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Jan 1, 1918

Jan 1, 1918

Jan 1, 1918

Jan 1, 1918

Discussion of the paper of HAROLD RABLING, presented at the St. Louis meeting, October, 1917, and printed in Bulletin No. 128, August, 1917, pp. 1161 to 1172. A. P. WATT, Mine La Motte, Mo.-The information in Mr. Rabling's paper is of great value to users of the Hancock jig. In the Lead Belt, these jigs treat a larger tonnage than any other type of concentrating machine, and produce tailing of a larger size. This indicates the necessity for logical operation of the Hancock jig. The jigs receive at least 75 per cent. of the total original feed, the other 25 per cent. going to

Jan 1, 1918

By Frank B. Gilbreth

The problem of the crippled soldier in industry is not a problem of war work only; it is a problem of industrial development. As individuals, each one of you is seeking to provide our maimed heroes with such teaching as will render them, in the shortest possible amount of time, productive and satisfied members of the community. As individuals you are interested in the organizations that are preparing to receive these men, to train them and to place them at that work for which they are best fitted. As an organization, it is now your duty to take up the industrial end of the problem, to investigate existing conditions in the industries, to discover where the opportunities for employment lie, and so readjust industrial practice that the cripples may be utilized to their own and the community's good with the least shock to themselves or to the industries, and with the greatest amount of permanent benefit to all concerned. We have divided industrial opportunities suitable for cripples, roughly, into three classes. First, such as already exist in the industries, which can be set aside for cripples only, present occupants being transferred to other work for which they can be fitted but which is not suitable for cripple work; second, opportunities in the industrial world that, through changes in the working equipment or tools, or through appliances attached to the cripple himself, can make the cripple a competitor of the sound worker; third, opportunities not existing at present in the industries, but which could be introduced for the good of the community without placing the cripples into competition with any existing class of workers. As typical of the first type of occupations for cripples, we have mentioned that of store-keeper, of the second type that of typist,2 and of the third type that of dental nurse.3 The last occupation can be so arranged as to take from the overworked dentist the work of cleaning teeth; and

Jan 1, 1918

By L. D. Frink

Those actively interested in mining are fully aware of the ever-increasing difficulty of making conditions such that efficient work can be done in underground openings, especially as higher rock temperatures are encountered in depth. This is also true where an effort is being made to cut down the burden of overhead expense by working headings 24 hr. in a day if blasting is done as often as is possible in that time. That the conditions resulting from both these causes have driven the native-born Americans from the mines and that their places have been taken by less efficient foreigners is a fact that we must all admit. The great war now being fought in Europe and the educational qualification clause written into our immigration law by the last Congress will probably limit very materially the supply of labor, such as we are now using in our mines, and will force upon mine operators the necessity of making this work appeal again to Americans. Metal tubing, with blower or exhaust fans, has long been used in supplying air to dead ends where natural ventilation is impossible, or in driving the smoke from such places, or in doing both, as the need might be. Here in Butte we have now come to use canvas tubing very extensively and find that it has many advantages not possessed by the metal. The use of flexible tubing is not new, but it has not been generally used in mining operations. Recent improvements, however, in the canvas itself and in the jointing of sections and manner of suspension have so increased its usefulness that it promises to add much to the efficiency of mining. There is now on the market a product that is impervious to air, is fireproof, and has a system of jointing which permits it to be put up or taken down in a few seconds. In this article an effort will be made to explain the manner in which canvas tubing is being used in the North Butte company's operations at Butte, Mont. The accompanying photographs will, I hope, help make clear what may be done with this material.

Jan 1, 1918

ROBERT PEELE, New York, N. Y. (written discussion *).-This excellent paper is one of a number of recent detailed descriptions of the, methods and plant in use at prominent mines of the country. The publication of such papers cannot be too highly praised. In the past, the interchange of inside information has often been hampered by the disinclination of some mining companies to permit publication of details of their work. These companies apparently have not realized fully that free discussion is of mutual benefit; that members of mine staffs are aided in. keeping up to date, in improving old methods and devising new ones to meet changes in conditions, and, by a wholesome feeling of rivalry, are stimulated to introduce economies and do better work. In writing this paper, Messrs. Haight and Tillson have packed a large amount of information into a relatively small space, and the numerous illustrations, chiefly reductions of working drawings, are valuable. The authors are also to be commended for their highly detailed Table of Contents, which adds to the usefulness of the, subject matter. The method of mining at Franklin does not fall readily into any of the accepted classifications. It is a combination of shrinkage stoping and mining of the pillars by a modified top-slicing method. Attention may be called to the fact that, in the wider parts of the orebody, the stopes, 17 to 18 ft. (5.2 to 5.5 m.) wide are transverse; in the narrower parts, they are longitudinal, that is, in the direction of the' strike. This varia-tion is made necessary by the shape and character of the deposit, and distinguishes practice at Franklin from that in some of the western mines. The direction of the stops is changed from transverse to longitudinal when the orebody narrows sufficiently to make the length of a transverse stope approximately equal to its width. Some of the longitudinal stopes exceed 120 ft. (36 m.) in length, and when the hanging wall is bad, requiring prompt filling, three operations' proceed simul-taneously in the same stope, viz., ore is broken at one end, while drawing down goes on in the middle, and filling at the other end. Each transverse stope or chamber is begun by a crosscut from foot to hanging wall, which is afterward enlarged to the stone width and to a height of 12 or 15 ft. (3.7 or 4.6 m.). This preliminary work is done only once for each stope, because the stope is carried up far enough to continue stoping

Jan 1, 1918

[Furnaces (see also Blast jurnaces) :-(Continued.) McGill, Nev., LI, 765. roasting: XLIX, 184, 188. Anaconda, Mont., XXXVII, 462, XLIX, 676. concrete hearths for, XLVI, 419. Crouse, XLVI, 413. gas, XXXVIII, 163. Heberlein, XXXVII, 634.]

Jan 1, 1918

(This list includes only those who have entered military service within the past month, or whose entry has only recently become known to us; it also includes a few names of those whose titles or assignments have been changed within the month. The last complete list was printed in Bulletin No. 131, November, 1917. A complete Honor List is maintained in the reception room at the office of the Institute.) BANKS, HAROLD P., 2d Lieutenant, Ammunition Train, 2d Division, U. S. A. BARKER, L. M., Co. B., 62d Infantry. BENHAM, W. M., Sergeant, Co. H, 158th Infantry. BOUDWIN, WALKER J., Co. C., 25th Engineers, Camp Devens, Ayer, Mass. BOWLES, MARTIN F., 2d Lieutenant, Co. B., 355th Infantry. BURG, ROBERT S., Instrument Sergeant, Headquarters Co., 340th Field Artillery, N. A. CHALMERS, JOHN W. P.; Signal Depot, Royal Engineers. CHETNEY, P. C., Corporal, 340th Field Artillery, Headquarters Co. CLARK,. WILL L., Federal Fuel Administrator for Arizona. COFFEY, George W., Lieutenant, Engineer Section, Officers' Reserve Corps.

Jan 1, 1918

By Francis S. Peabody

This paper will not be a technical paper, because, although I have been in the business of mining and selling coal for 30 odd years, I am neither a mining engineer nor a practical miner. If I digress from time to time from my thesis, I must be forgiven by the expert engineers and highly technical gentlemen for whose proceedings this article is written. Waste of the wonderful store of power that the Creator placed at our disposal appears to have been the theory and the basis of our methods of extracting this power—waste from the time the coal is mined to the time it is consumed. Let us consider the prime causes of this wastage which has been the heritage of the coal mining industry. In the early days—about 150 years after " Stone Cole" was discovered in Illinois by Joliet and Marquette, and Father Hennepin noted a "cole" mine on his map—the mode of mining prevalent among farmer landowners, on whose property coal was discovered near the surface or outcropping on the hillsides, was to enter the seam by a shallow shaft or drift into the hillside and remove the coal by wedging it down until a large room was left. The roof without support would fall and our primitive coal operator would then sink another shaft or drive another drift. In these early operations only the large lumps were taken and all small pieces and screenings were left to be covered by the fall of the roof—in fact this condition prevailed in Illinois up to about 1885. Gradually the method of mining changed from the open chamber, to a single entry with rooms turned to the right and left. Later, as the demand for coal increased and the necessity for larger mines became evident, the "room and pillar" system grew to be regular practice. The room and pillar system of mining consisted of starting away from the shaft bottom or drift mouth, with a pair of entries usually 12 to 15 ft. wide and about 30 ft. center to center, one entry being used for the air intake and the other for the return air and haulage; from each entry rooms or chambers were turned, narrow at the mouth and widening

Jan 1, 1918

By W. R. Ingalls

The manufacture of zinc oxide directly from the ore is one of the most important contributions that America has made to the metallurgy of zinc. Heretofore, this has been done chiefly for the production of zinc and zinc-lead pigments, and the method has been known as the Wetherill process. While that term may properly be applied to the process for pigment manufacture, it must be recognized that the principles of the process are of far wider application; and that there is going to be wider application in the immediate future is more than an expectation. I have in mind the use of the process as a method of igneous concentration. Igneous concentration is broader in its scope than the Wetherill process, for it may be done in the blast smelting furnace, or in the re-verberatory, or by other means. Igneous concentration is a rather clumsy term, and I prefer to introduce the new generic expression of "zinc burning," which is convenient, readily understood, and precise, for in all cases the zinc oxide is reduced to metallic form, is volatilized and is then burned to zinc oxide, the latter happening, however, after the zinc has been separated from the residue of the ore. As previously indicated, zinc burning may be done either in blast or reverberatory smelting, the gangue of the ore being scorified and drawn off as slag, while other metallic minerals are reduced to matte or metal. Such processes have heretofore been practised on fairly large scales. Thus, F. L. Bartlett smelted zinc ores at Con City, Colo., in specially designed blast furnaces, wherein the smelting column was only about 18 in. high. Such a limitation was necessary in order to prevent zinky accretions in the shaft of the furnace, which in course of time would have interfered with its operation. In running the Bartlett furnaces it was easy to bar them off, indeed, to poke right down into the smelting zone, and keep things going freely. Some iron blast furnaces in Virginia and the spiegeleisen furnaces of the New Jersey Zinc Co. afford other examples of zinc burning in blast-furnace smelting, although in their cases the happening is incidental rather than a primary purpose. Just as zinc may be burned off in a blast furnace, so also may it be done in a reverberatory. Indeed, there is less trouble, in some respects, in a reverberatory, for therewith there is no shaft in which accretions may

Jan 1, 1918

By Harold Rabling

The following notes are taken from results obtained on a standard 25-ft. Hancock jig1 tested during regular operation in the Bonne Terre mill of the St. Joseph Lead Co. The object of the tests was to determine the conditions for most effective work, and the nature of products that could be made. The material treated was sized between 9-mm. and 2-mm. round-hole screens, and was constant throughout the experiments. Three products were made, concentrates from the first three hutches, middlings from the fourth and fifth, and tailing from the sixth. The middlings were crushed in one pair of Allis-Chalmers Style B, 30 by 14-in. rolls, and elevated with the original ore to the 2-mm. screens, oversize of which formed the jig feed. While this arrangement was very simple, it gave rise to undesirable crowding of the circuit. Table 1 shows tonnage and assay values of the jig feed and products at the beginning of the experiments, and brings out the excessively large amount of middlings, comprising 63.3 per cent. of the total material fed to the jig. The rolls, being heavily overloaded, did very little crushing, a screen analysis of the product showing that only 27 per cent., or 128 tons, was crushed fine enough to pass to the tables. The remaining 347 tons returned to the jig with 400 tons of original ore. At .times, this overcrowding became much worse, and the tonnage in circuit grew to enormous proportions. It became imperative

Jan 1, 1918

Jan 1, 1918

By George Rice

WITH so tremendous a subject, an attempted review of the coal situation of the world in a short talk must necessarily be of a sketchy character. It is hardly necessary to tell a body of engineers that had it not been for nature's gift of coal the material side of modern civilization would never have reached its present status. On the other side, it is regrettable that it was a byproduct of coal, T. N. T., which made possible Germany's initial success in this war, because that country had an enor-mous development of manufacturing plants that could be immediately utilized to make this destructive agent. One sometimes hears the casual remark that when the coal of the world is exhausted we shall use electricity; but, of course, electricity is ordinarily only a means of transforming and transmitting energy derived from fuel or water power, and chiefly from coal. It is true, we have much undeveloped water power, but it is more or less remote from the centers of industry; and when all shall have been developed it will not begin to supply the power requirements of the world. It is, however, reasonable to expect that before the world's supply of coal shall be exhausted, methods will have been discovered of harnessing other forces of nature, such as the tides, or the energy emanating from the sun. Petroleum and natural gas naturally come to mind, but the days of both, as fuel, appear to be numbered, although the products of petroleum, if economically used, doubtless will be available for internal-combustion engines, automobiles, trucks, and boats. for a long time, provided the reckless use of crude petroleum as an ordinary fuel is stopped. The products of petroleum are too valuable to mankind for such waste to be permitted. The civilization of the world, therefore, appears to rest, and, so far as can be seen, will indefinitely continue to rest, upon coal.

Jan 1, 1918

Jan 1, 1918

By Arch. B. Johnston, Carle R. Hayward

The effect of copper on steel has been studied by numerous investigators. Before modern testing methods had been developed, blacksmiths noted red shortness in iron, the cause for which was ascribed to the presence of copper. Numerous papers have been published on the corrosion of steels containing various amounts of copper, and a few writers have discussed the effect of copper on the mechanical properties of steel. The purpose of the investigation described in the following paper was to obtain additional data on the mechanical properties of medium-carbon steel containing small quantities of copper. Among those who have published results of mechanical tests on copper steels are Ball,' who states that copper increases the tensile strength and hardness but lowers the elongation. Stead2 states that copper steels closely resemble nickel steels containing equivalent percentages of nickel, as regards tensile strength, resistance to shock, corrosion and hardness. Wigham3 found that copper in small amounts had no injurious effect on steel. Breui14 found that with 1 per cent. carbon, copper lessened the brittleness of steel and in low-carbon steel it increased the tensile strength and lowered the ductility slightly. H. H. Campbell5 states that copper up to 0.25 per cent. slightly raises the elastic limit, elongation and reduction of area.

Jan 1, 1918

By C. A. Wright

Since the adoption by the U. S. Bureau of Standards several years ago of specifications for standard 100- and 200-mesh sieves, frequent requests have been received that this Bureau test and certify sieves of other sizes than these. With a view to the adoption of a series of standard testing sieves which might be of use to all industries making fineness tests, this Bureau for two years has been studying the question of such a standard screen scale. Various scales that have been proposed were considered, and information was sought of representative firms in the various industries interested as to their requirements. Manufacturers of sieves have also been consulted as to the desirability of different screen scales and the practicability of their manufacture. As a result of this study of the question, a conference was called at the Bureau of Standards, Apr. 20, 1916, of representatives of various committees of the American Society for Testing Materials, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Mining Engineers, American Foundrymen's Association, Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, American Water Works Association, American Institute of Metals and the American Spice Trade Association; also representatives of the Committee of Revision of the U. S. Pharmacopæia, the U. S. Geological Survey, the U. S. Bureau of Mines, the U. S. Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering, the U. S. Office of Grain Standardization and the U. S. Bureau of Standards; also representatives of a number of private firms engaged in industries in which sieves are used, such as the glass, the drug milling, the abrasive, the asphalt, the mining, the spice, the chemical, and the graphite industries; also representatives of the firms in this country manufacturing wire cloth and sieves. This Conference, after considering the various screen scales either proposed or now in use, adopted as a Standard Screen Scale that given in Table 1, and recommends that it be adopted generally by scientific,

Jan 1, 1918

By N. E. Holden, R. R. Goodrich

TheRe is a small area about Murray where bedded gold quartz veins occur in Prichard slate. The ore taken from the upper levels, during the early days, was free milling and was treated by stamp milling and amalgamation. There was likewise a considerable placer working. The report is current that tungsten (scheelite) was encountered, which interfered with the amalgamation in the stamp mills and which, in placering, collected in the riffles in the sluice boxes and clogged them. Consequently, in the quartz mines, the scheelite, when encountered, was rejected, being thrown into the waste, sometimes inside the mine and at other times outside on the dump. The free surface ores became worked out and as the ore in depth became pyritic and rebellious to amalgamation the mines closed down. Last spring tungsten ore brought a high price, near $80 per unit, 60 per cent. W03 and up. This so stimulated the output of tungsten ore that old dumps were explored and waste stored in the mines was gone over. Tungsten was likewise mined from virgin ground. So the district produced quite heavily for a time. The condition now is different. The price is not so high, about $20 per unit WO3, which makes profits questionable when mining in new ground. The accumulations from early day mining have been exhausted and the output has greatly declined. The Golden Chest mine was the heaviest producer of tungsten. The months of June and July were spent at this mine studying the problem. Since the mine had produced both gold and tungsten, we looked forward to the problem of recovering both from what might be called a gold-tungsten ore. A study of the Golden Chest vein showed this was not to be the case. While gold ore and tungsten ore come from the same vein, the tungsten ore is confined to a more or less disturbed or distorted portion

Jan 1, 1918

Jan 1, 1918