Search Documents

Jan 1, 1911

By Dwight L. Sawyer

IF it had not been for the testimony of former Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes, before the Senatorial investigating committee the public would have heard little about the Federal Government's suit against California for the ownership of the tidelands. The Ickes-Pauley dispute brought to public attention that the California tideland oil deposits are the last remaining large Federal oil reserves. Ickes contends that these tideland oil deposits belong to the nation for the benefit of all the people of all the states and not solely to the State of California. Ickes also accused California oil man Ed Pauley of offering to give $330; 000 to the Democratic party fund if Ickes would drop the Federal Government's suit against the State of California for the ownership of said tidelands. The tidelands may be considered as the land bordering the coast line between mean high tide and outward under the ocean for a distance of a marine league, or about three statute miles. This strip of land along the coast of southern California contains large oil deposits which have a present and future prospective value of several billion dollars.

Jan 1, 1947

By F. O., Garrabrant

ELECTRIC power requirements for Climax are similar to those of most metal mines, except that large blocks of power are used underground and there are a number of other unusual applications. Power is furnished to the Company by the Public Service Co. of Colorado over two 100,000-volt lines to a bank of three 3333-kva. transformers 100/13.8 kv. These transformers are designed so that with the addition of forced cooling their capacity may be increased a third at 12,000-ft. altitude. On the secondary side of this bank is a 15-kv., 1200-amp. oil circuit breaker provided with automatic reclosing relays allowing three successive short circuits before lockout. From this breaker 13.8-kv. power is transmitted to a central switching station where all circuits radiate to the different operations of the property. Each circuit is protected by a 23-kv., 600-amp. oil circuit breaker with by-pass and isolating disconnecting switches. (A more complete description of the electrical distribution system at Climax, with detailed drawings, is contained in T.P. 1734, A.I.M.E., Mining Technology, July, 1944.)

Jan 1, 1946

By Russell S. Sage

THE electric motor has steadily replaced the steam and air engine for use in mine hoists, until today a new installation with other than electric drive is a rarity. Much existing steam-driven equipment has been changed over to electric drive. Driving power has grown in capacity since the initial electric unit rated 10 hp installed at Aspen, Colorado, in 1888, to 3000 hp and 4000 hp in the United States, and to 5500 hp in Canada-the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Electric installations now total in the thousands of units, a growth largely made possible by the development of large central electric-power stations and the extension of electric-power service to more mining areas.

Jan 1, 1949

By Paul Weaver

DURING 1932 the amount of geophysical surveying carried out as a part of oil-field development in¬creased, particularly in the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. Here the most intensive geophysical activity was displayed in the discovery of domes and prospects several years ago, after which there was a period of relative inactivity. This year many of the leases required development and geophysical methods were used to obtain pictures of the detailed structures. These were almost exclusively gravity and reflection-seismograph surveys and for the first time this latter method was generally used by oil operators to construct subsurface contours. The total number of geophysical troops in this territory increased from 16 to 40 during the year.

Jan 1, 1933

By CARL B. SNYDER

PERHAPS the most extraordinary thing about business, the trade and production of the country as a whole, is its amazing continuity and growth, its momentum and energy. It goes on year after year, growing steadily, almost without breaks, in spite of every kind of disturbance. We have been grossly deceived into the idea that business is highly variable. We have taken a few things like pig iron, and the like, constructional activity broadly, and imagined that these are a trustworthy measure of trade. Actually they are the worst that we could find. They do not apply to more than 10 per cent or, at the most, possibly 15 per cent of the total of the country's industrial activity. The other 85 or 90 per cent, or even more, goes on growing surely and steadily just like the growth of population and the steady advance in technique, invention, discovery, and improved methods of production Let me give you what seems to me one of the most remarkable examples of this amazing momentum and regularity. You know that 90 per cent or more of the business of the country is done 'by means of checks. About seven-eighths of the total of all checks drawn are reported regularly every week in the newspapers. Let us follow these reports from week to week, just as they come, and plot them up against the correspond- ing weeks of last year, and the year before, and the gear before that, as far back as you would like to go. Take especially the figures for 140 selected cities out- side of New York.

Jan 1, 1929

By L. W. Blau

PERHAPS the most important event f or exploration geophysics in 1940 was the publication of three textbooks : "Geophysical Prospecting for Oil," by L. L. Nettleton ; "Exploration Geophysics," by John J. Jakosky; and "Geophysical Exploration," by C. A. Heiland. The literature had grown so bulky, and such a long time had elapsed since the publication of the texts by Ambronn and Eve, that treatises covering exploration geophysics comprehensively in all its branches and giving literature and patent references were sorely needed. This need has been satisfied admirably in these textbooks, and geophysicists owe the authors a debt of gratitude. In 1940, geophysics came of age. A conference on applied nuclear physics was held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Oct. 28 to Nov. 2. Several papers on geophysical subjects were presented at this meeting. Geophysical activity has decreased in all parts of the world except perhaps in Canada where, under the stimulus of the war's increased demands, prospecting for oil has increased. However, even there the war has had a seriously adverse effect on prospecting for ores and upon the promotion of new properties, although activity in producing and near-producing mines has been stimulated.

Jan 1, 1941

Jan 1, 1951

Jan 1, 1907

Jan 1, 1929

Jan 1, 1946

Jan 1, 1946

Jan 1, 1948

Jan 1, 1938

Jan 1, 1927

Jan 1, 1935

Jan 1, 1935

Jan 1, 1935

Jan 1, 1935

Jan 1, 1923