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By AIME AIME

COMPLETION of the Rainbow Bridge across the Niagara River and Gorge this fall marks a new page of achievement in the annals of bridge- building. Symbolic of the amity between two great nations, the new bridge provides an additional gateway across the most peaceful border in the world. Ground was broken for the project May 16. 1940, at a site close to that formally occupied by the Falls View Bridge which was destroyed by a record ice jam in 1938. At this point, about 2000 ft. deep and 1000 ft. downstream from the American Falls, the gorge is about 200 ft. deep and 1000 ft. wide. The great steel arch of the bridge has a span of 950 ft. and rises from its supporting abutments on the American and Canadian sides of the river to the level of the top of the gorge. This is said to be the longest hingeless arch in the world.

Jan 1, 1941

By W. E. D. Stokes

WHEN history is written, the year of the blitzkrieg will go down as giving aviation its greatest impetus. No perceptible drop in military business, even with cessation of hostilities abroad, seems likely. The combined air force of the U. S. Army and Navy on July 1 was approximately 5000 planes, as against 50,000 planes currently discussed as necessary. Observers at the fronts are giving designers and metallurgists back home some realistic ideas to shoot at. As conventional runways reveal the location of airports to enemy raiders, operating bases are now masked. Difficult, often muddy and rough landing strips, requiring strong landing gears and exacting take-off and maintenance characteristics, are the specifications of war. This is "old stuff" to numerous mining operators in mountainous jungle areas where gradients up to 8 per cent are in more or less common use in such mountain landing fields. Although airplane building is not readily adaptable to assembly-line methods, a trend towards mass productions is now in evidence. Incidentally, a U.S. Army "Curtiss P-40" requires about 10,000 man hours of work to complete and is tied together with 75,000 rivets. During the past year a number of aircraft factories adopted the "shot-

Jan 1, 1941

By J. F. Ednie

SCRAP metals to the value of more than a billion and a half dollars were recovered in the United States in 1939 for further use in industry. Few people have any true conception of the magnitude of the secondary-metal industry as related to that engaged in the production of the primary, or virgin, metals; of its importance, particularly when a shortage of primary metals exists, as at present; or of the advance that has been made in standardizing and improving the quality of its products. Of the iron and steel produced in the United States in 1939 (the data used in this article are largely taken from Bureau of Mines reports for that year) just over 50 per cent came from scrap and slightly less than 50 per cent from ore. Of the principal nonferrous metals-aluminum, anti-mony, copper, lead, nickel, tin, and zinc-63 per cent came from domestic ores and 37 per cent from scrap. Fig. 1 presents graphically the relative tonnage and value of primary and secondary production of ferrous and nonferrous metals. In this chart only purchased secondary metals are considered, the figures being exclusive of "home" or "plant" scrap which amounts to rather large figures in the iron and steel industry. Incidentally, the chart shows that from the tonnage standpoint the iron and steel industry is some twenty times larger than the nonferrous industry, though with regard to the value of the product the ratio drops to about two to one.

Jan 1, 1941

By Lyon F. Terry

INCREASING domestic demand for products, a sharp reduction in exports to Europe, and a rise in imports from South America were the chief features of the economic side of the industry in 1940. As the war progressed it became evident that exports to former European customers were being cut off or drastically reduced, leaving heavy inventories of products in the hands of many American refiners who had anticipated larger demands from the belligerents. Stocks of motor fuel reached burden-some proportions early in the year for the added reason that refining operations were stimulated by heavy demand for heating oils. Excessive tanker rates for Gulf to Eastern Seaboard movements during the first part of 1940 contributed to the accumulation of products on the Gulf Coast, where refinery gasoline prices were forced to extremely low levels by midyear. Tanker rates receded to normal during the summer but have since risen again to the approximate equivalent of pipe-line tariffs from the Mid-Continent.

Jan 1, 1941

By AIME AIME

FEW men are as well known to metallurgists or steel men everywhere as this year's Chairman of the Iron and Steel Division. This is evident from the writer's experience some years ago while visiting Krupp's new open-hearth plant near Essen and the Skoda Works at Pilsen. The first question asked there was: "You know Dr. Herty?" Knowing Charlie Herty has advantages, not the least of which is (or was in 1933) a fine lunch with a plethora of good Rhine \vine at Essen and a super- plethora of Pilsener beer at Slioda.

Jan 1, 1941

By William R. Chedsey

ALTHOUGH few changes can be reported in educational methods at the mineral technology schools during 1940, other events have taken place of direct interest to, and that will have a profound effect upon, mineral industry education on the United States. In the erection of new buildings, some notable changes have been made on the campus, The U.S. Bureau of Mines Experiment Station at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, was dedicated on May 20. The construction and equipment of this building cost between $300,000 and $400,000. It will be the general headquarters for the metallurgical division of the Bureau and will have a pronounced effect upon the mineral industries research program at the University.

Jan 1, 1941

By AIME AIME

JAMES TERRY DUCE is still on the sunny side of fifty, having been born on Dec. 30, 1892 in Worcester, England. Early in life he came to the United States, however, and graduated from the University of Colorado in 1915 .as a geologist. Thereafter for a few years he was with the Colorado State Geological Survey and Bureau of Mines, also doing a bit of teaching at his alma mater and at Washington University, St. Louis. Towards the end of the World War he was with the chemical warfare section of the U. S. Army. Beginning in 1919, he spent 21 years as geologist in various capacities for The Texas Corporation, for a time

Jan 1, 1941

By W. J. Rude

LARGEST of the known commercial deposits of pebble phosphate are those found in Polk County, Florida. The phosphate bed, commonly known as the matrix, will consistently average 6 to 9 ft. in depth, and is found under 3 to 60 ft. of over-burden. The phosphate pebbles, white and black in color, varying greatly in grade, are found imbedded in a matrix of sand and clay; and range in size from the fines to pebbles 1 1/2 in. in diameter, although the average coarse size is approximately 1/2 in. in diam¬eter. On some of the washers all material under 14 mesh is lost. High-grade phosphate (75 per cent plus of bone phosphate of lime, CasP2Oa) is generally soft, the pebbles breaking up during the mining operation and in pumping; low-grade phosphate, 67 to 69 B.P.L., is black in color with hard pebbles with no loss encountered in pumping.

Jan 1, 1941

By W. A. Clark, E. H. Dresser

ORE from the Minnesota iron ranges is transported from the mines to the loading docks on Lake Superior over four different railways: the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Soo Line, and Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range, with hauls varying from 60 to 110 miles. For this service a large amount of specialized equipment is used. The steel ore cars are of the hopper type, 24 ft. long, to dump into alternate pockets of the docks, these pockets being 12 ft. long to correspond with the 12 or 24-ft. spacing of the boat hatches. The more recently con-

Jan 1, 1941

By Sydney H. Ball

AMERICAN consumption of industrial diamonds has increased five fold in the past 25 years and today accounts for 15 to 20 percent of the world's sale of rough diamonds. In another decade the value of industrial diamonds sold may well equal or exceed that of gemstones. It is generally understood that industrial diamonds are one of the strategic minerals being stocked by the Government in the present crisis to ensure rapid and efficient armament production. Diamond die making is a trade largely confined to artisans in Switzerland and in certain parts of France. Today, in addition to turning out pilots, we should train expert artisans in diamond die making, for thousands of miles of tremendously small-gauge wire will be needed to make the instruments by which the efficiency and safety of these pilots is assisted.

Jan 1, 1941

By LEWIS F. THOMAS

MINING geologists and mining engineer, rarely give due thought to the geography of mining deposits. They realize, it is true that what may be ore in one place would be only worthless rock in another because f the in accessibility of a smelter r a market; and they may consider the lack of a supply of labor, or water, or power to carry on operations. But they do not think (of these things in terms of geography. Geography may be defined as the science of relationships between earth and man, so geographers are vitally interested in the how and why of mining as it is carried on at different place, having entirely different environment-. Such environments are geographic complexes or composites of natural and cultural elements, which are listed and briefly discussed in the following paragraphs.

Jan 1, 1941

By AIME AIME

DONALD K. CRAMPTON, present Chairman of the Institute of Metals Division, A.I.M..E., is well known by nonferrous metallurgists in all countries for his research work on the fabrication and properties of copper and its alloys including investigation of season- and stress- corrosion cracking. He is also well known, at least by many metallurgists in the United States for the proficiency with which be carries on his hobbies, in i:lrlditlg photography. gardening, and golf

Jan 1, 1941

By AIME AIME

THAT neither the Reconstruction Finance Corp. nor its subsidiary, the Metals Reserve Corp., are in competition with private enterprise was stressed by Charles B. Henderson in an informal talk before the N. Y. Section, A.I.M.E., on Sept. 23. Among other things, the speaker stated that the R.F.C., since its establishment, had authorized loans of $12,000,000, of which over $8,775,000 has actually been distributed. Of this amount, over $6,600,000 has been repaid. None of this money was appropriated by Congress, the sole assistance from that body being the initial authorization of $500,000,000 capital stock.

Jan 1, 1941

By Frank T. Sisco

SHORTAGES of metals and minerals and substitution of less critical materials for those in which a virtual famine exists received detailed and frank discussion at a recent conference in Washington called by Robert E. McConnell, director of the Conservation Section, Office of Production Management. Representatives of the large engineering societies in the United States and O.P.M. department heads participated in the discussion. To open the session Mr. McConnell called upon Zay Jeffries, chairman of the O.P.M. Advisory Committee on Metal Conservation and Substitution, to summarize the present situation. Dr. Jeffries touched briefly on the status of metal shortages, which has already received considerable attention in the popular press, and said that much of the present difficulty was caused by the too-hasty substitution-without sufficient con¬sideration of the immediate conse¬quences-of metals having ordinarily a small yearly consumption, for those having a much larger annual consumption. As a result, all the alloying metals used in alloy-steel manufacture have become scarce, with the exception of molybdenum; further¬more, despite a reserve of 11,000 tons of molybdenum in this country and despite a normal consumption of only about 3500 tons and a prospective annual production rate of 21,000 tons by October, a shortage of molybdenum is possible before this war is over.

Jan 1, 1941

By Donald H. McLauqhlin

ITEM expressed in billions of dollars have become so commonplace these day- that a mere statement of the latest figures for the country s gold reserve scarcely conveys m adequate sense of the immensity of the commitment the nation has made in building up its huge stock, two-thirds of which is now stored at Fort Knox. Kentucky. Only by measuring it against quantities that mean something tangible to a particular group can an adequate comprehension of its magnitude he rained; consequently, to mining engineers, a comparison with the value of output from well-known mining districts might best serve to give some degree of reality to the astronomical figure at which the country gold is now valued.

Jan 1, 1941

By Francis H. Brownell

During the 1920's lead consumption in the United States reached the highest average total ever known. For the ten-year period 1921-'30, it was slightly over 600,000 tons per year, or say 50,000 tons per month, and the price averaged 6.81 per lb. But the I930's witnessed a severe drop in the consumption of lead is in other business activities. The average U.S. consumption for the ten-year period 1930-'40 was slightly less than 380,000 tons per year, or under 32,000 per month, with the average price dropping to 1.191c. per lb. The outlook in early 1939 was for a continuation of this average consumption and price a demand of 35,000 to 40,000 tons per month, and a price level of 4 1/2 to 5c. in the United States.

Jan 1, 1941

By Wallace E. Pratt

TO SERVE their primary function of balancing supply with demand. crude-oil prices must not only return full cost plus a reasonable earning to the efficient producer but they must also offer an additional reward to stimulate exploration sufficiently to maintain adequate reserves. High prices increase the volume and efficiency of exploration; low prig e- -Idle exploration. Over the last decade average prices for crude oil have been much lower than for the proceeding ten years, and lower even than the average over the life of industry. Under these circumstances no one should be surprised to learn that over this same recent period of discovery of new oil fields has also lagged and fallen below its average level for the previous decade. Crude oil prices have been too ion to support the required activity in wildcatting.

Jan 1, 1941

By JOHN R. SUMAN

OVERWHELMING proof of the importance of oil in a modern national economy is afforded by the present European War. Treat¬ies and national boundaries have been cynically violated to secure greater supplies of the precious fuel. Petroleum substitutes have been desperately, and far from successfully, sought. The whole German military theory of the drang nach Osten, the drive to the East, is directed at cutting the British supply of oil and securing a supply for Germany. This is a war of machines, and the machines of war feed hungrily on oil. In view of this fact, it is surely comforting to know that we are living today in a nation which has surpassed all the rest of the world not merely in unearthing the raw supplies of petroleum which lie beneath its surface but also in every phase of the industry in mining, refining, processing, production, and distribution.

Jan 1, 1941

By H. H. Otto

COMPARED with 1939, the year 1940 has seen no material change in the production of anthracite. Many factors seem to indicate a stabilized anthracite production of approximately 50 million tons per year. The present war has stimulated demand in the Cana¬dian and New England markets, which were formerly furnished with a portion of their needs from Great Britain and other European countries. Neither has there been any material change in the "bootleg coal" situation. This problem is more serious in the Southern anthracite field than in the Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton areas. One reason for this is the nearness of the Southern field to the large anthracite markets in Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, and Harrisburg. During the past year no new large

Jan 1, 1941

By PAUL M. Tyier

NOW that analytical chemistry has gone so far to debunk early misconceptions about minerals, the fact that the light of exact knowledge still fails to illuminate many dark corners is often overlooked. By combining the skills of the physicist with those of a chemist, the identification of minerals has become an exact science and the presence of even minute traces of impurities and extraneous elements is readily revealed by spectrographic means, Granted that we can learn all there is to know about the composition of a substance and even about its physical propertied (which latter assumption is somewhat far-reaching) it still does not follow that we clearly understood its commercial designation or utility.

Jan 1, 1941