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By AIME AIME

T HE year 1920 will be a memorable one in the history of the world's coal supply. The prices reached were the highest of modern times, and as usually happens at such a time, the quality of the output deteriorated. In the last two years of the war, the world's output had risen close to the pre-war level. After the armistice, however, the cessation of munitions manufacture and the delay in resumption of normal business curtailed the demand for coal. Industrial disputes both in Europe and America closed many mines late in 1919 and further reduced the supply. Thus when in 1920 the world set its face to work again and industrial activity was resumed where resumption was possible, consumers' reserves of fuel proved insufficient and an almost universal feeling of apprehension over the coal supply swept around the world. The reasons for this alarm-lately a thing of the past-become clear when the world's production in 1920 is cast up.

Jan 1, 1921

By AIME AIME

THE non-ferrous alloys have been placed in the same class with steel by metallurgical research on hardening, and hardenable alloys of all metals except zinc are now manufactured. The hardening of the non-ferrous alloys is accomplished by a process of heating, quenching and ageing. R. S. Dean, head of the research department of the Western Electric Co., told of the results of this research in 'a lecture on "Recent Advances in the Art and Science of Fabricating Metals," given before the Missouri Mining and Metallurgical Association on Jan. 24, 1929.

Jan 1, 1929

By E. C. Weichel

THERE have been many attempts at permanent roof support in anthracite mines, in some cases brick arches, in others concrete, and also combinations of brick or concrete walls with steel beams. These supposedly permanent roof supports have frequently failed when heavy pressure is brought to bear upon the structure, because they are so rigid that failure occurs because the structure is unable to adjust itself to the increased load. Roof pressure exerts a tremendous weight, and it is at times difficult to find any means of support which is strong enough to bear the entire pressure, unless this supporting structure has in itself the element of some flexibility which will enable the structure to hold the moving mass until it "arches" itself. If the supporting medium has flexibility enough so that it can adjust itself to the heavy initial loads, and so give the overlying material an opportunity to form a self-supporting arch, then such a roof support will be more useful than any rigid roof support. There has recently been introduced into the anthracite region a new form of gangway lining that is flexible enough to slightly adjust itself under heavy pressures, and so give the loosened material which is being supported a chance to form into an "arched" mass. This lining, manufactured under patents granted to Hans Schaefer of Essen, Germany, was introduced in the United States in the summer of 1928, at which time the Amercan licensee, Richard Howells of

Jan 1, 1930

By H. C. Goodrich

THE earliest record of copper production from the state of Utah comes from "The Resources of Utah," by. Mr. Fabian, in 1872, wherein it is stated that the. Mammoth mine of East Tintic was located in 1870 and that the ores yielded a large percentage of copper, silver and gold. It is also stated that shipments had been made to Swansea, England, which assayed between $200 and $300 per ton. The Mammoth-Copperopolis mine was located in, 1870 and sold the year following to an English syndicate. Some copper was shipped to. England and in 1873 there was constructed a 15-stamp mill and two copper smelting furnaces; these were operated a few months and before the end of the year were closed down and the property sold for debt. . This property -vas reorganized in 1879 and is at the present day a producer, though its principal product now is lead and silver. While a certain amount of copper has always been coming from the various lead-silver camps of Utah, the real history of copper in Utah should start with the discovery of the mines in Bingham Canyon, located about 25 miles to the southwest from Salt Lake City.

Jan 1, 1925

By Robert B. Paul

This paper describes the new lead smelter and refinery recently completed by the American Smelting and Refining company in Southeast Missouri.

Jan 1, 1970

By James Aston

INDICATIVE of the practical importance of the achievement of James Aston , recipient of the Robert W. Hunt Medal for 1930, is the following prosaic item from the financial columns of a recent issue of a New York newspaper. "According to private advices from Pittsburgh, production costs of the A. M. Byers Co. for 1929 were reduced about $5 a ton by the use of the Aston process for making wrought iron pipe. A greater saving is anticipated for 1930, when more of the company?s requirements will be produced by the new method."

Jan 1, 1930

By Chester B. White

ARGENTINA is a country that has never been properly prospected. This is my settled conclusion after reporting on mines in this country ever since 1914, crossing all the mining provinces from Chubut, in the South, to the territory of Los Andes, in the North, chiefly on muleback. It is difficult and costly to get from one district to another. Apart from petroleum, some mineral discoveries have been made but they have been the result of casual rather than systematic work. In Neuquen, Mendoza, San Juan, Cordoba, La Rioja, Catamarca, and Los Andes attempts at mine development have resulted in failures, involving in each instance several million pesos.

Jan 1, 1937

By Nicholas J. Grant, John S. Benjamin, Bill C. Giessen

In the course of a study of hard particle-duc tile binder composite alloys, interest arose in the nature of the products of the reaction between the inter metallic compound NiAl and the binder niobium. No published information was then available. A program to

Jan 1, 1967

By K. G. Colman

This text is intended to provide the operator and turn-key contractor with the basic data for sizing vibrating screens to be used in ore crushing plants. The basic capacities, modifying factors, etc. used in the area requirement calculations were developed empirically and modified to their present values based upon years of practical applications. It must be pointed out that screening is much more of an art than an exact science, however, the information presented here should provide for reasonably accurate screen sizing when applied to metallic ores .

Jan 1, 1978

By Peretti, E. A.

Since its development about forty years ago by J. V. N. Dorr (Cyanidation and Concentration of Gold and Silver Ores, McGraw Hill Book Co., 1936, 1-5), and others, continuous countercurrent decantation has not only become one of the standard methods for extracting gold and silver from their ores, but has also found wide application in other metallurgical and chemical industries. In 1917 L. B. Eames published an excellent paper (Countercurrent Decantation, Trans AIME, 1917, 57, 143- 158), in which he determined the effects of grade of ore, ratio of solution precipitated to ore treated, variations in the density of the thickener spigot discharge and variations in the value of the barren solution upon the gold assay of the solutions discharged from the thickeners in the system. Eames showed that, other things being equal, the dissolved gold lost in the tailing varies directly as the value of the ore and as the value of the barren solution. The tailing loss de- creases rapidly as the ratio of solution precipitated to ore treated is increased to about three or four to one. Beyond this point the improvement is negligible.

Jan 1, 1949

By David R. Maneval, Sylvester Lemezis

All acid mine drain waters, regardless of source, share certain characteristics; but they do differ in exact chemical composition, degree of acidity, and total solids content. Any serious program to treat such waters must recognize these differences and apply to each specific case the technique which offers the best promise of each specific case the technique which offers the best promise of technical and economic success. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Mines and Mineral Industries has originated and funded studies of many different treatment means. Neutralization with lime is now being used on 200 different polluted streams in Pennsylvania, and multistage flash evaporation has been selected for a particularly large and troublesome outfall near Wilkes-Barre, Pa. A 5 x 106 gpd plant for this latter site is now being designed by Westinghouse Electric Corp. which developed a concentration process based on multistage flash evaporation as part of the State's research program.

Jan 1, 1973

By V. F. Swanson

A petrographic study was made of the type and sources of mineral contamination occurring in Florida phosphate rock products. Emphasis was placed on contaminants in the screened rock (+1 mm), since this portion of the product undergoes no physical beneficiation except for scrubbing to remove slimes. Since iron and aluminum contents of the finished product affect the salability, special emphasis was placed on identifying types and sources of these contaminants and relating chemical composition to visual characteristics. Wavellite derived from the overburden was the major aluminum contaminant with some aluminum being included as secondary clay balls. Iron occurred as phosphates in the overburden and as colloidal oxides included in the phosphate pebbles. Chert and limestone contamination derived from the Hawthorne formation underlying the phosphate matrix.

Jan 1, 1972

By COREY C. BRAYTON

PACIFIC COAST steel and iron industries can now take care of all the western and export demands except for heavy structural shapes, thick plates, rails, alloy tool steels, and a few other items. In. 1902 all of our steel came from St. Louis and Milwaukee and points still farther east. A small quantity at that time came from foreign countries. Early mining in the West was, broadly speaking, prior to the steel age. 'Wood for structures and iron for castings were almost exclusively used. Forgings were made of rolled iron that came from the East and foreign countries. San Francisco was, from the early days of mining, the manufacturing center for mining and milling machinery of all types and held that position until the .nineties, when eastern competition began to be felt. Even today in the old mining camps of the West, and many abroad, you will find machines and equipment with familiar San Francisco manufacturers' names. ..Iron, either rolled or cast, entered into their manufacture, for steel castings did not come into general use :until the nineties.

Jan 1, 1929

IN THE early evening of October 15, 1954, a large specially designed truck, convoyed by a second smaller one, arrived at Silver Bell, Arizona, completing a ten-hour 110-mile journey from Phoenix. The big truck was driven through gaps left in a previously prepared concrete foundation, the load was jacked up, the large girders that constituted the bed of the truck were pulled away, and the load was then lowered into place on the foundation. A crew of two men, the two truck drivers, finished the job in a little more than an hour. When they were through, a complete and attractive three-bedroom house, prefabricated in Phoenix, was almost ready for occupancy. About all that remained to do was to connect the utilities-water, electricity, plumbing, and gas. The kitchen and bathroom equipment and appointments were superior in every respect, and there was a built-in car port for the automobile of the prospective residents. This family domicile was one of more than one hundred, each averaging about $8,000 in cost, that the American Smelting and Refining Company has provided for its employees engaged in mining and milling 7,500 tons per day of low-grade Porphyry copper ore. Aside from the fact that it is more economical-partly because of the variety of union craftsmen needed to build and equip a house-to do the work in a city 110 miles away, the significant point is the high quality of housing that is provided for what may be called in nostalgic vein the "mining camp" of 1955. Silver Bell is typical of all the Porphyries in this respect though the community is relatively small. At San Manuel

Jan 1, 1957

By Frank Van Horn

INTRODUCTION IN June, 1911, the writer spent a few days in studying the economic geology of the vicinity of Park City. During this rather hurried visit a number of specimens of ore were collected, which have since been examined. The results of these investigations show that bournonite (PbCuSbS3) is present in the ores in greater or less quantity. This fact has never before been reported, as far as can be learned. The failure to recognize this mineral is due to its similarity to tetrahedrite, with which it has probably been confused during a long period of years. Jamesonite (Pb2Sb2S5) has been reported from the region in a rather doubtful manner, but the writer has seen it in notable amounts from several mines, and can offer the first analysis of this mineral from the district. Calamine (H2Zn2SiO6) was found at one mine and has never been recognized and reported from the district.

Jan 8, 1914

By AIME AIME

YALE UNIVERSITY looked like a top-notch school to "Bert" Phillips in spite of the belief that the college in the home town sometimes looks less attractive than a more distant campus. So Bert, a native of New Haven, earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Yale. Immediately after Yale days lie served as metallurgist of the Scovill Manufacturing Co., Waterbury, and then went to the Central Research Laboratories of the American Smelting and Refining Co. at Maurer, N. J., where since 1931 he has been superintendent of research. Bert has contributed to metallurgical literature many reports of studies on the constitution and the physical, metallurgy of copper and copper alloys as well as papers on general nonferrous physical metallurgy.

Jan 1, 1938

By AIME

Cores must be cut in half to secure workable samples for saturation, porosity, and permeability tests. They come from the field labeled as to the type of core, well, and depth from which they came.

Jan 1, 1948

By Philip D. Wilson

IT has been my privilege to read the article prepared by R. S. Dean entitled "Production of Alumina from Low-Grade Domestic Materials" which appears on another page of this issue. Dr. Dean should be congratulated on the preparation of such an erudite and scholarly dissertation on bauxite and on the work which the Bureau of Mines has been doing in connection with the development of processes to use low-grade domestic materials.

Jan 1, 1943

By Joseph Kelly

DEPLETION of anthracite resources in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, has forced the recovery of coal tracts formerly considered unminable. Chief among these are the large areas of outcrop coal lying on a heavy pitch on the mountain sides, abandoned thirty or forty years ago as too costly and too hazardous to mine. The old companies, in many instances, stopped their chambers 80 or 100 ft. hack from the actual outcrop, and then dropped back another 100 ft. before starting to rob the pillars, thus leaving large areas of coal. Recovery of this coal naturally leads to mining hazards not encountered years ago. The first step is to sink a slope from the surface with the pitch of the vein, and then drive counters across the pitch as close to the robbed area as proper protection for the lower side of the -counter will permit. Next, the old chambers are advanced or new ones driven in the solid, as the conditions require. As these chambers approach the outcrop the real safety work begins-that of preventing the miner from being buried or locked in by an avalanche of mud.

Jan 1, 1936

By AIME AIME

TOTAL shipments of iron ore from the Lake Superior district totalled 21,672,410 long tons in 1933, according to a compilation in Skillings' Mining Review. The producers ranked as follows in order of output shipped:

Jan 1, 1934