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Edmund Gybbon SpilsbURy, mining and metallurgical engineer of international reputation, died suddenly of heart failure on May 28, 1920, in the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, following an operation for cataract, which had been successfully performed a few days before. Mr. Spilsbury was one of the early members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, which he joined in 1873. During all this time he contributed freely of his time and ability. He was manager of the Institute from 1885 to 1887, vice-president, 1893 and 1894, and president in 1896. He was also a member of the Engineers Club, of which he was president in 1916 and 1917, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, American Electrochemical Society and the Rocky Mountain Club of New York. He was a trustee of the United Engineering Society from 1916 to his death; a member of United Engineering Society Library Board from its organization in 1913 until his death, being its chairman from 1918 to January, 1920; a trustee of Engineering Foundation Board from 1916 until his death; and member of the John Fritz Medal Board of Award. He was also a member of the Division of Engineering of the National Research Council. Born in London, England, in 1845, Mr. Spilsbury went to Liege, Belgium, at an early age, where he received his preliminary education. For his technical education he attended the University of Louvain, Belgium, graduating in 1862, and later he took a practical course at Clausthal, Germany. In 1864 he became assistant engineer for the Eschweiler Zinc Co., of Stolberg, one of the largest miners and smelters of lead and zinc in the world at that time, and the next year he took charge of that company's mines and works on the Island of Sardinia. From Sardinia he went to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. In 1867 he entered the service of McClean & Stilman, of London, and had charge of the construction of the iron gates for the Surrey Commercial Docks. In 1868 he was designing engineer with J. Casper Harkort, and had charge of most of the detail work of the Keulenberg Bridge in Holland, the Danube Bridge in Vienna, and the Rhine Bridge at Düsseldorf. In 1870 Mr. Spilsbury came to the United States to investigate the lead and zinc resources for the Austro-Belgian Metallurgical Co. After spending two years in this work, he resigned in order to practice in the United States, and he was the first to introduce the Harz system of ore

Jan 1, 1922

By A.A. Grubb, F.L. Wolf

The tests here described were rrlade to obtain information regarding costs, efficiency, etc. of baking cores in an oil-fired oven and two electric ovens, which were installed, early in 1920, in the core room of The Ohio Brass Co. and were used almost continuously during the rest of that year. Operating costs were rather high so a complete test was undertaken early in 1921. The ovens will be referred to as Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Nos. 1 and 2 are electric ovens of different makes while No. 3 is an oil-fired oven made by the firm that made No. 2. The three arc. equipped with similar ventilating devices. They have full-height doors at front and rear. The cores are placed on iron racks, which arc lifted by Cowan trucks and rolled into the ovens through the front doors. When baked, they are removed through the rear doors. Fig. 1 shows the general plan of the elecric ovens while Fig. 2 shows the plan of the oil-fired oven. Oven No. 1 is 91 in. (231 em.) wide, 83 in. (210 em.) high. and 79 in. (200 cm.) deep, inside measurements. The walls are constructed ill panels about 18 in. (46 cm.) wide and 43/16 in. (10.6 em.) thick, packed with blocks of insulating material and covered with sheet iron. Thc concrete floor oil which the owns set is 13 in. (33 cm.) thick. 4 recess about 5 in. (13 cm.) deep was cut in the floor to provide room for the heating units. Channels and plates supported on I beams serve as supports for the trucks and racks. The ventilating system consists of a Sirroco No. 11/2 fan, connected so as to draw air from the top of the oven or from the room, through damper C, and to deliver it either to the bottom of the oven or to the floor; the delivery is controlled by the vane A. The fan 2nd pipes are covered with 1/4-in. (6.3 mm.) asbestos-cement lagging. The heating units have a capacity of 91.4 kw. and arc located along

Jan 1, 1923

By Harry W. Brown

This paper presents results of static capillary pressure measprements made both by the restored-state and by the mercury-injection methods, and of dynamic capillary pressure measurements made by the Hassler technique. The results indicate a variation from sample to sample of the factor used to convert capillary pressure obtained by mercury injection to those applicable to a water-gas system. Static capillary pressures measured by the restored-state method were found to be in close agreement with dynamic capillary pressures, indicating that data obtained from static measurements may be utilized with confidenre in the solution of dynamic problems of fluid flow. Experimental data are presented on the use of "J-curves" for the correlation of capillary pressure-saturation relations for a number of cores from a particular geologic formation. It is shown that the correlation was improved in some cases by reqtricting it to rertain lithologic classifications. INTRODUCTION The Meaning and Importance of Capillary Pressure The coexistence of two or more immiscible fluids within the voids of a porous medium, such as reservoir rock, gives rise to capillary forces. Because of the interfacial tension existing at the boundary between two immiscible fluids in a pore space, the interface is curved, and there is a pressure difference across the interface. This pressure difference is termed the capillary pressure. The magnitude of the capillary pressure between two immiscible fluids which together fill a porous medium depends upon several factors: the textural properties of the medium, the wettability of the medium, the interfacial tension between the fluids, the respective saturations of the fluids, and the manner in which these saturations are attained. For a given pair of immiscible fluids in a particular sample of reservoir rock, the capillary pressure is a unique function of the fluid saturation, provided that the saturation of the fluid which wets the rock has previously been decreased unidirectionally from an initially complete saturation. Similarly, for a given pair of fluids at a particular saturation which has been achieved by a

Jan 1, 1951

Mounting pressures to increase efficiency and yield, conserve energy, or minimize pollution have all taken their toll on the minerals industry. As management and technical personnel take a harder look at their operations for ways to shave cents off operating costs or to squeeze a bit more productivity out of existing equipment, instrumentation often comes up as the most effective answer. When Amax Lead installed an automatic grind control system in its Buick mill, ore throughput increased by 3 to 5%. Mill operators calculate that the initial investment is returned to them several times annually.

Jan 2, 1978

By J. Bruce Wagner, Roger L. Levin

Integrated forms of two solutions of Fick's second law for the movement of a plane interface through a sample of wustite, and for diffusion into a semi-infinite slab of wustite, are shown to yield nearly identical values of the chemical diffusion coeffcients of cation vacancies in wustite, over the temperature range 900° to 1100°C. The chemical diffusion coefficients, the values of D obtained for the propagation of a concentration gradient through samples of undoped and doped wustite, are obtained from the equations It is becoming increasingly important in metallurgical practices to understand the role of the chemical diffusion coefficient, i.e., the diffusion coefficient of a species across a concentration gradient. During the first stages of sintering, one of the mechanisms by which the bonds between neighboring particles develop is by volume or bulk diffusion. This diffusion coefficient as deter- where ?m is the weight change at any time t, ?W is the total weight change at t =8, A is the area of the specimen, and AC is the total change in the cation concentration after the establishment of equilibrium, as determined by reduction experiments in different carbon monoxide -carbon dioxide mixtures within the limits of existence of the single-phase field. mined from the standard equations for volume diffusion during sintering is actually a chemical diffusion coefficient, and it has been observed to be many times larger than the self-diffusion coefficient as determined on the same materials by experiments using radioactive tracer techniques. Kuczyn-ski1 has noted that, if the controlling mechanism of sintering of A12O3 in an oxidizing atmosphere is the diffusion of oxygen, then this diffusion coefficient as measured from sintering rates is about 2.2 x 104 higher than the self-diffusion measurements obtained by tracer techniques. He has also reported the diffusion coefficient obtained from the rate of sintering of Fe2O3 powder to be about 10 6 times faster than the self-diffusion coefficient of

Jan 1, 1965

By R. G. Knickerbocker

The copper smelter and refinery of The Messina (Transvaal) Development Co. Ltd., at Messina, South Africa, was erected in 1920 and 1921, but initial operations were deferred until late in 1922 on account of the collapse of the copper market in the interim. Because the anticipated production was to be only 20 tons of copper per day from a high-grade matte containing 60 per cent copper, and because the ore did not contain gold or silver in quantities sufficient to pay for separation from the copper bullion, it was decided to design the plant along lines quite different from the modern smelteries treating large quantities of sulfide ores carrying appreciable amounts of gold and silver. The plant was built, therefore, for the production of copper by the Nicholls-James process. By this method two-thirds of the copper matte produced was roasted in a Merton calciner and charged into a bath of the remaining one-third portion of unroasted matte in a reaction furnace. The original design was not only novel in providing for the Nicholls-James process, but also in comparison with new plants built elsewhere, because of factors inherent in the locality. Sources of supply for machinery were very remote; it takes three months after the placing of an order to accomplish delivery of machinery into Messina from the United States. Native labor was available at 30 to 40¢ per 8-hr. shift. These factors permitted plant design which provided no overhead cranes, no matte ladles, no slag pots or other usual mechanical means of transportation between departments. The design resulted in a compact simple plant with furnaces arranged close together and terraced so as to provide for gravity transfer of molten material from one furnace to another and for manual disposal of products. Fig. 1 shows the relative location of furnaces. The three furnaces are parallel on successively decreasing elevations. A superimposed feed floor was provided above the furnaces. All three furnaces were provided with coal-dust burners served from a Bonnot system of coal-dust transportation, and the waste gases were discharged into waste-heat boilers. A short trial of the Nicholls-James process developed several facts which brought about a decision to abandon the process. Owing to the

Jan 1, 1934

By William L. Fink

Nickel is used as an alloying element in several complex commercial aluminum alloys, among which are found some very interesting properties, such as relatively high strength at elevated temperatures, relatively low coefficient of expansion, the absence of permanent growth, ability to take a good polish, and a bright, pleasing as-cast surface. For that reason the aluminum-nickel system was included in the list of binary aluminum systems that are being studied as a preparation for the investigation of more complex commercial alloys. This paper is the fifteenth of a series from the Research Laboratories of the Aluminum Company of America reporting the results of investigations of equilibrium relations in aluminum-base alloys of high purity. The aluminum-nickel equilibrium diagram from 0 to 18 per cent nickel was determined, using the purest material available. Previous Investigations The entire aluminum-nickel system was studied thermally and microscopically by Gwyer.1 At the aluminum end of the system he found the intermetallic compound NiA13. He found a eutectic at 6 per cent nickel with a melting point of 630" C. A slight thermal arrest, which he could not explain, was also noted in alloys from 2.5 per cent to 41.9 per cent nickel at 550" C. Bingham and Haughton,2 in a later investigation of alloys of aluminum with copper and nickel found the eutectic concentration of the binary aluminum-nickel system at about 5.3 per cent nickel. The melting point of the eutectic was about 633" C., or slightly higher than that found by Gwyer. Although the solid solubility of nickel in aluminum could not

Jan 1, 1934

By D. B. Hobbs, H. O. Burrows, T. D. Stay

Aluminum which has lost its original identity as to source may be considered as secondary. This would include scrap originating in the fabrication of aluminum, which is not consumed at the plant of fabrication, and all material resulting from fabrication, which has lost its original identity regardless of whether it be consumed at the plant of fabrication or not. In general, secondary aluminum may be divided into two classes, commercially pure and alloyed. The chief impurities found in commercially pure aluminum are copper, iron, titanium and silicon; while in aluminum alloys, copper, iron, titanium, silicon, zinc, manganese, magnesium, nickel, or tin, may be present in varying proportions. Occasionally lead and antimony are found in secondary aluminurn alloys, especially if the alloy results from remelting vender's automotive scrap. Such alloyed elements as are found in the scrap cannot be removed on remelting. In this, the remelting of secondary aluminum differs from the smelting of secondary copper or most other secondary metals. The majority of secondary materials reach the consumer in the form of remelt ingot or remelt No. 12 ingot. This ingot varies greatly in quality, depending upon the source of the material, and the manner in which it is refined and blended. The principal differences between primary and secondary ingot are: 1. The composition of secondary ingot may be more or less inclcfinite. 2. Secondary ingot may contain more dross and oxide. Secondary ingot may, however, be used successfully in a great itiany products. Relation of Primary Production to Secondary Production Table 1, compiled from data published by The Ameriran Metal Market, gives an approxirnatc idea of the relation of primary to srcondary production. Information obtained from other sources leads the authors to believe that the figures for secondary production are somewhat low.

By J. Bartrum, I. S. Schache, H. J. Dobrowolski

Developments in milling of silver/lead/zinc ores at Mount Isa since 1970 have followed broad objectives to improve metallurgical performance and to increase plant capacities for Mount Isa ores treated through the No. 2 Concentrator. Pilot Plant work on a range of Hilton ores has led to detailed feasibility studies on application of heavy media pre-concentration and zinc reverse cleaning techniques on Mount Isa ores. The role of these developments in achieving metallurgical goals and effects of different ore characteristics are discussed.

Jan 1, 1977

By Peter G. Tregelles, Derek K. Barham

Introduction A successful step towards mechanisation of the collier's work was taken in 1954 when the first Anderton shearer loader was commissioned in Lancashire, and progress was reinforced in 1956 when the first powered supports were installed in Nottinghamshire. By 1970, virtually 100% of the coalfaces in the United Kingdom were mechanised and the industry's productivity had doubled. In 1961 the National Coal Board recognised that the next move towards greater productivity and improved safety would be to automate the longwall system. What was not well enough understood, however, was that the basic prerequisites of automation - reliability and measurement - had not yet been achieved. Consequently, the schemes for automatic longwall faces and for an entirely automated colliery were abandoned at the close of the decade. A review of mining research and development policy, commissioned by the Board in 1974, confirmed that the system of longwall mining had great potential for investment and that the short-term policy of automation must once again be pursued. Since then, aided by advances in computer technology, systems for automating the transport of coal from the face to the coal preparation plant have been successfully instituted. Applications of sub-systems dealing with the conveyor, coal preparation plant, and various items of fixed plant are now at the exploitation stage. In the medium term, a number of key problems have been identified, which will arise once the productivity from the coalfaces has doubled, as it is now expected to do in the next five years. One of the most important of these problems is machine guidance, and considerable research and development work is now being carried out in this area. This paper reviews the work on machine guidance prior to 1974 and explains the programme on which the National Coal Board's Mining Research and Development Establishment is currently working.

Jan 1, 1981

By J. A. Bownocker

The existence of petroleum in the rocks of Ohio and Indiana seems to have been first shown by wells dug for salt. The fuel, however, was objectionable owing to its odor and inflammability. Not until the Drake well was drilled in 1859 did the people appreciate the value of rock oil, and then they at once began plans to secure the coveted fuel. The first successful well in these two states was near Macksburg, in southeast Ohio, where at a depth of 59 ft. (17 m.) oil was found in commercial quantity (1860). A year later this fuel was secured on Cow Run, in the same county, and at about the same time in Noble, Morgan and perhaps other counties in that part of Ohio. The second great step in the production of oil in Ohio and Indiana was taken in 1884 when the reservoir of natural gas in the Trenton limestone of northwest Ohio was tapped, and where a year later oil was secured in the same formation. Petroleum in this limestone was obtained in Indiana in 1889.' The third step in the production of oil in Ohio and Indiana is associated with the Clinton sand of Ohio. Natural gas in large volume was discovered in that rock at Lancaster, in 1887, and the area has been extended until it has become the largest individual producer in the world. The presence of natural gas in such great volume all but demonstrated to the driller that oil lay hidden near by. Soon the search for it was started but not until 1899 was petroleum in commercial quantity found in the Clinton sand, and a large pool was not located in it until 1907. The fourth step in the developrllrnt of the industry was taken in 1913, when the pool in Sullivan County, in western Indiana, was opened. The producing rock is the Huron sandstone, which is the topmost member of the Mississippian system.²

Jan 1, 1921

By Mehl, Robert F.

IT has been shown by numerous studies that the orientations of new metal crystals are determined by the orientations of the crystals in the original matrix, whether these new crystals are formed by recrystalliza-tion, by precipitation from solid solutions, or by transitions in the solid state. The orientations of crystals formed by recrystallization of cold-worked worked metals that bear preferred orientations are occasionally simply related to the initial preferred orientation; often, however, the relation-ship is not simple, but complicated and obscure in origin.1 The orientations of crystals formed by precipitation from solid solu-tions have been shown by many studies in this and other countries to be determined by the orientation of the crystals of the solid solution stable at the higher temperatures, though here again complicated cases have been found and no general theory is available .2 Related to this latter class

Jan 1, 1934

The ten-year "supply-demand relationship" tables in this chapter for various mineral and metal commodities have been adapted from Minerals in the U.S. Economy, compiled by the Bureau of Mines, U.S. Department of the Interior, published in 1975. Acknowledgment is made to the Bureau of Mines for compilation of the tables. [ ]

Jan 1, 1976

The classification here used is one of convenience only; it is not intended to include all known types of ore deposits. The characteristic features of the several well-marked types of primary mineralizations are described without reference to the ultimate source of their metals. The minerals of many deposits of obscure origin were probably introduced through fissures that are now healed, or are due to the migration of metals from such deposits. [ ] It is not within the scope of this book to enter into a general discussion of the genesis of ore deposits but, in view of the progress being made in our comprehension of the conditions under which ore deposits were formed, mention should be made of recent work. J. E. Spurr's two volumes, "The Ore Magmas," are recommended as crystallizing the views of those who are inclined to ascribe the origin of most ore deposits to a differential precipitation from magmatic rock masses and to the migration and precipitation of the viscous, liquid or gaseous exhalations from those masses. He has especially emphasized the role

Jan 1, 1932

By Wilford L. Stork

Certain influences of oxygen on iron have been known for many years and it has always been considered one of the worst enemies of the iron and steel founders. Nobody had a good word for it, hence little was done to make use of this oxygen. In all the fields of foundry practice, the desideratum was "melt without oxidation of the metal." In the consideration of the influence of oxygen on cast iron, we must not confuse this condition with oxidized iron caused by poor melting conditions, due to a high bed, heavy charges, low coke ratio, excessive melting rate, high blast, or poor charging. It is admitted that oxygen absorbed by iron melted under these conditions has a deleterious effect on the properties of the iron. The writer has had experience both in the melting under such poor conditions and in remedying these bad conditions and considers the product far inferior to iron melted under normal conditions. As stated by Dr. Richard Moldenke,l such iron has a higher melting point and high combined carbon, is sluggish, and contains slags and oxides in solution in the liquid, causing slag inclusions and gas occlusions, 'thus producing defective castings. This oxidized condition cannot be counteracted or removed by any of the known deoxidizers; it can be remedied only by proper melting conditions. Such iron is redly burned, whereas the iron considered in this paper was melted under normal conditions with moderate blast, correct bed height, light charges of iron, and low coke consumption and is not in this category at all. In 1914, the late J. E. Johnson, Jr., startled the metallurgists of the . world when he published his results on the advantages of oxygen on cast iron.2 His work is so convincing and so logical, in spite of the common and well-established notions on the subject, that nobody has been able to refute a single argument. Such an eminent authority on iron and steel metallurgy as Prof. H. M. Howe has accepted the work in all its details in his latest book.3 The work of J. E. Johnson, Jr., has revolutionized the metallurgy of cast iron and it seems apparent that all future work must include an oxygen determination just as we include silicon, sul-

Jan 1, 1920

By G. E. Anderson

THE Asientos-Tepezala district is in the north of the State of Aguascalientes, about 30 miles north of the city of Aguascalientes, the capital. The district is reached by a standard-gage railway on the west side through the junction, Rincon de Romos, which is on the main line of the National Railways of Mexico from El Paso to Aguascalientes. The terminal is Tepezala. On the east side a narrow gage connects Asientos with the junction, San Gil, on the main line, Asientos to San Luis Potosi. Tepezala on the west side of the Asientos hills is about 2 miles from Asientos on the east side. The area between the two mining centers is separated by a low subued divide which forms the central part of the hills. The district is in a group of isolated hills surrounded by characteristic bolson plains. The hills rise above the surrounding plains about 6500 to 10,000 ft.; the highest peak is Alta Mira. The two mining districts lie somewhat upon the flanks of the hills at about the same elevation, 7200 ft. The district is an old one and has been known since early in the 17th Century when the mines were worked by the Franciscan Monks. Their mining operations which were limited to the oxidized ore above the water level, consisted chiefly in extracting silver from the Santa Francisca vein. To judge from the old workings and the remains of surface plant, the operations were on a large scale. By modern mining operations since about 1900, the various mines of the district have been one of the principal sources of ore for the smelter located at Aguascalientes.

Jan 2, 1926

By Joseph Sinclair

THE Republic of Ecuador is situated partly in the northern and partly in the southern hemisphere. The equatorial line passes about 11 miles north of Quito, and. divides the country into two almost equal parts. Crossing the equator almost at right angles, and extending from Colombia into Peru, the Andes form a great upland that, in cross-section, resembles a truncated cone, the top of which is about 40 miles wide and about 10,000 ft. above the sea, while the base is about 80 miles wide extending from sea level, on the Pacific Coast, to the Amazon Plain, on the east. Superimposed on this upland are many active and extinct volcanoes, which form roughly two parallel chains of mountains, on the eastern and western boundaries, respectively, of the plateau. These are often referred to as the Eastern and Western Cordilleras of the Andes, although their parallelism is somewhat. questionable. The highest of these mountain, masses is Chimborazo, about 21,000 ft., above the sea; among the others is the volcanic peak, Cotopaxi, rising to about 18,000 ft. above the sea. The development of the petroleum resources of Ecuador is greatly affected by this Andean mass, not only .because of its composition and geological structure but because of the barrier it interposes between the lowlands on the Pacific side and whatever part of the Amazon Plain to the east is finally found to belong to Ecuador, for the eastern boundary of the Republic is still in dispute with Peru. To understand, therefore, the development of the petroleum reources of the Ecuador and the barriers to such development, we must bear in mind the three great physio-graphic divisions, viz., the Pacific Coastal region on the west, the Andean Plateau in the center, and the Amazon Plain on the east. The first important effect of the threefold physiographic division is that Ecuador has two sets of petroleum regulations: one for. that portion east of the Andes, and one for the Andean Plateau and the Pacific Coastal region although it is probable that the two sets of regulations are, in part, 'due to the boundary dispute with Peru.

Jan 3, 1924

By P. S. Rudman

Laves phases, AB2, are considered as Izerrzisub-stitutional solutions m1hich are defined by a one-for-truo replacement scheme. Atomic-size tnisfit is considered in terms of deviations of the ratio 2V°b/V°A from unity, where v° = atomic volume. A simple elastic model has been used to calculated deviations from "Vegard&apos;s law of atomic vol-umes". Comparison has been made between calculated and observed atomic-volume deviations fov 222 Laves phases. Agreement is generally very good although there ave some few exceptions which appear to be excusable in terms of electronic changes that ore beyond the scope of the present model. We can consider the formation of a binary sub-stitutional solution A-B from an A solvent as one-for-one replacements of A atoms by B atoms. As the atomic-size ratio deviates from unity, the solution becomes thermodynamically less stable and hence more restricted because of atomic-misfit strain energy. In accordance with our previously presented conclusion1 that the atomic volume, v, is in general the most appropriate measure of atomic size, the ideal size ratio for a binary sub-stitutional solution is vg/vA = 1. The Laves phases have been described by Berry and Raynor2 in terms of various stacking sequences of hexagonal layers of B atoms for the three structures MgZn2(C14), MgCu2(C15), and MgNi2(C36). To form the Laves phase of ideal composition AB, we start with complete hexagonal layers of B atoms in the appropriate stacking sequence and we remove, according to an appropriate scheme for each structure, two out of every four B atoms and replace the two removed atoms by one A atom. We thus might expect to find that the ideal size ratio for the Laves phases is 2v/B/ VA= 1. From this point of view, then, we call Laves phases hemi-substitutional solutions since we employ one-for-two replacements. By analogy with substitutional solutions we can expect for Laves phases that as the ratio 2VB/Va deviates from unity the phase occurrence will be more restricted. Laves3 has plotted the distribution of Laves phases as a function of the radius ratio, ?A/rB, and found that, while the distribution extended from 1.05 < rA/B < 1.50, the

Jan 1, 1965

By R. W. Raymond

THE question, what is the best proportion among weight, fall, and speed of stamps, is one which has not yet received thorough and systematic examination. In considering the economical application of stamping machinery, we meet, at the beginning, with serious difficulties in obtaining accurate data for comparison. The weight and fall of stamps vary as the shoes and dies wear out; and this may lead to a change of speed also. Moreover, defects in engines, boilers, or machinery for the transmission of power, may occasion serious losses, which cannot fairly be charged to the arrangements of the stamps proper. Again, the capacity of stamp-mills is directly dependent, in some degree, upon the nature and extent of discharge, fineness of screens, and other peculiarities of the battery. Finally, the hardness and tenacity of the rock crushed varies so much that comparisons between different localities cannot be implicitly trusted. The safest experiments are those made in the same mill, by changing first one and then another condition of working; but this is seldom possible for such conditions as weight and lift of stamps, and only within narrow limits for their speed. We may eliminate of friction, transmission, and generation of power, in the case of stamps, by measuring the power actually developed by their fall. Thus, the weight, multiplied into the fall in feet, and the number of drops per minute, gives us exactly the number of foot-pounds exerted by each stamp. Dividing by 33,000, the number of foot-pounds per minute in one-horse power, we have the horse-power per stamp, from which the effective power of the whole mill may be obtained. Dividing the amount of rock crushed daily by the effective horse-power, gives us the daily amount per horse-power ; and this is the best measure that can be obtained for the effectiveness of the stamps. A complete discussion of the subject would require us to determine the exact influence of the discharge, etc., and the exact resistance offered by different classes of rocks, for both of which points the data are wanting. Professor J. D. Hague, in the third volume of the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, gives a valuable

By Campbell Osborn

From the viewpoint of practical economic engineering the main value in studies of demand and supply lies in the information they give concerning the next movement of price. The title of this discussion is too comprehensive for detailed analysis and it will, therefore, be narrowed to the question of price measurement. The oil operator is interested primarily in net profits. Prices, costs and production determine them. Production is here used in its broadest sense. It includes refining and marketing. It is an operating problem. Prices and costs are economic considerations. Though costs are an important element of prices and profits, the subject is too large to be treated in a brief paper of this sort. In the long run, costs govern prices, but for the purpose of gaging prices in the immediate future the relationship of current demand and supply are more significant. Operating, expansion, retrenchment, sales and storage policies of oil companies are largely influenced by the feeling of executives concerning this relationship. The stockholders of companies whose executives are wrong may suffer. Investors who err in their judgment may likewise lose. On the other hand, oil companies and investors who appraise these factors correctly and move accordingly will profit. It is an important subject worthy of careful consideration. The author has been asked to discuss the subject for 1928. From the beginning of the year until the first of June, as illustrated by Fig. 1, over-supply prevailed in the face of restricted production, but from June to September, with record consumption, demand slightly exceeded supply and oil came out of storage in the United States as a whole. One of the main problems of the oil man is to decide whether this condition will continue and what the next movement of prices will be. Before he can do so he must have an understanding of the underlying conditions and of the facts that led to the present situation. With these facts in mind he is in a position to measure the effect of the present relationship of demand and supply on price and is afforded a perspective that may enable him to look ahead for a short period of time. The practical

Jan 1, 1929