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By LIONEL E. BOOTH

ORE tests are made for the purpose of determining the correct methods of treatment for any particular ore. They should be conducted so as to insure that the results obtained in actual mill practice, on ore of similar grade and physical nature, will duplicate the results obtained in the test work. As the expenditure of many thousand of dollars may be involved in the building of the necessary mill, the testing of ores calls for extreme care and skill in handling laboratory machines, and a knowledge of actual practice to guard against the danger of obtaining results in test work that would be impractical to duplicate on a commercial scale. The importance of a correct sample of the ore is at once apparent. No matter with what degree of care the test 4rk is done, it loses its value when made on an unrepresentative sample. It is the first safeguard against future disappointments in the loss of capital and time. A number of failures in the past have been traced directly to faulty or lax methods in obtaining the ore sample.

Jan 1, 1924

By Ulick Evans

I SHOULD like to commence by saying how much I appreciate the honor which the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers has done me in inviting me to visit your country, and to deliver this lecture before you. In choosing a subject, and in deciding what to include and what to omit, I have endeavored to discuss as far as possible work carried out recently in Europe with which you may not be unduly familiar. It would be poor return for your hospitality, and a mistaken sort of compliment indeed, if I were to load the lecture with accounts of researches carried out in your own country-researches with which you are probably better acquainted than I. Not that I have in any way excluded work done on this side of the Atlantic from my survey; one would indeed find it difficult to write on this, or on any other branch of science, without mentioning American work. But I have endeavored as far as possible to concentrate on aspects of the case which will, I hope, be comparatively fresh to you, and I feel fairly certain that this will be in accordance with your own wishes. If a strip of iron is heated strongly at one end, the other end remaining cold, there is produced over the heated portion a layer of oxide scale, the thickness of which diminishes steadily with the distance from the hot end. Somewhere in the middle of the strip, the thickness of the oxidized layer will become comparable to the wave length of light, and over this region the thin films give rise to a series of beautiful interference tints, commonly known as "temper colors." The colors are caused by the fact that two trains of light waves are reflected respectively from the outer and inner surfaces of the oxide film, and the possibility arises that the "crests" of one series of waves may coincide with the "troughs" of the other, thus diminishing the intensity of the light of some particular wave length. The state of affairs in this part of the strip is shown diagrammatically in Fig. 1, in which the film thickness is enormously exaggerated, of course, in comparison with the length of the strip; the

Jan 1, 1929

The objective of the mission was basically to study the utilization of engineers and engineering technicians and their interrelationship in the Soviet Union. Beginning with their graduation from the engineering institutes and technicums, we hoped to learn how the graduates started out in industry, what their training on the job was, what sort of work they did, and how they worked themselves up within their profession. However, it turned out that, as our host was the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Education, most of our visits were to educational establishments. Our itinerary covered Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Rostov, Baku, and Tashkent, with a side trip to Samarkand. In all, we visited 13 technical institutes, three technicums, and five industrial plants or enterprises, as they are called there. Our trip was one of only four weeks. Our observations were limited by the few cities and enterprises we were permitted to visit. Nevertheless, we did come back with some definite impressions and conclusions which we feel should be of interest to engineers, educators, and those concerned with the relative economic and technical power of the USSR and the U.S.

Jan 9, 1960

By J. B. Tyrell

A SHORT time ago I paid a visit to the alluvial gold fields on the tributaries of the Chaudière River in Beauce County, Quebec, in company with A. 0. Dufresne, late manager of the Champs d'Or Rigaud-Veaudreuil, and now Assistant to the Superintendent of Mines of the Province of Quebec. As the conditions under which the gold occurs in this district are not very generally known, and present some interesting features, a brief description of these conditions, and a consideration of the causes which gave rise to them, may be of interest to other mining engineers. During the latter half of last century the country was visited by many mining engineers and geologists, and many references to it may be found in the reports of the Geological Survey of Canada between 1848 and 1911. The most important of these are by J. A. Dresser and J. Keele and the late Robert Chalmers. The Department of Colonization and Mines of the Province of Quebec also published a report with map on the district by J. Obalski. From the earliest times the valley of the Chaudière River formed one of the main avenues of approach to the St. Lawrence in the vicinity of Quebec from the country to the south as far as the seaboard of the States of Maine and Massachusetts. The Indians had a well-known trail along the banks of the stream, and armed troops and foraging parties constantly moved backward and forward along it between Quebec and New England in those insecure times before the ceding of Canada to Great Britain. Even yet the natural advantages of this old military route are recognized, and the government of the -Province of Quebec has now under construction along it a magnificent highway from Quebec to the International Boundary Line, which is to form part of a through highway from that city to Boston; The land along the valley is naturally well suited for agriculture, and about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries farmers began to go back from the St. Lawrence, and to occupy the higher lands along the upper portions of the Chaudière Valley. This settlement has gone on until now the country is peopled with a prosperous agricultural population.

Jan 3, 1915

By B. S. Butler, H. D. McCaskey

The New London copper mine, about 8 1/2 miles east of Frederick, Md., was visited by the writers for a few hours in the spring of 1909 and the following brief notes on ore specimens collected are presented as a contribution to studies in chalcocite ores. For certain data on the structural and areal geology of this portion of Maryland the writers are under obligation to the unpublished notes and maps of Arthur Keith. The detailed study of the ores is the work of B. S. Butler. The deposit here discussed has many similarities to those of the Virginia district of Virginia and North Carolina, which have been described by Gratonl and Laney,2 except that in the deposits of the New London mine chalcocite is by far the most important ore mineral, while in the Virginia deposits bornite is commonly the most important sulphide. In the New London occurrence calcite is the most important gangue mineral. Field relations The -town of Frederick lies in the center of a narrow belt of limestone ranging in age from Ordovician on the east to Cambrian on the west. This belt is about + mile wide at Noland's Ferry, on the Potomac, and broadens to a width of 3 miles at Frederick. The general direction is east of north. The eastern boundary is, in places, a fault plane along which a series of metamorphic rocks of presumptive pre-Cambrian age have been thrust up. These ancient rocks, for several miles east and west of New London, are phyllites in the main, but closely inter-folded near the New London mine are long, narrow lenses of epidote

Jan 1, 1915

By A. N. Rogers

Jan 1, 1883

By Frances Hurd, Clark

Iv 1897, Roberts-Austen(l)$ found an arrest in the thermal curves of alloys of 60 per cent. copper and 40 per cent. zinc. This break occurred from 450° to 470° C. Shepherd, (2) working in 1904, was unable to detect any change in the direction of the thermal curve. In 1911, Carpenter and Edwards(3) confirmed the work of Roberts-Austen and called this a eutectoid transformation of beta to alpha plus gamma. Hudson') in 1914, showed that the beta constituent could be produced synthetically at temperatures below the transformation point. He believed the change in the beta was polymorphic in nature rather than a eutectoid. The work of Matsuda(32) in 1922 demonstrated this break by thermal analysis, microscopic investigations, dilatation, electrical resistance measurements, and a thermoelectric study. He believed the transformation to be continuous from 300° to 480° C., and comparable to the A 2 transformation in iron. Later, in 1924, Andrew and Hay, with electrical resistance measurements, confirmed Matsuda's work. Imai(28) showed the transformation to be progressive and therefore a function of the temperature rather than the time. He stated that it was neither a eutectoid nor an allotropic change of phase. Atomistically expressed, it was a change, not of atomic configuration, but of atomic energy of some kind; and again it was compared to the A 2 transformation in iron. Imai believed that his analyses by X-rays led to the same conclusion. In order to study this change, at 470'C., in homogeneous 60:40 brass, Homerberg and Williams «0> and Homerberg and Shaw(41) quenched their material in iced brine to obtain the beta solid solution and reheated at various temperatures. At 200° C., a change in the microstructure and physical properties occurred. A fine-grained structure, which they termed alpha and which had the appearance of a sorbitic steel, appeared, with an increase in the tensile strength to 82,750 lb. per sq. in., and a Brinell ball hardness of 240 with 3000 kg. load. At 470° C., the alpha

Jan 1, 1927

By S. Froes

Official daily output of the Reconcavo (Bahia) oil fields, which amounted to 300 bbl., increased by the end of 1944 to 500 bbl. The new productive wells are in the district of Candeias. This figure is expected to further increase during 1945. The Itatig Company, which had drilled five wildcats in the state of Sergipe, stopped in 1944, but intends to resume work during the current year, or as soon as the war is over, in order to try the Cretaceous areas around its salt deposits. Several concessions applied for in the states of Sao Paulo, Parana arid Santa Catarina were favorably considered by the Conselho Nacional de Yetroleo, which is interested in fostering prospecting activities in the country. Several national groups are interested in exploring the federal gas field of Aratu (Bahia), a proposal having been made to use the gas in the manufacture of Portland cement. Undoubtedly the most important fact in the 1944 activities was the visit by two outstanding petroleum geologists, who had the opportunity to examine some of the principal areas and reported their opinions to the Brazilian Government. By special courtesy of the U. S. Government, Mr. E. DeGolyer spent a few weeks inspecting the gas and oil fields of the so-called "Reconcavo" of Bahia (a large tract surrounding All Saints Bay, on whose shore lies the city of Salvador) Later he exchanged ideas with Colonel Joao Carlos Barreto, President of the Conselho Nacional de Petrolco, as to the most adequate measures to develop production. Considering the oil problem in the southern part of Brazil, in the sedimentary belt including formations from the Devonian to the Triajsic, Mr. DeGolyer suggested a visit there by Mr. Lemis MacNaughton. The latter traveled during the months of June, July and August, accompanied by Brazilian geologists Avelino de Oliveira, Vice-president of the Conselho Nacionial de Pctroleo, Pedro Moura, Annibal Bastos, Burdot Dutra and J. Felicissimo, and verified the actual possibilities of the region, thus confirming the opinion of Pedro Moura, Avelino de Oliveira and Froes Abreu as to the advisability of thoroughly prospecting the south of Brazil. It is to be hoped that on the recommendation of these proficient American experts the Brazilian Government will take the necessary measurcs to carry out a complete search 01 such areas, which hitherto have been unsuccessfully drilled because knowledge of the structure was not adequate. The old Government policy of monopolistic essence has now given way to the more enlightened tendency of reconciling official action with private enterprise, which should in no way be curbed but rather encouraged. Such trend is heartily welcomed by financiers and technicians alike, who realize how indispensable is the cooperation of private capital, both national and foreign, in

Jan 1, 1945

By W. D. Smith

It has been 5 years since the writer left the Philippine Islands and while in that country his chief work did not lie in this field, though he has visited all but one of the localities mentioned in this article. The principal field studies relating to oil were M de by his colleague, Mr. Wallace E. Pratt. The writer's investigations ealt with the general stratigraphy and paleontology of the Philippines. with the exception of the investigations made by Mr. Pratt and the writer very little information on this subject is available. A number of geologists in the employ of large oil companies have visited the Islands from time to time but, following the general rule, the public has scarcely ever been permitted to learn anything of the results. The writer is indebted to the Bureau of Insular Affairs, Washington, for late information regarding recent legislation in the Islands relating to petroleum. All the known oil seeps, petroleum residues, such as ozocerite, and natural-gas emanations are associated with Tertiary sediments. The chief seeps and most promising prospects are located as follows: 1. Bondoc Peninsula (lower end), Tayabas Province, Southeast Luzon. 2. The west coast of the island of Cebü from Alegria north to, and perhaps beyond, Toledo. 3. Central Mindanao not far from Lake Lanao. 4. The ozocerite veins on the Island of Leyte in the northwestern part in the vicinity of the town of Villaba. 5. Natural gas from some deep wells in Tertiary shale formations on the eastern flank of the Cordillera and extending out under the plain on the island of Panay. The first mention in geological literature, to the writer's knowledge, of gas or petroleum in the Philippines is found in the description of the Island of Panay by the Spanish geologist, Abella, in the year 1890. In 1898, an oil well was being dug on the estate of Smith Bell & Co., an English concern, near the town of Toledo on the west coast of Cebu. In

Jan 1, 1921

By Dever Ashmead

ANTHRACITE was first mined in the Wyoming Valley and sold as an article of commerce in 1808. As some preparation has always been necessary to make it ready to burn, the preparation of anthracite must date back over a hundred years. Two vital factors have determined to a large extent the degree and method of anthracite preparation. These are, first, the character of the beds worked and the methods by which they were mined and, second, the equipment used and practices followed in the burning of the coal. It is not the intention here to go deeply into these phases of preparation as a paper of no mean length could be prepared on the history of either. Rather, the intention here is to point out the main considerations and to show the influence they have exerted on the preparation of anthracite. MINING METHODS AND THEIR RELATION TO PREPARATION In the beginning f the nineteenth century, the coal beds were virgin with the possible exception of some outcroppings that had been worked, to a slight extent, by the Indians. It is known that the American aborigines had a knowledge of the use of this fuel, because when the Wyoming Valley was purchased from them, in 1754, they mentioned the fact that, by selling the land, they would lose their coal.

Jan 9, 1921

A. Bement, Chicago,Ill. (communication to the Secretary*):— Formerly it was the general practice of engineers to designate coal that is free from moisture and ash as " combustible," notwithstandirig that it contains oxygen and nitrogen. The origin of this practice was more particularly due to the requirements in connection with boiler-testing, which demanded a consideration of that portion of the fuel which took part in the combuition-process because results based on a unit of either moist or dry coal were not comparable, since both moisture and ash were recognized as variable quantities. Thus, a pound of " combustible " became a standard of value, and was treated as a constant before employing measurements of heating-power and calculating therefrom the percentage of efficiency. The recognition of this term " combustible " was an advance to be credited to the engineer rather than to the chemist, because the latter, not having to do with the interpretation of analyses in practice outside the laboratory, usually saw no reason for reporting results in terms other than those of the moist-coal composition. Some years ago I needed a table of fuel-composition in terms of moist, dry, moisture-free and ash-free coal, and of the combustible components. This table required the use of the word combustible in its proper sense, for the purpose of designating carbon, hydrogen, and sulphur, instead of including these three elements with oxygen and nitrogen, to which aggregate the term combustible was formerly applied. To make such a tabulation involved either the use of the inconvenient and cumbersome term, "ash- and moisture-free coal," or of some other representative term, and for this purpose I adopted the expression pure coal, which is short, simple, convenient, and technically correct. It is also harmonious, because it agrees

Jan 1, 1909

By Oliver Bowles

A NORTH CAROLINA miner dreamed that he found high-grade mica by excavating a certain corner of his mine. The next day he sank a hole on the exact spot and found mica of excellent quality. The dream came true. May not this be as good a method as any yet known for forecasting the valuable mineral content of pegmatites? The Federal Geological Survey has found in its recent detailed studies in New England that good sheet mica occurs most abundantly in zoned pegmatites, particularly in zones lying along the wall or contact of the pegmatite mass. Although this conclusion may be a valuable guide, pegmatite mining operations must still be classed as most uncertain and hazardous enterprises. Finding of the second largest diamond ever discovered in the United States-a stone of good gem quality weighing more than 34 carats-during the course of a horseshoe pitching contest at Peterstown, W. Va., is another example of unorthodox mining methods. These should not be considered, however, as characteristic mining methods developed in 1944.

Jan 1, 1945

By Robert F. Mehl

PROGRESS in the general field of nonferrous physical metallurgy during the past .year has been uneventful but healthy. A continued increase is apparent in the number of useful alloys and in the mechanical treatment and heat- treatment of finished metals and alloys nothing can hinder the multiplication of alloys or the diversification of their treatment as knowledge of the behavior of .alloys increases; as ternary and quaternary alloys are better understood, hundreds of new metal combinations with unusual properties may well be expected. Evidence of rapid progress is already at hand.

Jan 1, 1936

By P. W. Bridgman

DURING the war, the Navy undertook the construction, under my direction, of an experimental gun embodying features designed to lessen the cost and time of production. These experiments were initiated after representations as to their, desirability had been offered by myself, by the Naval Consulting Board, and by the National Research Council. The first drawings were made in June, 1917, and the experiment was completed in November, 1918. For the sake of clearness it will pay to recapitulate briefly the fundamental idea of gun construction. It is well known that if a hollow cylinder is subjected to internal fluid pressure, the maximum stress occurs in the inside layers, the outer parts carrying much less than their due share of the stress. This inequality of stress is more pronounced the thicker the walls of the cylinder. If such a cylinder is pushed to the elastic limit, failure in elasticity will take place long before the outer layers have reached the limit of their capacity. Economical use of the material would demand, however, that all parts of the cylinder reach the limits of their capacity simultaneously. This may be brought about, at least in cylinders of not too great thickness, by producing in. the inner layers an initial compression, and in the outer layers an initial tension. The effect of internal pressure is at, first to relieve the compression of the inside layers, while increasing the tension of the outside layers. If the initial stresses are properly distributed, all parts of the cylinder will reach their elastic limits simultaneously, thus giving a cylinder of maximum strength for its weight. In gun construction as hitherto practiced, this initial distribution of stress is produced either by winding the inner tube with wire, a common English practice, or by shrinking hoops over the inner tube, which has been the standard American practice. Either process is long and expensive, particularly with the larger guns, 12- or 14-in., which require

Jan 2, 1920

Faulty rock dusting of the New Orient Mine at West Frankfort, Ill. was declared to have been the primary cause of the extent of the blast that killed 119 men on December 21. Walter Eadie, state director of mines and minerals, ascribed the explosion to the ignition of methane in a working place about a mile northwest of the shaft of the mine. The initiation of the combustion was either by a spark from electrical machinery or from men smoking in the mine. It was surmised that a train of empty cars stalled in a ventilation door, had caused sufficient disturbance in the ventilation system to permit accumulation of gases. The Federal Bureau of Mines said that the Illinois explosion was caused by an electrical spark that touched off the clouds of gas present because of the faulty ventilation equipment. The bureau report listed three conditions as primarily responsible: An inadequate ventilating system, operation of faulty electrical equipment and the presence of large accumulations of fine coal dust capable of exploding. "This coal dust, principally along roadways, was not removed from the mine or rendered inert by the application of sufficient rock dust," the report stated. Investigations showed that an even more disastrous blast was averted because the explosion eventually reached areas where it could expand into open workings and where enough rock dust had been applied to retard it.

Jan 1, 1952

By K. BRUCE DAVIDSON

-The North Central Texas area includes the following counties in Railroad Commission of Texas District 7-B: Brown, Callahan, Coleman, Comanche, Coryell, Eastland, Erath, Fisher, Hamilton, Haskell, Hood, Jones, Lampasas, Mills, Nolan, Palo Pinto, Parker, S

Jan 1, 1946

By William H. Spice

Drilling activities in South Central Texas for the year 1945 continued the steady increase over the past two years, while new fields discovered for the year included four new gas fields and one field extension. In the 30 counties included in this area, which comprises district No. 1, Oil and Gas Division, Railroad Commission of Texas, 141 exploratory wells were completed, compared with 61 drilled in 1944 and 29 drilled in 1943. Of these 141 tests, 55 were field well and 86 were wildcats; 38 were completed as oil wells, S as gas and gas-distillate producers, and 95 were abandoned as dry. Atascosa and McMullen Counties were the most active in the district, accounting for 73 of the wells drilled.

Jan 1, 1946

By B. W. Howlett, M. B. Bever, Somnath Misra

The heats of Formation of the compounds Sb2Se3, Bi2Se3, Sb2Te3, and Bi2Te3 and the heats of solution of tellurium and selenium in liquid bismuth have been measured in a liquid metal solution calorimeter. The heat capacities near the melting point, the heats of fusion, and the melting points of the two tellurides have been measured in a constant temperature gradient calorimeter. The thermo-dynamic quantities are interpreted in relation to the stability of the compounds and the nature of the solid-liquid transition. THE selenides and tellurides of several elements of Group VB of the periodic system are of interest because of their electronic properties. The compounds Sb2Se3, Bi2Se3, Sb2Te3, and Bi2Te3 are semi- conductors; they also have gained prominence in the fields of thermoelectricity and photoconductivity. However, little is known about their thermody-namic properties. As part of a research program on the thermo-dynamic properties of intermetallic compounds, the heats of formation of the compounds Sb2Se3, Bi2Se3, Sb2Te3, and Bi2Te3 were measured in a liquid metal solution calorimeter. The heat capacities near the melting point, the heats of fusion, and the melting points of the two tellurides were measured in a constant temperature gradient calorimeter. The results, in addition to their intrinsic interest as thermodynamic quantities, contribute to an understanding of the stability of the compounds and the nature of the solid-liquid transition. 1) EXPERIMENTAL 1.1) Materials. Samples of the compounds SbzSe3 and Bi2Se3 were prepared by melting the elements in stoichiometric proportions in evacuated Vycor capsules followed by quenchinn in water. They- were then annealed in vacuum for 12 hr at 550°C. A sample of Sb2Te3, consisting mainly of one large grain, supplied by the Lincoln Laboratory,

Jan 1, 1964

Carlisle: This is August 1960 and I am sitting across the table from Henry DeWitt Smith. We both took the mining course at Yale the same year; and here we are, over fifty years later, at Nantucket Island where we have spent quite a number of summers together. Now, let's start the questions with something about the center of your career. Let's say Tsumeb; not about the mine itself which people know, but some of the details on how you happened to take it over for Newmont. Mr. Smith: I first heard of Tsumeb, a famous German mine, through our own associates O'okiep Copper Co. From 1935 on, the local management at O'okiep, being reasonably close, kept the New York office informed. It served as a listening post for new mine development, as well as being a highly profitable copper mine in the northwest Cape Colony. We had all known of a famous German mine in South West Africa called Tsumeb. But it had a reputation for not welcoming visiting engineers. One engineer who went to this property for the Ministry of Supply in 1943, '44 and '45 was Arthur Storke. He was much impressed with possibilities of profitable operation. This mine had been operated by a German company since 1910. It was finally taken over by the Custodian of Enemy Property for the Union of South Africa.

Jan 11, 1963

By Vsevolod Krivobok

THE re-crystallization of metals has been the subject of much scientific investigation, some of which has resulted in a better understanding of this extremely important and interesting phenomenon. Unfortunately, while many have propounded theories of re-crystallization, but a few have presented experimental evidence as to how it takes place. If this can be determined the question, why re-crystallization occurs, may be answered more definitely. Re-crystallization in single phase metals consists of a complete rearrangement and re-sizing of the grains, of which the structure is composed, while the type of structure remains the same. That is to say, if the structure before re-crystallization is composed of a number of polyhedral grains of different shape and size, a particular spot after re-crystallization will be seen to consist of grains in no way different from the original except in size and shape. The re-crystallized grains may be smaller or larger, depending on the treatment received; and, while the re-crystallization may be brought about by means of heat treatment only in passing through a critical range, yet it is common knowledge that single phase metals subjected to cold working are possessed of a tendency toward re-crystallization, even if the heating does not reach critical range. The study of re-crystallization would, of course, be much easier if we had single crystals of any metal as the original material with which to study the phenomenon of re-crystallization, since it would permit the observation of structural changes at what amounts to enormous magnification, by changing the scale of the specimen. In metals of more normal grain size the crystal boundaries introduce complications, but the process, it may be assumed, is essentially the same. Such an opportunity

Jan 2, 1926