate was filtered off on a Buchner funnel and washed free from Cl- with distilled water. Previous experiments having shown that drying over P2O5 at room temperature or drying at 105°C in the oven did not significantly affect the thermogram,5 samples were nor-

Jan 1, 1952

By Albert F. Schneider

The peculiar conditions under which lead and silver ores are now smelted in Salt Lake Valley, Utah, render it advantageous to make slags that are siliceous and carry a high percentage of lime. The ores treated come from Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada; nine-tenths coming from Utah. These ores are siliceous, and contain but little fluxing material; the iron present scarcely sufficing for the sulphur and arsenic. Formerly ores high in iron were furnished from Cottonwood Canons, but this supply is meagre. The ores from Idaho, Montana, and Nevada are high grade galenas, more or less impure. They generally require a large amount of iron for the sulphur, arsenic, and antimony. In the winter and spring of 1880—&apos;81, we were treating at the Germania Works principally Bingham Canon lead ores and silver ores from Tintic. The former contained 15 to 30 per cent. silica, and only 4 to 5 per cent. iron (generally as iron pyrites); they ranged high in lead and low in silver, and carried more or less alumina; the lead was present chiefly as carbonate. The silver ores from Tintic contained sulphides, and ran as high as 80 per cent. silica. We had been running on a slag approximating 40 per cent. FeO, 20 per cent. CaO, 10 per cent. other bases, and 30 per cent. SiO2, which had heretofore been very satisfactory; but with the class of ores then coming in it was of the utmost advantage to use less iron and more lime, especially as the iron ore (50-55 per cent. iron and 5-7 per cent. silica) cost four times as much as the limestone (50-55 per cent. lime, 3-5 per cent. silica). The large amount of alumina in the slag influenced them for the worse; the addition of lime to the charge helped them, and after many experiments regarding the proportion of FeO, CaO, and SiO2, a slag approximating 35 per cent. FeO, 25 per cent. CaO, 5 per cent. other bases, and 35 per cent. SiO2 seemed to answer

Jan 1, 1883

By J. Ostachowicz, B. Holynska, M. Lankosz

The paper presents an analyzer and the method for the continuous determination of weight percentage of ore grains with diameter smaller than 75 µm in mineral slurries. The method is based upon the measurement of characteristic x-rays of copper excited by primary radiation of two different energies 16.5 keV and 60 keV from Pu238 and Am241 sources respectively. Additionally the backscattered primary radiation is measured in order to correct the variations of the solids content in the slurry. Since the particle size distribution of slurry can be described by the Rosin-Rammler formula, some calculations have been carried out in order to evaluate the influence of distribution parameters upon the results of the measurements of weight percentage U75 of particles smaller than 75 µm. The influence of solids content and of the copper concentration variation on the results has been also evaluated.1 It resulted from the calculations that the ratio rl/rz, where rl and r2 are the relative intensities of copper characteristic x-rays excited with 16.5 keV and 60 keV photons respectively does not depend on the copper content within the range 1 % to 4% of copper and is slightly dependent on the solids weight fraction and its chemical composition. The change of the dispersion parameter of the Rosin- Rammler distribution from 0.5 to 0.9 results in a change of value of U75 of approximately 3.0%. The results of calculations have been confirmed by the results of laboratory experiments. Therefore, a prototype of industrial analyzer for continuous determination of weight percentage of particles smaller than 75 µm has been designed and made. Its schematic drawing is shown in [Fig. 1]. Slurry is flowing down through steel flow-cell of the length equal to approx. 2 m. In the center, two XRF measuring heads (1) and (2) are located. Each of the heads comprises a rigid waterproof cover (3) with the mylar window (4), in which a proportional counter of resolution 15% for 6.4 keV is mounted with a preamplifier (5). The low- energy isotope source (6) is centrally located above the detector

Jan 1, 1980