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By James Douglas

PROBABLY no well-informed engineer would ques¬tion the accuracy of the statement that the piece of equipment that comes nearest to being in universal use in modern hydrometallurgical and ore-dressing plants is the Dorr continuous thickener. The function of the device is to separate a thin mixture of liquid and solid particles into a thick pulp and a clear liquor. Another machine in wide use is the Dorr classifier, the purpose of which is to separate the coarse and fine particles in a pulp containing solids of various sizes. It is in recognition of the invention of these two devices and the vast amount of technical work in the successful application of them in the beneficiation of ores that the James Douglas Medal for 1930 has been awarded to John Van Nostrand Dorr. To gage the importance of the development of the thickener, particularly, it is only necessary to imagine the loss of time, capacity, and metallurgical efficiency that would result if all the Dorr tanks in the world were put out of operation for a day and replaced by the old methods of intermittent settling and decantation. Truly, the record is one of "distinguished achievement in non-ferrous metallurgy" that deservedly ranks the medalist with those who have preceded

Jan 1, 1930

By THEODORE DWIGHT

Members of the Institute have already received a special pamphlet descriptive of the United Engineering Society building, and wilt doubtless be interested in the progress that has been made up to date-February 24th-in erecting this home for the engineering profession. The old buildings on lots Nos. 25 to 33 W. 39th St., New York, were,' removed many months ago, but final contracts for the new, building were not let until the summer of 1905. The size of the building is 115 ft. on 39th Street, and 88 ft. in, depth; the height from, the sidewalk to the top of the parapet is 220 feet. The cubic contents of the building from the. bottom of the basement floor, to the top of the roof, including the pent houses, is 2,290,000 cubic feet. The number of light's, in the building will be between 4,000 and 4,500. The air supply for Auditorium and Lecture. Halls will amount to nearly 10.0,000 cu. ft, per minute, and the exhaust. to 90,000 cu. ft. per minute. In excavating for cellar and foundations, the average depth where good rock was. found was 37 ft.-it varied, however,: from 27 to 65 ft., due to an old water-course having run through the center of the lot; this condition, and the presence of soft rock, which rapidly disintegrated when exposed to air and water, made the foundation-work very difficult. As two of the column-footings of the building have to sustain a weight of 3,000,000 11) each, the most substantial foundations are necessary; 13,000 cu. yd. of earth were excavated for the foundation and basement; and 1,600 cu. yd. of concrete were necessary, to build up the footings. In the completed building there will be about 3,500,000 bricks. Owing to the number of auditoriums, and their location, and the placing of the library on the top floor; where allowance will have to be made for the enormous weight of 300,000 books, the structural steel work has been unusually complicated in this building. For instance, over the auditorium there are two 60-ton plate-girders, made up

Mar 1, 1906

By AIME AIME

ON March 14, the University of Tulsa was accepted as a member of the North Central Association of Colleges, which ranks Tulsa among the leading universities of the country. A. G. OIiphant recently donated to the new school of petroleum engineering a splendid collection of books on geology, valued at $25,000. Waite Phillips, an oil producer and chairman of directors of The Independent Oil & Gas Co., donated $150,000 for a petroleum engineering building

Jan 1, 1929

By AIME AIME

T HE Mid-Continent Section of the Petroleum Division met on Mar. 11 in the engineer's room of the Tulsa Building, Tulsa, Okla., for the purpose of reviewing the papers presented at the annual meeting in New York. L. G. E. Pignell, chairman and delegate to New York for the Mid-Continent Section, read a brief report giving the outstanding features of the various papers that were presented. He expressed regret that more members of the Division could not be present in New York to hear the interesting papers and discussions. It was his opinion that the various remedies presented for overproduction seemed rather theoretical and impractical and he recommended that the engineers come to the aid of some of the economists in giving more practical consideration to the overproduction problem.

Jan 1, 1929

By AIME AIME

THE annual session for the election of officers and transaction of other official business of the Institute, which must be held, in accordance with the By-Laws, in New York on the third Tuesday in February, was the only session scheduled for the morning of Feb. 19. Many members gathered in the auditorium at 10 o'clock, and President George Otis Smith presided. He said that his report was best set forth in the reports of the other officers and committees, which were avail-able in printed form. Productive activity had characterized the Institute's year and a number of new ventures had been successful. He felt that he had "rattled around" in the office of president, as he had traveled some 39,000 miles during the year in visiting the various Sections, having visited everyone that had held a meeting during his term of office. He spoke of the educational effect on a president of these broad contacts and suggested that a three-year course would be even more enlightening than one.

Jan 1, 1929

By John S. Crout

TWENTY-FIVE years ago the training of an engineer was of interest solely to the educator and to the student entering the field. At that time the engineer's position in society was relatively simple. His training emphasized design and operation and he expected to enter industry to handle the engineering problems of raw materials production, mechanical and product design, and the operation of power plants, factories, transportation and communication systems, and similar phases of industrial activity. He was not concerned with or particularly interested in the problems of management, administration, sales, publicity, industrial relations, or of legislation. To a large degree he was content to leave these matters to self-made businessmen, or men trained in law, finance, or commerce. That period in the evolution of the engineer is now history. It is generally conceded that the modern world is dependent upon engineering technology for its day-to-day survival. The continued operation of facilities on which mankind relies is dependent upon the functioning of mines, utilities, chemical plants, and other factories, all of which require the knowledge and the skills of trained engineers. Thus from a purely mechanical point of view, the engineer has become indispensable to

Jan 1, 1947

By AIME AIME

A SPECIAL meeting arranged by the Petroleum and Gas Committee of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 21 and 22, in the Assembly Room of the American Annex Hotel, St. Louis, Mo. Preceding the first session on Tuesday morning, the members and guests were registered and presented with the usual Institute badges. The morning session was opened at 10:30 by Ralph Arnold of Los Angeles, Calif., Chairman of the Petroleum and Gas Committee. In his opening remarks, he suggested that the petroleum section specialize more and more on the technical problems of the oil industry and that an effort be made to enlarge the membership of the Institute among the technical men of the industry. The following program was presented : OIL FIELDS OF RUSSIA, by A. Beeby Thompson and T. G. Madgwick, of London, England. Presented by H. A. Wheeler; discussed by Arthur Knapp and R. VanA. Mills. This most comprehensive paper was one of what is hoped to be a series to be presented by some of our foreign members. It is by far the best description in English of the world-famous Baku and other fields of Russia.

Jan 1, 1920

By AIME AIME

STEADY advance has been made in the art of lead smelting and refining during the year. The bringing of natural gas to the Salt Lake valley has led to its adaptation to lead smelting operations. The Tooele plant of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. has put into practice the high blast pressure and constant volume for lead blast furnaces, which we understand was first advanced by John F. Austin. It would appear that within limits, capacity is nearly proportional to the volume of air. If the charge is dense, a constant pressure, as in the old practice. did not get much air through the charge and the furnace slowed up. The constant volume idea makes the charge smelt at the same rate as if the charge were porous. The cost of a little additional power insures capacity operation at all times.

Jan 1, 1932

By W. L. Zeigler

THE year 1930 in the Ceur d? Alene district was one of curtailment in production. Many of the small properties were closed entirely and only three large. producers, the Bunker Hill & Sullivan, Hecla, and the Morning mines were left producing at capacity. No innovations in milling were evident, but progress was made in reducing costs as is always necessary in times of low metal prices. One new concentrator was constructed, a 500-ton daily capacity selective flotation plant for, the Jack Waite Mining Co. This mill uses coarse crushing, followed by hand sorting, for both a high-grade ship- ping ore and waste. The remainder of the ore leaving the sorting belt is crushed in a new type Traylor reduction crusher to %-in. size and stored in large capacity mill ore-bins. The grinding is done with ball mills, in closed circuit with a Dorr classifier to 75 per cent - 200 mesh. Minerals Separation 24-in. flotation machines are used both for a lead and a zinc concentrate, with double cleaning in each case. The concentrates are dewatered in Dorr thickeners and filtered on Oliver late-type filters.

Jan 1, 1931

By J. Parke Channing

THE growth of and profession depends on meeting and solving new problems. It is a continuous process. 'A period free from new, or hitherto unknown, questions will be a period of arrested development in the profession it affects. The present generation has witnessed a' mechanical development that has been truly marvelous: Almost every day marks the advent of a new, or the improvement of an old; process, method or machine. Wonders are now commonplace. The impossible is regularly accomplished. Yet, with all our progress in every realm of science and with our development in the engineering field, advances which have made possible the marvelous growth in industry, we have not made commensurate gains in methods affecting the human factor. Without the cooperation of the worker, we shall always fall short of our goal in a mechanical or statistical sense. If we do not make the individual members of the human family strong, healthy, happy, and ambitious for better things for themselves and their children, we will have failed utterly, for that is the real reason for our existence as men and the purpose of our organized effort as an engineering group. Thomas A. Edison

Jan 1, 1921

John S. Kennedy, Chamhersburg, Pa. (communication to the Secretary): The washing-plant described by Mr. Johnson is a good illustration of the advantages derived from a well-designed and care-

Jan 1, 1895

By A. L. Engel

IN the treatment of complex ores by flotation, one of the most important steps is conditioning the feed. Conditioning primarily consists of the addition, in the grinding circuit, of an alkaline reagent, for example sodium carbonate, which neutralizes any acidity of ore and mill water, counteracts the effect of 'harmful soluble salts, disperses colloids, and provides the necessary alkalinity for the best metallurgical results. The several minerals of the ore should be put in such condition that they may be floated or rejected as desired, through the action of further reagents thereafter used.

Jan 1, 1932

By W. M. Peirce

COAL'S importance in the metallurgy of zinc may be gauged by the fact that approximately a million and a half tons is so employed annually in the United States. This brief paper will show in what way the various steps in the treatment of zinc ores utilize this fuel, either in its primary form or as coke or gas, and to what extent. The first step in zinc metallurgy that requires the use of fuel is roasting the sulphide ore, which is the type of ore in which zinc commonly occurs. Since the roasting is nearly or completely autogenous, however, this use of fuel is too minor to warrant further attention. Concentration of zinc ores is usually carried out by conventional milling methods, but a pyrometallurgical method, the Waelz process, is used to concentrate certain low-grade ores, and to recover the zinc content of certain residues in concentrate form. The Waelz process uses a continuous rotary kiln in which a mixture of coal and zinc-bearing material is heated to a

Jan 1, 1948

By Hans Lundberq

WHEN geophysical methods were first employed in the search for ore deposits and oil accumulations, it was hoped that they would provide a direct means of locating such concentrations. Magnetized needles were used long ago in prospecting for magnetic iron ore, and soon after the discovery of galvanism in about 1790 attempts were made to find concentrations of valuable minerals electrically. Evidence indicating that the early geophyeical instruments were regarded merely as improved divining or dowsing rods is to be seen in the names "mineral finders," "ore finders," etc., that were applied to them. Today, appellations of this kind raise serious doubts in informed minds as to the intelligence and integrity of individuals advocating the use of such euphemistically named methods or instruments, for experience and research have shown that, geophysical, it is never a question of directly locating a given mineral but merely of delimiting its possible occurrence.

Jan 1, 1939

By AIME AIME

ON the afternoon of Feb. 20 of this year a new volcano was born in the center of the State of Michoacan, Mexico, about 100 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. Creation of this new mountain - forming crater began on an almost flat cultivated field at the south margin of a small basin about a mile in diameter and having an altitude of approximately 6800 ft. above sea level. This basin is connected to a gently inclined plain that forms the Parangaricutiro valley, the chief town of this municipality, bearing the same name as the valley, being situated three miles from the site of the new crater. The village of Paracutin, from which the new volcano received its name, is about one mile to the northwest of the crater. From the City of Mexico to the volcano is a distance of 330 miles. The paved highway running from Mexico City to Guadalajara, by way of Toluca and Morelia, is left at Carapan; from here another paved branch highway goes to Uruapan. The town of Paracutin is reached by a narrow dirt road 18 miles from Uruapan and connects with a road leading to Parangaricutiro where horses may be hired for a 40-minute trip to a place where visitors can enjoy a magnificent view of the volcano. It is possible to get within half a mile of the point of eruption in this manner.

Jan 1, 1943

By James K. Richardson

STATISTICAL evidence shows that continued efforts made by Government and industry to make mining safer during the last two decades have had most favorable results. In the copper-mining industry an accident frequency of 146 per million man-hours worked in 1925 dropped 71 per cent by 1945 to 43. This downward trend was relatively consistent except for a high period in 1937 which was probably due to a resumption of large-scale operation with many untrained miners. The iron-mining industry showed a similar trend, but at the relatively lower accident frequency of 66, which dropped to 24 in 1945. The close relationship between the steel and iron-mining industries may be one reason for the lower accident frequencies, because the steel industry is noted for its greater recognition of the fact that safe working conditions are an important part of labor-management relations.

Jan 1, 1948

Jan 1, 1936

By Calvin Bjorne, John Keeley

In the face of a highly competitive iron ore market, the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. developed a process now being practiced at the company's Republic mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. By this process, a specular hematite crude ore is being beneficiated to produce a high iron-low silica concentrate with a suitable size structure for the production of a high quality pellet. This process involves crushing, primary grinding and primary flotation, followed by regrinding, heating and refloating the primary flotation concentrate. The ores consist predominantly of specular hematite with relatively minor amounts of magnetite and martite in a recrystallized chert gangue. A wide variety of silicates have been identified, particularly in association with intrusives of various description. The more abundant of these are sericite, talc, grunerite and chlorite with some carbonates, primarily calcite.

Jan 6, 1964

By Knut L. Sandvik, Aage Solbakken

it is an established fact that the collecting properties of xanthates and anionic collectors are dependent on the hydrocarbon chain length. This is ascribed to the greater adsorption densities caused by increasing the xanthate chain length. As batch flotation tests showed similar trends for amines, an investigation of the adsorbing properties of amines was undertaken. Because earlier investigations showed adsorption densities for dodecylamine salts on quartz varying as much as 20 times under apparently similar conditions,1-4 it was decided to make a survey of the changes in adsorption density due to the drying conditions of the quartz. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE The quartz, handpicked in the pegmatite quarries of Iveland, Setesdal, had the following composition: SiO2 99.81, A12O3 0.01, Fe2O3 0.05 and loss by ig-

Jan 1, 1969

By Milton E. Wadsworth, Daniel B. Brimhall

Column leach studies of a low-grade porphyry copper ore were made. The technique used involved alternating oxygen absorption and copper leach cycles. The leach solution was displayed from the column with oxygen. The volume of oxygen reacting with the ore was measured with a gas burette. The copper released as a result of exposure to oxygen was correlated with the oxygen uptake. The oxidation rate was found to be dependent on the pH of the solution wetting the particles and was markedly increased by increasing the temperature of the system. Decreasing the particle size of the sample increased the oxidation rate. A material balance on the system indicated 1 mole of oxygen yielded in excess of 1 mole of copper in solution. A discussion of the important parameters is presented and the results are related to dump leaching in general.

Jan 1, 1974