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By G. L. Oldright, Virgil Miller, F. K. Shelton, Keck. W. E., Horst Sieg

Potash is one of the principal foods and is necessary for the growth of most vegetables, grains, and fruits. For many years, this country depended entirely upon foreign sources for its supply of potassium compounds. However, during the last 15 years the domestic production of potash has gradually increased, as shown in table 1. 7/ Imports now supply only half of the American market. In 1936, the equivalent of 207,000 tons of K20 was imported, and 210,000 tons was produced domestically. In 1935, domestic consumption was approximately 420,000 tons of potash, a 57 percent increase over that for 1934 and surpassing previous peaks of 1928 and 1930.

Jun 1, 1937

By George T. Motock

In Germany the extraction of lithium and its salts has been handled mainly by units of the two major concerns - Metallgesellschaft A, G. and Deutsche Gold und Silber Scheide Anstalt, both with headquarters in Frankfurt. Zinnwaldite, which belongs to the mica group, is the major source of the lithium-containing raw material in Germany. Lepidolite and amblygonite also are used when available, but they are imported, as there are no major deposits of these two minerals in Germany.

Jan 1, 1946

By S. J. Aresco

The Bureau of Mines has been active in promoting the purchase of coal for Government use under specificetiona that define the requirements in terms of heating value of the coal, expressed in British thermal units, and the composition as shown by proximate analyses. To these, when required, are added the fusing temperature of ash and the free-swelling index. Under most of these specification contracts the bidders guarantee the quality of the coal, end that guaranteed by the successful bidder becomes the standard of his contract. The deliveries are sampled in accordance with instructions3/ issued by the Bureau; the samples are analyzed in the Bureau's laboratory to determine whether the coal is of the quality guaranteed by the contractor and, if it is not, a price adjustment is made. Analyses of the delivered coal and "tipple" samples (samples collected at mine tipples as coal is being loaded into railroad cars or trucks) provide valuable data for use in evaluating future bids. In addition, the continuous sampling of coal as delivered 1s a check on the practical results obtained in burning the coal.

Jan 1, 1953

By James F. O'Neill

Brown iron ore deposits in Quitman County , Ga . , were investigated by the Federal Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the State of Georgia , Department of Commerce , and the University of Alabama . Ninety- one holes were drilled , having an aggregate footage of 2,188 feet ; seventy- one holes penetrated 248 feet of iron mineralization . Average thickness of the ore zone was 3.5 feet under an average thickness of 14.7 feet of overburden . The drilling developed inferred reserves containing nearly 30 million long tons of crude ore with an average analysis of 28 percent iron plus minor quantities of manganese . Test work done by the Bureau on the crude ore samples indicated that they would upgrade by current log washer practice , with the use of a 1 /8 - inch screen , and yield 4.4 million dry long tons of concentrate with an average analysis of 52.1 percent iron plus manganese . The weight recovery obtained was 14.7 percent . Research studies made by the Bureau showed that the weight recovery would be increased by changing the screen size without any appreciable sacrifice of grade . The average weight recovery was increased to 18 percent with a 10 - mesh screen and 22.8 percent with a 20 - mesh screen . Screen tests studies indicated that there was no appreciable interlocking of the iron and manganese minerals and the clay and silica waste particles of the materials retained on a 200- mesh screen . Clay was prominent in micron - size slimes . Silica was deleterious in the minus 20 - mesh size .

Jan 1, 1965

By J. J. Forbes

Ventilation is the most important safety factor in the production of coal because on it depends the safety, health, and efficiency of those who work underground. Without adequate and efficient means of supplying fresh air to the working faces, mining could not have advanced as it has. The extent of the workings, the increase in mechanization, and the increasing use of electricity are largely responsible for changes in methods of ventialtion. Ventilation in the early, days of coal mining was accomplished by means of a natural draft, created principally by a difference in the weights of columns of air between the intake and return openings: Later the furnace was introduced for the purpose of increasing the quantity of air in circulation. Mines continued to become larger, their output increased, men were employed in greater numbers, and more fresh coal surfaces were exposed. Coal beds near the surface, and practically free from explosive gas became exhausted, and deeper beds that liberated methane were opened as development advanced. Mechanical ventilation became necessary and was first accomplished by disc-type steam driven fans she old-.fashioned steam driven disc fan has generally been supplanted by the powerful electrically operated centrifugal fans in use at modern coal mines. In order to be secure against gas explosions and provide ample fresh air for persons employed in large coal mines, air must be conducted through the mine to all working places and to all other unsealed parts of the mince in sufficient quantities to dilute and render harmless all dangerous and noxious gases.

Jan 1, 1929

By G. L. Neumann

Owing to the need for additional sources of supply of both zinc and lead following World War II, the Bureau of Mines investigated many abandoned lead-zinc mines in the eastern United States. A series of shallow veins in south-western St. Lawrence County has long been a subject of speculation. These veins, which average about 4 feet in width and cut across the bedding of the country rock at right angles, are filled with calcite-carrying galena and sphalerite. The deposits have been worked sporadically during the last 115 years. From 1837 to 1852 the Coal Hill, the North, and the Victoria mines near the village of Rossie were at their peak of activity. Other calcite veins were prospected and a small production was realized. The Bureau of Mines began diamond drilling May 1, 1950, under the general supervision of McHenry Mosier, chief, Mining Branch, Bureau of Mines, Region VIII, and under the immediate supervision of the author) who was project engineer, following the preliminary examination by Robert S. Sanford. A total of 3,870.2 feet was drilled in 18 holes on four of the numerous deposits scattered over Macomb and Rossie townships. Drilling was completed September 21, 1950.

Jan 1, 1952

By J. R. Thoenen, Hugh D. Pallister

"INTRODUCTION The Stone Hill Copper project resulted from the recommendations made in the war minerals report on this deposit by engineers of the Bureau of Mines 4/ and a similar report of the Geological Survey. 5/ACKNOWLEDGMENTSIn its program of investigation of mineral deposits, the Bureau of Mines has as its primary objective the more effective utilization of domestic mineral resources to the end that they make the greatest possible contribution to the national security and economy. The Mining Division, Lowell E. Moon, chief, conducts preliminary examinations, does the actual investi¬gative work, and prepares the final report. The Metallurgical Division, Oliver C. Ralston, chief, analyzes samples and makes beneficiation tests.This report was prepared under the supervision of Paul M. Tyler, former regional engineer, Eastern Region, and is based on the examination and investigation of the deposit by Hugh D. Pallister, mining engineer, made under the immediate supervision of Richard W. Smith, former District Engineer for Alabama and Mississippi.The report was rewritten and prepared for publication by J. R. Thoenen, chief, Tuscaloosa Branch, Mining Division.LOCATION AND ACCESSIBILITYThe Store Hill copper mine is about• 12 miles south of Heflin, the oounty seat of Cleburne County, Ala. Heflin, a town with a population of approximately 1,700, is the nearest shipping point for freight and express. It is on the Southern Railway, between Birmingham and Atlanta. A rural mail route passes within quarter of a mile of the mine. Paved reads from Heflin lead to Atlanta, Birmingham, and Montgomery. The country Toads leading from Heflin are well-maintained but are practically inaccessible during inclement weather. The road crossing the property within a hundred yards of the mine needs grading and repairing (see fig. 1)."

Apr 1, 1948

By G. L. Oldright

[This paper is the fifth 4/ of a series of publications on smelting in the load blast furnace. The objects of this investigation are to determine the conditions obtaining within the blast furnace by direct experimentation, and to correlate the behavior of the furnace at various tines with the main factors governing the operation of the blast furnace, and metallurgical losses.]

Jan 1, 1929

By Fieldner. A. C.

"In preparing this paper, an attempt was made to obtain results of plant-scale carbonization tests on washed and unwashed coal tram to same mine. A letter. in which the following questions were asked, was sent to some 50 coke-oven superintendents and others who might be interested:“What is the influence of washing coal on:(1) The chemical and physical properties of coke, as for example, the size, the amount of breeze, the fracture, strength, cell-structure, etc.(2) The quantity and quality of gas and by-products.(3) The capacity of the ovens.(4) The composition of the coal..""Your general opinion, as well as any specific data or results of testa, on this important subject will be greatly appreciated.""Of the 45 replies received, 24 stated that they had never used washed coal; 11 had used washed coal but had no comparative data on similar coals washed and unwashed; 7 answered some of the questions based on their general experience; and 3 gave some test data on Pittsburgh bed coal from western Pennsylvania. In none of the three tests did the washed coal come from the same mine as the unwashed. The washed coals in the three tests were from the same washery - one of modern construction in which the operations are under careful technical control in order to give a uniform product containing a minimum of surface moisture. The unwashed coals which were previously used in these plants were from different nearby mines in the same coal bed, and were supplied by the same company. Obviously, no sweeping or finale conclusions can be drawn from these few tests on coal from a single washery. Therefore, the writer vas obliged to consult the literature, coal-carbonization and coal-washing engineers, and other authorities to supplement the fragmentary information gleaned from the questionnaires in order to present a picture of chat gas engineers may expect from the use of washed coal in a carbonizing plant."

May 1, 1930

By W. D. Dietzman

This Bureau of Mines report presents a continuation of statistics pertaining to distribution of petroleum reservoirs (or fields), wells, and production by depth and producing rate classification in the United States. These statistics show the change that has occurred since results of a similar study were published by the Bureau of Mines in 1967. Data are presented in tabular form by State for the 18 principal oil-producing States and by subdivision for the two larges t oil-producing States, Texas and Louisiana, Tabular summations and graphical illustrations are presented for the Nation. The data are classified by 4-barrel-of-oil-per-day rate increments up to 36 barrels and one increment of greater than 36 barrels of oil per day and by 2,000-foot depth increments up to 8,000 feet and one depth increment of greater than 8,000 feet. The overall average producing rates for States and the Nation have been published for many years; although such rates are useful, they are very general descriptions of producibility. A breakdown of production, wells, and reservoirs by various depths and rates and by State or by State subdivision provides a more detailed description of producibility.

Jan 1, 1976

By S. P. Kinney, P. H. Royster, T. L. Joseph

"The study described in this paper, on the reactions in an iron blast furnace, is part of the investigation being conducted by the Bureau of Mines on combustion of coke and the reduction of iron oxides in the blast furnace. Previous study of the combustion zone of the iron blast furnace, by means of a series of as samples taken through the tuyeres across the hearths of 13 blast furnaces, showed that the combustion of the coke in the blast-furnace hearth is complete at a distance of 32 to 40 inches from the nose of the tuyere, measured horizontally toward the center of the furnace. The results of this previous work are sum¬marized in the curves shown in figure 1, where it will be noted that practically all of the oxygen disappears at a distance of approximately 30 inches from the nose of the tuyere.In order to determine the height at which oxygen is found in a vertical direction above the tuyeres - it had been suggested that the combustion zone turned upward near the tuyere and to obtain comparisons with the samples taken at the Bureau of Mines experimental6 (5-ton) blast-furnace at Minneapolis, the Bureau extended the gas sampling on a commercial furnace to a number of planes between the tuyere level and the stock line. The sampling was conducted on a 300-ton furnace, making foundry iron, operated by the Central Iron and Coal Co., at Holt, Ala. The furnace was smelting Southern red and brown ores and nodules from pyrite sinter. Figure 3 is a vertical section of the furnace showing the six planes sampled."

Apr 1, 1926

Pillar design is the first line of defense against rock falls—the greatest single safety hazard faced by underground coal miners in the United States and abroad. To help advance the state of the art in this fundamental mining science, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health organized the Second International Workshop on Coal Pillar Mechanics and Design. The workshop was held in Vail, CO, on June 6,1999, in association with the 37th U.S. Rock Mechanics Symposium. The proceedings include 15 papers from leading ground control specialists in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of South Africa. The papers address the entire range of issues associated with coal pillars and have a decidedly practical flavor. Topics include numerical modeling, empirical design formulas based on case histories, field measurements, and post failure mechanics.

Jan 5, 1999

By H. R. Pierce

A gas well has a certain definite capacity to deliver gas from the gas sand through the producing string of pipe. This capacity depends upon the pressures in the sand; that is, a well will deliver gas at a rate of flow which is determined by the formation or "shut-inn pressure in the sand and the back pressure at the face of the sand in the well. The three factors, rate of flow, formation or "shut-in" pressure, and the back pressure, for a given well, can be written into a fundamental relation which is strictly applicable only to that well. This relation can be used to determine the capacity of the well to deliver gas from any formation pressure against any back pressure held at the f ace of the sand in the well. Studies have been made of the deliveries of 400 gas wells operating under different conditions of pressure, Most of the wells which have been studied are in Osage County, Okla.; however, several representative studies have been made on wells in southern Louisiana, southern Texas, the Texas Panhandle, and West Virginia.

Jan 1, 1929

By D. E. Wolfson

As a part of its overall program of coal carbonization, the Bureau of Mines is studying the coking properties of coals that may be used for metallurgical purposes. The objectives of this study were given in detail in a previous report The inherent suitability of coal for metallurgical purposes depends primarily on (1) chemical composition, (2) preparation characteristics, and (3) carbonization behavior. The first two factors, Be well as the amount of available reserves, are considered in selecting coals for carbonization tests. The selection of coal beds in Harlan County, Ky., for coking tests was based, in part, on recent studies of coal reserves by Wallace,3/ who estimated the recoverable reserves in beds 28 inches or more thick, in tons, as follows:

Jan 1, 1956

By Milton B. Hall

This report discusses in detail laboratory and pilot-plant tests conducted from January 1951 until January 1955 at the Northwest Electrodevelopment Experiment Station of the Bureau of Mines, Albany, Oreg., on defluorination and recovery of evolved fluorine from phosphate rock. Results of use tests of defluorinated phosphate rock by cooperating agricultural colleges and the United States Department of Agriculture are also included. In 1954 the consumption of fluorspar, the only domestic fluorine-bearing mineral of commercial importance, was approximately 478,000 short tons; 245,000 tons was from domestic mines. The production of marketable phosphate rock in the same period was about 13,800,000 long tons. Of this total amount, approximately 15 percent was produced in the West. From the viewpoint of conservation and utilization of fluorine as a natural resource, it is interesting to note that the total estimated quantity of fluorine in domestically produced phosphate rock is more than double that present in domestically mined fluorspar.

Jan 1, 1958

By Elmer W. Pehrson

The recent establishment of an official price of 64.64 cents per ounce for silver by the President's order of December 21, 1933, has provoked discussion as to the effects of this move on the various metal-mining industries. To assist those of the mineral industry who are interested in this problem, the Bureau of Mines presents the following analysis of basic statistical data concerning; the relation of the silver price to the value of copper ores mined in the United States. The term "copper ore" as used herein includes all ores in which copper is the most abundant base metal paid for. In 1928, this class of ore contributed 98 percent of the total copper output of the United States.

Jan 1, 1934

By T. E. Swigart

In connection with experimental work by the Bureau of Mines to determine effects of back pressure . on oil wells * , data were compiled on the engineering conditions in the oil field selected , in order to afford a more complete understanding of the wells tested , and to illustrate the extent to which underground conditions should be studied when making oil -field experiments of this nature . This report , containing the data mentioned, may be of interest to the oil industry , as it describes briefly the methods of operation employed in developing and exploiting shallow well territory .

Feb 1, 1923

PURPOSE: Evaluate practical technological advances in level-dependent hearing protectors and inexpensive personal acoustic monitors. RESEARCH SUMMARY: The results of previous NIOSH research show that miners develop hearing loss much more quickly than nonoccupationally noise-exposed individuals and that miners experience a greater severity of hearing loss than would be expected for nonoccupational noise-exposed persons of the same age and gender. Using hearing thresholds at 4,000 Hz as an indicator, coal miners experience hearing loss 2.5 to 3 times greater than would be expected for persons not exposed to occupational noise. At age 50, 90% of coal miners and 49% of metal/nonmetal miners were found to have a hearing impairment. In comparison, only 9% of a nonoccupationally exposed control group had a hearing impairment at age 50.

Jan 1, 2000

By Joseph J. Wallace, William H. Tavenner, D. A. Reynolds, John M. Provost, James J. Dowd, R. F. Abemethy

"CONCLUSIONSThe investigation shows that there are 5 coal beds of major importance in Wyoming County from the standpoint of present production - Pocahontas No. 3, No. 2 Gas, Sewell, Beckley, and Eagle - and 5 beds of minor importance - Pocahontas No. 6, Cedar Grove, Winifrede, Douglas, and Chilton. The Pocahontas No. 3 bed contains the largest remaining known reserves.Known measured and indicated reserves in all beds, based on a minimum thick¬ness of 14 inches and on 1,800 tons per acre-foot of coal in place, are estimated at 2,665 million short tons as of January 1, 1951. Of this total, 2,121 million short tons is in beds 28 inches and more thick. Areas in each bed were omitted from the estimate because available data relative to the bed characteristics are too meager to make an estimate that conforms with the definitions of measured and indicated coal adopted for this study. Should future drilling or development prove reserves in these areas, such reserves should be added to the total estimated reserves.Recoverable reserves of coal have been estimated in beds 28 inches and more thick. This thickness is about the minimum now being mined by hand loading onto conveyors in the Appalachian region. The weighted average recovery for all beds in Wyoming County, as determined by this investigation, is 55.0 percent. This percent¬age is based on the total thickness of coal (less partings 3/8 inch or more thick) in the bed rather than on the thickness of the coal mined. The known recoverable reserves are estimated to be 1,167 million tons as of January 1, 1951.4. Since most of the Wyoming coals are medium- and low-volatile bituminous in rank and expand during carbonization in modern ovens, they are blended with high-volatile contracting coals."

Apr 1, 1953

By B. J. Dalton

The Bureau of Mines Helium Research Center has as a long-range objective the development of an equation of state for helium that will allow all of the thermodynamic properties to be calculated within the accuracy with which they are known. If this objective is to be realized, a method of calculation must be known. This report gives the principles of the method we use in such problems. A computer program was developed for predicting these properties, including those at the critical point, that is perfectly general and applicable to any equation of state. To demonstrate the efficacy of our method, this computer program was used to evaluate thermodynamic properties of a Redlich-Kwong fluid in the two-phase region. Expressions for calculating various thermodynamic functions specific for this particular equation of state are derived. Numerical values are tabulated and graphs are presented for all functions calculated. It is shown that for a Redlich-Kwong fluid there are finite discontinuities in (1) the second temperature derivative of the Gibbs free energy or chemical potential at the critical point, (2) the second derivative of the vapor pressure curve with regard to the temperature on passing through the critical point, and (3) the measured heat capacity at constant volume on passing through the critical temperature when the calorimeter is filled to the critical density. It is also shown that the heat of vaporization is infinite for a Redlich-Kwong fluid at absolute zero.

Jan 1, 1969