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Jan 1, 1907

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Jan 1, 1907

By M. H. Harrington

The Transaclions of the Institute afford abundant evidence of the general recognition by mining engineers of the importance of a safety-lamp which will not only give warning of the presence of fire-damp, but will also indicate the proportion in which it is present.' Mining-men are only too familiar with the frequent and sudden changes that habitually occur at the working-face of a gaseous mine. Nothing illustrates more forcibly the pregnant condition of the strata enfolding the seam and the seam itself, than the fact that a circulation of perhaps 150,000 cu. ft. of air

Jan 1, 1907

The opening session of the A. I. M. E. was held at the King Edward Hotel, Toronto, on Tuesday, July 25th. Dr. W. G. Miller, on behalf of the Local Committee, opened the proceedings. [ ] President John Hays Hammond, who occupied the chair, introduced Alderman Graham, Chairman of the Reception Committee, and representative of the city, in the absence of His Worship the Mayor. A brief address of welcome was delivered by the Alderman and responded to by President Hammond. The President then requested Dr. James Douglas to present to the honoured Secretary of the Institute, Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond, an oil portrait.

Jan 1, 1907

By T. H. Aldrich

The Aldrich Mining Go. holds under lease from the Illinois Central R. R. Co. about 14,000 acres, in the east half of Township 12, Range 12 W., in Marion county, Alabama, and owns other lands, of which about 1,000 acres adjoin this leased tract, making a total area of about 15,000 acres, all of which is underlain by the coal-seam upon which the company is operating. This seam is nearly horizontal; and a ravine, diagonally crossing the tract, exposes the outcrop on either side for about 2 miles. The territory has been so divided that nearly the whole of it can be worked out by two collieries. The mines at Brilliant were opened in the fall of 1898, and shipments began in the following spring. The original plan was to furnish steam-coal for locomotives to the Illinois Central R. R. Co.; and upon this expectation the investment of capital was made. The field was entirely new; and the softness of the coal at the outcrop induced the belief that it could be very cheaply mined. A contract for the delivery of a large quantity of coal to the railroad was accordingly executed. But with the advance of' the entries to increasing distances from the outcrop, the coal proved so hard that it could no longer be drilled with a breast-auger; and the expense of mining became so great that the contract for cheap steam-coal had to be canceled. It became evident that the work must be done with machinery and explosives, if it could be profitably done at all. On the other hand, the excellent quality of this coal opened, at the same time, a possible market not specially contemplated at the outset—namely, that of a first-rate coal for domestic and general uses. Since no other deposit of such coal was known to exist on the line of the Illinois Central, or any other railroad

Jan 1, 1907

By Henry D. Hibbard

A noted ordnance engineer once said to a friend, in speaking of the production of great steel guns, " How is it ? We design our guns with a factor of safety of eight, and the guns burst." The vague way in which internal stresses and strains in iron and steel are often considered and spoken of makes it worth while to examine them, as to their nature, their causes and results, how they may, for useful purposes, be advantageously dealt with, and how, when detrimental or dangerous, they may be reduced or kept within harmless proportions. Rankine defines " strain " as a change of form or dimensions of a solid or liquid mass produced by a stress. This definition seems intended not to cover strains due to internal stresses, and it will help us in the present inquiry to consider strain as a tendency to change as well as an actual change of form. Internal strains in iron and steel are the result of stresses within the mass of the piece, some parts pulling and others pushing in resistance to them; or, in other words, some parts are in tension and some in compression, each part striving to relieve itself from strain and make the piece assume a form in which all parts are at rest. Subdivision, so that each part could relieve its strain by motion relative to the other parts, would, if carried out far enough, practically obliterate strain. The internal strains we are now to consider are not those due to the stresses of the service which the piece is rendering, either alone or as a part of a structure, which may be termed service-strains, but those which originate or at least are contained in the piece itself. Internal stresses in a piece of metal are, like action and reaction, always equal and in opposite directions. The stresses

Jan 1, 1907

Jan 1, 1907

Jan 1, 1907

By Thomas Leonard Watson

In a paper read by title at the Washingtoil meeting of the Institute,' May, 1905,I discussed at considerable length the geological relations, mode of occurrence, and the genesis of the lead- and zinc-ores of the VirginisTennessee region. The present paper treats of the purely ecorlomic phases of the zinc-ores of the district,—such as methods of mining the ores, their preparation and treatment. The Albemarle coullty mines and plant were discussed in the paper referred to above, and mill not be considered here. Methods of Mining. Until very recently the mining of lead- and zinc-ores in Virginia mas limited wholly to the surface-belt of weathering. The mode of occurrence and the character of the ores to be mined were such as to demand the employment of niethods used in mining secondary concentrated ores. Accordingly, a system similar to that practiced in mining brown iron-ores was employed, being modified to meet the changed conditions. Oxidized or Soft Ores.—Up to the present time practically all the ore mined in the Virginia district has been of the oxidized or soft type;—the silicate, calamine, and the carbonate, smith-sonite; largely the former, which has been localized and concentrated at only slight depths below the surface. Because of the extreme irregularity with which the limestone weathers when stripped of the overlying residual clay, it presents a roughened surface of large and small irregular " chimneys"

Jan 1, 1907

By Charteris A. Stewart

The following scanty notes on the Roumanian oil-region may serve as an introduction to more detailed future study and description. The Roumanian oil-belt follows the outer edge of the sweep of the Carpathian mountains, and may, in a broad sense, be regarded as a prolongation of the Galician belt. It is distributed over a tract of country from 300 to 400 miles in length, with a width of from 15 to 20 miles, and is believed to cover an area of at least 20,000 hectares (49,420 acres). The governmerit claims that 16,000 to 17,000 hectares of its land is petroliferous. The primary deposits of petroleum arc considered to be in the Paleogene (Oligocene) and the Neogene (the salines of the Miocene) formations. Most of the other repositories, especially those of Muntenie, are only secondary, the petroleum there having been introduced by the orogenic movements which raised the Carpathian mountains. The oil-field has been divided by the Roumanian Survey into two regions, the Flysch and the Sub-carpathian, as is shown in the accompanying sketch-map, Fig. 1. So far as is yet known, practically all the seepages and productive pits and wells are situated on anticlinals. Those which outcrop in the Flysch region (called Paleogene anticlinals), as indicated in the sketch-map, Fig. 1,are : Solontz,

Jan 1, 1907

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Jan 1, 1907

By Samuel S. Wyer

The following abbreviations hare been used in the text: Am. Mfr. and Iron World. American Manufacturer and Iron World, Pittsburg, Pa. Can. Min. Rez;. Canadian Mininy Review, Ottawa, Can. Cuss. Mag. Cassier's Mayazine, New York, N. Y. Col. Eng. Colliery Engineer, Scranton, Pa. Col. Guard. Colliery Guardian, London, Eog. Eng. and Min. Jour. Engineering and Mining Journal, New York, N. Y. Eng. News. Engineering News, New York, N. Y. Engr. Engineering, London, Eng. J. I. and 8. I. Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, London, Eng. Jour. W. Soc. of Engrs. Journal Western Society of Engineers, Chicago, Ill. Lond. Eng. The Engineer, London, Eng. Mines and Min. Mines and Minerals, Scranton, Pa. North of Eng. I. M. E. North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. Oester. Zeitsch f. Berg u. Hüt. Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Berg-und Hittenwesen, Vienna, Austria. Pract. Engr. Practical Engineer, London, Eng. Proc. I. C! E. Proceedings Institution of Civil Engineers, London, Eng. Trans. A. I. M. E. Transactions American Institute of Mining Engineers, New York, N. Y. Trans. A. S. M. E. Transactions American Society Mechanical Engineers, New York, N. I!. Duns. Fed. I. M. E, Transuctions Federated Institute Mining Engineers, Newcastle-on-Tgne, England. Trans. L 31. E. Transactions Institute Mining Engineers, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.

Jan 1, 1907

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Jan 1, 1907

By David Baker

In a paper presented to the American Institute of Mining Engineers, September, 1904, entitled uImprovements in the Mechanical Charging of the Modern Blast-Furnace,"' I showed the great fault of mechanical charging-devices to be that the materials charged by the dumping of the skip were separated, the coarse materials having high velocity, and the fine, low— thus giving paths of low resistance through the stock in the furnace, which resulted in unequal distribution of the furnace-gases, unequal reduction, slips, scaffolds, irregular cutting of the inwall, "of" iron, and increased fuel-consumption. I showed how this could be prevented by rotary distribution, through which the irregular distribution in one layer charged is compensated by charging the subsequent layers from succeesively varied positions of the charger, and becomes practically eliminated when the angle between two successive positions is a little more or less than an even fraction of a full circle. Of all the devices then on the market, the nearest approach to the ideal arrangement was found in the Brown distributor, a full description of which was given. The one defect pointed out, however, was the difficulty of maintaining so much mechanism on the top of a blast-furnace. Since the presentation of that paper, I have designed a very

Jan 1, 1907

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Jan 1, 1907

Jan 1, 1907

By Charles E. W. Bateson

The Mojave mining district is situated in a group of small hills centering around Soledad peak, in the Mojave desert, Kern county, Cal. These hills are about 4.5 miles SSW. of Mojave, a railroad town at the junction of the Santa Fé and Southern Pacific railroads. The town of Mojave is about 50 miles north of Los Angeles, to which it is connected both by telegraph and by rail. The distance on the Southern Pacific railroad is 102 miles, covered in 3 hr. and 45 min. by express train. A sketch-map of this region is shown in Fig. 1. The Mojave district is relatively isolated. The only other mining towns in this section of California are Randsburg and Johannesburg, in a district (containing the well-known Yellow Aster mine) at the northern end of a low range of hills, which begins about 20 miles NE. of Mojave, runs nearly N. for 35 miles, and varies in width between 3 and 6 miles. As will be seen later, the origin and formation of these hills are not the same as those of Soledad peak. II. Climate and VEgetation. The climate and vegetation of the Mojave district are typical of the arid regions of the southwestern United States. During the winter and spring there is some rainfall, and the tempera ture is generally from 60" to 70" F. in the day-time. The rainfall in the spring is often very considerable for short spaces of time, and cloud-bursts are not infrequent. In summer there is continual sunshine, with temperatures, as a rule, exceeding 100" F. in the day-time, while 115" F. in the shade of a house is not at all unusual; but at night the temperature falls considerably. No rain falls during the summer. The vegetation

Jan 1, 1907

By Charles P. Berkey, John B. Hastings

The reconnaissance of the Goldfield mining-district, describecl in this paper, was made in May and June, 1905, and, though this time was too short for a complete report, the work accomplished may serve as a basis for more thorough future research. Dr. Berkey has examined the rocks collected by me, and I am using his classifications. As a result of further field-work, and Dr. Berkey's examination of the rocks, this paper is an elaboration and correction of my views expressed in the Gold-$elm Sun, May 12, 1905. The sketch-map, Fig. 1, illustrates the geology of the Goldfield mining-district. Goldfield is an eruptive complex, consisting of alaskite (hinary granite), hornblende-andesite, hornblende-dacite, rhyolite, pyroxene-andesite, pyroxene-dacite (sometimes containing a small quantity of olivine), quartz-felsite, olivine-pyroxene-ande-site, and basalt. Considering this list to be arranged in the order of eruption, the age-sequence of the rocks conforms to Richthofen's law, formulated in 1868. From his observations in Europe and America, propylite, andesite, trachyte, rhyolite and basalt, occurring together, succeed one another. In a general way, the medium and the more acidic rocks precede the most basic—a result supposed by some to hare arisen from their position beneath the. surface, and due to a rude stratification by gravity in the original cooling magma during the older history of the earth, or to the same differentiation occurring during a quiescent (molten ?) period preceding eruption, being aided by the ease with which acidic rocks, mixed with water vapors, become fusible. In effect, the more basic and less re-

Jan 1, 1907

With the progress of modern mining engineering, one of the features of which is the mining from greater depths and the hoisting of greatly increased loads, it becomes a matter of increasing importance that the engineer should be able to determinewith some degree of precision the character of the strains on the hauling rope. But a wire rope is a complex structure; it is made up of spirally-twisted strands, which in turn are composed of spirally-twisted wires, and it is not particularly easy to say exactly what happens when this "doubly-twisted structure is wound round a drum or over a pulley.. The difficulty has been generally evaded in ordinary practice by the simple device of adopting a large factor of safety for the rope-usually from 8 to 10-a factor which experience has shown is sufficiently large to cover the bending strains set "up when the rope is passed over pulleys of the sizes commonly considered appropriate.When, however, we add the stress due to the bending of the rope to the stress produced by" the direct pull, we find that the actual factor of safety is usually more nearly 4 than 10, and frequently the bending stresses in the rope are so large compared with the simple tensile stresses that their neglect may easily lead to disastrous results when dealing with problems a little out of the common run. Common Empirical Rules.-It is always "recognized that the bending of a wire rope round too small a pulley is likely to do the rope serious injury, but as it is desirable in ordinary winding operations to reduce the inertia of the moving parts to a minimum...

Jan 1, 1907

Jan 1, 1907