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By Roy Hardy

THE Getchell mine is a comparatively recent discovery in the old Potosi mining district, Humboldt County, Nevada, a district organized in the seventies and eighties, in which some prospecting was done in several metamorphic zones along a monzonite-sedimentary contact. The district had no production in the early days and no further work was done until the same metamorphic zones were prospected for tungsten (scheelite) in 1917 and 1918, when a few small lots were shipped. It again lay dormant until 1934, when prospectors investigated a large siliceous escarpment at one end of the old district where outcroppings were a prominent feature of the topography. Undoubtedly, during the early prospecting of the district, the outcroppings had been investigated for mineral, probably by panning, with negligible results because the gold later found is invisible in the concentrate and is refractory. A fire assay revealed the presence of sufficient gold to warrant develop-ment work. The outcroppings were easily prospected by short tunnels having their portals in the siliceous material on the hanging-wall side, with a maximum distance to crosscut to the footwall of 135 ft., or a distance at right angle to dip of 60 to 90 ft. Development work, reaching a depth of over 600 ft. on the dip of the vein, was done by means of various crosscut tunnels, winzes and laterals. A churn-drill hole was also sunk, which intersected the vein at a depth of 1100 ft. on the dip. Sufficient development work of this character was completed by 1937 to justify the erection of a reduc-tion plant to roast the sulphide ore and cyanide the calcine, and to treat the oxidized ore by straight cyanidation, to make a doré bullion for shipment to the mint. The erection of the plant was started that year and finished early in 1938, with a combined capacity of about 800 tons per day. It has operated continuously since erection and recently was enlarged to handle 1000 tons per day. The vein dips with the slope of the mountain, and by stripping the hanging wall the ore may be mined by power shovel for several hun-dred feet below the outcrop. Thereafter underground methods will be necessary.

Jan 1, 1940

By Carl Zapffe

Because no rock outcrops exist in the Cuyuna district, it is necessary first to make a magnetic survey with a dip needle, or possibly with a sun-dial compass, and determine the area or belt of magnetic variations and the maximum lines of magnetic attraction. A dip-needle survey is quicker to make, is sufficiently accurate, and will suffice. Regardless of how poorly defined the magnetic attractions may be, it is important that they be determined. Even if drilling has developed ore on an adjoining property, the survey should not be omitted. Iron-bearing formation is indicated by the magnetic attractions, but whether or not ore exists must be determined by drilling. The maximum line of magnetic attraction offers the best place to begin drilling. If no magnetic attraction exists, nearby developments are the only guide; and if these also are lacking, drilling is governed by guess. Test-pitting is not employed in exploratory work because the surface is too deep. Tunneling cannot be used because the topography is not suitable. Exploration shafts are a waste of time and expense, because from every standpoint drilling with churn and diamond drills is the most applicable method for exploratory work. Light drilling equipment only is needed. Rarely have heavier drills been required, for seldom do holes exceed 400 ft. in depth, and about 100 ft. of this is in glacial drift which is easy to penetrate. The deepest hole is 1023 ft. Because of the steep inclination of the strata and the narrowness of the orebodies, many angle holes have been drilled, mostly at 60' to 70" from the horizontal and against the dip of the formation. Angle holes are most advisable. If after initial drilling the beds are of shallow dip, vertical holes or holes of any angle can be used. The total cost of drilling a property is much greater if only vertical holes are used because more holes must be drilled to obtain the requisite information than when angle holes are used. Many tests for variation in angularity of a finished hole have seldom shown more than 2'; therefore, such tests may with safety be abandoned. Because the orebodies are generally about 100 ft. wide and cross a 40-acre tract at a slight angle, and as the dips are usually about 70"

Jan 1, 1925

By Eugene S. Perry

The only outstanding development in Montana oil or gas fields during 1935 was the extension of the Cut Bank oil and gas field 7 miles southward. This field is now about 20 miles long and 3 to 8 miles wide, with 218 producing oil wells and 39 producing gas wells. Average daily production of the oil field during December, 1935, was about 6700 bbl.; total production for the year 1935 was approximately 2,020,770 barrels. The Cut Bank field in northern Montana is in a flat to rolling glaciated area used mainly for grazing purposes. Oil and gas occurs in sandstones and shaly sandstones in the Kootenai (Dakota) formation of Lower Cretaceous age at depths ranging from 2700 to 3000 ft. Prominent anticlinal or domal structure is not present, but small plunging anticlines occur locally. Strata dip westward from 75 to 200 ft. per mile. The field lies on the western flank of the Sweetgrass arch, a broad gentle upwarp over 150 miles long. Localization of oil and gas appears to be due either to pinching or lensing out of the sandstone beds, or else silting of the sandstones with clay minerals so that porosity becomes low. Within the field offset wells show marked variation in initial production, which suggests that differences in porosity of sandstone is the controlling factor. The gas-producing portion of the field is entirely updip (east) from the oil-producing portion, and the producing horizons are the same. Initial production of oil wells ranged from about 50 to about 200 bbl. per day, and initial open flow of gas wells ranged from about one million to about 37 million cubic feet per day, with an average of 11 million cubic feet. Initial gas pressures were slightly greater than 700 lb. per sq. in. Oil is brought to the surface by pumping. Both rotary and standard churn-drilling equipment are used. In the remaining 14 oil and gas fields but little new activity took place other than the drilling of offset wells and wells in proven territory. Continuation of "acid treatment" of wells in the Kevin and Pondera oil fields led to reconditioning of many old wells and the drilling of a number of new wells within these fields. Acid treatment of the oil-bearing horizon, which is the dolomitized and silicified Madison limestone of Mississippian age, has proved quite satisfactory, and some "bone dry"

Jan 1, 1936

By G. S. Hume

IN THE autumn of 1922, British Petroleums Ltd. found oil of 14° Baume in a sand 17 ft. thick in its No. 2 well at Wainwright, 120 miles southeast of Edmonton. This greatly encouraged drilling in the Wainwright-Irma area and this past summer several wells were started, three of which are now completed' and the others still being drilled. Of the three completed, No. 4 British Petroleums contains oil; No. 3 British Petroleums gave a show of oil but so far has not given much hope of becoming a commercial producer; and No. 1 Maple Leaf Co., as now finished, is a gas well with a daily flow of gas of about 2,500,000 cu. ft. at a closed pressure of 700 lb. An oil sand is reported . to have been encountered below the producing gas horizon, in the Maple Leaf well but has not been tested. Operations on this well have been suspended for the winter. The Geological Survey of Canada this past summer undertook a geological investigation of this area with the object of defining the structures with which the oil and gas are associated. The 'structure underlying this portion of the plains was supposed to-be a terrace with the western edge dipping into the Alberta syncline and with a monoclinal structure to the east. By accurate leveling on known geological horizons on this terrace, a number of gentle folds were located and it is in these folds that the oil land gas are found. At the British Petroleums Nos. 2-and- 4 oil wells, the western flank of the fold has a gentle dip of only a few feet to the mile to the southwest whereas the strata on the eastern flank dip to the northeast about 40 ft. in 1/2 mile, the strike of the fold being northwest and southeast. How far oil will be found down the gentle southwest dip is unknown but probably the productive part of the fold will not exceed 1 mile in width, and possibly less. No. 3 British Petroleums well is on the strike of the fold 1 mile southeast of the two oil wells. The sand that was productive in Nos. 2-and 4 wells was not present in this well or, if present, was very thin and unproductive. Two other sand horizons, however, were encountered. The upper of these

Jan 3, 1925

By Richard Moldenke

So FAR as the quality of the product is concerned, the history of the production of pig iron for foundry purposes is one of constant retrogression. The steps in this deterioration began with cold-blast charcoal pig iron, then anthracite iron, coke iron; then gradually warm to hot-blast coke iron, with the charcoal furnaces also heating their blast to get greater tonnages, and finally the present day hot-blast coke irons with scrap additions to the ordinary burden that, according to one European report, have gone as high as 135 per cent. Parallel with this quality retrogression is the enormous increase in furnace tonnages from about 15 tons daily to over 1000 tons per day in exceptional instances of modern practice. The key to this situation is economic pressure. The effect is a growing differentiation between furnace production for gray iron and malleable foundries and for the production of commercial steel. As the foundry is often compelled to draw upon the pig irons made for steel purposes, for economic reasons, whereas the steel industry does not draw upon foundry pig irons proper, the situation is resolving itself into one of grave consequence for the life of the gray-iron castings industry, and hence the intensive present-day feeling in foundry circles for rigid specifications to govern the quality of pig irons sold for foundry use. In the discussion of a paper on the use of scrap in the blast furnace held recently in the Institute, a very pertinent remark was made by one of the participating furnacemen, who confessed that "the things found wrong by the foundryman with his iron were beyond his depth." It may be added that those things are also beyond the depth of most foundrymen who, however, know from their results that they are getting poorer castings today with many pig irons than they did with those same brands in former years. Under the former fracture buying, the foundryman at least could select the strongest metal, as judged by the sledge, from various brands of similar fracture and pig section, and his results proved the soundness of his conclusions. With the advent of iron analysis, and in spite of the growing uniformity of the metal through greater tonnage

Jan 2, 1927

C.A. MITKE, *Bisbee, Ariz. (written-discussion-? ).--The advantages of the incline-slicing system have' been ably pointed out by Mr. Scott in his paper in the November, 1917, Bulletin, and also by Mr. P. B. Scotland in the Engineering & Mining Journal, Apr. 7, 1917. From the standpoint of efficiency and economy this method is far superior to the top-slice system as generally practised. However, as regards ventilation, and the danger of mine fires, it is just as necessary to use a mechanical ventilating system in mines worked by this method as it is in those worked by the horizontal top-slice system. Mechanical ventilation not only improves working conditions in top-slice stopes but, if properly designed for the particular mine in question, permits an immediate attack to he made in the event of a mine fire with a greater degree of safety to the men. In the course of time, incline top-slicing will probably take the place of the horizontal top-slicing system just as the incline cut-and-fill has superseded the horizontal cut-and-fill stoping method. While incline top-slicing has been tried in several districts on a very limited scale with inconclusive results, the Coronado is the-only large mine at which it has yet been thoroughly tested, and there it proved to be a complete success. As Mr. Scott's figures show, the tonnage has been more than doubled, with a simultaneous reduction in costs. As has been the history with all other innovations in mining, considerable hesitation will probably be shown in introducing this method in other mines. For example, when the incline cut-and-fill system was put forward as a substitute for the horizontal cut-and-fill stoping method many mining men of good repute were doubtful of its success and post-poned its introduction as long as possible, giving as their reason certain geologic conditions which would make the incline cut-and-fill impracticable. At the present time, most of the mining companies in the South-west, who in the past had used the horizontal cut-and-fill system, have already changed over, or are in the process of changing, and have proved that in the majority of cases horizontal cut-and-fill stopes can be successfully operated under the incline cut-and-fill system. Large horizontal cut-and-fill stopes can now be found in only a few exceptional cases, and

Jan 3, 1918

By R. A. Wagstaff

The method of charging a reverberatory furnace has changed many times since smelting was introduced in this country from the old smelters of Swansea, England. The cause of the latest change at the Garfield plant has been the excessive fineness of the charge due to fine grinding in the concentration of the crude copper ores. The many desirable features of deep-bath smelting as now used at Garfield have been proved. The old method of dropping the charge through holes in the arch (known as center-feed method) causes excessive dusting which makes heavy slag and flue-dust losses, also rapid deterioration of the silica brickwork of the furnace through fusion with the iron oxides from the dust. The purpose of this paper is to describe a gun feeder that was designed to overcome the disadvantages of the older methods of center feeding and still maintain the good features of deep-bath smelting with the hot finer charge. A gun feeder was designed to introduce the finely divided hot calcines under the moving gas stream of the combustion zone and still have them spread in a uniform blanket over the highly heated matte bath. The temperature of the furnace was so great that it was impossible to maintain a stationary feeder, so a movable feeder was designed that could be introduced into the highly heated zone and be withdrawn after the charge had been dropped. It was necessary to protect the nozzle of the gun with a water-cooled coil. Many different types of protected nozzles were tried, such as air jackets, water jackets and heat-resisting steel alloys, but none proved satisfactory. The angle of inclination of the feeder was found to be an important factor in spreading the charge evenly over the surface of the bath. An angle of 34" to 37" was found to be the most advantageous. To allow a continuous flow of ore from the charge car to the point of discharge inside the furnace, the feeder was made with telescopic connections. The pipe leading from the car is stationary and forms the inside part of the telescope. The outside section of the telescope is movable, and is

Jan 1, 1934

By George W. Riter

OUR mineral-land laws need revising so as to provide definite title at the outset to the mineral deposits within any definite piece of land. The laws as they now stand, especially those applicable to lodes, breed uncertainty as to rights of possession prior to patent; and to my mind this is the worst feature of all, worse even than the apex bugbear. It is now almost impossible for anybody to tell-with certainty what mineral rights exist within any area that is not covered by patent, or whether any valid rights exist at all. Our system is unique in permitting individuals to appropriate and exploit mineral lands of the public domain without notice of any kind to the Federal government, and to relinquish them without any ceremony at all. The result is a clouded record that cannot be cleared up until each claimant is put to some sort of final proof. In order to accomplish this, new Federal legislation will be required. The requirements for a mineral survey and the proceedings for patent have always been cumbersome and expensive; and perhaps out of regard for the poor claim owner, who can ill afford the outlay for that sort of thing, the law does not require him to go. through it unless he chooses to do so. Consequently, every active mining district has become encumbered with tangled groups of doubtful or conflicting locations, whose rights and boundaries, when any valuable ore is found, must usually be determined by lawsuits that are as expensive and as distressing as the stakes are high. So deeply has litigation entered into our mining system that a claim whose rights have never been disputed would probably be set down offhand, by $miner of the old school, as of no value. Think of the litigation over rights of possession on the Com-stock lode—12 leading companies involved 'in an aggregate of 245 suits within a period of less than eight years! Ambiguous local records; the chance of erroneously placed or obliterated monuments; doubt as to the sufficient performance of the statutory annual labor; uncertainty as to prior conflicting or overlapping locations; anxiety as to the changing attitude of the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service—such considerations as these make an unpatented mining claim an unclean thing in the eyes of possible investors. Is it any wonder that they keep themselvesand their money at a safe distance,

Jan 1, 1915

THE translators wish to record their appreciation of the help given by many individuals with whom they have discussed various details of the work. They are particularly indebted to Mrs. Anne Noble McKeachie, who initiated their collaboration; to Miss Cora Adamson, who spent many hours in making an accurate copy of a much-mutilated &st draft of the translation; and to the Yale University Library which gave access to its excellent collection of books on all aspects of the history of the sciences. The reader will share with the translators their obvious indebtedness to Mr. Carl P. Rollins, Mr. James W. Boyden, and the staff of the Printing-Office of the Yale University Press. The publication of this translation by the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers has been made possible by a grant from the Seeley W. Mudd Memorial Fund, administered by a committee composed of Harvey S. Mudd, H. DeWitt Smith, and George Otis Smith. The translators are gratified that their work has been judged to fall within the scope of this Fund, which was established for the advancement of the sciences of mining and metallurgy by the encouragement of research and the dissemination of knowledge, and especially for the furtherance of such activities as might benefit the younger members of the profession. While Biringuccio's book would scarcely serve as a dependable text for the young mining student or metallurgist, it can give him a sense of his membership in a long-standing and honorable profession and enable him better to see his own work in true perspective. It is hoped that this English edition of a sixteenth-century Italian work will be read by the practicing metallurgist as well as by those who have already found pleasure in exploring the past of their profession. A man always feels more at home in a foreign country with men of his own craft than in his birthplace with those of different interests: As in space, so in time, and the modem metallurgist who may be unmoved by the literary and artistic Renaissance will quickly appreciate the spirit of that exciting period as he talks shop with Biringuccio on a visit to mine, smelter, forge, and foundry; as he sees in different forms the very furnaces and machines whose operation and response he knows so well; and as he discusses with this engineer of four centuries ago such topics as the best kinds of fuel or refractory for a given operation, and the importance of adequate supplies of power and material.

Jan 1, 1942

By E. A. Calnan, B. E. Williams

IN the development of a new treatment for the prediction of deformation textures,'-' it was noted that for no metals are there experimentally determined tension textures with which the predictions may be compared. There is a considerable knowledge of drawing textures and previous workers have been content to consider these as equivalent to tension textures for the purposes of comparison. It is shown, however, in the new treatment that the tension and drawing textures are not necessarily identical, the radial compression exerted by the dies in the drawing operation producing some modification of the tension texture. In particular for the face-centered cubic metals it is predicted that for drawing the final texture should be [1ll] with a spread towards [211] (a more detailed derivation of this texture has been made by Calnan3). This has been amply confirmed by experiment, see Hibbard.6 For the pure tension case, however, the treatment predicts intermediate [1ll] and [loo] textures leading to a [211] end-point, while all previous treatments have predicted the final texture as [1ll] with in some cases an additional [loo] component. Thus evidence that the pure tension end-point is the [211], or at least that [1ll] and [l00] are not the final textures, should provide a valuable test of the new treatment. Accordingly some experiments were made on aluminum. Three aluminum specimens were examined in detail, one of cold-rolled high purity rod (99.99 pct), specimen A, and two of commercial extruded rod of purity 99.4 pct, specimens B and C. The initial annealing treatments were: A, 1½ hr at 400°C; B, 2 hr at 400°C; C, 1½ hr at 650°C. The principal difficulty is that of obtaining sufficient elongation before fracture occurs. This was overcome to some extent by giving a softening heat treatment, 1 hr at 300°C, after each 15 pct of extension. Vickers hardness measurements gave values before and after the softening treatment of about 30 and 28, respectively, in comparison with the initial value of about 19 corresponding to fully annealed material. From recent observations in this laboratory it is concluded that this small recovery corresponds to a polygonization process rather than recrystallization proper and consequently the preferred orientation is unaffected. At the higher extensions, however, some slight necking of the specimens took place and it was necessary to turn them down to a uniform cross-section before

Jan 1, 1953

By P. Crowther, G. J. Lamprecht

The solubilities of silver, zinc, and cerium in liquid sodium, in the temperature ranges 100 to 270°C, 190° to 550°C, and 120" to 460°C, respectively, have been determined. From the solubility data the heat the entropy the partial molal enthalpy of mixing the excess entropy and the partial molal free energy of solution for the systems Nu-Ag and Na-Zn have been calculated. For the system Na-Ce the observed negative is discussed in terms of the solubility of the oxide Ce2O3. In an earlier publication the results obtained in the study of the solubility of tin' in liquid sodium are presented, as well as the detailed analytical procedures used. 1) REAGENTS Spectroscopically pure metals as supplied by Johnson Matthey and Co, were used to produce the following tracers: 253-day Ag110, 245-day zn65, and 325-day ce141. The tracers were prepared by irradiation in a thermal neutron flux of 4 x 10 13 neutrons cm-2 sek-1. To obtain a uniform amount of the required specific activity, needed for each solubility experiment, the radioactive metal was diluted with the corresponding inactive metal, by melting them together in an inert atmosphere. The liquid sodium used contained 11 ±2 ppm of O,1 determined by the vacuum distillation method.' The oxygen was assumed to be present as the oxide NaD. 2) THE SYSTEMS: SODIUM-SILVER AND SODIUM-ZINC Plots were made of the log of the mole fraction of silver, Fig. 1, and of zinc, Fig. 2, dissolved in the liquid sodium vs reciprocal absolute temperature. The equations for the solubilities, based on the least-squares fit to each plot, are: where Xi is the mole fraction metal dissolved in sodium, T is the absolute temperature, and s is the standard deviation in the value of log Xi. The heats and the entropies lution were calculated from the solubility data by In neither of the two cases was any intermetallic compound formed between sodium and the solute metal as was the case for tin.' Thus, for the silver and zinc systems the pure metal was taken as the reference phase. Since the solids in equilibrium with the liquid sodium were the pure metals, one can calculate the partial molal enthalpy of mixing and

Jan 1, 1969

By H. J. Struth

Economic law was accorded considerably more recognition by the oil industry last year than perhaps ever before. While proration was undoubtedly given added impetus in 1931, and the list of proponents of unit operation was noticeably lengthened, predominant evidence plainly shows that the functioning of economic laws dominated collective efforts to reduce the excessive above-ground supply of petroleum. Crude oil production was reduced more than 48,000,000 bbl. last year; imports from other parts of the world were substantially lower; stocks of crude were drawn upon to the extent of nearly 48,000,000 bbl.; domestic gasoline demand increased 2 per cent—and yet, prices of petroleum and its products were at the lowest levels in many years. To say that the ills of the oil industry during 1931 were due to the general depression that was felt in all other lines is tantamount to attaching an air of uncertainty to a group of commodities that have been proved to be an ever increasing necessity, even in times of depression. TO say that the potential productivity of proven oil-producing areas has been responsible for the unsatisfactory state of affairs last year, and now, is to admit failure to carry out the principles designed to control production in accordance with the limits prescribed by demand. In fact, there is no reason why a large proven potential supply of oil should not be considered a valuable asset to the industry; an assurance against future needs; a stabilizing influence in building up confidence in the ability of the industry to supply this and future generations with fuel and lubricant requirements at reasonable prices. At any rate, an assured future supply of oil should be interpreted to the public to mean that the oil industry is a legitimate, progressive industry, and not a group of prospectors madly searching for "liquid gold." There has been a great deal of romance connected with the history of the oil business—so much that the public has come to associate the word "oil" with untold riches. However, the financial statements of 1931 will furnish conclusive proof to the contrary. Too much oil, too many refineries, too many filling stations, too much capital invested; these and other "too muches" and "too manys" have perhaps been given more publicity than necessary. We seldom hear these

Jan 1, 1932

By Carl Henrich

While the size of the blast-furnaces used for smelting leadand copper-ores has constantly increased, during late years, the manner of removing the slag from the furnace to the slag-dump has (until quite recently, at least) practically remained the same. The only appliance in practical use has been the two-wheeled slag-pot, holding about 300 to 400 pounds of slag, or as much as one man could manage to pull or push on a smooth, hard surface. When these slag-pots on wheels were first introduced, the daily capacity of a lead or copper blast-furnace hardly reached 30 tons of smelting-charge. With furnaces of this size, and even when the capacity had been doubled, this kind of slag-pot answered well enough. All the improvements made were in the construction of these pots and not in an increase of their size, which was limited by the weight which one man could handle. But the size of the furnace went on increasing. The daily consumption of one furnace rose gradually to 75 tons, 100 tons, and even more. The writer had occasion to construct some of these furnaces, which, in their day, were among the largest, if not the largest, of the water-jacketed kind then in existence. A water-jacketed furnace will always smelt more in the same time than a furnace with brick walls. Already, in those days, the slag-removal from these enlarged furnaces received due attention by the writer. The removal of 60 tons of slag in 24 hours, in pots holding only 300 pounds each, will require 400 pots to be filled in 24 hours; and when the amount.of slag increases to 90 tons, 600 pots will be required. That is to say, in the last case, 25 pots in each hour, or 1 pot each 24 minutes, will have to be put under the slagspout, filled, pulled away, and replaced with another. This will involve too much hurry for any degree of comfort, convenience

Jan 1, 1896

By Dubois Eastman

BEHIND the contrasting liquid-fuel technologies of Germany and the United States lie the basic differences of scarcity and abundance. The chemists and engineers of each nation have developed processes that accommodate available raw materials. In the United States, processing is based on an abundant supply of petroleum, which is refined into a variety of fuels and lubricants. Germany has little indigenous petroleum but has a readily available supply of coal that can be converted into liquid fuels and lubricants. As a result, in Germany several basic processes have been developed for the conversion of coal into synthesis gas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen). In turn, this gas is processed into products. As a normal function of its researches into petroleum processing, the petroleum industry in the United States has made careful studies of various conversion and synthesis techniques. A number of oil companies are carrying out independent development programs with the aim of synthesizing hydro- carbon products that can be marketed at a price that will compete with the price of refined petroleum products. American oil companies hope to perfect synthesis processes that will directly benefit the consumer. A good example of progress in these terms is the synthesis plant at Brownsville, Texas, which is based on the conversion of natural gas to synthetic fuels and other valuable products. When this plant is operated at near capacity, it is expected that the products will be able to compete favorably for the consumer dollar. The complete gasification of coal is a technique well rooted in history. As a controlled process on a small scale, it goes back centuries. As a practical technique on a commercial scale, it dates back to 1839, when "producer gas" appeared in Germany for limited industrial use. By 1873, "water gas," or "city gas" as it is sometimes called, was being manufactured commercially in the United States for use in heaters and stoves. The water-gas process was the cornerstone for modern synthesis. To older methods that were concerned only with carbon and oxygen reactions, it added hydrogen by means of steam. Thus far the goal of conversion was to produce gas for heating, lighting, industrial use, and cooking. The long step forward to synthesis was made in 1927, when Germany started to make gasoline from coal by means of the revolutionary Bergius hydrogenation process. A year earIier, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch had announced their process, which finally reached the

Jan 1, 1953

By Frank E. Neil, O&apos

The formation tester, as the name implies, is a tool built for testing the contents of sands encountered in drilling Wells Without actually cementing casing on the sand. The tester was developed in the Mid-Continent and has been in use commercially there since about 1926. However, some two dozen patents have been issued on formation testers dating back to the seventies. The method apparently was an outgrowth of the old Mother Hubbard grain or bean packer, used around casing before the days of cementing casing. These packers were also seated in a tapered hole and if the formation tested was not satisfactory the casing was pulled loose and the hole taken down to another formation. A great deal of experimental work has been done in its development, and as a result of this work the formation tester became an accepted integral part of the petroleum development in California. The formation tester was introduced into California some three years ago by M. 0. Johnston. Months of discouraging and expensive work followed its introduction into this state, but one organization after another tried the tool and its use is now fairly general. Shortly after Johnston began testing in California, the Halliburton tester was also introduced into the state and now another tool is being introduced, the Shaffer-Roles tester. Principle and Operation of Testers The principle employed in all formation testers is that of packing off the fluid in the hole above the formation to be tested and thereby prevent,ing it from having access to the testing tool. This permits the fluid contained in the given formation to have unrestricted access to the tool. It is accomplished by running the tool and packer on the bottom of the drill pipe; the valves in the tool being closed while going into the hole to prevent fluid from entering the drill pipe. The packer is then seated at the desired point, trapping the drilling fluid above it. When this has been done, the valves in the tool are opened and the fluid from the formation is allowed to enter the empty pipe through the tool. If the

Jan 1, 1934

By C. E. Birchenall, R. H. Condit, M. J. Brabers

In the oxidation of pure iron above 700°C the overall rate is determined mainly by the rapid growth of wiistite, through which iron ions can diffuse rapidly.' Nickel added to the iron progressively decreases the stable range of composition of wustite.' When enough nickel is added to eliminate wiistite as a stable phase, the spinel is the fast growing phase. This investigation was undertaken to test the hypothesis that nickel substituting for iron in magnetite might decrease the rate of spinel growth by reducing the iron mobility. Nickel ferrite boules grown by the flame fusion process were purchased from the Linde Co. Chemical analysis gave an atomic ratio of iron to nickel of 2.88 and showed no other cations. They were cut into discs and ground to give flat, parallel faces. The experimental procedure employed was like that of Eisen and Birchenall in which the distribution of radioactivity diffused in from a vapor deposited surface layer was determined by counting the residual activity through a series of ground faces. The diffusivities were calculated in a manner consistent with the requirements discussed by Condit and BirchenallP The details will be given in connection with a more extensive spinel diffusion study now in progress. The results of the measurements are shown in the figure in comparison with earlier data on magnetite1 and zinc ferrite. The uncertainties arising from scatter in the activity vs distance relationship and uncertainties in the temperatures are shown by flags. Despite the scatter it is clear that substitution of a considerable part of the iron in magnetite by nickel, in this case about one third decreases the iron mobility substantially. sachs' determination of the distribution of iron and nickel in scales on iron-nickel alloys appears to show that nickel is less mobile than iron in the spinel layer. It is evident, therefore, that nickel plays several roles in reducing the oxidation rate of iron-nickel alloys. 1) It reduces progressively the stability range of wiistite. ' 2) It reduces progressively the stability range of the iron-nickel spinel phase in terms of the variation in cation to anion ratio.' 3) As shown in this investigation, it reduces the cation mobility in the spinel phase which is the faster growing phase in the absence of wiistite. The fe was obtained from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (ARDC) under contract number AF 18(600)-967.

Jan 1, 1961

By J. N. Houser

THE industrial relations between the Tennessee Copper Co. and its employees have developed a number of interesting things and have been most, profitable to the employees and to the company. It is noteworthy that considerable has been done without a formal organization of any kind built up through the efforts of the company. From time to time there have been discussions regarding the advisability of a formal organization and the decision has always been in favor of the present method. In the year 1919, the company was dealing with its employees through union committees and, after an understanding was reached, satisfactory results began to be obtained, but as time went on the committees did not function and it came to a question of how to reach the men. For the past two years, about once a month, but at no stated time, there has been a meeting with a committee of employees consisting of 40 or 50 men out of 700. This committee is secured by notify-ing the locals. In addition, the Service Department notifies a number of men not represented in the union, so as to have a large representative committee. The meetings are on company time and the men are rotated, so that in time every employee attends , at least one meeting. All department heads and a number of foremen also are present. The operating plans and policy of the company are set out at the meetings and the market outlook for products is discussed. Explana-tions are also given of anything that has come up since the last meeting which affects the employees, and an effort is made to inform them of what will probably happen in the next month or two. Once a week there is a meeting of department heads with the manager, for discussion of all operations as a whole and such depart-mental details as seem advisable. When the depression started, it was necessary to curtail operations and the reasons were carefully explained; before the men were laid off, the employees as a whole were advised of the coming layoffs through these meetings. They were also advised generally who would be retained and given an opportunity to express their agreement or their. disapproval. In fact, an effort was and is being made to keep the employees advised in advance of matters affecting them and to give them full opportunity to express themselves.

Jan 12, 1922

On the map of Europe the shield-shaped area included in the boundaries of Rumania appears too small to constitute a very important factor in the wold's oil production. The country has a total area of 122,000 square miles of territory, about one-fifth of 1 per cent. of the world's surface, from which about 21/2 per cent. of the world's oil was produced in 1929. This relatively small area also constitutes one of the known billion-barrel reserves of the world. Oil has been found in various localities in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, extending more than 100 miles in length at their base. It is rather unusual that, while the extent of prospective territory seems to be large, the area of the commercially productive pools is comparatively small. Oil accumulation in Rumania is closely associated with salt stocks. Shows of oil are encountered from the Pliocene down to the Cretaceous. Most of the production, however, comes from the Pliocene, the chief producing sands of which are the Dacic and the Meotic, although some oil is produced from the Levantic and the Pontic. The Meotic as a source of oil was known for many years, but the intensive output from this sand series is a comparatively recent development and accounts in a big measure for the steady increase in Rumanian production. In the early part of the summer of 1929 the Astra-Romano (Royal Dutch) completed a well at Moreni in what is thought by some to be a fourth Meotic sand (a new sand series) at a depth of 5200 ft. with an initial production of 2000 bbl. a day of 41" gravity oil. The development of this new horizon has been somewhat retarded by the disastrous fire which occurred at Romano-Americana's well No. 160 in Moreni, but its discovery adds materially to the future life of the Moreni area, one of the country's oldest fields. Rumania's production for 1929 is estimated at 35,556,000 bbl., a daily average of 97,400 bbl. This compares with the total of 31,542,000 bbl. for the previous year, a daily average of 86,180 bbl., or an increase of 12.73 per cent. Rumania now occupies seventh position in the world's oil picture, it having been replaced as the sixth in importance by the Dutch East Indies in 1929. Table 1 shows a comparison of production by districts and fields.

Jan 1, 1930

By Russell W. Mumford

LITHIA compounds have a place in pharmaceutical and other chemical industries and lithium minerals in glassmaking and ceramics. The metal, although rare, is used to a minor extent in alloys. During the nearly 50 years of production of lithium minerals in the United States, the silicate mineral spodumene has continued as the chief source of raw material for the manufacture of lithium salts. Although twice as much lepidolite, a lithium mica, has been mined, most of it has been used in the making of certain types of glass. Amblygonite has been an additional but minor source of lithium compounds. Triphylite, petalite, and zinnwaldite have also been utilized in the past. All of these commercial lithium minerals contain low percentages of lithium (Table 1). In 1938, a new raw material for manufacture of lithium compounds made its appearance. This product was crude dilithium sodium phosphate (Li2NaPO4), obtained as a by-product of manufacture of potash and soda chemicals from the brine of Searles Lake, California. Searles Lake, which is now dry, lies in the extreme northwest corner of San Bernardino County, California, and consists of a large mass of salts. It was estimated by the United States Geological Survey that the crystal body contained about 25 pct voids, which are filled with a saturated brine. The brine consists mainly of the sulphates, chlorides, carbonates, and borates of sodium and potassium. Several other acid radicals, including phosphates, are present. Lithium is present in the brine in an amount corresponding to 0.01 15 pct Li2O. In the course of evaporation of water from the brine, during the process of manufacture of sodium and potassium chemicals, dilithium sodium phosphate crystallizes out and is recovered by a flotation operation. The lithium concentrate is filtered and dried and is then ready for shipment. It analyzes from 19 to 21 pct Li2O and now constitutes the highest known grade of crude lithium material. It is and will continue to be a major source of lithium for manufacture of lithium products. The variation in lithia content of the commercial minerals as mined is due to replacement of the lithia by soda and potash, to partial alter-

Jan 1, 1949

William B. Cogswell, member of the Institute since 1872, died on June 7, 1921, at his home in New York City, after an illness of about six weeks occasioned by an infection of the middle car. Mr. Cogswell is survived by his wife, Mrs. Cora Brownell Cogswell; a son-in-law, and three grandchildren. His first wife died in 1877. William Cogswell was born at Oswego, Sept. 22, 1834, and was taken to Syracuse by his parents when he was four years old. He attended Hamilton Academy and private schools in Syracuse and Seneca Falls. In 1843, he visited England with his parents and brought back a set of drawing instruments, which led to a series of lessons in architecture under Luther Gifford, the only architect in Syracuse at the time. The boy drew many building plans and one set was used for the old Globe Hotel in Syracuse, erected in 1846 and 1847. In 1848, when only 14, he spent a year with a party that was surveying the route of the Syracuse & Oswego R. R. and relaying the tracks of the Utica & Syracuse R. R. He studied civil engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, for three years, but left that institution in 1852 without receiving his degree. Many years later, in 1884, the degree of C. E. was conferred upon him. During the three years following 1852, Mr. Cogswell served as an apprentice in machine shops at Lawrence, Mass., under the superintendence of John S. Hoadley. About 1856, he was made manager of the machinery department of the Marietta & Cincinnati R. R., at Chili-cothe, Ohio, and three years later became superintendent of the Broadway foundry at St. Louis, Mo. In 1860, in Syracuse, Mr. Cogswell was associated with William A. and A. Avery Sweet in the formation of Sweet Bros. & Co., which later became the Whitman & Barnes Mfg. Co. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Cogswell received a civilian appointment as mechanical engineer in the United States Navy. During 1860 he was located at Port Royal, S. C., having general supervision over the work of fitting up repair shops at five widely separated stations on the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf of Mexico. In this year his genius and resourcefulness were notably shown. He literally launched a naval machine shop, so that warships could be repaired without leaving, and thereby weakening, blockades against Southern ports. The machine shop was assembled by Mr. Cogswell and shipped by boat to Port Royal. There an old whaler was made over for machine shop purposes and Mr.

Jan 1, 1922