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By A. R. Ledoux

I WAS wondering whether we were going to adhere to our text. It seems to me that we are having a very remarkable meeting of mining engineers this year, because no matter what the texts may be that are assigned to us, we get back toward something higher; we turn to the consideration of questions of ethics, and of applied Christianity. Yesterday we listened to the most eloquent and remarkable address by Mr. Rickard in memory of Dr. Raymond, and it was told us that he was to speak about Raymond's achievements as an engineer. He did say considerable on that subject, but he was himself carried away with the spirit of the man and moved us all by his portrayal of Dr. Raymond's continued and fruitful labors for the betterment of mankind-that is to say his religion. Our President asked me if I would say something this afternoon and I find in the bulletin that the text of the discourses which we are to have here this afternoon is "International Cooperation in Mining in North America." But again I find that the eloquent speaker who has just preceded me has dwelt largely on ethical and spiritual cooperation rather than upon cooperation in mining. That is, cooperation as men, rather .than solely as engineers. The imaginary line dividing Canada from the United States, unmarked by fort or military post, was mentioned by a previous speaker. There are going to be in the future, I am sure, fewer entanglements of the barbed wire of tariff discrimination along our border-to that end let us cooperate. But there has always been a reciprocity in men. A Canadian conceived and created our great transcontinental line, the Great Northern Railway; an American made the Canadian Pacific what it is. In mining and metallurgy, American engineers, backed by American capital, have built up great Canadian industries while Canadian experts have developed some of the resources on this side of the line. They have done much more than develop our resources: some of them have been our leaders in sympathy for labor. It is therefore not a question of creating a spirit of cooperation, but of giving it freer scope and a fuller realization of fraternity-or, to use the .word now more common and of deeper significance-brotherhood.

Jan 4, 1919

By James Munroe

APPALLING as has been the loss of life in the last 51 months, there is one slight compensation : no longer will there be in the world a cripple, in the old meaning of the term. Men handicapped by wounds or disease, there will be, unfortunately, and in numbers beyond what the world has known since the wars of Napoleon; but neither they nor the industries from which they were called off to war will be "crippled" in the sense in which both would have been had mankind not learned the lesson of conservation and come to understand that the most important field for such conservation is not in the forests and' the mines but among men and women. From the beginning of the Great War, France, Great Britain, Belgium, and most of the other Allies have studied the problem of restoring the soldiers and sailors injured through war to physical and economic efficiency; and from their experiences, especially from that of Canada, the United States has learned much. Consequently, our task of preparing for the return of our disabled men has been easier and, in some ways, more comprehensive than theirs. Complex as are the details of the machinery which the United States has set in motion to take care of the men injured by wounds or disease, the plan itself is simple. Taught by European experience, the Surgeon-General of the Army and the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy have provided, on both sides of the Atlantic, every known surgical and medical facility for restoring the injured or diseased man to a physical condition as nearly normal as possible. While in the hospital in France or England, on the transport coming to America, and in the hospital here, the disabled man is incited in every way to believe in his future efficiency, to want to be a normal worker, to desire to retake his place in that society of workers from which he went, temporarily, to do the greater work of preserving civilization. Furthermore, since purposeful occupation is now regarded as an essential form of, treatment with most men in the hospital, especially in the convalescing stage, many of these men will have been actually started on the road to earning before they are discharged from the army surgeon's care.

Jan 1, 1919

. E. P. MATHEWSON, New York, N. Y.-I would like to call attention to the excellent plan for protecting the lining of the tanks from rough handling by the excavator. Many engineers, when considering mechanical excavators for lead-lined tanks, have been afraid that the machinery might get out' of order and rip out the lining. This difficulty seems to have been entirely overcome in this installation, and those who have been responsible for its success deserve a great deal of credit. A. F. CASE,* Cleveland, Ohio. (written discussion t).-The application of the automatic unloader to the copper leaching process at Ajo was a very radical departure from the common use of this machine, inasmuch as the only previous use of this device has been in connection with the unloading of coal and ore from vessels on the Great Lakes. There are many phases in connection with the unloading of ore from lake vessels that are not presented in the extraction of ore tailings from leaching vats. For instance, in unloading from boats, it is necessary to provide means to reach under the hatches to parts of the cargo hold which do not lie directly under the hatches, and to work in inaccessible places that do not exist in a leaching vat. These necessities require complications that could be very easily dispensed with in this new application. On this account the unloader, is applied to the New Cornelia, plant, represents what is probably the simplest development of the machine that has ever been produced, and, manifestly, in its simplest form it could he expected to show results corresponding to its performances when installed with all of its complications. One of the requirements of vessel unloading is extreme vertical travel, when the bucket is required to reach the bottom of the, cargo hold, often 12 or 13 ft. below water-level, and discharge into a receptacle 30 ft. above-the water. This was materially simplified at Ajo for the reason that the vertical travel was never more than 20 ft. This condition immediately resulted in the possibility of shortening the walking beam which carries the bucket leg, and, in fact, in entirely reducing the size of all the working, parts of the trolley, walking beam, and bucket leg, as far as reaches were concerned.

Jan 11, 1918

By F. F. Claussen

The method of making silver ingots in use at this Mint being radically different from that employed at any other Mint of the United States or, so far as known to me, any Mint in the world, there may be some interest in a description of the apparatus used and a brief history of its distinguishing feature, viz., the rotary ingotmould, which, though not a recent improvement, is comparatively unknown. The furnaces used for silver-ingot-melting are four in number and have a capacity of some seventy thousand standard ounces of silver per day of eight hours. This output is increased, when the exigencies of the service demand it, to one hundred thousand ounces. They are built of fire-brick and elevated 21/2 feet from the floor of the melting-room, in order to have space to place iron boxes and to work, in case a crucible breaks in the furnace and its contents run into the ash-pit. The furnaces are circular in horizontal section, 2 $ feet in diameter and 29 feet high inside in the clear, and rest on castiron plates, with top-plates of the same, and sides encased in boileriron. The furnace-covers are also of cast-iron, dome-shaped, and are handled by means of a small crane and lever. The furnaces stand in sets of two, and one crane and one ingot-machine serves two furnaces. The crucibles used are made specially for this purpose of a mixture of black-lead and fire-clay; the size known as No. 200 will contain and safely melt, without danger of slopping over, from 8600 to nearly 10,000 ounces of standard silver; and this is the usual weight of the ingot-melt at this Mint, as against 1800 ounces at the Carson City mint and 2600 to 3000 ounces at Philadelphia and San Francisco. Each crucible will endure, on the average, ten melts. The crucible stands in the center of the furnace, on the bottom of an old one, cut down to a height of about three inches. The fuel used is coke. Experience has shown that, notwithstanding the higher first cost, Connellsville coke is cheaper than Alabama coke and much more suitable to the work. A small triangular black-

Jan 1, 1888

By D. A. Lyon

Discussion of the paper of DORSEY A. LYON and ROBERT M. KEENEY, presented at the San Francisco meeting, September, 1915, and printed in Bulletin No. 104, August, 1915, pp. 1707 to 1730. LAWRENCE ADDICKS, Douglas, Ariz.-I think papers of this character, while general in, nature, are of particular value and interest, because when we figure on competing with the East in electrometallurgical industries, on account of the cheap power on the Pacific Coast, we have to take two or three things into account. In the first place, power very rarely amounts to more than 20 per cent. of the total cost of an operation, even .though it be electrometallurgical, and I think it is the common opinion among those who are not familiar with those particular industries, that it amounts to more than 50 or 60 per cent. Take copper refining; we may say that it is 15 per cent. of the total cost. In the second place, around New York City, with 100 per cent. load factor and a reasonably large load, say 10,000 kw., we can generate from a certain class of coal 1 kw.-hr. for about 0.3c. I might say, however, that 0.3c. does not include overhead charges, interest on the investment, etc. The third factor we have to consider out here is that any product to be salable, must command a retail market. It would be useless to produce wire bars here on the Pacific Coast because there is no place to roll them. If we were going to establish a copper refinery, that part of its output which goes into wire bars would have to be taken care of by building a rolling mill alongside of it to turn it into wire and finally make a product that is salable. I do not think, however, that Mr. Lyon need have excluded copper refining from his industries. There are perhaps 50,000,000 lb. of copper a month refined in this country on a custom basis. I think the smelting companies would be very glad to build refineries here if conditions warranted it. The recent extensions of the Great Falls refinery and of the Tacoma refinery in the last few months give evidence of that.

Jan 12, 1915

By Persifor Frazer

MR. Theodore D. Rand has made some interesting observations on the serpentines of Chester and Delaware counties, Penna., in which he suggests that the outcrops of this rock are detached from each other, and that while a comparatively narrow belt, running nearly east and west, mill include them all, the strike of each outcrop differs considerably from the direction of this narrow belt; and that it results that these isolated exposures exist on the map, as it were, in echelon, the easternmost end of each lying northwest of the western extremity of its neighbor. As he elsewhere remarks, this is important, if established, and the writer spent a day or two recently on the ground in the study of this phenomenon. One thing would seem to follow from such a state of facts, viz., that this serpentine at least must have been of secondary origin, for it is difficult to conceive of a rock which occurs intercalated in numerous horizons of a different formation, and agreeing with the latter in bedding, unless the former were an altered product of the latter. It is true that one might account for it by the supposition of an original unconformable deposit, which had been broken by a number of faults and distorted by throws to the northwest; but this hypothesis would do violence to the observed facts relating to the measures along with which the serpentine occurs, and in which no such distortion has been observed. * Thus for determining, by evaporative test, the calorific power of a coal, the ultimate constitution of which is known, it is requisite, that, besides the quantity of coal consumed and the weight of the water evaporated, the temperature and chemical composition of the escaping gases, or gaseous residue, shall be quantitatively determined, the same as solid residues of ash and unconsumed fuel. In observance of such requirements, the Heizversuchstation of Munich has been in operation since 1879. This consists of a permanent boiler plant, constructed on the principle of the calorimeter, with special provision for avoiding errors from loss of heat—snch, namely, as arise from radiation and conduction, and from the varying proportions of water in steam.—Muck. Steinkohlen-Cliemie, 1881, 146. See Proc. Min. and Geol. Sect., Acad of Nat. Sci., 1850 and 1881, pp. 9 and 28.

Jan 1, 1884

By Charles J. McMahon

In a recent paper, Floreen and Hayden report that additions of the noble metals iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, and platinum to Fe-C alloys containing 0.03 to 0.08 wt pct C act to significantly reduce the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature in a notched-bar impact test. They compare these results with the similar, well-known effects of nickel and manganese additions, and they note that this supports the hypothesis that addition of austenite stabilizers enhances notch toughness. Although not attempting to offer an explanation for this, they suggest that it might be found in an alteration of the bonding characteristics of the bcc lattice of iron by additions of elements which tend to stabilize the fcc lattice. While this suggestion appears to have some merit, it should perhaps be held in abeyance until two more likely possibilities have been explored. It is now fairly clear that the beneficial effect of manganese derives from its ability to promote a globular carbide morphology instead of the platelike form found in grain boundaries and pearlite patches in Fe-C al10~s.' Previous work14 has also shown that cleavage fracture in Fe-C alloys of the type tested by Floreen and Hayden originates almost exclusively in the cracking of cementite platelets, and that the ductile-brittle transition temperature is very sensitive to the volume density and size of these carbides. Treatments which lead to development of nonlamellar carbides or fine dispersions of carbides, such as quenching and tempering or appropriate alloy additions, promote toughness by removing the primary mode of cleavage initiation. The effectiveness of manganese in this regard has long been known. Nickel appears to behave in a similar manner, though the effect is perhaps not as dramatic as with manganese.15 However, nickel additions do lead to a definite refinement of ferrite grain size following a given transformation heat treatment, and this in itself acts to greatly enhance notch toughness.'' (The grain sizes of the various heats tested by Floreen and Hayden were not reported, so it is not known how much influence this factor exerted in their results.) In conclusion, it is suggested that one should consider the well-established effects of alloying elements on carbide morphology and ferrite grain size before resorting to more complex possibilities, such as modification of interatomic bonding.

Jan 1, 1969

By Alexander B. Morris

In a recent paper on the intermittent injection of gas in gas-lift operations as opposed to continuous injection, Morgan Walker presented a comparative table showing the effect on oil and gas production from the same wells under the two methods of operation.' This table carried a column showing the formational gas-oil ratios under each method, computed by deducting the volume of input gas from the volume of trap gas. During the entire spring and summer of 1928, the present writer had been engaged on some extensive test car tests of rich gas in Glenpool, seeking, primarily, for an explanation of the apparent loss of gasoline during the summer season between the field meters and the plant master meter. Tests at several of the field meters where the richest gas was obtained regularly failed to check with other tests on the same gas made farther along the line, and the difference was not made up by the quantity of drip gasoline collected between the points. In the course of these tests, the final outcome of which is immaterial to the present purpose, an attempt was made to construct a curve representing the relationship between gasoline content of the gas in gallons per thousand cubic feet and the shrinkage in the volume of gas treated as a result of removing the condensible fractions. Such a curve was made, expressed in units of gallons per thousand cubic feet on the abcissa and the ratio vapor volume to liquid volume on the ordinate. This curve is a rectangular hyperbola and shows that 3 gal. of gasoline taken from 1000 cu. ft. of raw gas as a vapor occupied much less space, per gallon, than did 1 gal. of gasoline taken from 1000 cu. ft. of another sample of gas. This is, in general, corroborated by converting to the same units the residue settlement curves prepared by the Tidal Oil Co. and by the Natural Gasoline Manufacturers Assn., though the three curves, when plotted together, occupy entirely different positions on the paper, as shown in Fig. 1. The bearing of all this on Mr. Walker's discussion of gas-lift is this: if the formational gas is to be computed by deducting the input gas from the trap gas, some correction must be made for the vapor volume

Jan 1, 1930

Discussion of the paper of E. C. HARDER, presented at the Pittsburgh meeting, October, 1914, and printed in Bulletin No. 94, October, 1914, pp. 2573 to 2586. I. C. WHITE, Morgantown, W. Va.-I have seen some of the great iron-ore deposits described in this paper. -One of these in the State of Minas Geraes appears to be an immense mountain of iron ore about 2,000 ft. in height. All over its surface from bottom to top may be seen large masses of rich iron ore, varying in weight from a few pounds to several tons, and from all that one can judge without exploitation, the quantity of available ore is certainly very large in this particular mountain. Whether it will prove a mere surface deposit or shell, like the famous Iron Mountain of Missouri, is for future exploration to determine. The question of transportation is the main factor in determining the availability for exportation of these Brazilian iron ores. There is no coal in Brazil that can be manufactured into coke without expensive previous treatment, since the best of the raw coal in the States of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catharina, and Parana, contains about 35 per cent. of ash, of which about 6 per cent. is sulphur, and coal of this composition cannot be utilized in iron smelting without purification. When I was chief of the Brazilian Coal Commission in 1904 to 1906, I had a cargo of this coal shipped to Balk, Germany, and treated in the great coal-testing plant of the Humboldt Engineering Works, located just across the Rhine from Cologne. It was found that by crushing and washing the Brazilian coal, it yielded 33 per cent. of briquetting coal, containing only 10 to 12 per cent. of ash (of which 1 per cent. was sulphur), and 42 per cent. of slack coal, with 25 per cent. of ash and low in sulphur, so that about 33 per cent. of the Brazilian coal could be converted into coke of fair quality, as shown by the following average of three analyses, using air-dried coal, of briquets made from the Barro Branco coal bed, State of Santa Catharina: Moisture 1.56 Volatile matter 31.66 Fixed carbon 56.73 Ash : 10.05 Total 100.00 Sulphur 1.34 Phosphorus 0.003 B.t.u 13,395

Jan 4, 1915

By Noel Stearn

WHEN the Age of Machinery was suddenly thrust upon civilization about the beginning of the nineteenth century, an unprecedented demand for mineral resources sprang up. This demand brought about the rapid development of the known ore deposits and the discovery of such other deposits as could be encountered by energetic and canny pros-pectors. Thus in the countries now reasonably ac-cessible nearly all orebodies have been located except those which are totally concealed even from the eyes and "senses" of experienced and expert prospectors. The high rate of exhaustion of known ore deposits and the necessity of looking farther and farther ahead for raw materials as a matter of insurance on the stu-pendous capital outlays involved in mining, develop-ment, and conversion operations, have resulted in excep-tional activity in three different fields of effort. The first is purely geographic. Prospectors are now pene-trating the few hitherto inaccessible regions in the hope of stumbling upon exposed ore deposits or locating visible indications of their presence. The second is chemical. Industrial chemists and metallurgists are seeking to facilitate the exploitation of lower grade ores to find methods of recovering valuable metals from common substances. In the third field of effort. lie the activities of the economic geologist and the mining engineer, who en-deavor to locate concealed ore deposits, which would remain hidden from the prospector, no matter. how expert or conscientious he might be. Obviously the task which such a man must face is both exacting and indefinite, and the tools which he has heretofore been permitted to bring to it are, for the most part, abstract-a knowledge of certain fundamental princi-ples and processes involved in the origin, occurrence, structure, and distribution of deposits. of natural re-sources and of the rocks which form the environments of those deposits, and a process-of reasoning by analogy supplemented by the .use of the diamond drill, or such artificial exposure as the test pit, trench, shaft or tunnel. His primary efforts are usually bent on acquiring a knowledge of the distribution of the rocks-as accurate -is possible-which is a natural prerequisite to any conclusion as to how they became so distributed. Over very extensive areas, however, he meets. the extreme difficulty of being unable to see the rocks, except at rare intervals, since .they have been concealed by an overburden of glacial material, of alluvium, of soil, or of other rocks.

Jan 9, 1928

By Arthur F. Taggart

IN 1900, Elmore found that if an acidulated pulp was stirred up. with an oil which was relatively insoluble in and lighter than water, and the mixture was allowed to stratify, much of the sulfide would be found hanging to the lower surface of the floating body of oil and could be skimmed off or overflowed with it. The action of the flotation agent here is twofold, first to select the sulfide from-the gangue-what today is called collection-and second, to buoy the collected sulfide away from the gangue.. The action in collecting is illustrated by Fig. 1, which contrasts the behavior of drops of oil brought, under water, to the surfaces of gangue and sulfide particles, respectively. The oil displaces water from the surface of the sulfide; the water displaces oil from the gangue surface. If, instead of considering the solid particles the fixed parts of the system of oil, water and solids, we consider the oil and water fixed and the solids presented, to the surface of contact, the condition will be as shown in Fig. 2; the. sulfide tends to. be drawn into the interface and the gangue to be excluded. The sulfide particles are held in the oil-water surface by the tension of this surface. The buoyant effect is supplied by the oil droplets in bringing the sulfides to the water surface, but not in holding them, there. GAS As BUOYANT MEDIUM OF FLOTATION In 1906 Sulman, Picard and Ballot discovered a practical and substantially fool-proof method of doing what Everson, in 1886, and Froment, DeBavay, Bessel and Elmore had been doing in the intervening years, viz.: using gas in place of oil as the buoyant medium for flotation, but retaining oil as the agent. To. all of these inventors "oil," with no qualification as to its kind and no true understanding of its function, was the important thing. But they placed on the oil an additional burden; viz.: froth-making, and it soon became apparent that not. all oils were suitable for the dual purpose. As a matter of fact, it is probable 'that each of these inventors knew only one suitable oil at the time he wrote his patent, but used the generic term in the patent with the usual idea

Jan 1, 1928

By Kefton Teague

The minerals discussed in this section have experienced a gradual, although not spectacular, growth in general. Obvious exceptions are the gradual decreasing use of talc and bentonite as filler materials, partly because of availability and relatively lower sales price of competitive materials. Mineral fillers and filter minerals are used principally in those countries that are heavily industrialized. Except for diatomaceous earth of filter grade, most industrialized countries are reasonably self-sufficient in the various filler and filter minerals. Prices of the various mineral commodities during the period 1950-1970 increased approximately as follows: barite, 43%; diatomaceous earth (filler), 49%; diatomaceous earth (filter), 55%; fuller's earth, 55%; talc. 77%; and bentonite, 94%. Actual usage of these mineral commodities as fillers and filters, during this period, showed changes approximately as follows: (1) Decrease-fuller's earth, 6%; talc, 15%; and bentonite, 29%. (2) Increase-barite, 113%; diatomaceous earth (filler), 150%; and diatomaceous earth (filter), -194%. A relationship between the amount of the various fillers and filters used and price increases is apparent. For example, barite increased only 43% in price, but its use as a filler has increased by 113%. On the other hand, talc, which increased 77% in price, decreased in filler use by 15%; and bentonite, which increased 94% in price, has decreased for filler and filter purposes by 29%. The actual decrease in the use of some of these commodities is not entirely caused by an increase in price. Competitive materials frequently have made substantial gains in the various filler and filter markets. For example, much of the bentonite used in the late 1940s and early 1950s for clarification of mineral and vegetable oils has been replaced by competitive materials. BARITE Occurrences and Sources In the United States, barite is produced from about 14 states, listed in approximate order of importance as follows: Missouri, Arkansas, Nevada, Georgia, Alaska, Tennessee, Kentucky, California, New Mexico, North Carolina, Washington, Idaho, South Carolina, Texas, and others. During the 20 years ending in 1970, almost equal amounts of barite were produced from Arkansas and Missouri. Within recent years, Nevada has replaced Georgia as the third leading barite--producing state. West Germany is second to the United States in barite production. Other important barite-producing countries include: Mexico, USSR, Italy, Greece, Canada, and Ireland. Ireland has become an important barite producer only recently. Barite is obtained from vein and cavity fill-

Jan 1, 1976

By Leon McCulloch

WIIen clean iron and metallic zinc dust, protected from the air, arc heated below the melting point of zinc, the iron takes on a coating that has excellent protective value. This coating is a brittle alloy of zinc and iron, and the process is called sherardizing. Although the zinc particlcs are covered with oxide and cannot touch the iron, an extremcly small amount of the zinc vaporizes and the vapor, reaching the iron, alloys with it. Other zinc then vaporizes to replace that which has been removed from the atmosphere. This process continues indefinitely at a decreasing rate, for the coating already formed permits zinc to diffuse through it to combine with the iron beneath. In this way, the coating grows outward from the surface of the iron, as the bark grows from a tree. The method of growth was clcarly seen while sherardizing small cubes of cast iron, at about 450" C., in a srnall glass-stoppcrcd bottle enclosed in a rotating drum. The dust contained about 3 per cent. iron, which prevented caking, and coatings % in. thick were grown in a few hours. After a heavy layer had been formed, the cubes mere again treated for a shorter time. The layer last formed was seen to lie next to the iron, instead of at the outer surface, showing that the growth was from the surface of the iron outward. The coatings split at the edges and corners, leaving the iron exposed there. Flakes of graphite from the iron were lifted upward and embedded in the coatings. The composition of sherardized coatings varies from the outer surface inward, as would be expected from the mode of growth. That is, the iron content increases slowly at first, then more rapidly as the iron is approached. At the surface the least amount of iron possible is 6 per cent., as the experiments described below have shown. A study was made of the effect of iron in zinc dust on the proccss and on the resulting coatings. Glass bulbs, holding the small pieces to be sherardized, together with enough zinc dust to make them two-thirds full, were heated in a small, rotating electrically heated and controlled furnacc. The bulbs had 6-in. (15 cm.) necks, of 96-in. (9.Fj mm.) tubing, plugged

Jan 1, 1923

By Leon McCulloch

WIIen clean iron and metallic zinc dust, protected from the air, arc heated below the melting point of zinc, the iron takes on a coating that has excellent protective value. This coating is a brittle alloy of zinc and iron, and the process is called sherardizing. Although the zinc particlcs are covered with oxide and cannot touch the iron, an extremcly small amount of the zinc vaporizes and the vapor, reaching the iron, alloys with it. Other zinc then vaporizes to replace that which has been removed from the atmosphere. This process continues indefinitely at a decreasing rate, for the coating already formed permits zinc to diffuse through it to combine with the iron beneath. In this way, the coating grows outward from the surface of the iron, as the bark grows from a tree. The method of growth was clcarly seen while sherardizing small cubes of cast iron, at about 450" C., in a srnall glass-stoppcrcd bottle enclosed in a rotating drum. The dust contained about 3 per cent. iron, which prevented caking, and coatings % in. thick were grown in a few hours. After a heavy layer had been formed, the cubes mere again treated for a shorter time. The layer last formed was seen to lie next to the iron, instead of at the outer surface, showing that the growth was from the surface of the iron outward. The coatings split at the edges and corners, leaving the iron exposed there. Flakes of graphite from the iron were lifted upward and embedded in the coatings. The composition of sherardized coatings varies from the outer surface inward, as would be expected from the mode of growth. That is, the iron content increases slowly at first, then more rapidly as the iron is approached. At the surface the least amount of iron possible is 6 per cent., as the experiments described below have shown. A study was made of the effect of iron in zinc dust on the proccss and on the resulting coatings. Glass bulbs, holding the small pieces to be sherardized, together with enough zinc dust to make them two-thirds full, were heated in a small, rotating electrically heated and controlled furnacc. The bulbs had 6-in. (15 cm.) necks, of 96-in. (9.Fj mm.) tubing, plugged

Jan 1, 1923

By L. D. Anderson

WHEN, after years of troublous experiences in roasting sulfide ores with heavy dust and fume losses resulting from the equipment and methods first available, there appeared on the scene of metallurgy that revolutionary process known as sintering, it was felt that at last there had been found the ideal method for preparing sulfide ores for blastfurnace reduction. Not only were the sulfides roasted but also the fine oxidized ores were bound together with them in strong porous cellular masses which were in the best possible condition for reduction. With the experiences gained in the manipulation of the Huntington-Heberlein, Carmichael-Bradford, and Dwight & Lloyd processes there developed a refinement of detail which brought the whole plan of roasting by sintering to a high plane of perfection. But that metallurgy is never stationary is revealed by the fact that changes in milling practice, particularly the development of flotation, have introduced a new set of problems in sintering itself. Inasmuch as it is felt that these problems have not yet been solved in an entirely satisfactory manner this paper is written to record the present practice of the Salt Lake Valley smelters with the hope that there will be brought forth such discussios as may perhaps lead to still better practice. By far the greater proportion of the sulfides smelted today are flotation concentrates. Usually they are high grade, sometimes as high as 70 per cent. and more in lead. They are extremely fine, many mills grinding the ore so that from 60 to 80 per cent. will pass through screens of 200 mesh. The physical condition in which many of these concentrates reach the smelters is disconcerting to the metallurgists. Some are of about the consistency of putty. Others are of a sticky, slimy nature. Others again, dried to the limit, are veritable powders. Remembering that the down-draft sintering charge for the best results must be porous enough to let air be drawn through it reasonably well, must be thoroughly mixed, and must have some coarse material in it to segregate out and form a layer on the grates, it will be understood that the advent of this extremely fine material has made necessary still further elaboration in the equipment and processes of preparing sulfides for the blast furnaces,

Jan 1, 1929

By William S. Hannan, H. Rush Spedden

Flotation may be defined as a process whereby mineral particles are concentrated by selective adhesion to air-liquid interfaces. The process involves attachment of desired mineral particles to air bubbles, and removal of the mineralized air bubbles from the surface of the pulp as a mineral concentrate. Problem Although great strides have been made in understanding the principles of flotation, one part of the process which has not been adequately explained is the mechanism by which selected mineral particles become attached to air bubbles. A glance at the froth of an operating flotation cell demonstrates adequately that use of proper reagents and conditions mill result in such attachments; but how such attachment takes place is not definitely known. A better knowledge of this factor might lead to improved flotation practice either through altered machine design or the application of scientific innovations. Direct observation of the behavior of mineral particles and bubbles in an operating cell does not appear promising because of the complexity of the system. For this reason, conclusions concerning the problem must be deduced from theoretical considerations or from observation of simplified systems designed to reproduce conditions thought to exist in an operating cell. Present Theories Two mechanisms have been recognized as fundamental in particle-bubble attachment: gas precipitation and direct encounter. It is a simple matter to demonstrate in the laboratory that attachment can be brought about by either mechanism. As to the relative importance of the two in a particular flotation system, however, there is a divergence of views. Taggart1 states, Under exceptional circumstances sufficient force and time to effect attachment may conjoin in an ore pulp undergoing agitation, and a preformed bubble adhere to a collector-coated mineral particle, but the occurrence is rare. . . . Pulp-body froth flotation effects selection in the body of a conditioned pulp by causing gas bubbles to precipitate from solution in the liquid phase preferentially at the surfaces of collector-coated particles, and to cling to these particles, Gaudin2 states that, within the pulp body of an agitation machine, attachment of mineral particles to air bubbles occurs as a consequence of contact between the two. This theory has been supported by theoretical reasoning and much circumstantial evidence. Perhaps the most interesting bit of evidence in favor Of this theory js the difficulty in the flotation of fines. If attach-

Jan 1, 1949

By Ralph H. Sweetser

Carbon in pig iron is not only essential but, ordinarily, it is the most abundant metalloid present; iron without carbon could not be pig iron. Carbon in pig iron has been accepted, but seldom specified. How it gets into the pig iron as it is being smelted in the blast furnace, and why just about so much of it enters into the pig iron in certain blast furnaces, and more of it,; or less of it, enters the pig iron in other blast furnaces, or in the same blast furnace under varying conditions, are problems that have not yet been satisfactorily solved. During my own practical blast-furnace experience, I collected analyses of pig iron, including the graphitic and combined carbon, and recorded them in reference to the percentage of silicon present, having in mind the generally accepted explanation that "silicon drove out the carbon." To this actual experience, I have added some analyses given to me by J. B. Rogers, who was superintendent of the blast furnaces of the Ashland Iron & Mining Co., Ashland, Ky., and was making "silvery iron" at the time. These analyses are shown in Table 1. The analyses do not tell the whole story, but they show that with Pocahontas beehive coke, the total carbon was generally high. The data relating to the composition of the slag are lacking but my own customary practice was to have a rather basic slag. During my experience in making pig iron for the Bessemer and open-hearth departments, there were times when the steel men would complain about some mysterious quality in the pig iron that caused bad steel, in spite of the fact that the percentages of silicon, sulfur, phosphorus and manganese were within the specifications. Many reasons were advanced for this undetermined "poison" in the pig iron, but the favorite one offered by the steel men was that the blast-furnace man had "oxidized" the pig iron at the tuyeres in his eagerness to get big production and low cost. To these complaints of the users of steel-making pig irons were added those of the gray iron-foundry men and the malleable iron men. These groups are unaninlous in their conclusions that the trouble lies with the blast-furnace men; but there is not yet any harmonious conclusion as to the exact cause and remedy.

Jan 1, 1927

By Ronald C. Koo

THE effect of grain size on the mechanical properties of the bcc metals has been a subject of intensive theoretical and experimental study.'-l5 Quantitative relationships have been established experimentally between yield stress and grain size and between the ductile-brittle transition temperature and grain size in a number of metals.6"15 Much significance has therefore been attached theoretically to the grain size dependence. In all these experiments, different grain sizes were always achieved by annealing specimens at various temperatures. The implicit assumption was that any change in the dislocation substructure or in the distribution of impurities which might occur simultaneously with the production of various grain sizes had only a negligible effect on the mechanical properties. The validity of this assumption, however, is questionable. transformation in iron-nickel alloys is actually an extraneous phenomenon due to inadvertent compositional changes in the martensite if the heating rate is not sufficiently rapid. This complication can be avoided by up-quenching for the reversal treatment,5 and then the stabilization does not appear. Clearly, the lattice imperfections and strengthening produced by the reverse transformation are not responsible for the marked stabilization which has been observed by other investigators in these alloys. Data will be presented in this note to show that, at least in recrystallized tungsten of commercial purity, the difference in the ductile-brittle transition temperature of specimens annealed at various temperatures is more a result of a variation in the distribution of impurities rather than of the difference in grain size produced by the anneal. Ductile-brittle transition temperatures in tension were determined on powder-metallurgy tungsten specimens recrystallized at various temperatures. Tensile specimens having a gage length of 1.50 in. and gage diam of 0.18 in. were recrystallized at 1450°, 2000°, 2350°, 2550°, 2750°, or 2800" for 30 min in a vacuum furnace at a pressure of 1 x 10"5 mm of Hg and then tested at a constant extension rate of 8 x 10 per sec in an argon atmosphere from 100" to 800". Typical quantitative analyses of impurities are given in the Table. These results show that, within the precision of the analyses, see Table, annealing did not result in any detectable change in the impurity contents of the specimens, nor was there any detectable difference in purity between specimens having large differences in grain size annealed at the same temperatures . The results of the tensile tests yielded three distinct ductile-brittle transition curves approximately 225' apart. As shown in Fig. 1, data of specimens annealed at 1450°C and those of specimens annealed at 2000°C (O) fell on Curve A. Data of specimens annealed at 2350" and 2550°C fell on Curve B, and those of specimens annealed at 2750" and 2800°C fell on Curve C. The decrease in ductility with increase in annealing temperature became so pronounced that one third of the specimens annealed at 2750" and two thirds of the specimens

Jan 1, 1963

By J. J. Lillie

Sublevel stoping was first developed in the Michigan iron mines many years ago. Since that time this method, and modifications with long hole drilling, have been used in a number of non-ferrous mines and have been described in various papers and articles. With a few exceptions, the operations where sublevel methods have been applied are producers of large daily tonnages from ore bodies of considerable size. In selecting mining methods for small properties or relatively small detached ore bodies, sublevel methods often have been overlooked. The method has been used successfully in relatively small operations at Copper Canyon, Nevada, and, more recently, in mining small ore bodies at Darwin, Calif. As a result of this experience, we believe that a review of the general procedure, the advantages noted, and the results obtained will be of interest to many operators of relatively small mines. General Description Briefly, sublevel stoping consists of, first, driving sublevel drifts at predetermined vertical intervals through the length of the stope block; second, breaking an initial mining slot across the stope; third, driving crosscut benches from each sublevel by slabbing into the slot; and, fourth, breaking the ground between benches. Applicability Since this is an open stope method, it requires wall rock that will stand over reasonable stope lengths without caving or excessive slabbing. Ore must be moderately firm but need not be hard. The method is best adapted to steep dipping, tabular or lenticular ore bodies but may be applied to ore bodies of almost any shape if their vertical extent is appreciable. It can be used with dips that are too flat for successful shrinkage stopes and can be modified for use with slushers on dips below about 40". Initial mining at the Copper Canyon operation consisted of sublevel stopes for the wider ore sections and shrinkage stopes for the narrow sections where ore widths averaged about 15 ft. After some experience and a study of comparative results on completed stope blocks, sublevels were substituted for shrinkage stopes even in the narrow ore widths. Practical stope lengths depend upon the character of the walls and the continuity of values within the ore body. Where blocks of low grade or waste are included in the stoping limits, these areas can readily be left as pillars for intermediate wall support and longer stope lengths may be planned. Raises can be spotted in narrow or low grade areas and stope lengths adjusted accordingly. Stoping Details To illustrate stoping details, assume that we have an ore shoot 15 to 30 ft wide and about 200 ft long, with walls that would stand over a stope length of 80 to 90 ft (Fig1). PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT Preliminary development for sublevel stoping would be simple. A service raise is driven at about the center of the block and stope limits planned to leave a pillar around this raise. Sublevel drifts driven each way from this central raise will outline the

Jan 1, 1950

Secondary blast holes are now being pierced in quartzite and sandstone quarries, using multiple hand-operated Jet-Piercing units supplied with oxygen, fuel and water from a compact mobile carrier. A unit of this type, operating in a Canadian quarry, enabled four Jet-Piercing blowpipes to pierce blast holes for two hours without shutdown. The piercing blowpipes used were developed by Linde Air Products Co., a division of Union Carbide and Carbon Corp. The mobile supply carrier was constructed by the quarry from specifications supplied by Linde and modified by the quarry operators for their particular use. Employment of the new self-contained unit, which allows up to four operators to pierce approximately 450 ft of blast hole without shutdown, accelerates rock removal operations. Normally, only two blowpipes are in operation at one time. Large boulders or ledges, which sometimes remain after primary blasting to hamper loading operations, can, in the case of certain hard rock, be prepared for reduction more rapidly with these new units than by any other means. A special feature of the new manual Jet-Piercing unit is the mobile gas and fluid supply carrier. It consists of a standard truck chassis fitted out with four banks of large standard-capacity oxygen cylinders, a steel-holding tank for fuel oil, and a gasoline-driven air compressor and tank for pressurizing the fuel oil tank. Cooling water for the blowpipes is supplied to the unit from a hose extension to the quarry supply line. Feeder lines from the oxygen cylinder manifolds and the oil and water tanks terminate in four sets of take-off stations on the control panel at the rear of the truck. As many as four hand Jet-Piercing blowpipes can be connected to the take-off panel by high-pressure rubber hoses. The hand Jet-Piercing blowpipe used with the mobile supply carrier is a highly portable device which can be manipulated comfortably by one operator. The blowpipe can pierce blast holes at rates up to 60 ft per hour, depending on the properties of the rock. Blast holes can be pierced at any angle from the vertical to the horizontal, making it necessary for the operator to drill from the top of the boulder. Hole diameter is held to approximately that which allows the use of a standard 11/8-in. diameter dynamite. The manual Jet-Piercing blowpipe has these important design features: a burner from which the combustion gases emerge at supersonic speeds (in excess of 6000 ft per sec); a hole-sizing shell which controls the minimum size of the hole and protects the copper burner; and a sliding shield which protects the operator against the steam and spallings ejected from the hole during the piercing. The Jet piercing process has been applied successfully in United States and Canadian quarries within the last several years as an advanced method of "drilling" blast holes.

Jan 1, 1952