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By C. H. Benedict

1. Shaking Tables 2. Fine Grinding 3. Hydraulic Classification 4. Mechanical Thickeners 5. Flotation ENTERING the profession of minerals beneficiation (it was plain garden variety "ore dressing" . in those days) I was fortunate that at that time the first major innovation in modern ore dressing practice was being introduced. I refer to the Wilfley table. You youngsters that came into the game only 30 years ago or even more recently, with flotation machines and reagents as your very ready tool in time of trouble, do not realize what the invention of the Wilfley table meant to us. We had but one physical property of ores to reckon with-specific gravity- and when there was but little difference in specific gravity between the mineral and the gangue, we were in trouble. The jig and the revolving table were our only mechanical equipment for recovering values and so that we might make even a reasonably satisfactory extraction, we had to classify and reclassify, and jig and rejig, and worry about the laws and advantages of free settling vs hindered settling and just tire the minerals out.

Jan 10, 1954

By Dexter Kimball

THE ease and promptness with which the public as a whole becomes accustomed to and takes advantage of the work of the engineer, using the term in a broad sense, is almost startling. Surprise at, and fear of radical innovations in transportation and private service quickly give way to blasé indifference, followed instantly by all manner of criticism that these things are not better constructed and managed. Does the street car stop a few minutes on a switch?-summon the State Commission. Is the Overland Express fifteen minutes late on a three thousand mile run?-Congress is memorialized to make the great railroad companies attend to their business. Does central not respond instantly when we take down the telephone receiver?-anathema!! Do the electric lights go out for a minute or so?-the darkness is illuminated by caustic sarcasm and other kinds of spoken English consigning all engineering and engineers to perdition; everyone apparently forgetting how steep the hills were before the days of street cars, how far away San Francisco was before the days of the locomotive, the telegraph and telephone, and how difficult it must have been to study by the light of a tallow candle.

Jan 9, 1922

Balancing the prodigious iron ore deposits of Western Australia are the equally vast coal resources of the Bowen series of eastern Queensland. The Bowen series is a Permian basin stretching 500 miles in a north-south line. The beginning of what will be large scale mining of the Kianga-Moura coalfields in Dawson Valley was made by the Australian company of Thiess Bros. in July 1961. Then Peabody Coal Co. of St. Louis, Mo., joined Thiess. Later, Mitsui & Co. Ltd. received a 20% interest in the firm Thiess, Peabody, Mitsui Coal Pty. Ltd. Rtitsui was to lend the company money for development. Queensland Parliament, by special act, granted the company exclusive franchise over the Kianga-Moura coalfield, an area of 350 square miles. The rights do not include other minerals. The company is to have a 120-mile railroad completed to Gladstone or some other port in seven years. It must produce at least 500,000 long tons of coal annually until the line is built, after which production is to be upped to 2 million tons. By December 1962, these arrangements were completed.

Jan 10, 1964

By Howard S. Strouth

SINCE the days of the Conquistadores, people have told exaggerated tales of the wealth and possibilities of Mexico and Central and South America, and the mining fraternity has never been known to exaggerate any less than any other professional group known to man or beast. However, during a short stay in Mexico one can probably hear more whoppers than at any other time, when dozens of mining propositions are thrust across the desk, and it is not necessary to remind anyone that a listing of the do's and don't's for Mexico requires special mention of the fact that most mining propositions offered south of the border eventually turn out to be a beautiful fairy tale. The following is not suposed to be either an exact description of Standard Mining Corp.'s operations in Mexico by its mining associate, the Corporacion Minera y Beneficiadora Anahuac, S.A., or the last word as to the most economical way to start such an operation. But rather it is the sum total of the recent experiences of the writer while commencing such an operation in 1951-52 with the help of many qualified gentlemen.

Jan 6, 1953

It is too late to gloat over the fact that minerals have furnished 67 per cent of the primary wealth of Pennsylvania. It is high time that Pennsylvanians do some constructive thinking in terms of the present and future with regard to the remaining mineral heritage.1 The discovery of a deposit of pyrophyllite in the South Mountain region of the Cumberland Valley indeed emphasizes the increased importance of a more exact inventory of the metal and mineral resources of Pennsylvania. Active geological work and research have been in progress for many years, but the surface has been little more than scratched. The results obtained thus far in survey and research have been extremely beneficial to the Commonwealth and a fundamental hub of its industrial development. But these activities are wholly inadequate in the face of rising demands for the future. The need for an accelerated program to continue a study of Pennsylvania's mineral resources on a more intensive scale was never more acute.2 In part, this has been caused by the insatiable demands of industry. It has been caused also by wasteful use and ignorance.

Jan 1, 1950

Albert R. LEdoux, New York, N. Y.—I can add a little to the information which has been given, by saying that it has been our business for some years, among other things, to inspect outgoing copper from some of the works here in the East, and to find out why there are variations not only in the conductivity of the wire-bars, but also in the character of the cathode-copper shipped; and we have found two things: These impurities which have been mentioned are largely upon the surface of the cathode. Samples taken of the inside, even of the nodules or " berries " which grow on the outside of the cathode, show that they do not contain more impurities than the denser material in the interior. In other words, it is a superficial deposit or contamination. There is still another reason for impurity in some of the copper which finds its- way to the manufacturers, namely, carelessness in the handling of molds or in casting. We have found copper which was comparatively pure, as far as the copper itself was concerned, but contained, mechanically intruded in the interior of the ingots,

Jan 1, 1913

L. C. GRATON, Cambridge, Mass.-I should like to ask the authors if they attempted to draw any analogies with the manganese deposits at Franklin Furnace, N. J., and whether there are. any traces of zinc in these Brazilian-deposits. J. T. SINGEWALD, JR.-We did not think of them at all as analogous to the Franklin Furnace deposits and there is no appreciable percentage of zinc present. If these ores do contain zinc it could be there 'only as a fraction of a per cent. F. LYNWOOD GARRISON, Philadelphia, Pa. (communication to the Secretary *).-There is no disputing the fact that the manganese ore ,supply situation in this country demands serious consideration and is a matter of fundamental public concern. We are consuming this material at a steadily accelerating rate and there is no hope for a proportionate increase in the domestic supply. In the year 1916, this country imported 560,000 tons and produced only 27,000 tons from our own territory In 1915, the local production was 9,709 tons, which on its face shows the American output to have tripled during the past year. Those of us who are familiar with the

Jan 4, 1917

E. E. BACH, Ellsworth, Pa.-A personal interview with a man is one factor in reducing labor turnover; his working conditions is another, while the conditions under which lie brings up his family is still another; all have much to do with the reduction of labor turnover. A man well placed, happy in his work and happy in his home, will stay put and incidentally decrease the labor turnover in any industry. C. R. HOOK, Middletown, Ohio.-I am so deeply and sincerely interested in the employment problem, that it is very difficult for me, once I get started, to know when to, stop. In the first place, I want you to understand that I realize that what may be a possible accomplishment in the plant with which I happen to be connected, may not be possible of accomplishment in the same way in your plant. Our problems might be quite different; our location might be quite different, and therefore our employment problem would be very much affected by the community conditions. Two of our plants happen to be located in a town of about

Jan 4, 1918

By J. T. Burwell

THE crystal orientation in silicon iron that has been given a particular treatment described by Goss,1 has been studied by Goss, by Bozorth2 and by Sixtus,3 but their results do not agree and are almost entirely qualita-tive. The following pages give a description of the orientation of the crystals in the material as determined by means of X-rays and expressed graphically in a pole figure. The treatment consists of hot-rolling the material into strip and then giving it two cycles of cold reduction followed by recrystallization. This produces remarkably good properties in the rolling direction, the product having a maximum permeability in this direction of more than 25,000 and a permeability at 16,000 Gauss of more than 2200, It is now generally agreed that Goss's original conclusion' that the crystals in the final product are randomly oriented was incorrect, since Bozorth2 and Sixtus,3 using different methods, have shown that there is a decided preference in orientation. Those writers, however, expressed their results only in terms of one or more ideal orientations with deviations therefrom.

Jan 1, 1940

By M. Lonoff

Byproducts are more important to the copper mining companies than to the copper market. Copper ores frequently contain gold, silver, molybdenum, lead, zinc, and cobalt. With the increase in the prices of these metals copper mining has become more profitable. If byproduct prices remain high, additional firms will be attracted to the copper industry; the increased supply of copper will reduce the long-run copper price. However, this is unlikely to happen because the markets for the copper byproducts, especially molybdenum and cobalt, are small. Increased recovery from copper and other sources will depress the prices of these byproducts before the copper price is significantly affected. Should byproduct prices remain high, the copper market will both settle at a lower long-run price and be more unstable in the short run. Since changes in the copper price do not affect the entire earnings of a multi-metal mine, the copper price must fall further before such mines reduce output in the short run. Higher byproduct revenues will make copper supply less responsive to copper prices; shifts in copper demand will result in greater copper price fluctuations in the short run than they did before.

Jan 1, 1984

By C. A. Kroetz, A. J. O’Neal

The Long Island Lighting Co. has operated an extensive monitoring system for over three years. Nearly 900,000 separate pieces of information have been recorded for a land area of some 600 sq miles, 15 miles north to south by 40 miles east to west. The data are composed of about a half million sulfur dioxide measurements at various locations, 290,000 of which were by the West-Gaeke method, about 160,000 pieces of weather data, and 220,000 measurements of sulfur dioxide as emitted from each of the power plant stacks on the system, all measured on an hourly basis and stored on computor cards and tapes. The computor has been programmed to collate stack emissions, weather information, and ground level sulfur dioxide measurements. The analysis shows that emissions from tall stacks do, indeed, contribute very little to ground level sulfur dioxide. For example, LILCO shows that its Northport plant contributes less than 2 ppb, hourly annual average. They also state that the plant converted to 100% natural gas or shut down, would reduce ground level sulfur dioxide by no more than 2 ppb.

Jan 1, 1973

By R. McEwen, G. W. Hansen, G. F. Lee

The effect of using an anionic collector, Reagent 308, a sodium petroleum sulfonate, with a cationic collector, Armac T, a tallow, fatty acid amine acetate, was studied in a series of monomineralic flotation trials with the alkali feldspars and heavy minerals, ilmenite, rutile, garnet, and monazite. This combination of cationic and anionic collectors is employed to float feldspar and heavy minerals from quartz in the beneficiation of sand in Normanville, South Australia, to produce a suitable quartz sand for glassmaking. In the alkali feldspar trials, Armac T additions were held constant, while the 308 additions were varied. In the heavy mineral trials, the 308 was held constant while the Armac T was varied. Peak enhancement of the feldspar recovery was noted when the 308 additions were between 25% and 150% that of the Armac T additions. At higher 308 addition, depression of feldspar flotation occurred. This appears to be due to a neutralizing effect in the combined collector system and to the formation of a nondissociating complex of both collectors. This variability in flotation response when Armac T is used with 308 suggests that the two collectors do not act independently of each other.

Jan 1, 1977

By Charles Catlett

Much has been done of late years to facilitate preliminary stratigraphical investigations, and for examination at considerable depths and in a certain character of material the diamonddrill, in its general forms, certainly stands pre-eminent among the tools for such work. But there are large classes of deposits —indeed, I may say the larger proportion in which ordinary. prospecting is done—which lie near the surface and are interbedded with soft and fine material. The method usually employed for prospecting these is by means of small shafts. These are sunk with considerable slowness and at considerable expense, depending largely upon the character of the material encountered, and are greatly interfered with by water. In this region the smallest are 3 by 4 feet, but they are usually considerably larger. Having had occasion during the past year to do a large amount of prospecting work, I have found the use of a hand-auger and drill of immense value in this respect, and in my practice it has largely superseded, and always preceded, the other forms of investigation. I believe that the information desired mas

Jan 1, 1898

By Paul H. Johnson

Chemical mining may be defined as the use of chemicals in extracting metal values from in situ broken or unbroken ores within a mine. The present means for the generation and regeneration of sulfuric acid or sulfuric-ferric sulfate solutions are inadequate for most applications. This report describes a pressure oxidation process for the generation and regeneration of these solutions from pyrites and spent iron sulfate leach liquors. While recent mining developments such as solution injection, caving, and conventional and nuclear blasting, have provided new and better means for the per-colation of leach solutions through rock masses, little has been done to reduce cost and improve the quality of the leach solutions that are required. A leach solution for chemical mining should meet certain requirements. It should be 1) inexpensive on either a small or large tonnage basis, 2) capable of selectively leaching the desired ore minerals contained in a particular ore, 3) of the proper strength or quality to do the job of leaching in an underground environment and 4) amendable to simple and inexpensive metal recovery steps. It is also important that the capital investment be low for the solution generation and; or regeneration plant.

Jan 8, 1965

By R. W. Raymond

Most of US, in this hurrying age, take little pains to preserve such records of our doings as will make the work of' our biographers easy. Now and then there is an exception, and Dr. Trippel was one. Methodical in all his habits, he kept diaries and journals comprising his own personal experiences, the details and results of his numerous scientific investigations, and his impressions concerning men and events; and also copies of all his technical essays, published by various societies or periodicals. It is a striking instance of " the irony of fate," that these carefully-preserved materials, which would now have a real historical, as well as biographical value, were totally destroyed by an accidental fire a few years ago. In addition to my own recollections of an acquaintance covering more than thirty years, I am indebted, for the fads upon which this sketch is based, chiefly to Mr. Engene J. Trippel, a son of the deceased, and now Register of the United States Land Office at Tucson, Arizona. Mr. Trippel, however, frankly confesses that his own knowledge of his father's work is, in the absence of written records, imperfect.

Jan 1, 1898

Carlisle: This is April 19, 1961. My good friend Dave Irwin is sitting on the other side of the tape recorder. We are at Rose Dhu Island, Savannah, Ga. Now, let's begin with your first job, where and what was that? Irwin: I started out to Arizona, looking for a job and wound up in Morenci. The next morning I applied at the mine office and was put on as a sampler. I worked as a sampler and as an assistant to Frank Pelton, the geologist, for a year, after which I went back to New Haven to take my last year of postgraduate work. After getting my degree, I went back to the Southwest with W. Rowland Cox and Staff, supposedly as a geologist. Q: But that was not when he was with Spurr? Irwin: That was after he had left Spurr. Henry Smith was with the Spurr end of the outfit and I happened to drop into the W. Rowland Cox end. My first job with him was to do some work on a prospect above Metcalf, Ariz., and from there I would go out on short reconnaissance trips in Arizona, New Mexico and old Mexico.

Jan 6, 1964

By Philip B. Dettmer

Up to now we have spoken optimistically of the many potential savings in capital and operating costs to be obtained from the selection of larger diameter and horsepower grinding mills. Such mills may well be the correct choice for one grinding plant but could be absolutely wrong for another plant. It is emphasized here that many significant factors other than the capital cost, labor, grinding media and power savings are involved in the sizing and selection of the optimum grinding circuit. The following discussion covers some of these factors and their relationship to larger mill design. The first consideration is: What is the grinding circuit supposed to do? In most instances it is one or both of the following: 1. Grind the feed material fine enough to liberate the desired minerals but with a minimum of over- grinding. Examples are preparation of ore for flotation, gravity separation, etc. 2. Grind to some pre-specified particle size or particle surface area. Examples of this are cement manufacture or the preparation of feed material for pelletizing; other examples are preparation for chemical reactions or ceramic manufacture.

Jan 5, 1965

As desirable as it may be to a geologist to have maximum detail in any geological report, the task of doing so for an area as vast as British Columbia within six average size magazine pages is clearly impossible. As a result, it has been necessary to draw a fairly broad picture of the geology on the following pages, but it is one which should be adequate to give the reader a concept of what rock is where in the Province. In preparing this horseback ride over the strata of the Province, much reliance has been placed on various reports appearing in trade and Canadian Government journals. Of these, one in particular stands out. Entitled "The Cordilleran Region", this report has been authored in three parts by H. S. Bostock, R. Mulligan and R. J. W. Douglas, respectively, and is included as a major chapter of the book Geology and Economic Minerals of Canada. Published in 1957 by the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, the book has provided the extensive quotes, taken from each of the three authors, which appear on the following pages.

Jan 12, 1963

By H. R. Green, D. M. Lamb, A. D. Taylor

The design of slurry launders has usually been based on strictly empirical concepts. An examination of the most common procedures reveals that they do not account for many of the variables that are recognized as significant for slurry transport. These may include flow rate, volume concentration of solids, solids specific gravity, solids size distribution, particle shape, launder geometry, and roughness of the wetted surface. It was decided to develop a design procedure, which would accomplish two things: First: Take into consideration most of the known significant variables and systematize the procedure to assure consistent results. Second: Provide a rational basis for examining and utilizing operating data to refine and improve the system. To accomplish this, it was necessary to develop a basic design concept. This concept has been developed through a complex development history, and yet still appears workable and technically sound. That concept may be outlined as follows: First: The solids transport velocity is the fundamental basis for slurry launder design. Second: The stream configuration, hence the launder size, is integrated with the solids transport velocity so that the actual stream velocity exceeds the solids transport velocity. Third: The launder slope is that which will achieve the

Jan 1, 1979

On Feb. 16, 1948, the Board of Directors of AIME authorized the publishing of "Technical Notes" in METALS TECHNOLOGY. The purpose is to provide prompt publication of wry short items of the following general types: 1. Results of short investigations which do not warrant a paper. 2. The conclusions of extensive investigations of insufficient general interest to justify a regular paper. 3. Conclusions arising in the course of an investigation, which, because of interest to others in the field, the author wishes to present prior to completion of the investigation. 4. Pertinent factual comment (not mere argument) on the subject matter of previous "Notes." Such Notes will be subject to the approval of the Auxiliary and AIME Publications Committees, but can be handled more promptly than regular papers because they need not be referred to readers. The recommended maxi- mum length is 500 words; notes in excess of 1,000 words will not be considered for this type of publication. A graph or photograph may be included as part of the note when particularly illustrative. As with regular papers, contributions to the new section should be submitted to the Secretary of the AIME.

Jan 1, 1948