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Jan 6, 1951

By August J. Breitenstein, W. Spencer Hutchinson

The outstanding engineering accomplishment of the last three decades has been the development and application of more and cheaper power and its use instead of the labor of men and animals. Substitution of power for manual labor has taken effect on every hand in the United States. With the aid of energy mechanically available to his hand, one man does the work that only a few years ago required two, three or even a greater number of laborers. The results in respect to the favorable economic effects are well known; namely, increased production, higher wages and lower costs. On the other hand, the vast social effects, both good and bad, have been none the less important, even if less understood and only casually regarded. The chief sources of energy today are the mineral fuels, coal and petroleum. In the United States they yield more than 90 per cent of the total energy demand. Thirty years ago the proportion of energy supplied by the mineral fuels was likewise above 90 per cent, but the division according to origin was very different. These relations are shown for the years 1900, 1930 and 1950 in Table 1. Method or Preparation and Interpretation of Statistical Data The fuels comprised in this study are: (1) the coal group including both bituminous and anthracite coal; (2) the petroleum group, taking in not only petroleum but natural gas and natural-gas gasoline. Natural gas for many years has been used in localities relatively near the wells but statistics were found no earlier than 1910. Demand has rapidly

Jan 1, 1934

NEW MEMBERS The following list comprises the names of those persons who became members during the period Apr. 10 to May 10, 1914: Members ADAMS, HENRY H., JR., Merchant, Henry H. Adams & Co., and Colonial Iron Co., 149 Broadway, New York, N.Y. ADAMS, LELAND D., Mine Mgr., Supt., East Canada Smelting Co.,Weedon, Quebec, Canada. AGUILERA, EUGENIO, Chief Engr. Mining & Foresting Dept. of Santiago, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. ALFORD, NEWELL GILDER; Min. Engr., Asst. Chief Engr., St. Bernard Mining Co,. Earlington, KY.

Jan 6, 1914

By Blamey Stevens

It is now generally agreed that most metals have been brought to the surface of the earth by volcanic agencies. The question as to how these metals came from the volcanic matrix to the mineral deposit has been often discussed. It might be useful to give more serious consideration to the ultimate origin of the volcanic material. It is possible that some light might thus be shed on the persistent associations of some metals with certain particular kinds of rocks. For example, the very general association of gold with acid types of igneous rocks, of tin with granites or quartz-felsites, of certain types of deep-seated copper-deposits with magnesian eruptives, and so on. One interesting question is as to whether the metals brought near the surface by volcanic agencies appear here for the first time, or whether they came from the central core of the earth. The interior of the earth is, without doubt, much more highly metallic than the crust, and so the core is often thought to be the origin of many of the metals which are uncovered by man. The Differentiation Theory.—Although a great many theories bearing upon these matters have been discussed,' the only one now considered as worthy of much consideration among American geologists is the " Theory of Differentiation of Igneous Magmas."2 According to this theory, lakes of molten magma are supposed to exist very far down beneath the earth's surface. In these lakes a process of differentiation is supposed to be going on whereby the liquid magma is split up into two or more liquid phases. Each of these phases is supposed to take with it the metallic constituents for which it has the greatest affinity.

Jan 1, 1913

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Jan 1, 1938

By Alfonso Merlini

DIFFERENT explanations have been given by the two current theories of the annealing textures for the variation of annealing texture with the annealing temperature observed in rolled polycrystal-line aluminum,' copper,2 and brass, And in rolled single crystals of copperk and silicon iron.' The theory

Jan 1, 1957

By H. K. Martin

IN September 1954 the Lavender pit concentrator at Lowell, Ariz., began treating low grade porphyry copper ore from the nearby Lavender mine. Nominal capacity of the mill is 12,000 tpd, but production now averages 16,226 tpd. Plant design was somewhat affected by the re-use of old equipment and the substantial re-use of old buildings. A breaking-in period between June 24 and Sept. 1, 1954, was devoted to training operators and making minor changes in launders, chutes, and piping. From Sept. 1, 1954, to July 1, 1956, the mill treated 8,598,105 dry tons of ore, from which 556,541 tons of concentrate were produced, containing an indicated 144,055,185 lb of copper.

Jan 11, 1957

By William R. Rumbold

The Kinta valley, in the State of Perak, one of the largest of the Federated Malay States, is probably at the present time the richest alluvial tin-district in the world, Perak producing from 20,000 to 25,000 tons of tin annually, and the Kinta valley being the chief producer. The valley runs approximately north and south, and is 30 miles long by 12 wide. It is very flat, the mountain-ranges on either side rising abruptly from the plain, that on the east being the great Central range of the peninsula, and that on the west a subsidiary range marked " Kledang " on the map, Fig. 1. The valley is drained by the Kinta river, which rises in the eastern mountain range and flows south to join the Perak river, being joined by numerous streams from both mountain-ranges.

Jan 1, 1907

By Paul D. Torrey

The water-flooding of oil sands has been widely practiced for many years in the Bradford and Allegany fields. Its effect upon the production of these fields has been almost phenomenal. In 1907 their estimated production was 3500 bbl. per day; in December, 1929, the combined production is estimated at 33,000 bbl. per day, an increase of almost 1000 per cent. in 22 years. This increase in production is directly attributable to the successful application of water-flooding, which has transformed the fields that were rapidly approaching abandonment into one of the most actively operated regions associated with the petroleum industry, and has made them important factors in the production of Pennsylvania Grade crude oil. The writer is indebted to many companies for information included in this paper. He is particularly grateful to the Sloan and Zook Co., the Petroleum Reclamation Co., George Bovaird, Jr., and the Associated Producers Co., of Bradford, Pa., who have generously made available much valuable data. Owing to the frequently competitive and confidential nature of property purchases, it has not always been possible to make specific reference to individual wells or properties; but wherever feasible, specific references have been made. Economic Factors The successful application of water-flooding for increasing the recovery of oil has been almost confined to the Bradford and Allegany fields. This has been due not only to legal restrictions in other fields and to very favorable sand conditions in the Bradford-Allegany region, but also to certain economic factors which are worthy of consideration. There has been some alarm regarding the effects of the rapidly increasing production upon the oil market but the writer is inclined to believe that future development can be made sufficiently flexible to meet the demand for this grade of oil. There has been a decided tendency toward consolidation of properties by mergers and purchases and, in addition, many of the individual producers are content to take advantage of floods advancing on their holdings from adjoining properties without developing their own on an intensive scale. Cooperative drilling along

Jan 1, 1930

[Murray and Renard: chondres on ocean floor, XLI, [155]. Musconetcong Iron Works, Stanhope, N. J., blnst furnace, XL, 467. MUSSEN, H. W.: Discussion on The Bogoslovsk Mining Estate, XXXIX, 897. death, XLIII, [Ixxvi]. Muzo, CoIombia: emerald deposits, LV, 910. emerald mine, XXXIX, 317. minerals, LV, 925.]

Jan 1, 1918

By John P. Bingham

GRACE mine and mill, owned by Bethlehem-Cuba Iron Mines Co. and operated by Bethlehem Cornwall Corp., are being developed to produce 9600 tons of 42 ½ pct Fe magnetite ore, to yield 5760 tons per day of agglomerated iron concentrates averaging 65 pct Fe. Located about 14 miles south of Reading, the property is ideally situated in relation to good highways and railroad. Three major steel plants, at Bethlehem, Steelton, and Sparrows Point, Md., are about equidistant from the mine. Discovery of the orebody resulted from an airborne magnetometer survey, completed in 1948, con¬sisting of 7000 lineal miles of flight lines spaced one-fourth of a mile apart and extending from the Delaware River on the east to Gettysburg, Pa., on the west. After examining the magnetic maps, Bethlehem's geologists made limited surface traverses over the Grace mine and Warwick area to check the location, and realtors were engaged to purchase the desired properties over and adjacent to the area showing favorable indication of ore.

Jan 1, 1957

By Paul L. Goddard, Alfred G. Hoyl, William R. Sirola

A good place to look for elephants is in elephant country, and old mining districts are certainly elephant country as far as minerals are concerned. In many areas probably more ore is still in the ground than has been taken out. The old timers were good miners and hard workers and when they left ore behind, it was usually for good reason; but many an old mining district has been revived by new approaches to old problems, taking advantage of new techniques and new equipment. One of these is the Front Range mineral belt of Colorado, which has produced minerals for the past 100 years through the ups and downs of mineral prices and the general economy. Gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc have been found in abundance in the complex sulfide veins of the area. Between Idaho Springs and Central City lie several strong veins which have been mined successfully in the past. The two strongest of these veins, striking northeast-southwest, (Lake-Bald Eagle), and northwest-southeast, (Crown Point-Belman) , and dipping northeast and northwest, respectively, intersect in a flat X near the head of Virginia Canyon. From the lowest drainage of the area, Clear Creek Canyon, the old timers drove the Central, or Big Five, haulage-drainage tunnel due north. It intersects the two veins 8460 ft from the portal and 1670 ft below the surface. The two veins were mined successfully at the surface and at the tunnel level. Without an opening to the surface at the in- side end of the tunnel, ventilating became very difficult as the stopes were opened up, and mining ceased in 1929. Vertically, 1200 to 1600 ft of virgin ground remains in the veins.

Jan 6, 1959

By Ernest Stütz

(New York Meeting, October, 1918.) THE problem of increasing blast: furnace efficiency through diminution of flue-dust production while operating with burdens consisting largely of fine ores has of recent years attracted the attention of metallurgists, whether directly or indirectly interested in the economies of iron smelting, and the various methods evolved from theory or practice have been submitted to wide discussion. After the very thorough and, at that time, exhaustive view of the whole subject, which was afforded to the industry by the meeting of this Institute in February, 1912, the subject was again taken up at the meeting of the Verein deutscher Eisenhüttenleute at Diisseldorf in December, 1912. While American and German conditions are not entirely identical, it may be of interest to give here the words of the gentleman summing up the discussion at the Diisseldorf meeting: ' The chief advantage offered by the use of briquettes lies in the fact that disturbances in the furnace, caused mostly by the presence of fine ores in the burden, are avoided, and that blast pressure can be considerably reduced. The resulting economies cannot be overrated, as, with lower blast consumption per ton of product, the installation will be able to take care of increased production. In consequence of lower pressure and speed of blast, heat is more efficiently utilized, flue gas temperature is lowered, and coke particles are less liable to be carried along with the flue dust, of which considerably less is produced. Finally, by increased regularity of operation and higher . temperature in the lower parts of the furnace, the quality of the product is improved. The question of briquetting iron ores has grown to be one of the most important in the iron industry, and, it is not any more a question of what is the cost of briquetting ton of ore, but what, in using ore briquettes, is the cost of production of a ton of iron.'

Jan 7, 1913

By Paul D. Merica

Jan 1, 1932

Jan 1, 1908

By G. Thodos, R. B. Grieves

A method has been developed For predicting the critical temperatures and critical pressures of binary mixtures of carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and oxygen with the normal paraffin hydrocarbons. For carbon-dioxide and hydrogen-sulfide systems, relations are presented that take into account the peculiar behavior of mixtures with closely boiling components, such as carbon dioxide-ethane and hydrogen sulfide-propane mixtures which exhibit minimum critical temperature points. For hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon-monoxide systems, the extreme critical behavior caused by wide differences in pure component properties is established In addition, those fixed gas-paraffin systems which resemble paraffin-paraffin systems are also accounted for. For a mixture of known composition, the pure component critical temperatures, critical pressures and normal boiling points are all that are required to determine its critical point. Graphical relations are presented relating Tc and PC , of the mixture to the pure component properties. From the treatment of 12 carbon-dioxide and hydrogen-sulfide systems reported in the literature (74 mixtures), the expected error lor the critical temperature is approximately 1.5 per cent, and for the critical pressure, approximately 2 per cent. From the treatment of six hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon-monoxide systems reported in the literature (30 mixtures), the expected error for both the critical temperature and critical pressure is approximately 2.5 per cent. The relationships, which have been developed with only normal paraffins as the hydrocarbon components, may be extended to those isoparaffins and olefins which fall within the allowable volatility ranges. INTRODUCTION Many of the fixed gases — carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and oxygen — occur in natural mixtures with hydrocarbons. Carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are frequent components of the fluids produced from underground petroleum reservoirs. Nitrogen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are present in varying quantities in most natural gases and gas-condensate well effluents. Hydrogen mixtures are of considerable interest in many phases of refining processes of petroleum. The determination of the critical temperatures and critical pressures of such mixtures is of value in vapor-liquid equilibrium studies, for the prediction of the characteristics of underground reservoirs, and for reduced-state correlations of PVT, transport and thermodynamic properties. The accurate estimation of the critical point for binary mixtures is an important initial step toward a complete analysis for the establishment of the critical temperatures and pressures of multi-component mixtures. Methods for predicting the critical temperatures and critical pressures of binary hydrocarbon systems have already been presented in the literature.8 It is possible to apply these existing methods to fixed gas-paraffin mixtures, but due to their unusual critical behavior, values calculated deviate considerably from experimental values. For systems containing trace quantities of the fixed gases, these methods are acceptable; however, for systems containing more than 5 mol per cent of the fixed gases, these utterly fail to produce reasonable critical values. Consequently, in this study a method has been developed for handling such binary mixtures over the entire composition range. CARBON-DIOXIDE AND HYDROGEN-SULFIDE SYSTEMS The critical behavior and the vapor pressure behavior of mixtures of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide with paraffinic hydrocarbons may be quite similar or quite dissimilar to that of paraffin-paraffin mixtures, depending on the volatilities of the components involved. The critical temperature and normal boiling point of carbon dioxide are very close to the corresponding values for ethane, while its critical pressure is considerably higher than that of ethane. The normal boiling point of

By D. V. Carter, F. M. Hackbusch

Beginning the year 1938, the East and East Central Texas district comprised 48 counties, which is equivalent to the Texas Railroad Commission districts 5 and 6. At the close of the year there were 46 oil and gas fields in this district. Eight other fields, seven oil and one gas, have been abandoned. Exploratory Drilling During the year, 113 exploratory wells were drilled. Nine discoveries were made, five of which proved to be oil fields, three distillate, and one gas. Completions for the district were 2043 oil wells (distillate wells included), 36 gas wells and 163 dry holes. Exclusive of the East Texas field, the Marion County extension of the Rodessa field led the district in the number of completions during the year. Production and Proration All fields in the district produced a total of 182,369,484 bbl. of oil, a decrease of 12.57 per cent compared with the 208,594,453 bbl. produced during 1937. The East Texas field produced 148,189,913 bbl., which was 81.6 per cent of the district's production for 1938. November daily average oil production for the East and East Central district was 469,102 bbl. The estimated cumulative production to Jan. 1, 1939, for this district was 1,753,894,802 bbl. It is estimated that the East and East Central district produced 38.9 per cent of the state's total production for the year, which was 468,781,632 barrels. The decrease in 1938 production, as compared to that of 1937, in this district was partly due to the Saturday and Sunday shutdowns, 71 days for the year, which is equivalent to 19.45 per cent of the year. All fields in this district were affected by shutdowns except the Texas portion of the Rodessa field, which was shut in only during January and February. Certain wells were exempt from these shutdowns because of special pro-

Jan 1, 1939

By D. V. Carter, F. M. Hackbusch

Beginning the year 1938, the East and East Central Texas district comprised 48 counties, which is equivalent to the Texas Railroad Commission districts 5 and 6. At the close of the year there were 46 oil and gas fields in this district. Eight other fields, seven oil and one gas, have been abandoned. Exploratory Drilling During the year, 113 exploratory wells were drilled. Nine discoveries were made, five of which proved to be oil fields, three distillate, and one gas. Completions for the district were 2043 oil wells (distillate wells included), 36 gas wells and 163 dry holes. Exclusive of the East Texas field, the Marion County extension of the Rodessa field led the district in the number of completions during the year. Production and Proration All fields in the district produced a total of 182,369,484 bbl. of oil, a decrease of 12.57 per cent compared with the 208,594,453 bbl. produced during 1937. The East Texas field produced 148,189,913 bbl., which was 81.6 per cent of the district's production for 1938. November daily average oil production for the East and East Central district was 469,102 bbl. The estimated cumulative production to Jan. 1, 1939, for this district was 1,753,894,802 bbl. It is estimated that the East and East Central district produced 38.9 per cent of the state's total production for the year, which was 468,781,632 barrels. The decrease in 1938 production, as compared to that of 1937, in this district was partly due to the Saturday and Sunday shutdowns, 71 days for the year, which is equivalent to 19.45 per cent of the year. All fields in this district were affected by shutdowns except the Texas portion of the Rodessa field, which was shut in only during January and February. Certain wells were exempt from these shutdowns because of special pro-

Jan 1, 1939

ERDA Issues Figures for 1975 Uranium Production and Drilling, 1976 Reserve Estimates

Jan 5, 1976

By R. W. Rausch

BELT-CONVEYOR 'history in this country dates back to the end of the eighteenth century. Up to 1896 they were crude in design and application. The second era, dating from 1896 to about 1920, saw special study given to belt construction and idler design. The latter part of this era saw the beginning of the present-day antifriction idler. The third era followed World War I, when industry began to expand rapidly. Mines and quarries, steel mills, and power-generating plants became larger and greater quantities of ore, stone, and coal were being handled. It became vital that belts handle larger capacities, that they be longer, and that they be dependable for 24 hours per day. In this third era a radical change in belt conveyor design and application occurred. The design has became more scientific. Studies have been made to find out what factors influenced the power required for a belt conveyor and it was found that the sag of the belt between idlers and the flattening of the load between idlers had considerable effect on power requirements. So definite initial tension was put into the belt at the loading end and idler spacing was reduced at the foot end to limit this sag. Belt manufacturers made tougher and stronger belts.

Jan 1, 1947