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By Joseph A. Holmes

Iv all new movements unavoidable misapprehensions arise, which should be cleared away, lest they retard the progress of the movement itself. An impression has gone abroad that the movement for conservation of resources is a new movement. No one knows better than the engineer that this is not the case. Men like Douglas and Raymond and John Fritz and Edison and McDonald, and hosts of others, have preached and practiced conservation as applied to mineral resources throughout a long and useful life-time; and, in general, the work of the engineer and the chemist, both in this and in other countries, has been along the line of continually greater efficiency in the use of all available materials. And the results already accomplished through the efforts of these experts are now saving annually many millions of dollars to the people of the United States in materials and labor. It is true, however, that the need for conservation, that is, for a wiser and more efficient use of the natural resources, has taken on a new life, and is being brought home to the people of the United States in a manner which is awakening public interest and even the public conscience. It is, therefore, both appropriate and fortunate that the engineers, the chemists, and the thinking men of all classes are availing themselves of the present impetus to the movement to emphasize anew the lessons which heretofore they have found it more difficult to impress upon the American public or even upon the captains of industry. Still another of these misapprehensions is to the effect that many of the leaders in the present movement hope to bring about conservation of resources through legislation or execu-

May 1, 1909

By MARIUS R. CIMPBELL, Edward W. Parker

DESCRIPTION. ACCORDING to the estimates prepared by the U. S. Geological Survey, the area underlain by workable coal-beds in the United States is 496,776 sq. miles. Of this total area, 480 sq. miles contain the entire anthracite coal-fields of Pennsylvania. The bituminous coal-fields are estimated to be contained in areas aggregating 250,051 sq. miles. The grade of coal between bituminous and lignite, and which is designated by the Geological Survey as " sub-bituminous," is estimated to be contained within areas aggregating 97,636 sq. miles, while the areas containing lignite aggregate 148,609 sq. miles. The coal-fields are divided, for the sake of convenience in classification, into six main provinces, as follows: 1. The Eastern. Province, containing the anthracite coal-fields of Pennsylvania and the bituminous coal-fields of the Appalachian region-namely, those of western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and small outlying areas in North Carolina. 2. The Interior .Province, containing the bituminous coal-producing regions of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, western Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. 3. The Gulf Province, containing the lignite-areas of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. 4. The Northern or Great Plains Province, containing the lignite and sub-bituminous areas of North and South Dakota, eastern Montana, and northeastern Wyoming. 5. The Rocky Mountain Province, containing the bituminous and sub-bituminous areas of western Montana and western Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. 6. The Pacific Coast Province, containing-the areas of Washington, Oregon, and California.

Apr 1, 1909

By Bradley Stoughton

PROMINENCE has been given lately in engineering circles to the question whether an organisation with manifold interests can be as effective as one with a single aim, especially if that single aim be the furtherance of affairs of moment and the welfare of engineers in general. In its earlier days, the A. I. M. E. was forbidden by its constitution to engage in non-technical public affairs, but the members altered the constitution in this respect, in the year 1912, in response to the growing demand that engineers be more human in their interests and that the engineering societies represent them in this respect. Since that time, the activity of mining engineers in public affairs has been growing rapidly, and we are happy that the Institute has been able to render very valuable economic services. Doubtless the greatest public service rendered by engineers in a recent great emergency was the work of the Naval Consulting Board, without which the U. S. Navy would never have been able to enter promptly into service upon our entrance into the war, ,and both Navy and Army would have been a long time without the munitions that came at an early date. We can never forget that this Board was established through the direct activity of the then President of the A. I. M. E., with the hearty cooperation of other national organizations.

Jan 1, 1920

By AIME AIME

THE Industrial Conference appointed by President Wilson has presented the following tentative plan for preventing or retarding strikes and industrial conflicts by proposing new Federal machinery for the adjustment of differences between employers and employees. Theplan is signed by William B. Wilson, Secretary of the Department of Labor, 'as chairman of the conference; Herbert Hoover, former Federal Food Administrator, as vice-chairman; Martin H. Glynn; Thomas W. Gregory, former Attorney Gen¬eral; Richard Hooker; Stanley King; Samuel W. McCall former Governor of Massachusetts; Henry M. Robin¬son; Julius Rosenwald; Oscar S. Straus; Henry C. Stuart, former Governor of Virginia; F. W. Taussig; William O. Thompson; Henry J. Waters; George. W. Wickersham, former Attorney General; and Owen D. Young.

Jan 1, 1920

By Henry A. Wentworth

(New York Meeting, February, 1912.) ELECTROSTATIC separation of ores in its present form is generally known as the Huff' process from the name of Charley H. Huff, of Boston, Mass., through whose constant and persistent labors (with the invention of Clinton E. Dolbear as a basis) the successful commercial process embracing separative machinery and the various electrifying devices has been developed step by step, and the finances for the long period of development provided, and the method finally established and recognized throughout the world as an important and successful addition to the ore-dressing department of metallurgy. The permanent field-success of electrostatic separation began in 1908 with a 20-ton Huff experimental mill built specially for the purpose by the American Zinc, Lead.& Smelting Co., in Platteville, Wis., a plant which was a success from the start and was gradually increased in capacity as the market-conditions warranted to 100 tons of concentrates per day. Much credit is due to the above-mentioned company for its initial venture, and for its assistance in applying the process to field use. Prior to 1908 electrostatic separators had been installed and operated (but for a comparatively short time, however) in a number of places; some under the patents of Mr. Dolbear by himself and associates, and some under the patents of Lucien I. Blake and Lawrence N. Morscher, by W. G. Swart, mining engineer, of Denver, who has always been a courageous advocate of electrostatic separation. Due to the difficulties experienced in the generation of the electrical charges, the primitiveness of the separators, the wooden construction instead of iron as at present, the lack of control of the electrical fields and other difficulties overcome by the later inventions of the Huff Electrostatic Separator Co.,

Jun 1, 1912

By J. V. Richards

(Canal Zone Meeting, November, 1910,) THE Altar district, State of Sonora, Mexico, is for the most part a desert with but little rain-fall and few running streams. On account of this scarcity of water it is necessary for the natives to " dry-wash" the placer-gravel, and the object of the present paper is to describe some of the more common Mexican dry-washing devices. My observations were confined to a property known as Las Palomas placers, 15 miles from the Gulf of California and about 150 miles south of the United States border; a brief description of which property may be of interest as illustrating what is, perhaps, a typical Sonora dry placer. It is said that as long as a century ago the Yaqui Indians discovered rich cement-gravel, known as argo masa, at Las Palomas, and that there has been a more or less steady production of gold from the property ever since. The argo masa is a fairly-coarse gravel, the pebbles being quite firmly held together with a lime cement. Gold is scattered through this cement in particles ranging from fine specks to pieces several grams in weight, and occasional large nuggets are encountered. The contents vary so widely that it is difficult to estimate the average value, but returns of from $10 to $50 per cubic yard are common, and it is doubtful if the Indians considered anything less than from $4 to $5 a yard as "pay dirt." This argo masa occurs in channels varying in thickness from a few inches to several feet, and in width up to 300 ft.. These channels are continuous and are probably ancient stream-beds. They are for the most part covered with an over-burden of a more recent gravel, varying from 30 to 50 ft. thick, and the fact that this over-burden contains values as high as $1.50 per cubic yard, and yet was not worked by the Indians, shows that their idea of what constituted pay-ground was high.

Apr 1, 1911

By Joseph Hyde Pratt, Douglas B. Sterrett, CHAPEL HILL

I. DESCRIPTION. MONAZITE is one of the minerals which, for a long time, was considered rather rare in its occurrence, but, upon a commercial demand arising for it, prospectors and engineers soon located large deposits of it in the Carolinas and Brazil, and the supply has always been able to meet the demand. During 1908 further sources of supply of monazite have been discovered and developed in Idaho. North and South Carolina, however, are the only States that have thus far put any monazite on the market. Monazite is essentially an anhydrous phosphate of the rare-earth metals, cerium, lanthanum, and didymium (Ce, La, Di)PO;. There is nearly always present a varying but small percentage of thoria, ThO2, and silicic acid, SiO, which are very probably united in the form of a thorium silicate, ThSiO4 Some monazites contain but a fraction of a per cent. of thoria, while others have been recorded that showed the presence of from 18 to 32 per cent. ; but the majority contain from 3 to 9 per cent. of this oxide. It is the presence of the thorium oxide that gives the monazite its commercial value. The analysis occasionally shows also the presence of other constituents, as the yttrium and erbium oxides, zirconia, alumina, magnesia, lime, iron oxides, manganese oxide, and titanium oxide. Monazite is light-yellow, honey-yellow, reddish-, brownish-, or greenish-yellow in color, with a resinous to vitreous luster, and is translucent to subtransparent. It is brittle, with a conchoidal to uneven fracture, and is from 5 to 5.5 in hardness, and from 4.64 to 5.3 in specific gravity. It crystallizes in the monoclinic system, and some crystals have been observed that were 6 in. in length. The more perfect crystals are, however,

Jun 1, 1909

By Joseph W. Richards

ALTHOUGH bad grammar, the above query is probably, at the present moment, good sense. Why was the Institute started and why does it continue to exist? The small group of men who worked out the original idea felt keenly the necessity of mining engineers and metallurgists getting together in order to discuss their professional problems. That necessity still exists but it does not strike the present generation of engineers so keenly because they have always had the Institute: they do not know what it is to be without it. The Institute is a great graduate school of mining and metallurgy. All of its members who have something to say worth saying are the teachers; all the rest may be learners or critics. No university or technical school can match the experience and information which the authors of its papers possess, no institution of learning has a body of potential listeners so extensive and so vitally interested.

Jan 1, 1921

By HORACE V. WlNCHELL

Location. THE St. Helens mining-district, indicated in sketch-map, Fig. 1, is chiefly in Townships 9 and 10 North, Ranges 5 and 6 East, of the Willamette meridian, in Skamania county, Wash. There is no railroad or even a wagon-road at present connecting it with any base of supplies; access is usually by wagon-road for FIG. I.-SKETCH-MAP OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON. about 50 miles from the town of Castle Rock to Spirit lake, and from that point by pony-trail from 6 to 10 miles farther. History. Nearly 20 years ago two German farmers, totally inexperienced in prospecting, penetrated this region upon a hunting and fishing-trip. Their attention was drawn to numerous joints and crevices filled with black, glistening tourmaline, and con-

Oct 1, 1912

By IRVING H. WENTIVORTII

(New York Meeting, February, 1912.) THE little town of San Nicolás, Tamaulipas, Mexico, lies approximately 60 miles east of Linares, situated in the State of Nuevo Leon, and 150 miles SE. of Monterey, as shown in the sketch-map. Fig. 1. The place is reached from Monterey by the Tampico train as far as Linares, a distance of 92 miles, and then by coach the rest of the way. It is situated in a narrow valley between low hills, the houses forming one main street and a plaza. It is peopled by about 500 inhabitants. The climate is temperate, the thermometer ranging from 90° in summer to a few degrees below freezing-point in winter; but this severe weather only lasts a day or two at a time, when the " northers " blow. There are no streams in the vicinity, but water sufficient for the use of the people is obtained from wells. The rainfall is about the same as that in the rest of NE. Mexico. The rainy months are July, August, and September. The rest of the year is practically dry, with an occasional showery day or two during the winter, when a " norther " is blowing. Timber is abundant in many localities. There are two varieties of oak, besides mesquite, ebony, "maguira," "patol," and a number of other kinds of trees indigenous to this region. I. HISTORY. On the discovery of the silver-lead hearing veins occurring in this district, the mining-camp of San Nicolás was founded in 1767 by the Spaniards, and numerous mines were opened and worked for a distance of abort 3 miles east and 5 miles west of the town. At the western extremity and near the Carrolena mine, a small town called San Pedro was built. The ruined walls of the houses form a single street, and all is over-

Aug 1, 1912

By N. H. Emmons

(Canal Zone Meeting, November, 1910.) AN interesting development of copper blast-furnace construction has been brought about in adapting the blast-furnace to be a "burner" for sulphuric acid making. When the Tennessee Copper Co. first decided to construct an acid-plant, the standard type of brick-top furnace, supported by structural steel, was the only one in use at this plant. All the tests for temperature and strength of gas had been made on these furnaces, and had been satisfactory. When, however, the acid-plant was put on the flue, and the flue had to have a damper put in it to force the gas into that plant, troubles began. The furnaces were fairly tight, and for a few months the work was quite satisfactory., Fig. 1 shows the old type of furnace-top used at the start. It was soon found that this top would not stand the temperatures, particularly when dampered back, as was necessary to force the gas into the Glover towers. The structural steel, of which the furnace skeleton was constructed, warped and twisted so badly that it was not safe to use the furnaces. This effect is shown by Fig. 2, which is a photograph of old No. 4 furnace, after the brick-work had been removed. It became apparent that a new type of top was necessary and the engineering force was started oil the design of a new furnace-top, with the result that a low top, with brick-lined flues at each end below the feed-floor, leading to the main concrete dust-chamber, was constructed. This furnace, No. 7, is shown in Fig. 3. The charging-doors are made of cast-iron sections, three sections to a door, and three doors to a side. A door to the furnace was made of cast copper, but the heat was so great that the copper bent readily, due to the jarring of its * General Manager, Tennessee Copper Co.

Feb 1, 1911

By Ernst F. Eurich

(Cleveland Meeting, October, 1912.) ALEXANDER PARKES patented in England in 1851-52-53 a process for desilvering lead by means of zinc, making use of the greater affinity of silver for zinc than for lead, discovered by Karsten in 1842. The efforts in England to develop it commercially were not particularly successful, nor was the attempted introduction into the United States. This last was not surprising, as it was about the beginning of our Civil War, and at that period there was very little lead-bullion produced in the united States and there was no field for the process here. There was at that time on Staten Island an establishment that pattisonized lead, probably from Rossie, N. Y., and Chester, Pa., and possibly some Spanish lead, but the production of lead-bullion in the Far West had not yet begun. In 1864, Edward Balbach, of Newark, N. J., patented in this country a process for desilvering lead by means of zinc, and in 1867 Edward Balbach, Jr., patented a " movable black-lead retort with a neck, placed in a furnace," for the purpose of distilling the alloy of zinc, lead, and the precious metals. A brief comparison of the Parkes and the Balbach processes is interesting. The Parkes process as practiced in England consisted in stirring into silver-bearing lead, melted in a kettle, from 1 to 2 per cent. of zinc, cooling, skimming the alloy of lead, zinc, and silver that rose to the surface, liquating it in an iron retort, distilling the residual rich alloy in fire-clay retorts, thus regaining the zinc, and refining the desilvered lead at a low heat in a shallow cast-iron pan that formed the hearth of a reverberatory furnace. If the lead was too impure, it was first softened * Presented also at the Joint Meeting of the Institute and Section IIIa, Metal¬lurgy and Mining, of the Eighth International Congress of Applied Chemistry, New York, September, 1919, and here published by mutual agreement.

Dec 1, 1912

By AIME AIME

COUNCIL PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL. CHARLES KIRCHHOFF NEW YORK, N. Y. (Term expires February, 1912.) VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE COUNCIL. BENJAMIN B. LAWRENCE NEW YORK, N. Y. JOSEPH W. RICHARDS SOUTH BETHLEHEM, PA. ALBERT SAUVEUR CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (Term expires February, 1912.) S. B. CHRISTY BERKELEY, CAL. W. A. LATHROP PHILADELPHIA, PA. GARDNER F. WILLIAMS WASHINGTON, D. C. (Term expires February, 1913.)

Oct 1, 1911

By AIME AIME

The XCVIIth meeting of the Institute for the reading and discussion of papers will be held at Spokane, Wash., beginning Monday, Sept. 27, 1909, as already announced in Special Circulars of May 8 and Aug. 14, 1909, and in the Bulletins for June, July, and August. The meeting will be preceded by a tour through Yellow stone Park and visits to Butte and Anaconda, and will be followed by visits to the Coeur d'Alene district, to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle, to the mining- and smelting-plants near Salt Lake, and to the iron- and lead- and zinc-plants at Pueblo. The special train for the party' will leave Chicago, September 16, and return about October 12. Details of the itinerary are given later in this announcement. The Secretary of the Spokane Local Committee is Lyndon K. Armstrong, 615 Hyde Block, Spokane, Wash., to whom should be addressed all inquiries concerning local matters. The control of the papers and proceedings will remain in charge of the Institute office, as usual. It is greatly to be desired, both in behalf of the Institute and in recognition of the many courtesies to be extended on the trip, that the excursion party be made larger. Exceptional facilities to visit the many mines and smelters have been freely provided; and members are requested to make all reasonable effort to attend the meeting at Spokane and participate in the excursions. For those who cannot join in the entire trip, it may be possible to provide special Pullman accommodations after leaving Yellowstone Park. In order to make the necessary arrangement, however, the names of members and guests contemplating this partial trip should be sent at once to Theodore Dwight, 29 West 39th Street, New York City. The general cost of the trip per member will be $300, which includes transportation, berth, and meals for the entire trip from

Sep 1, 1909

By Leon Dominian

(Wilkes-Barre Meeting, June, 1911.) I. INTRODUCTION. THE lack of Aryan roots for the names of metals commonly known among the Aryan settlers of Asia Minor, as well as the later colonizers of Europe, indicates that these races were generally ignorant of the use of metals until they came into contact with Semitic peoples. Practically all mining-terms in current use among the earliest Greeks resemble very strongly their distinctly Semitic equivalents, which can be traced all the way in a broad belt beginning in Lower Mesopotamia, and extending westwardly to the Syrian shores of the Mediterranean. The Greek word " "metallon," for instance, used indiscriminately to designate mine or ore, probably came from the earlier Semitic equivalent, " matal." Again, the Greek words " chrysos " (gold) and " chalkos " (copper) seem to be descended from the Semitic forms " throats " and a chalak." It is a natural inference that primitive mining-methods were evolved by the dwellers in the mineralized areas of Asia Minor, from whom later Greek, Roman, and even North European miners obtained their first notions of the reduction of metallic ores, by virtue of a general westward migration of mining and metallurgy. Some traces of its passage through Turkish territory will be noted in this paper. While European Turkey can boast of one ancient gold-field, the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan may lay claim to at least two well-defined and widely-separated gold-producing districts. These three regions may be distinguished as the Thracian, the Pontic, and the Anatolian gold-fields. II. TURKEY IN EUROPE. . The Thracian Gold-Field. The most conspicuous topographic feature of the lowland between Constantinople and Salonica is the uplifted Archaean

Nov 1, 1911

By E. C. Reed

Drilling activity in Nebraska during 1945 continued to decline slightly over that of the previous year. Eight tests for oil and gas were completed during the year, of which seven were wildcats and resulted in dry holes. The eighth test, an inside location in the Dawson field of Richardson County, yielded an initial production of about 3o bbl. per day with 86 per cent water from the Hunton formation. Five wells were drilling at the end of the year, two of which were wildcats. Two of the drilling wells were deepening operations in the Dawson and Falls City fields and the third was an inside location in the Falls City field, which appears likely to result in a producer. Most of the operations were in Richardson County but two wells were drilled in Dawes and Gage Counties and one each was drilling in Holt and Washington Counties at the end of the year. There were no new discoveries of oil or gas.

Jan 1, 1946

By AIME AIME

Adjustable Pyrometer-Stand. By L. W. BAHNEY, xxxvii, 33. Agency of Manganese in the Superficial Alteration and Secondary Enrichment of Gold-Deposits in the United States. By WILLIAM H. EMMONS, xlvi, 767. Application of Descriptive Geometry to Mining-Problems. By JOSEPH W. ROE, xxxix, 173. ARNOLD, C. EVERARD. The Giroux Shaft at Kimberly, Nev., xlii, 461. BAHNEY, L. W. An Adjustable Pyrometer-Stand, xxxvii, 33. BALL, SYDNEY H., and SHALER, MILLARD K. Mining-Conditions in the Belgian Congo, xxxix, 253. BEALS, ROGER L., and TWEEDY, GEORGE A. Cyanide-Plant and Practice at the Minas del Tajo, Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico, xxxviii, 123.

Dec 1, 1910

By AIME AIME

A SPECIAL meeting arranged by the Petroleum and Gas Committee of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 21 and 22, in the Assembly Room of the American Annex Hotel, St. Louis, Mo. Preceding the first session on Tuesday morning, the members and guests were registered and presented with the usual Institute badges. The morning session was opened at 10:30 by Ralph Arnold of Los Angeles, Calif., Chairman of the Petroleum and Gas Committee. In his opening remarks, he suggested that the petroleum section specialize more and more on the technical problems of the oil industry and that an effort be made to enlarge the membership of the Institute among the technical men of the industry. The following program was presented : OIL FIELDS OF RUSSIA, by A. Beeby Thompson and T. G. Madgwick, of London, England. Presented by H. A. Wheeler; discussed by Arthur Knapp and R. VanA. Mills. This most comprehensive paper was one of what is hoped to be a series to be presented by some of our foreign members. It is by far the best description in English of the world-famous Baku and other fields of Russia.

Jan 1, 1920

By AIME AIME

THE following Officers, Directors, and guests were present: Herbert Hoover, A. R. Ledoux, Henry S. Drinker, Edwin Ludlow, Samuel A. Taylor, Charles F: Rand, William M. Corse, Arthur S.. Dwight, Glen H. Clevenger, L. W. Francis, F. G. Cottrell, Bradley Stoughton, Percy E. Barbour, E. P. Mathewson, Dorsey A. Lyon, Archibald Douglas, A. D. Flinn, RobertLinton, James F. Kemp, William Y. Westervelt, J. W. Richards, W. L. Saunders, George Otis Smith, Thomas T. Read, J..C. Murray, Ralph Arnold. A Committee on Mine Equipment was appointed composed as follows: Graham Bright, chairman, William Kelly, Howard N. Eavenson, R. E. Hobart, and S. P. Rumsey. B. D. Saklatwalla was added to the Committee on Miscellaneous Metals and W. Spencer Hutchinson was added to the Committee on Mining Geology. A revised budget for 1921 was approved. A petition duly signed to amend Section 1., of Article III of the Constitution, increasing the initiation fees from ten dollars to twenty dollars, was approved by the Board.

Jan 1, 1920

By Fred J. Miller

FRED J. MILLER was born in Ohio, in 1857. He had a common and high school education, supplemented by personal study and special instruction. After serving a 4-year apprenticeship and working in various capacities in machine shops, he became a contributor to mechanical journals and finally a member of the editorial staff of The American Machinist, where he remained for twenty years, the last ten years as editor-in-chief of the magazine, and vice-president of the publishing company. On retiring from journalism, he was for nine years general manager of a group of typewriter factories, and was then commissioned Major of Ordnance in the U. S. Army, being stationed during most of his service at Rock Island Arsenal, where he organized the Civilian Service Division of the Arsenal. He is now a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the War Claims Board at Washington. Major Miller became a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1890, and has always taken an active interest in its affairs, having served on a number of important committees, and as a member of Council from 1904 to 1907, inclusive. He was elected President in December, 1919.

Jan 1, 1920