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By A. Eilers

Although the process to which I refer in this paper has been in successful operation for nearly five years, during which time it has been introduced, superseding all other processes having in view the same end, in almost every lead refinery in the country, no description of it, giving economical data, has ever appeared in print, nor has the process been known in its details to any considerable number of engineers beside those conducting it at their works. A discussion of this subject at the present time becomes especially interesting in view of a late publication in the Prussian ministerial organ for Mining and Metallurgy, by Dr. Wedding, in which the method of treating the zinc-silver-lead alloy by distillation, as finally settled upon at Tarnowitz, is very minutely and fully described. It is the more interesting, because in that article reference is made to the American method in an unfavorable light, while, at the same time, it is clear from the article itself, that the most important details of the process, besides the one that it is conducted in black-lead retorts, mere not at all understood. In publishing herewith the details of our American method, one of my objects is to invite comparisons between our simple and direct process and the elaborate one at Tarnowitz. In extracting the silver from work-lead by means of zinc, it is always the intention, in this country, to obtain a zinc-crust so rich in silver that the rich lead resulting from subsequent distillation

By Michel T. Halbouty

The area for which oil and gas developments in South Texas are reported for 1940 in this paper covers the same counties that were included in the reports for 1938 and 1939, with the addition of LaSalle County. LaSalle County is includcd in the Laredo district of South Texas, which totals seven counties for that district. The Corpus Christi district remains the same, with nine counties. The two districts together comprise what is known as the South Texas area for this report. Continued exploration along established trends and beyond proven field limits during 1940 provided South Texas with new fields and new producing levels at a rate of discovery fairly comparable with the high records set during recent years. The wells drilled in the counties within this district (including LaSalle) numbered 1656, approximately 8 per cent below the 1801 figure of last year. However, rank wildcats totaIed 336, an increase of 17.5 per cent compared to the 286 drilled in 1939. Therefore, since new field discoveries numbered 25 in 1940 against 29 in 1939, the rate of new field discoveries in 1940, based upon rank wildcats drilled, was I/I3.4 while that of 1939 was I/9.86, which shows a decrease of about 25 per cent in the rate of new fields. The rank wildcat tests in 1940 gave the following results: 18 produced oil, 4 produced distillate with gas, 3 produced. only gas, and 3r1 were dry holes (Table 5). Of the 1320 tests drilled in already proven fields or as extensions to pro+en areas (representing a decline of 12.8 per cent from last year's total of 1515 tests), 1048 produced oil or distillate, 60 produced gas and 212 were dry holes (Table 4). Of the producers, 50 found new sands or crude-in-distillate-sands in existing fields. Among the several fields subjected to extensive development were: Colorado, Jim Hogg County; East White Point, San Patricio and Nueces County; Rincon and Sun, Starr County; Glen, Webb and Zapata Counties; Wade City and Orange Grove, Jim Wells County; Stratton and South Clara Driscoll, Nueces County, and Aransas Pass, San Patricio and Aransas Counties. The development of important crude reserves on structures formerly considered primarily distillate fields has probably been the most important phase of the year's operations in South Texas. The Rincon, Stratton, Agua Dulce, Wade City, Odem and Robston fields provided the new crude sand discoveries. At some places crude production was opened by exploratory wells that found new sand horizons; in others by flank wells that found already discovered distillate sands sufficiently low to provide crude production. Rincon, Starr County, with its multiple sands, is now believed to be one of South Texas' largest crude-oil reserves. Offshore drilling showed important results during the year, including the discovery of two new submerged fields and the extension of the East White Point field into offshore Nueces County. The new marine fields are: East Flour Bluff) 76

Jan 1, 1941

By W. A. Anderson, R. F. Mehl

RECRYSTALLIZATION of cold-worked metals has long been known to proceed by a process of nucleation and growth.1 When a cold-worked metal is heated to a temperature at which recrystallization will ensue, nuclei of new grains, essentially strain-free, appear and grow. As the process proceeds, nuclei continue to appear and to grow, until the cold-worked matrix has been entirely consumed and recrystallization has been completed (Fig. I). Conducted isothermally, a measurement of the fraction of the matrix recrystallized plotted against time, yields an isothermal recrystallization curve, showing the time course of the recrystallization process (Fig. 2).2 Evidently, then, the rate of recrystallization is determined by the rate at which nuclei form and the rate at which they grow. The rate of nucleation N is the number of nuclei that form in unit time in unit volume of the unrecrystallized matrix, and the rate of growth G is the increase in radius of the recrystallized grain per unit time. In recent years attempts have been made to determine N and G as these vary with the well-recognized variables affecting recrystallization: time, temperature, degree of deformation, etc.' Such studies yield information that is more fundamental than that conveyed by the conventional recrystallization diagram,' since the rate of recrystallization is thus analyzed into its two component rates.2 Methods are now available by which N and G can be measured, and analytical expressions have been developed for the interrelationships among N, G, the isothermal recrystallization curve, and the final grain size, which greatly facilitate analysis.2-4 The application of these methods has been demonstrated recently for the recrystallization of silicon ferrite.2 Data on N and G in dependence upon the recognized recrystallization variables are, however, very fragmentary;* values of N and G have been determined for some metals, but the effect of temperature, which would yield the fundamentally important activation energies, has been too little studied. Thus far there has been no detailed study of the recrystallization of any one metal in terms of N and G over appreciable ranges of the variables time, temperature, degree of deformation, and original grain size. It is the purpose of the present paper to provide such a study, employing aluminum.

Jan 1, 1945

By S. F. Radtke, J. A. Snyder, R. M. Scriver

An automatic, continuous casting arc furnace employing a nonconsum-able electrode and a direct current arc has been constructed and operated successfully for titanium. A comparison of the properties of arc and induction-melted titanium indicates that where high ductility, formability, and toughness are required, arc-melted metal is preferable. BECAUSE of the reactivity of titanium metal with all known refractories and the common atmospheric gases, melting of the metal presents numerous problems. It is necessary to provide an inert atmosphere in the furnace as well as a crucible material that will not react with the molten metal, if a ductile ingot is to be produced. Two special furnaces have been developed that meet the requirements and one, the induction heated graphite furnace, has been described in some detail.' Little information is available for sizable units wherein power is applied to the melt through an arc, and the dearth of technical information on such a furnace prompted this report. It has been demonstrated clearly that arc melting produces titanium metal with superior toughness, ductility, and formability. To produce titanium ingots with these properties, an automatic, continuous casting arc furnace has been developed and is described herein. The history of arc melting may be traced to 1800, when Sir Humphrey Davy2 first experimented with Volta's electric battery and found that light could be produced and an arc formed between two carbon points attached to the cell. The discovery of the arc was followed by the design and construction of an arc furnace by Napier," in 1845, for the reduction of metal oxides. In 1853, Pichou' described a similar furnace, although it was not until the discovery of the dynamo in 1867 that the arc furnace could achieve commercial significance. In 1878, Siemens- esigned the first arc furnace intended for the melting of metals and by 1882 had melted steel and platinum successfully. . This was followed by Moissan's" classical work with the arc furnace in 1892. W. von Bolton,' in 1905, found that the arc furnace was suited admirably for melting refractory metals. In his work with tantalum, no suitable refractories for retaining the molten metal were found to exist. Together with Otto Simpson, he developed an arc furnace with a water-cooled copper crucible in which tantalum could be melted without contamination. This technique proved eminently successful. In his paper on the preparation of ductile titanium, Krolle first described an application of the von Bolton furnace to the melting of this metal. The

Jan 1, 1952

By R. L. Lloyd

UNLIKE the development of sintering lead, copper and zinc ores, the sintering of fine irony material had its birth, not as a result of gradual growth along lines aimed at the production of sintered and agglomerated product, but because the success of the sintering operation in other lines had been brought to the attention of the ironmasters, who were immediately attracted by the prospect of being able to convert their own fines-into a similar product. The abundance of iron ores in the United States and their comparative cheapness had led iron men into the habit of not paying particular attention to the fine material blown out of their blast furnaces. Hundreds of thousands of tons had been stacked up and used only during times of shortage of ore and then usually without any preliminary preparation, though many attempts had been made to briquette it. Briquettes proved good material, but the operation of briquetting was too expen-sive when applied to iron-ore fines. The development of the iron-ore blast furnace in the United States tended toward large units, high columns and heavy blast pressure, and this tendency is still peculiar to this country, whereas in the other countries the tendency has been to smaller units, lower columns and lower blasts. The high blast pressures and swift driving of the American blast furnace tend, of course, to produce more flue dust than European practice, and this production of flue dust was augmented when large quantities of soft ore, of which the Mesabi is typical, came on to the market. These ores are desirable chemically but physically they are soft, friable and fine, and when they are used in the iron blast furnace the flue dust produc-tion is increased. The necessity of rehandling the flue dust lead to briquetting on an extensive scale. The binders used were either chemical or mechanical, and in one system the briquettes were kiln fired in very high temperatures. Rotary kilns, coal or oil fired, were used extensively, and gave a product of hard and more or less nodulized material, but at considerable cost. This was the situation in regard to iron flue dust when the late James Gayley and his associates became interested in the idea of sintering the iron blast-furnace flue dusts under their own fuel (included coke dust) of which they carried between 15 and 30 per cent.

Jan 10, 1922

Jan 1, 1911

By G. R. Love

i\ program has been written which allows fully automatic conversion of data for X-ray intensity, as a function of time, to finished conventional pole figures. The program accepts input data in the serial order in which they are taken and is therefore immediately compatible with automatic data-acquisition devices. From these data taped instructions are prepared for the Calcomp plotter to construct ink-on-paper drawings. Because both Siemens and Norelco pole figure goniometers are used in this laboratory, the program was written for pole figure data obtained from one or more interpenetrating spiral scans during which both the polar angle, @, and the equatorial angle, a, are varied simultaneously and continuously. The reference direction for a scan, that is the point @ = 0 deg, may be chosen coincident with either the normal direction (N.D. figures) or the rolling direction (R.D. figures). In either case the plotted figures are drawn with the transverse direction (a = 0 deg) at the right and the rolling direction at the top. The full, circular, pole figure is drawn as two semicircular figures labeled "front side" and "back side". As presently constituted, the program will also accept data from circular scans taken at constant values of @. In every case the angular coordinates of each intensity entry are generated in the computer from a relatively small number of auxiliary data. The X-ray intensity data are corrected for background scattering by direct subtraction of the intensity measured with 28 set appropriately "off" the Bragg angle. It is possible to enter this correction as an additional spiral scan through the a, @ space; because the background correction does not normally vary rapidly enough to warrant this detailed a determination, the background corrections are entered as one or more auxiliary data. All data are normalized to a multiple of random intensity. The data taken in this laboratory for N.D. figures are normally taken in a reflection geometry from from sheet samples and do not extend beyond <p = 75 deg; for these data random intensity must be determined from separate experiments and entered as auxiliary information. When the auxiliary information is not available, a number is chosen to give intensity values normalized to a scale of 1 to 10. In this laboratory, R.D. figures are based upon hemispherical samples for which data are taken out to @ = 90 deg; for these data random intensity is calculated by direct numerical integration of . sin @ d@ using the trapezoidal rule and the background-corrected values of the input data. Points necessary to the construction of the pole figure are identified by simple linear interpolation between adjacent data points to determine the loci of contour lines. Points lying on a given contour are connected to one another with straight-line segments and the search-calculation-drawing sequence is patterned to assure that different contour lines do not cross, that a single line does not branch, and that lines do not end in space. However, so that there be no ambiguity in the data presentation, all contour lines end at the limits of the input data. Since the curves are constructed of straight-line segments, they are not continuous in their derivatives. However,

Jan 1, 1969

By Irwin Roman

NUMEROUS results and formulas have been published for analyzing seismic records, but most of them apply only to large-scale phenomena such as are encountered in studying earthquakes. In a few cases,1 formulas have been published for some of the simpler structures. In the present paper, an attempt will be made to analyze several types of struc-tures without using methods more advanced than those of a first course in calculus. In, tracing a disturbance through a medium, it is almost always possible to base the analysis on Fermat&apos;s Principle of Extreme Time, which states that waves of displacement travel between points in such a manner as to make the time of travel an extremum with respect to all neighboring paths. In the simpler cases, comprising most of those used in optics or geophysical prospecting, this time is a minimum and the principle is often referred to as the Principle of Least Time. Within a homogeneous medium, having a uniform speed of transmission of the disturbance in all directions and throughout the medium, the paths are straight and are refracted at the interfaces in accordance with the Snell law of refraction, which states that the ratio of the sine of the angle, made by the ray with the normal to the interface, to the speed of trans-mission is the same on both sides of the interface. Thus, in any medium composed of homogeneous sections, this same ratio has a constant value at all points. In particular, if all interfaces are horizontal, it is apparent that the angles of incidence are the angles made by the ray with the vertical direction. Furthermore, the incident ray, the refracted ray and the normal to the interface are all in the same plane at each refraction;

Jan 1, 1933

By Bruce A. Kennedy

The long awaited new Mining Engineering Handbook is taking shape under the leadership of A. B. Cummins, Chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board for the SME Mining Engineering Handbook, and Ivan Given, Editor-in-Chief. The last Mining Engineers&apos; Handbook, the Peele edition, published by John Wiley and Sons, was last revised in 1941. This book was and still is a virtual mine of information although a good deal of its content, especially the cost tables, is becoming rather antiquated. The new one-volume work will contain approximately 1600 pages and be divided into 36 sections. A brief summary of the sections follows: The Place and Contribution of Mining, Mining Costs: Mining Geology-Minerals and Mineral Deposits; Minerals Discovery-Prospecting and Exploration Methods and Equipment; Site Exploration and Selection; Minerals-Mining Design; Soil and Rock Mechanics; Design of Excavations; Opening and Development: Underground Mining Systems and Equipment; Roof and Ground Control; Groundwater and Groundwater Control: Open-Pit and Strip-Mining Systems and Equipment: Underwater and Ocean Mining; Fragmentation-Cutting, Drilling, Blasting; Underground Haulage: Hoists and Hoisting Systems; Surface Haulage, Hoisting. Lowering Pumping and Drainage; Ventilation: Mine Surveying; Ore and Coal Processing; Mill Design; Industrial Minerals-Specifications and Markets: Power; Maintenance plant and Equipment; Supply Service; Health and Safety; Reclamation and Surface Restoration: Administration and Management; Operations Optimization (Systems Engineering) : Mint, Costs and Control: Mine Examination. Valuation. Reports; Engineering Terms: and Consulting Engineering.

Jan 1, 1970

By Magnus Troilius

The following is a very rapid method for determining copper in steel. I have found it to give results very closely agreeing with those obtained by galvanic precipitation of the copper. Five grams of steel are dissolved in a mixture of 100 C.C. of water and 10 C.C. of sulphuric acid. When all is dissolved, add 2 C.C.

Jan 1, 1883

By L. Graydon Carpenter, Donald E. Garrett

Probably the largest single tungsten deposit in the U. S. is one that has yet to produce any tungsten; it is not even listed in tables showing U. S. reserves. This deposit is at Searles Lake, Calif., where the brine contains about 70 ppm WO3. Small though the concentration is, the amount of brine in the lake is so great that it is estimated at 170 million lb of WO3 (8.5 million units), equaling the total of all other known reserves in the U. S. This dry lake is located in the basin formed by the Argus and Slate ranges in the northeastern corner of the Mojave Desert (Fig. 1). It consists of a massive salt body some 35 sq miles in extent, varying in thickness from 0 to 120 ft and containing more than 3 billion tons of salt. A central section of about L. G. CARPENTER and D. E. GARRETT are with the Research Dept., American Potash & Chemical Corp., Trona, Calif. TP 47881. Manuscript, Nov. 4, 1958. AlME Trans., Vol. 214, 1959. 8 sq miles is exposed salt; the remaining area is overlain by mud. Except for the exposed sodium chloride (10 to 15 ft thick) the body consists of a very complex and heterogenous mixture of soluble crystals, containing at least eight major phases. It is only about 53 pct solid, the voids being occupied by a dense brine which is the raw material for two chemical companies operating in the valley.

Jan 3, 1959

By Fred H. Poettmann, A. L. Benham

correlation of waters and identification of mixtures of two and three waters is important in secondary recovery evaluation studies and studies involving underground movement of waters. The importance of such studies suggests the need for a method to correlate a great number of water analyses to accurately identify and improve the understanding of mixtures of waters. Geochemical analyses of waters furnish a quantitative measure of each of the ions present in a water. Table L shows a portion of the data on many oilfield water analysis report forms in use today. Under "parts per million" are listed the quantitative amounts of each ion in milligrams per liter. Following the work of Stabler&apos; and Palmer", some laboratories have reported additional data to indicate the reaction capacity, or reacting value of each ion. Table I lists data under two subheads for the "reacting value". Under the first subhead, the reacting value is reported in gram equivalents per million, hereinafter called equivalents per million. This value is determined by multiplying milligrams per liter of the ion by a factor equal to the reciprocal of the equivalent weight of the ion. Under the second subhead (per cent) is listed the percentage of each ion based on the total equivalents per million. Sodium is not usually an analyzed value in routine analyses, but is determined by the difference between total negative equivalent per million values and the sum of all of positive ion values for which analyses were made. This difference is reported as sodium, hereafter labelled "sodium". On this basis, the subtotals of the equivalent per million and per cent reacting values of the positive and negative ions are equal. CORRELATION OF WATER ANALYSES DATA Previously reported methods for correlating oilfield waters have used part of the data in Table 1, and can be classified into two categories. Correlation by Chemical Character Correlation methods using the chemical character of waters, as represented by the per cent reacting values of the ionic constituents, have been used by Palmer2 and Tickell. These methods have the limitation of neglecting the ionic concentration of the waters. This limitation can be serious in areas where waters have the same chemical character, but differ in concentration. Correlation by Concentration of the Ionic Constituents The Reistle&apos; and the Stiff methods use the ionic concentration in parts per million and equivalents per million. These methods are effective in differentiating waters of similar chemical character and varying concentration, as in the highly saline waters of the Mid-Continent area. These methods have the disadvantage that they correlate waters by comparing many graphs of individual water analyses to determine the similarity to, or the variance from "type" waters. PROPOSED METHOD OF CORRELATING WATER ANALYSES DATA Correlation graphs presented in Fig. 1 represent water analyses data as points to facilitate the correlation of waters. The graph on the left of Fig. 1 is a plot of per cent reacting value of magnesium vs calcium. The right

Jan 1, 1908

By Jo. E. Sheridan

The Dawson coal-mines are owned aid operated by the Stag Canon Fuel Co., of which Dr. James Douglas is President and E. L. Carpenter general manager. The property is situated in Colfax county, N. M., and the openings now in operation are in townships 28 and 29 N R. 20 E., and township 28 N E. 21 E., shown in Fig. I. The mines are part of the southern end of the Raton coal-field, which extends north into Colorado and embraces many coal-camps of the Trinidad section. II. Geology. Geologically, the coal-measures, commonly known as the Laramie series of the Cretaceous system, have x thickness of about 800 ft. in the vicinity of Damson. The coal makes an excellent coke, and, according to some authorities, its coking properties are due to the action of intruded sheets and sills of igneous rock, the sheets occasionally thickening into masses resembling laccoliths, at such places making nearer approach to the coal and sometimes producing small areas of natural coke. There are but few dikes throughout the entire southern portion of the field and little or no faulting along the dikes. In some parts of this great coal-field the intrusive sheets are far removed in the green shales below the coal-measures, and are so much altered as to be difficult of identification. There is but little disturbance of the strata throughout the Raton coal-field in as far as it extends into New Mexico. There are two workable seams in the coal-measures, and two or three smaller coal-seams, ranging from 1 to 2.5 ft. in thick-

Jan 1, 1910

By W. A. Wood, W. H. Reimann

A study is made of the creep that can be induced in armco iron at room temperature by superposing small amplitudes of alternating torsion on a tensile creep load. It is shown that the creep differs from that in comparable tests on copper in being trmsient only. At the same time, though transient, the creep can produce extensions of some 10 pct under creep loads less than the tensile yield stress of the material. The creep can be largely suppressed b$ applying cyclic strain of suitable amplitude before applying the creep load and the metal thereby stabilized. At room temperature, plastic flow in a metal under steady load is normally limited by strain-hardening processes. However, if a small cyclic stress is superposed on the steady load these processes may be more or less neutralized and, as shown in recent investigations,&apos;-4 plastic flow may continue. In this way annealed copper, for example, can be induced to creep continuously to fracture under loads as small as 1 tsi. Dislocation mechanisms possibly responsible for this room-temperature creep have been usefully reviewed by Feltner.But discussion so far has been based mainly on creep as it is found in close-packed metals initially in the annealed state, and their behavior may not be general. In fact, recent work shows that the form of creep in annealed copper is different from that even in cold-worked copper;7 the creep thus depends on the dislocation pattern already in a metal as well as on the metal itself. This paper describes the creep in annealed armco iron, tested in the same way as the above-mentioned copper. One object was to see how creep in a typical bcc metal compared with that in the annealed close-packed metals. Another object was to utilize the fact that a bcc metal like iron has a more pronounced elastic range than close-packed metals like copper and to find to what extent the creep load or superposed cyclic stress had to exceed their re-

Jan 1, 1964

By David, Cole

THE years 1914-15-16 were a pioneering period in mining, milling, and copper metallurgy generally. It was uncertain just what path the crushing, grinding, and concentrating processes would take. This situation was quite embarrassing to the directors of some of our large porphyry properties, then being equipped for production. Inspiration had already made several designs for its proposed 15,000-ton concentrator, incorporating in them the latest devices developed in the art of gravity concentration, only to have the work vitiated by the rapid march of events. In a little improvised plant, built on ground that is now in the crater of subsidence over the Inspiration- Miami orebodies, flotation was being experimentally &apos; applied to Inspiration ore by Minerals Separation engineers in 1914, with results indicating that this process would be of major importance in the concentration of the sulfides. How best to apply it, and especially how to crush and grind the ore to the very much finer sizes required for the new process, was a serious question, properly to be answered only by doing it, in full- sized machines, under regular &apos;operating conditions.

Jan 1, 1931

By J. J. Rutledge

THE first method of working coal mines in the middle western states, more particularly in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri, was by means of the so-called single-entry method. In this method a single main passageway, or entry, was driven in the coal seam. with no parallel passageways, and from this pas-sageway or entry there were turned at intervals sim-ilar cross-passageways or entries, and from these cross-passageways, if the coal seam worked lay fairly horizontal, rooms were turned right and left. These crude methods of working were followed when the com-panies opening the mines were small and of very limited capital, and when the demand for coal was small and irregular. The principal desire was to produce coal in the short-est possible time and at the cheapest price. The chief evil resulting from such method of working was de-fective ventilation, although there were other serious drawbacks. There were then few or no good mining laws and no restrictions on those operating the coal mines. The hours of labor were long, the wages low, and the miners accordingly worked hard. All the coal was either sheared or undercut with a pick by hand. Very little solid shooting and no machine mining was done. What little air entered the mine, openings was introduced through the entries or. headings and thence conducted through the rooms by means of curtains; in many cases, as the workings became more exten-sive, the number of curtains added so materially to the mine resistance that ventilation was extremely in-efficient. Shots were fired by the miners at any time during the working shift and consequently there was more or less powder smoke or fumes in the mine work-ings all day long. Moreover, the working days were much longer than at present. The fine, dry coal-dust falling from the miners&apos; picks while they were shear-ing or undercutting the coal filled the mine atmosphere and was taken into the lungs of the mine employees.

Jan 2, 1927

Mineral Industries education as an entity, again and again has sought recognition, always to be turned aside or ignored.1 The incident mentioned in Lost Chapter was only the first of a series of disappointments. The Land-Grant Act is camouflaged here and there in the name of progressive education. A new interpretation may be in the best interests of society in so far as the goose is not killed that lays the golden egg. The primary objective of the act is still "agriculture and mechanic arts" but mechanic arts is not alone mechanical arts or engineering. Mechanic arts was used in a broad sense as a symbol of creative effort in locating and winning the fundamentals of existence - plants, animals, and minerals - from Mother Earth, their primary processing and treatment into foodstuffs and raw materials of industry, their manufacture into useful articles of commerce, and, last, their distribution and utilization. Significantly the great agricultural industry is now at least half mechanic arts. The Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities has neglected the mineral kingdom shamefully. The Association embraces Divisions of Agriculture, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Home Economics, and Veterinary Medicine but has no division relating to the mineral industries.

Jan 1, 1950

By Wilbur Nelson

Little drilling has been done in Kentucky and Tennessee in 1923, with the exception of the Kettle Creek area on the Kentucky-Tennessee line. Oil prices fluctuated between $2.86 and $1.36 Per bbl. for light oil. The Kentucky production was slightly over 8,000,000 bbl., being 1,000,000 bbl. less than during 1922. Tennessee production was approximately 8500 bbl., being a decrease of 1000 bbl, over. 1922. During 1923, the first producing well was brought in, in Clay County, Tenn. Production in Tennessee will undoubtedly increase considerably in 1924, and Kentucky production will probably increase slightly. THE year 1923 has been a dull period in oil development in Kentucky and Tennessee, with the exception of the Kettle Creek area along the Tennessee-Kentucky line, in Clinton and Cumberland Counties, Kentucky, and Clay County, Tennessee. The price of oil during the year has been so low that wildcatters have shown little interest in drilling. At the beginning of the year, light oil sold for $2.31 per barrel and medium oil for $2.06 per, barrel. Prices increased to the highest point for the year in February, when light oil brought $2.86 per barrel and medium oil, $2.61. In April, prices had declined 35 c. while in May an additional decline of 25 c. went into effect. During June, prices declined 20 c. per barrel; during July, 45 c. per barrel; remained stationary during August and September, and dropped during November and December to the low price of $1.36 per barrel for light and $1.21 for medium oil. At present, an increase of 29 c. has brought the price of light oil up to $1.55, and indications are that the price will continue to increase during the coming months. It can readily be seen that during 1923 the price of oil was such as to prevent any drilling except that necessary to hold leases and to maintain production enough to take care of overhead expenses.

Jan 3, 1924

Discussion of the paper of GEORGE K. BURGESS and SIR ROBERT A. HADFIELD, presented at the New York meeting, February, 1915, and printed in Bulletin No. 98, February, 1915, pp. 455 to 468. ALBERT SAUVEUR, Cambridge, Mass.-There is a definiteness and finality in the investigations that have been conducted by the Bureau of Standards and in the method of presenting the results that is most satisfactory and refreshing.. A year ago Dr. Burgess and his co-workers investigated the question of critical points in carbonless iron, and they settled the question once for all. No one can now claim that the thermal point A2 in carbonless iron does not exist. At the past meeting of this Institute in Pittsburgh, Dr. Burgess showed the worthlessness of the shrinkage clause. To my mind after his demonstration no one can again claim that the shrinkage clause renders any service. He also showed us that it was a practicable proposition to use pyrometers in steel work in order to ascertain the finishing temperatures of rails. No one can again come before this body and make the claim that it is not a practical proposition. And now Dr. Burgess shows us that steel ingots can be made in a commercial way, practically free from pipe, from segregation, aid from blow holes. It places again before us in a very clear manner the question of piped ingots and of segregation, a question which has been debated for 20 years or more. I know very well the attitude of the standpatters in the matter. They claim that most of the pipe is removed in the discard, and that if a little is left it is so thoroughly welded that it does no harm. I for one am not convinced of the soundness of the argument. I do not believe there is any one present who would claim that, given an ingot free from pipe, free from segregation, and free from blow holes, better rails will not be made out of that ingot than out of the ordinary piped or segregated metal which is used by almost all of our steel mills. In my opinion, if we give our sanction to the casting of steel in the shape of piped or segregated steel ingots, we are guilty. If we give our sanction to the rolling of rails from such metal, we are guilty. It is our duty as experts, as steel makers, and as steel consumers to make and to use the best steel obtainable on a commercial basis, for the manufacture of rails. Now, we have been shown that sound ingots can be produced from which superior rails can be made. If we do not insist upon these sound ingots, then we fail in our duty. I think that the art of casting steel ingots has advanced to such a point that the casting of steel ingots piped and segregated ought no longer to be tolerated.

Jan 5, 1915