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Jan 1, 1946

By A. C. Fieldner

This is the tenth annual report of research and technologic work conducted by the Bureau of Mines on the occurrence, properties, mining, preparation, and uses of coal and coal products. These annual reviews are guide's to the current work-and publications of the Bureau but do not replace the more complete reports published under the authorship of the individual investigators on specific problems in Bureau of Mines bulletins, technical papers, reports of investigations, and information circulars and in the technical press. The Annual Report of the Director of the Bureau of Mines to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1945, summarizes the year's work on coal as follows: Coal and Coal Products The United States maintained its No. 1 industrial position in supplying fuel for war and in preparing for peace through more complete mining, improved preparation and up-grading of coal for special uses, and better utilization of coal in industrial establishments and homes.

Jan 1, 1946

By Alfred H. Bell

IN 1945, Illinois produced 75,210,000 bid. of oil, or 4.4 percent of the total for the United States, and ranked sixth in the nation in oil production for the third consecutive year. Production decreased about 3 per cent from that of 1944, when the total Illinois production was 77,413,000 bbl. This is the smallest percentage of decrease in production in the state for any year since a peak was reached in 1940. Daily average production for 1945 was approximately 206,000 bbl. Daily averages by months were as follows:

Jan 1, 1946

By O. C. Wheeler

In order that the series of reports on oil and gas in Colombia may be complete, the report for the year 1941, which was not available for Volume 160 of the TRANSACTIONS, is given here. The report for 1945 begins on page 4o6.

Jan 1, 1946

By J. HUNER

Twenty-four new fields were found in Louisiana during 1945. Of this number 15 were oil fields, eight were gas condensate, and one a dry gas field. None of these fields, with the exception of West Delhi, is as yet of any great consequence. The Weeks Island field in Iberia Parish may eventually develop into a considerable reserve.

Jan 1, 1946

By W. G. Sinclair

THE North Texas district presented in this paper includes the counties of Archer, Baylor, Clay, Cooke, Foard, Hardeman, Jack, Knox, Montague, Wichita, Wilbarger and Young. It corresponds with the Texas Railroad Commission's district No. 9. Table I conforms with the nomenclature of pools as designated by the Commission. Most of the oil and gas produced in this region, generally referred to as the Red River uplift, comes from the Pennsylvanian strata. In recent years, however, increasing amounts are being developed in both the Mississippian and Ordovician.

Jan 1, 1946

By AIME AIME

Annual net production of crude oil from the Anglo-Iranian, Oil Company's fields in Iran for the years 1940 through 1945 amounted to: YEAR TOTAL PRODUCTION (Long Tons) 1940 8,626,639 1941 6,605,320 1942 9,399,231 1943 9,705,769 1944 13,274,243 1945 16,835,000 (preliminary figure) All developed fields were on almost continuous production throughout the war, though their operation naturally was hampered by war conditions, which affected particularly supplies of equipment.

Jan 1, 1946

By Theron Wasson

Michigan's production of 17,301,000 bbl. in 1945, which is in line with previous years, has been maintained by extensions to old fields like Deep River, Adams, Fork, and others. There were a number of new discoveries but, as in the past, these are not given very much importance because enough drilling has not been done to develop their potentialities; however, judging by the past, some of them will develop enough production so that 1946 -will probably be in line with other years. Activities in Michigan were confined to the Basin area of the lower Peninsula, which has been under development since 1925.

Jan 1, 1946

By EL HANAF

The exploratory program initiated in Egypt in 1937 by four major oil companies was well under way early in 1939. Extensive gravity-meter surveys were carried out in the Sinai Peninsula and the Eastern and Western Deserts. Seismic and magnetometer work vas conducted on a restricted scale. The data collected justified wildcat drilling on structures located geophysically and/or geologically.

Jan 1, 1946

By LEE H. CORNELL

Drilling activity in Kansas during 1945 continued at an accelerated pace to meet the demands of war; 1810 tests were drilled as compared with 1856 tests the previous year, 1771 tests in 1943, and 1516 tests in 1942. During the year 31 new oil pools and 10 new gas pools were discovered. Of a total of 364 wildcats drilled, 323 were dry; and of 1446 tests drilled in pools, 825 were oil wells, 197 gas wells, and 425 dry holes.

Jan 1, 1946

By Louise B. Freeman

Kentucky for the first time in its oil history passed the 10 million barrel mark. Of the total 10,019,641 bbl., 8,262,516 bbl. were produced in Western Kentucky, and Union County surpassed all others, with 4,056,142 bbl., or 40 percent of all the production for the state. There were 930 wells known to have been drilled during the year; 510 in Western Kentucky and 221 in the gas-producing area of Eastern Kentucky.

Jan 1, 1946

By K. A. ACKLEY

The petroleum industry experienced a year of satisfactory accomplishment in Oklahoma during 1945. Crude oil production was increased, a new record for recent years was established in well completions, and refinery operations were maintained at a maximum level. Daily average crude oil production increased to 382,000 bbl., reflecting a 13.5 per cent gain compared with production during the previous pear. Total wells drilled during 1945 amounted to 2556, a gain of 28.7 per cent over 1944 Refinery throughout averaged 187,500 bbl. daily, an increase of approximately 4 percent over the preceding year.

Jan 1, 1946

By E. A. Holbrook

IN my thirty years of educational work in the mineral industries and other engineering fields, this past year has been the most unusual and difficult one. Contact with educators from other schools leads to the conclusion that the same situation is countrywide. The first of our difficulties came from the shortsighted policy of the Selective Service in taking out of the colleges, continuously, all engineering students as soon as they had reached their eighteenth birthday. England, Canada, and Russia, too, even in the midst of their critical war situations, had the good sense to keep their young engineering brains in college, for they realized the vital necessity of a steady flow of engineering graduates into the war industries and into the postwar peace industries. As a result of the policy of our Government, our engineering schools were left with only a handful of students who had been rejected for military service. Our colleges, faced with the prospect of several years without students and without income, hastened to give leave of absence to many of their competent teachers who quickly were taken into industry and in many instances are now being retained there at higher salaries than colleges are accustomed or able to pay their teaching personnel. We are finding it most difficult to induce these men to return to their former engineering teaching work. In my judgment, it will take us three or four years to restore our engineering departments to their former level in quality of instruction.

Jan 1, 1946

By F. W. Willard

VIEWING with alarm is a preoccupation not exclusively the habit of the political spellbinder. In good faith many of our mineral technologists have been and are genuinely alarmed over the prodigal consumption of our mineral reserves. Most competent observers are cautiously pessimistic. There are sound technical reasons for such caution. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss some of those reasons without benefit of a gift of prophecy. Perhaps the outstanding reason for caution is ignorance of accessible but undiscovered mineral reserves. The petroleum technologists have an edge on their metallurgical brothers for they have better tools for exploration. This is not to say that the mining geologist has to depend on hunches or the divining rod. The outstanding work on orogenesis by Lindgren and others has provided the mining geologist with some sound scientific knowledge as to where accessible metallic minerals are most likely to be found, As Clinton H. Crane has recently observed, most of the accessible areas of the earth have been combed for easily identified outcrops, and those have been or are being actively exploited. To find ore bodies hidden below the surface is still a costly speculation.

Jan 1, 1946

By K. Harms, T. D. Jones

TO unload large tonnages of lead bullion cast in 100-lb. bars is a problem which has confronted the lead refineries for many years. The bars, on arrival, must be restacked for unloading by truck or hand-charged to charging machines. Selected crews of labor, capable of working at sustained speeds for five- or six-hour periods, are required for this exhausting task. Due to the fatigue involved crew personnel changes rapidly. During the war it became increasingly difficult to maintain crews, especially in critical labor areas, so that the development of casting and shipping ten-ton lead blocks from the smelters to the refineries became a must in our operating program. For many years lead refineries, when making interdepartment or intradepartment transfers, have cast lead blocks weighing five or ten tons which are easily handled by crane by merely attaching the crane hook to a steel anchor embedded in the frozen lead blocks. In previous years, the practice was to use regular smelter slag pots which, due to their rounded shape, produced what were called "buttons" by the refinery personnel. The button-type blocks were unsafe as they rolled and tipped easily and were unsatisfactory for stacking since no piling pattern could be followed. To remedy this situation, flat-bottom molds came into general use and later the bottoms were made concave to prevent slipping.

Jan 1, 1946

By S. G. Lasky

EVENTS during and since the war indicate that the nations of the world are trying to initiate an era of international co-operation. Definitions and objectives include social, economic, and human considerations no less than political considerations. The mineral resources of the world and the absolute and relative position of each nation enter into this situation. The possible use of armed might, the application of sanctions, the international flow of commerce, the ways in which this flow may encourage or hamper international well-being, and the influence of international and domestic well-being upon one another are all matters that must take mineral resources into account. If the United States is to act wisely and forthrightly in such matters we must be thoroughly informed as to our position with respect to mineral resources. What is the mineral position of the United States? A variety of widely conflicting opinions are held in authoritative and intelligent quarters: (1) For practical purposes our mineral resources are already exhausted.

Jan 1, 1946

By A. B. Stickney

UPWARDS of 200,000 engineers in this country are sufficiently interested in engineering as a profession to have joined a society, but not over 10% of them belong to any one society. There is a widely-felt need of an over-all organization of all the societies to act as spokesman for all engineers on matters of common concern. On a local basis, over 100,000 engineers in 35 metropolitan areas have organized themselves into local councils, and are doing an effective job of intersocietal co-operation within their sphere of activity. In the last few years much has been said and written about a similar organization on a national scale. Everybody wants iteverybody is talking about it-it's in the air-it's coming-it's inevitable. Although it is no longer necessary to talk about why or whether there should be such an organization, there is no such unanimity about what it should be like. This paper outlines a proposed organization by answering four questions-who, how, what, and who will pay for it.

Jan 1, 1946

By Harry J. Evans

DURING the fury of the conflict it was believed quite generally that World War II was being fought for and would accomplish a permanent peace. Yet, before the guns were actually stilled on all fronts, the American people realized that the devastated world would continue to be dominated by suspicion and uncertainty. The misunderstandings which rapidly developed indicated that it may prove unwise to rely wholly on mutual international agreements and contracts to avoid war. Before the celebrations of V-Day died down serious thought was being given toward measures for preparedness for the next conflict. Along with a realization of the enormous loss of life caused by the destructive forces of war, the American people came to understand the seriousness of the rapid and unwarranted depletion of our natural resources. During the last half of 1945 the question of stock-piling strategic and critical raw materials for a future national emergency became an intensely live subject.

Jan 1, 1946

By AIME

A present the colleges and universities are struggling to meet the responsibilities placed upon them by the return of the veterans from the armed forces to the educational institutions as well as the youth graduating from the high schools. The problems of meeting these responsibilities are complex and upon the shoulders of the educational administrators lies much of the burden. One of those educators who is in the midst of this situation is James Rowland Cudworth, dean of the College of Engineering of the University of Alabama and Chairman of the Mineral Industry Education Division, AIME, both for 1946 and 1947. He was born at Norwich, Conn., on Sept. 23, 1897, and like his father before him went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1921. His studies at MIT were mainly in the fields of geological and mining engineering. Why a New Englander studies mining is anybody's guess, but it may be due to a love of traveling to far places which so many New Englanders do. After graduating tinder the famed Waldemar Lindgren. Jim trekked to Mexico where he worked at Pachuca for the Cia. Real del Monte and at Charcas with the American Smelting and Refining Co.

Jan 1, 1946

By R. L. Sebastian

ALUMINUM'S war history is the record of a successful race to expand facilities fast enough to meet the multiple increases in military requirements, principally for aircraft. From the beginning of the war program in 1940 through 1942, requirements estimates were repeatedly lifted to new high levels, and plans for increasing capacity had to be constantly revised. In 1943, basic metal supply caught up with and exceeded requirements, and by 1944, the surplus of primary production was large enough to force reduction in output and plant closings. In the past two years, ingot capacity has been ample, though periodic critical shortages have been experienced for a few fabricated shapes as a result of sudden shifts in demand. And now with all controls lifted we are faced with surplus capacity, surplus stocks, and surplus scrap. In 1938 the Aluminum Co. of America was the only U. S. producer of primary

Jan 1, 1946