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Jan 1, 1908

By Robert M. Grogan, Gill Montgomery

Fluorspar, the commercial name for fluorite, is a mineral composed of calcium fluoride, CaF,. Its valuable properties are due to its content of fluorine, and it is the principal commercial source of that element. The name is derived from the Latin word "fluere," to flow, because the mineral has a low melting point and is used in metallurgy as a flux. Cryolite is a sodium aluminum fluoride, Na,AlF,. It is a rare mineral which has been found in commercial quantities in only one place in the world, Greenland. Small amounts of it are shipped from stock in that country, and its place in industry has been taken over almost completely by synthetic cryolite. Because of the relative unimportance of cryolite, discussion of it has been relegated to a short section at the end of this chapter, which is principally concerned with fluorspar. History Fluorspar was used for ornamental purposes by the Greeks and Romans, who fashioned such things as vases, drinking cups, and table tops from it. Various peoples including the Chinese and the American Indians carved ornaments and figurines from large crystals. Its usefulness as a flux was known to Agricola (1564), who wrote about it in 1546. Mining began in England about 1775 and at various places in the United States during the period 1820 to 1840. Production became substantial following the development and widespread adoption of the basic open hearth method of making steel, in which fluorspar is used as a flux. After that, production and usage were stimulated by growth in the steel, aluminum, chemical, and ceramic industries and were accelerated by World Wars I and II. Fluorocarbons entered the picture in 193 1 and the use of anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (HF) as a catalyst in the manufacture of alkylate for high octane fuel blends began in 1942. The development of the froth flotation process in the late 1920s, a differential flotation scheme for separating fluorspar from galena, sphalerite, and common gangue minerals in the 1930s, and the application of heavy-media concentrating methods to the treatment of low grade ores in the 1940s were outstanding technological contributions that enabled increased production of fluorspar concentrates. In recent years the development of pelletizing and briquetting processes for making flotation concentrates into gravel-size particles for use in steel furnaces and the development of more efficient and selective flotation schemes for treating crude ores containing abundant dolomite and barite have been major improvements in the industry.

Jan 1, 1975

By D. S. Jacobus

COMPRESSED-air motors are specially desirable, if economically practicable, for underground haulage, because they require no fuel, involve no danger of fire, and not only avoid heating and fouling the atmosphere with smoke and combastion-gases, but by the emission of expanding fresh air, cool and improve it and aid ventilation. The highest developments in the use of compressed-air motors for locomotion are to be found, in the opinion of the writer, in the principles of the Mekarski car-motor as applied to street tramways, and it is thought that notes taken regarding this system, during a recent trip to Europe, where two plants are in successful operation, at Nantes and Vincennes respectively, will be interesting to mining engineers. The plant at Nantes operates a street-line 5.2 miles long, requiring about twenty motors; the one at Vincennes about 7 miles of road. Each car at Nantes carries its own motor. At Vincennes, however, the motor-car is arranged to tow a second car containing no motor. The road at Nantes is the older, having been in successful operation for ten years, during which time neither the American consul, Mr. Shackelford, who has resided at Nantes for about five years, nor the vice-consul, Mr. Bennett, who has been at Nantes ever since the road started, has ever seen anything go wrong with the motors. DESCRIPTION OF THE RAILROA at Nantes. Motor-Car.—Two small engines are connected' so as to rotate the front axle of the car, a reversing lever being used to alter the cut-

Jan 1, 1891

For the convenience of members who may be trawling from place to place, the Secretary has compiled a list of libraries or other places in the United States and foreign countries here MINING AND METALLURGY or the Transactions may he consulted. This list will be sent to members if they so request.

Jan 1, 1923

Jan 1, 1884

Jan 1, 1969

By Lynn Howell

IN a previous articles we have described a technique for measuring the relative intensities of gamma rays from the radioactive elements occurring naturally in geological formations along the walls of a borehole. The apparatus consisted of two Geiger-Müller tubes mounted inside a pressure-tight chamber. Each counter tube was coupled separately to an amplifier and a frequency meter at the surface by means of a multiconductor cable upon Which the chamber was suspended. The output currents of the two frequency meters were recorded on a photographic paper as the chamber was moved in 'the hole. These traces showed remarkable correlation with the geologic formations, as evidenced by comparison with commercial electrical logs.' Owing to the penetrating power of the gamma rays, logs may be taken in both open and cased boreholes. The apparatus has recently been changed somewhat. One of the counter tubes has been removed and a stage of amplification has been added. inside the chamber, This arrangement seems to give a more favorable signal-to-noise ratio and satisfactory logs can be now made in cased holes and also in open holes as previously, Briefly described, the chamber moving in the hole is made of 3,2-in. drill pipe and is about 10 ft. long. There is an additional extension about 2 ft, long at the top, inside which cable connections are made. The Geiger-Müller tube is mounted inside the bottom end of the chamber, Above this is the vacuum-tube amplifier with its batteries and transformer, In the top part of the chamber, small 45-volt batteries are mounted, which in part supply the high voltage for the counter tube, Additional voltage is supplied from the surface through the multiconductor cable upon which the chamber is suspended. Also, the output of the transformer in the single-stage amplifier is coupled to another single-stage amplifier at the surface through this cable. The surface amplifier is coupled to the Thyratron-controlled frequency meter, the tank circuit of which consists of a one megohm resistor across which is a bank of condensers varying in

Jan 1, 1939

By Ronald R. McNaughton

The most recent group of papers on the general subject of lead smelting were published in AIME Transactions, vol. 121, in 1936. The lecture deals with changes which have taken place in the Past 30 years in this industry. The subject matter covers the essential steps of charge preparation, sintering, blast furnacing, dross treatment, refining, and slag fuming together with the subsidiary or associated activities of analytical procedures, dust and fume collection, maintenance, and hygiene. IN 1936 the AIME published Transactions, vol. 121, entitled "Metallurgy of Lead and Zinc". In the preface to this volume the chairman of the Committee on the Reduction and Refining of Lead and Zinc, Carle R. Hay ward, said in part: ... since the World War few papers of major significance have appeared on the production and refining of lead and zinc, although many improvements in technique have been made, which have attracted little attention because they were merely developments of existing practice. Other changes of a more radical nature have also been made, but... they have been given little publicity. It seems appropriate, therefore, at this time that the AIME should sponsor a volume on lead and zinc metallurgy... . That the publication of this compilation was timely is attested by the rapidity with which the surplus stock was depleted. It has now become a collector's item. Although a comprehensive monograph on the occurrence, extraction, refining, and uses of zinc was published by the American Chemical Society in 1959,' one could almost repeat Professor Hayward's words to describe the present situation in the literature of lead reduction and refining. So it is my intention today to discuss briefly some of the changes and improvements which have taken place in the metallurgy of lead in the interval since the publication of vol. 121. The lead blast furnace, which made its appearance in America about 1870, is still dominant in the reduction field. However there are other reduction methods in use today in special situations. In those rare circumstances where the material to be treated is very high grade, consideration might be given to the Bolidens electric furnace method2 or the Lurgi self-fluxing process3 or possibly to the rotary ore hearth. Each of these latter three processes makes use of the roast-reduction reactions with the result that fuel require-

Jan 1, 1969

By R. D. Leitch, W. P. Yant, R. R. Sayers

In 1924, the United States Public Health Service was requested to undertake a special study of stream pollution. The Public Health Service asked the United States Bureau of Mines to take up the study because the training and experience of the personnel of the former was considered not to be as well suited to this type of investigation as that of the Bureau of Mines. Under H. Foster Bain, then Director of the Bureau, field investigations were begun in the spring of 1925. Along with mine-drainage wastes, the problem of gas-house and coke-oven waste was investigated in the laboratory and a method of treatment by sodium hydrate and benzol was found to be promising. The idea was obtained by A. C. Fieldner, chief engineer of the Bureau Experiment Stations, on a trip to Germany in 1924. He saw a practical application of the process, but obtained no information as to definite chemical or mechanical processes. Because of the then pending American patent applications by the German firm, we made no attempt to develop our findings further. Shortly afterward, a similar method of treatment was developed in the United States,' and since that time we have devoted our attention entirely to mine drainage. This paper is a presentation of some general facts and information gathered during the past five years on coal-mine drainage. Scope of Work There was such a diversity of opinion at the time this work was begun, on the whole subject and apparently so little accurately known, that it was decided to undertake a basic study from which first, certain definite information might be evident, and second, what might be considered

Jan 1, 1931

By H. L. Marcus, C. D. Turk

Titanium was physically vapor-deposited by electron beam high rate evaporation. Rates of 50,000 and 85,000Å per min at deposition temperatures of 480°, 535°, and 595°C were used. Deposited thickness ranged front 0.004 to 0.010 in. The evaporated titanium had a high degree of basal Plane texture. The specimens were tested in tension at temperatures ranging from 78° to 520°K. From the data, the yield stress, thermal component of the yield stress, and work hardening characteristics were found as a function of temperature, deposition rate, and deposition temperature. It was found that Taylor's equation, best fit the work hardening data with m = 1/2. MANY investigations have been made on the tensile deformation characteristics of commercial- and high-purity titanium.1"7 The data obtained from these experiments emphasize the fact that the mechanical properties are generally related to the method of production. The correlation of mechanical properties to production history arises from the dependence of impurity concentration on the extraction and melting technique used. Additional effects are derived from crystallographic texturing which can result from fabrication history. Lee and Backofen8 and other investigators9 have shown that crystallographic texturing in titanium sheet has a significant effect on the deformation characteristics. Bunshah and Juntz10 prepared high-purity titanium by high rate physical evaporation techniques. These authors found the deposited material to have a columnar structure with grain sizes ranging from 12 to 104 µ, depending upon the substrate temperature. The room-temperature strengths of the coarse-grained distillate were similar to arc-melted, rolled. and annealed crystal bar titanium. Commercial-purity titanium was also produced experimentally in our laboratory using high rate physical vapor deposition techniques. The commercially pure material has a finer structure than the high-purity distillate,10 and is highly textured. Since the method of preparation and degree of texturing affect the mechanical properties, a research program was initiated to determine the temperature dependence of the yield stress and work hardening characteristics as a function of high rate deposition parameters. This paper relates the results of the investigation. EXPERIMENTAL A) Material Preparation. The titanium was received in the form of commercial-grade 0.096-in.-diam wire which has a composition of 0.016 pct C, 0.0037 pct N, 0.110 pct 0, 0.011 pct H, 0.05 pct Mn, 0.051 pct Fe. balance Ti. The wire was continuously fed into a vacuum evaporation unit as shown schematically in Fig. 1. The deposition chamber was evacuated, purged with argon, and reevacuated to a pressure of 10-5 Torr which was maintained during deposition. A focused electron beam was used to evaporate the titanium from a water-cooled copper crucible. The titanium vapor was condensed onto a preheated titanium substrate. The temperature of the substrate was controlled within ±5°C for the deposition temperatures of 480°, 535°, and 595°C. Control of the input power enabled the use of two deposition rates. 50,000 and 85,000Å per min. The evaporated titanium had a final analysis similar to that of the input titanium, within experimental limits. B) Testing. The evaporated titanium was physically stripped from the titanium substrate and machined into tensile specimens with 1-in. gage lengths. In addition, tensile specimens of as received annealed 35-A titanium sheet with a 20 µ grain size and 45 pct cold-rolled 35-A were also prepared. All specimens were tested in tension in an Instron at a strain rate of 3.3 x 10"4 in. per in. per sec. Proportional limit has been used as a measure of yield strength. Tests were conducted at 78°, 220°, 300°, and 520°K. Metallography, X-ray diffraction, and electron microscopy were used to correlate structure with the deposition parameters and mechanical properties. Room-temperature X-ray measurements were made to determine the phases present. Pole figures and a scans were made to determine deposition texture. Because the vapor deposition was symmetrical about the normal to the substrate, there was no preferred di-

Jan 1, 1969

By W. H. Patnode

The effect of suspended solids on the resistivity of slurries is discussed and the relationship between drilling mud resistivity and mud filtrate investigated. It is concluded that it is erroneous to substitute mud resistivity for mud filtrate resistivity in electric log calculations. A recommendation is made that both the bud resistivity and the mud filtrate resistivity be determined when electric logs are run. INTRODUCTION The electric log is influenced not only by the resistvity of the drilling mud in the borehole at the time of logging but also by the resistivity of the drilling mud filtrate. Sherborne and Newtoni investigated the relationship of mud resistivity to mud filtrate resistivity and concluded that, "The resistivity of the mud in most cases closely approximates that of its filtrate," and "In fact, with the exception of Aquagel and its filtrate, the figures for any particular mud and filtrate are almost identical." Present practice is to determine only the drilling mud resistivity and apply this same value to calculations involving the mud filtrate. The purpose of this study is to reexamine the factors governing the relationship between mud resistivity and mud filtrate resistivity. EFFECT OF BOREHO1.E FLUID ON THE ELECTRIC LOG Resistivity Log The resistivity log may be modified by the resistivity of the borehole fluid in two different ways: (1) The apparent resistivity of a for-formation may be different from the true resistivity of the formation because of the flow of some current through the drilling mud in the borehole. Therefore the resistivity of the mud is an important factor. (2) The apparent resistivity may differ from the true resistivity, if a formation is invaded by mud filtrate, because of displacement by the mud filtrate of some of the interstitial fluid in the formation. In this case the resistivity of the mud filtrate rather than the resistivity of the mud is the important factor. Self Potential Log The self potential arises, in part, from electrochemical effects resulting from the interaction of connate waters in porous formations and the fluid in the borehole. Expressed in simple form, E = Klog-p where E is the electrochemical self potential, K is a derived constant, pl is the resistivity of the borehole fluid, and p2 the resistivity of the water in the formation. A theory of the electrochemical component of the self potential in boreholes has been recently set forth by Wyllie.3 In the above equation resistivities have been substituted for activities of the ions in the fluids.' It is therefore apparent that the resistivity of the mud filtrate is more nearly representative of the activities of the ions than is the resistivity of the mud. However, it is possible that in some instances the ionic activities of cations from certain clays may contribute to the total cationic activity of the drilling fluid to such an extent that the mud resistivity is more nearly representative of the activities than the filtrate resistivity. This is particularly the case when the resistivity of the mud is less than the resistivity of the mud filtrate. In addition the apparent self potential may be influenced by the resistivity of the drilling mud because of current flow through the borehole. RESISTIVITY OF SLURRIES Aqueous drilling muds are slurries containing fine-grained solid particles. The solid constituents consist mainly of added clays and weighting materials in addition to solids contributed by the drilled formations. The filtrate is primarily water in which quantities of salts or other chemicals are dissolved. The resistivity of the fiiltrate is a function of the type and quantity of dissolved material whereas the resistivity of the mud is a function of the combined resistivities of the filtrate and the resistivities of the suspended solids. Experiments have been carried out to determine the relationship between the resistivity of solutions and the quantity and type of solid matter insus-pension. Solid materials of high resistivity, as well as solid materials of relatively low resistivity, have been used. The data obtained make possible the evaluation of the probable effect of suspended solids on the resistivity of drilling mud. Procedure Resistivities were determined by means of a conventional conductivity cell with platinized-platinum electrodes. Total resistance between the electrodes was measured by Kohlrausch's alternating current bridge method using a General Radio Company Type 650-A impedance bridge with telephone. The cell was standardized with potassium chloride solutions of known normalities in order to calibrate the cell so that measured resistances of slurries could be converted to resistivities. Resistivities were determined for mixtures of potassium chloride solution and solid materials by placing a measured quantity of solution in the cell and adding weighed quantities of solid materials in small increments to the solution. The net change in resistance on addition of solid materials was measured. Even distribution of the solid particles was maintained within the cell by a motor-driven glass propeller before measurements were made. Slurries Containing High-Resistivity Solids Powdered silica sand having a maximum diameter of about 60 microns and precipitated chalk of commercial grade were used to make the slurries whose resistivities were measured. Both of these substances have high resistivities, are virtually insoluble, and effectively do not carry current in a slurry. The resistivities of slurries composed of potassium chloride solution and these two solid materials are given in Table 1. The ratio of the resistivity of the solution to the resistivity of the slurries was computed and was found to follow the relationship established by Archie

Jan 1, 1949

By Donald C. Bradford

THE place of geophysics in the curriculum of a college or an engineering school has been much discussed. There is uncertainty as to whether the graduate may be called a "geological geophysicist" or a "geophysical geologist." Some have used the term "geophysical engineer." The question of the specialized undergraduate curriculum versus a general undergraduate training in the parent sciences with the addition of cultural electives has been and is still being argued. The literature during the past 10 years shows that there are two rather definite schools of thought on this subject. The prospective employer, engaged in active geophysical exploration, visualizes the graduate in terms of the routine work he will do in the field. The school administrator, grounded in many years of tradition in the cultural type of education, visualizes the graduate in terms of his position in a political and cultural society as well as in his work as a professional geophysicist. Both are right and both wrong. A third school of thought, that of the student himself, has been almost totally ignored. It would seem best, for the purpose of this paper, to treat these various points and allied material separately, and then to integrate the conclusions as a set of conditions that should be fulfilled as far as possible in the ideal curriculum. At the end the relationship of our findings to the curriculum that has been tentatively adopted at the University of Pittsburgh will be considered. DIVISIONS IN DEFINITION OF FIELD OF GEOPHYSICS Geophysics is that field of science in which geological and earth problems are solved with the use of physical and chemical techniques. Altogether too much attention has been paid to the artificial separation in this science of the commercial applications from the so-called "pure" or academic geophysics. The only real difference in the two types of work is one of scale of operations. In the commercial field the scale is large in terms of financial backing, immediate economic importance, and speed of operations. In the academic field the scale is large in terms of breadth of interests, in eventual economic importance, and length of time allowable for theoretical investigations. In exploration work the scale is small in terms of dimensions, since the methods are applicable only to the outer 20,000 ft. or so of the earth's. crust. In academic work, the student is not pressed for results of immediate economic importance, and therefore can afford to spend more time on problems that seem unimportant at the time. In the sense of background knowledge of the parent sciences necessary to the geophysicist, no essential difference can be found. Physics, chemistry, geology, and mathematics together, and in their proper proportionate amounts, form the matrix from which geophysical ideas and methods may spring.

Jan 1, 1942

By George C. Coupland

Ecstall Mining Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Texas Gulf Sulphur Company, is the owner and operator of the Kidd Creek Mine including the concentrator complex located near Timmins, Ontario. Canada, approximately 450 miles north of Toronto. The mine, concentrator and Timmins form a triangular arrangement with a 17-mile rail link connecting the mine and concentrator and both of these facilities 18 and 14 miles respectively by road from Timmins. A core drilling program in the spring of 1964 established the presence of a large massive sulphide orebody which was to become the Kidd Creek Mine. Texas Gulf Sulphur had been conducting an intensive search for base metal in various parts of Northern Ontario and Quebec since 1957. Of several thousand anomalies detected in airborne electromagnetic surveys, several hundred warranted ground inspection, but only one of more than sixty drilled became a commercial orebody, the Kidd Creek Mine. The geophysical exploration work has been well covered in a paper written and presented by Van Donohoo, presently a Vice-President of T.G.S., at the American Mining Congress in San Francisco in October 1969. GEOLOGY The orebody lies within a series of overturned rhyolitic flows and pyroelastics with a major peridotite intrusive to the east. The hangingwall and footwall are composed chiefly of intermediate volcanics, andesite and dacite. The southern end of the orebody appears to terminate abruptly against greywacke while the north end is bifurcated and the structure obscured.

Jan 1, 1970

By Douglas W. Fuerstenau, Kalanadh V. S. Sastry

Based on an analysis of green pellet size distributions and kinetic data on ball growth with taconite concentrates, a ballability index has been developed to quantify ball growth behavior as a function of moisture and bentonite additions. The applicability of the ballability index to such other particulate materials as pulverized limestone and ground magnesite is shown.

Jan 1, 1973

By F. D. DeVaney

IT is of great interest that the various organizations engaged in the search for a cheap and efficient agglomeration process for fine magnetite concentrates-essential if the taconites are to be utilized-have ended up with processes that are basically different. This paper describes the development and the present status of the shaft-type furnace as now utilized by the Erie Mining Co., which is managed by Pickands Mather & Co. The shaft furnace has always had an appeal to metallurgists because of the simplicity of the design and the possible low fuel consumption. Work done on pelletizing at the University of Minnesota Mines Experiment Station by E. W. Davis and his associates determined that it was possible to roll up fine magnetite concentrates in a balling drum, and that, if such balls were fired at a sufficiently high temperature, a hard, indurated pellet, well adapted for use in a blast furnace, could be made. Early furnaces had no heat recuperation and the heat consumption was in the order of 2 million BTU's per long ton.

Jan 3, 1958

By C. T. Eddy, R. W. Drier

The conductivity of copper wire is of prime importance to the electrical industry and consequently to the copper refiner and wire manufacturer. Annealed copper wire has a higher conductivity than hard-drawn wire, but, on the other hand, its tensile strength is lower. In an attempt to explain the reasons for these changes in properry. or at least to study the conditions existing in these two types of copper wire, the experiments described here were carried on in the Department of Metallurgy of the Michigan College of Mining and Technology This is only a partial and preliminary report on some of the work done to date on a research program of which the object is an intensive study of copper. It is offered with the hope that, though it is not an exposition of the most rigorous of conclusions, the general trend of inferences which may be drawn will be of value and interest. Effect of Direction of Drawing In 1928 some work was done on hard-drawn copper wires to determine whether wire drawn in a continuous machine (that is, all in one direction) would have a different structure from wire that had a reversal in direction at some stage of the drawing process. The diffraction spectra obtained indicated that as the position of the wire rayed approached the core, a preferential crystal orientation existed, and that the closer to the core the more preferred was the orientation. The data obtained partly corroborated the work done by Schmidt and Wassermanl and by Clark.2 Samples Used in Following Investigation The samples selected for use in both the diffraction work and the resistivity measurements were taken from Nos. 6, 8, 10 and 12 gage

Jan 1, 1930

E. D. TILLYER,* Southbridge, Mass. (written discussion?).-It is quite generally known that there is very little that is standard about a mercurial thermometer at temperatures above 212° F. (100° C.) because so many precautions must be taken-precautions that are rarely realized in practice-such as depth of immersion, aging, elastic fatigue, separation of mercury column, and accidental deformation from very slight excess temperature. One cannot help wishing that Mr. Brown would dwell at greater length on the practical side of both radiation and optical pyrometey, both of which have great possibilities as commercial instruments. In the radiation pyrometer we have ideal conditions for a permanent instru-ment, no materials being exposed to excessive temperatures or subjected to contamination from the furnace fumes which may raise such havoc with an ordinary pyrometer. The development of a radiation pyrometer requires a thermocouple having a relatively high electromotive force but which need stand temperatures of only 200° F. or 300° F. instead of 1500 to 2000° F., which is required of even a base-metal couple. The galva-nometer, if located near the thermocouple, does not need to have a high resistance as at such low temperatures no changes can occur in the thermocouple that will affect its resistance and, consequently, the in-dicated temperature.

Jan 11, 1919

By E. W. Schilling

THE-separation of hematite by hysteretic repulsion was first brought to the attention of the public in 1922, by W. M. Mordey1. Three-years later another paper2 was published and after another four years a third paper3 appeared in the South African publications. Certain data were lacking in these papers. In order to continue the work intelligently a knowledge of the shapes of the hysteresis curves for certain minerals was very necessary. This information was not available until the present year4. It was known that reduction of certain ores rendered them amenable to this process of separation but definite data in. the form of curves showing exactly the effect of such treatment were lacking. Prob-ably our best source of information on the separation of minerals by the use of alternating-current magnetic fields today is the reports from the U. S. Bureau of Mines 5-7. It is not the purpose of this paper to tell the reader in detail how to make a commercial separator. Experimental models have recently been made7 and the results obtained have been so good that it is the opinion of the authors that the public will soon take an active interest in the subject and its development. The writers have constructed a separator that is considerably different in construction and operation from the two types described by Mr. Davis. This will be described; but the real purpose of this paper is to outline certain experiments and give curves showing data that have a fundamental bearing upon the practical construction of a separator of this type.

Jan 1, 1936

By Lauren A. Wright

The principal talc deposits in California are in a 200-mile belt paralleling the state's eastern border. The southernmost deposits represent selective alteration of early pre-Cambrian (?) carbonate strata, and are associated with granitic rocks. Deposits in the Death Valley area are at or near contacts between late pre-Cambrian carbonate rocks and diabase sills. Those in the Inyo Range area are chiefly alterations of Paleozoic carbonate rocks and silica rocks. Most of the state's talc output is used in ceramics.

Jan 1, 1950

By Wilhelm Rohn

When a metal solidifies, gas, initially present in solution, may be concentrated at the grain boundaries, leading to brittleness, or it may form solid compounds which, if localized at the grain boundaries, impair the properties. On the other hand, the solid compounds formed sometimes distribute themselves more or less uniformly, and hence may be relatively harmless. If metallic oxides are heated under a partial oxygen pressure less than that corresponding to the dissociation pressure of the oxide in solution in the melt, they will decompose and oxygen will tend to be eliminated from the melt. This paper presents data on the partial oxygen pressures of copper and nickel oxides over a wide range of temperatures; it also presents data regarding the amount and nature of the gases evolved in the vacuum melting of a 3500-kg. charge of nickel-chromium alloy and gives test values indicating the improvement in impact values ascribed to vacuum melting. The results of commercial experience with a 4-ton vacuum melting and casting furnace indicate that this method entails an increase in cost of about 10 cents per pound of ingot over orthodox practice, which may be justified for special products and may be lowered if hot metal is charged into the vacuum furnace. DISCUSSION (Howard Scott presiding) J. H. ScafF, New York, N. Y. (written discussion).—In the section of Dr. Rohn's paper describing the effect of melting -metals in vacuo, he says, "In this way plain copper, nickel and iron may be easily purified. For example, vacuum-melted copper does not contain any oxygen and for this reason it is never sensitive to hydrogen embrittlement." This statement is contrary to the results of our experiments at the Bell Telephone Laboratories on the effect of vacuum melting on the properties of copper. Several 150-gram samples of tough-pitch copper were melted in a vacuum of the order of 1 X 10-5 to 1 X 10-6 mm. Hg for 2 hr. Portions of the ingots obtained were swaged to 0.100 in., then drawn to wire 0.050 in. in diameter for physical and

Jan 1, 1933