Search Documents

By Charles A. Ashburner

A very limited development has been made of the coal-fields of this Territory. This is to be accounted for by the fact that a number of the coal-fields lack railroad transportation, by the distance of other fields from the consumers (due to restricted settlements), and finally by the poorer quality of a number of coals which have been mined as compared to others which can be economically imported into the Territory. The consumption of coal in Utah during 1886, outside of that used by the railway companies, was: Tons. Utah coal,..........110,000 Wyoming coal,. .....19,000 Colorado coal,........* 4,945 Total,........... 133,945 It is estimated that there are 1100 miles of railroads in the Territory which use coal for fuel. The consumption of these roads for the year is estimated at 100,000 tons, making an aggregate consumption in the Territory of 223,945 tons. The consumption of coal in Salt Lake City duriug the year was as follows: Tone. From Grass Creek mines,.......21,000 " Pleasant Valley Company's mines,.. 12,700 " Utah Central Company's mines,.9,000 " Bock Spring mines,.6,500 " Almy mines .. ., .. .. . 6,000 " Miscellaneous sources,..5,800 Total ,.........60,000

Jan 1, 1888

By J. C. Bayles

It is seldom the privilege of one who contributes to the Transactions of a technical society, to describe a new industry in which, by processes employed for the first time, are attained results of conspicuous value. There are but few such patches of virgin soil worth the tilling, within the area circumscribed by the industries which have experienced a regular and uniform development. New and startling methods in production are often announced as about to be introduced; but, as a rule, they take their place among the " large desires with most uncertain issues," or give new significance to the historic words of an eminent statesman concerning " the bright beginnings and the bitter end of a halcyon and vociferous proceeding." In this paper I shall have the pleasure of briefly describing a new industry which has been established without announcement or proclamation — the manufacture of serviceable pressure pipes of great strength, from strips of steel or iron wound spirally, heated only along the overlapping edges, welded by hammering and finished into tubes of uniform diameter, and of such length as mag be found convenient in handling and transportation. As such tubes are now manufactured on a considerable scale, in a range of sizes which will soon include everything between 4 inches and 30 inches, and as much larger as may be needed, both process and product are likely to be of interest to engineers in all departments of professional work. The raw material of the industry is the ordinary sheet-iron or steel of commerce, of such lengths and widths as it is convenient to roll. The range of the ganges of the metal which can be employed has riot yet been determined. The lightest metal thus far successfully made into pipe is No. 29 iron, and the heaviest a steel gauging somewhere between 12 and 14. Heavier machines are now building which will bend steel .165 of an inch in thickness, or No. 8 of' the Birmingham gauge. Probably No. 20 or No. 22 will be the lightest used in making commercial pipes; hut the experiment with No. 29 was interesting as showing the readiness with which the flame can be controlled. To get a welding heat with such thin

Jan 1, 1888

By Robert H. Richards, Richard W. Lodge

A great deal of speculation, as well as actual experiment, has been devoted to ascertaining the changes in the materials (luring their descent in an iron blast-furnace, affecting (1) the chemical constitution, (2) the mechanical condition, and (3) the arrangement of the materials. With a view to throw some light upon the third question, we constructed a model and tried experiments which are here described. Our model is a vertical section of a furnace, with the lines of the Edgar Thomson furnace D of 1885 for the use of which we arc indebted to Mr. Gayley. The model is 40 inches high, and made to scale (1/2 inch equals 1 foot), and the horizontal section of the space through which the charge falls at any point in the descent is 11/2 in. x d, d being the diameter of the furnace at that place. We are unable to say just where the idea of making this model came from ; perhaps, partly from The Principles of the Manufacture of Iron, and Steel, 1884, I. Lowthian Bell, p. 124 ; partly, also, from

Jan 1, 1888

By Frank Julian

The determination of manganese by precipitation with potassium chlorate from a solution in concentrated nitric acid, filtration through asbestos, and solution in a reducing agent whose excess is estimated, is open to the objections that the filtration and subsequent solution of the binoxide are apt to be very slow, and that the asbestos may (according to Troilius), unless perfectly purified, affect the titration. In the following modification, filtration is avoided. I give the method as I use it for Bessemer steel. In an 8-ounce Griffen beaker dissolve 1 gramme drillings in 15 c.c. nitric acid (1.2 sp. gr.). Evaporate to 5 c.c.; add 20 c.c. concentrated nitric acid and precipitate with chlorate as usual, avoiding a large excess; then add about 60 c.c. warm water, and 10 c.c. of the oxalic solution; stir until of a clear light yellow color, and titrate with permanganate while the solution is at about 80' C. The binoxide should dissolve immediately when the oxalate isadded. The titration is rapid, and the end-reaction, though transient, easily caught after a little practice. The standard solutions used are: 15 grammes crystallized ammonium oxalate to a liter, and 1.6 grarnmes potassium permanganate to a liter. For standardizing the permanganate, to 10 c.c. of the oxalic solution is added 50 c.c. of hot water, and a solution of 1 gratnme of steel in concentrated nitric acid, from which the manganese has been removed by potassium chlorate and filtration through asbestos. I have made a large number of determinations in steel, pig-iron,

Jan 1, 1888

By Ferdinand S. Ruttmann

There is now in use at the mines of the Chateaugay Ore and Iron Co., at Lyon Mountain, New York, an ore-concentrating machine or jig, which, in view of the increasing attention given to the subject of concentrating lean ores of iron, seems worthy of notice. This Conkling Jig, as it is called, is not entirely unknown, having been used at several places with more or less success; but as yet, I believe, no drawings of it or records of its work have found a place in print. Although the jig will be found to be merely an adaptation of old forms, there are several points which deserve attention, particularly the method of central discharge, of freeing the bearings from grit, and the rotation of the sieve or screen. The ore-body at Lyon Mountain consists of a bed of rather compact, granular magnetite, occurring in a gueiss formation. The side walls of the ore-body are not sharply defined, the ore 011 either side becoming gradually poorer as the distance from the central point of the body increases. It is this lean ore, which, before the introduction of the jigs, was thrown away as waste, that is now concentrated. The material treated conseqnently consists of magnetite, intermixed with the component parts of gneiss, viz. quartz, felspar, hornblende, and mica. Grains of trap also form part of this material. These come from dykes of trap, which cross the ore-body at intervals. The ore which is to be concentrated usually contains from 30 to 40 per cent. of metallic iron. It is first crushed to the size of two inches, or less, by two large Blake crushers. The material from these crushers passes by a shute lined with screens, having holes 2 inches in diameter, to a second set of four crushers, set so as to close to one inch. The product from this set of crushers, together with that which passes through the screens in the shute, is then taken by an elevator to the top of the mill, and passed through a revolving screen, perforated with ) inch holes. The ore which passes through the screen goes to the jig-hoppers ; that which passes over goes to a third

Jan 1, 1888

By Henry E. Colton

NeaR the town of Christiansburg, Va., occurs a singular feature in topographical as well as geological structure, which may be said to have an important bearing on a large area to the southwest. The great water-shed ridge, which divides the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic ocean, coming southwestward, forms all of what was the boundary of Maine as agreed upon by the treaty of 1783, and a part of the present boundary, all of the northern New Hampshire boundary, and entering Vermont, continues south of Lake George. Passing irregularly through New York, it enters Pennsylvania, and there bifurcating, sends one prong to the west as a divide between the waters of the lakes and the Ohio, while the other becomes the steady, regular ridge which gave it the name of Alleghany, and thus passes on southwestward through Virginia. At no point has it ever been the geological divide. Its course, commencing in the Archean rocks, has passed through nearly every series of formation, and comes into Virginia in the Carboniferous strata. The geological divide—the line between the fossiliferous and the non-fossiliferous rocks—lies, in Canada, to the west of it, but from New York south into Virginia is far to the east. Reference to Dr. Hitchcock'k map will show this. But at the locality noted these positions are changed; the water-divide becomes the eastern chain, and the geological divide is the western, returning, it may be said, to the positions occupied in the region where they originated. These relations are shown on the large map accompanying the present paper. For several miles, the track of the Norfolk and Western Railroad

Jan 1, 1888

By W. L. Austin

The only essential difference among the three methods of collecting the precious metals from their low-grade ores by fusion is comprised in the nature of the vehicle in which those metals are concentrated. If lead- or coppper-ores are used, the processes are respectively lead- or copper-smelting; but when the sulphide of iron forms the matrix in which the gold and silver are collected, the process is known as pyritic smelting. The latter method presents rarely any advantages when lead- or copper-ores are available at rates which permit profitable treatment. Pyritic silver-smelting, defined by Percy as " the smelting of silver-ores, which are either free from lead or do not contain it in sufficient quantity to collect the silver, in conjunction with pyrites, in order to produce a regulus in which the silver may be concentrated," is not, as the name would imply, confined to ores of this metal alone, but embraces auriferous silver-ores, or even gold-ores simple. This method of collecting the precious metals from lowgrade dry ores, employed at Freiberg by Barthel Kohler in 1585, does not appear, up to the present, to have been introduced into this country on a working scale. And yet the possibility of getting rid in a single operation of all the earthy or siliceous gangue of a lowgrade ore and concentrating the precious metals in a matte without loss of lead (which includes gold and silver) by slagging, or volatilization, at the same time producing a highly siliceous slag, very nearly if not quite as clean as is usual in lead-smelting, certainly commends itself. In some parts of the country, owing to the com-

Jan 1, 1888

By Fred P. Dewey

IN preparing material for the exhibit of the National Museum at the New Orleans Exposition in 1881, it was decided to attempt to photograph the interior of a coal-mine, in order to get a strictly truthful representation of a thick coal-seam, and to show incidentally the methods of mining. While we have many drawings, both mechanical and artistic, illustrating the subject, they are not satisfactory for these purposes, simply because they are drawings. Aside from this, much interest attaches to pictures of inaccessible places, and the enlarged copies (30 inches by 40 inches) of the photographs we succeeded in obtaining, have attracted a large amount of attention from the visitors to the Museum. The Kohinoor colliery, Shenandoah City, Pa., was selected as most suitable for the attempt, principally on account of the fine exposure of the Mammoth bed, and the comparatively level character of the workings, in that colliery. This is one of the many anthracite-mines of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company. A detailed section of the fiftyfoot or Mammoth bed in this colliery is as follows: Feet. Inches. 1 0 Clod. 1 7 0 Coal. 1 0 Slate. Top Split. 8 0 Coal. 1 6 Slate divider.* 6 0 Coal. 1 0 6 Slate. 2 6 Coal. 0 5 Slate. 1 8 Coal. 1 2 Charcoal. 5 0 coal. 1 0 Bone and Coal. „ „ Coal. [ Bottom Split. 0 6 Bone and Slate. 3 0 Coal. 0 10 Bone and coal. 1 2 Coal. 0 2 Bone. 4 4 Coal. 0 1 Bone. 0 8 Coal.

Jan 1, 1888

By G. Lavagnino

The old Telegraph mine lies on both sides of Bear gulch, a short branch of Upper Bingham canon, and nearly in the center of the group of mines called the Bingham Mines, about twenty-seven miles southwest of Salt Lake City. It is considered, by local miners as the most important mine of the district. The geological formation consists of Weber quartzites, with subordinate conformable limestones and shales, alternating with porphyritic rocks. These widen towards and connect with the massive backbone of the Oquirrh mountains, while the quartzite develops itself on the slope broken through by Bingham canon. The porphyry not only runs between the strata, but also cuts across them, isolating large portions near the mountain mass, and again on a smaller scale it penetrates some joints in the quartzite. It is a crystalline felspathic rock, containing variable proportions of quartz, mica, hornblende, chlorite, and iron pyrites as accessories. In places, it takes a less distinct or almost uniform fine-grained structure. It has a gray or greenish, and, when much altered, also a reddish or even white color. The quartzite is a fine-grained or almost compact grayish-white or bluish or reddish quartz-rock, containing in places fine scales of mica and grains of iron pyrites as accessories. The raised, folded, or broken masses show well-defined bedding-joints, and their general dip is 35 to 50 degrees towards north or northwest. In the porphyry occur metalliferous veins with a prevailing N.E.S.W. strike. These are in general narrow veins; their principal contents are not dissimilar from those of the other deposits; but there is considerably less oxidation near the surface and the ore is mostly richer in silver and gold. In the quartzite the ore-deposits generally occur on the joints of bedding. The more important deposits occur either in clearlydefined contact-veins or, more often, in somewhat vaguely-defined mineralized zones, that could be called contact-zones. These comprise several masses of more or less altered or decomposed rocks and the newly-distributed products of their mechanical and chemical decomposition, such as breccia and clay in seams or in more irregular bodies..

Jan 1, 1888

By J. B. Mackintosh

Some months ago I received a sample of a highly crystalline product occurring in the hearth of the shaft-furnace used in smelting the roasted niccoliferous pyrrhotite at Mr. Joseph Wharton's works near the Gap Mine, Lancaster County, Pa. Mr. Wharton first observed this product in cavities in the concretions in these furnaces about the year 1870, and published a description of it in that year.* Thinking that it might show some analogy to meteoric iron, he sent the present sample to Mr. George a F. Kunz, who turned it over to me, with the request that I should analyze it at my convenience. The results do not show the expected analogy, because the sulphur in meteoric iron is combined as FeS., while in this product there is only one-sixth the necessary amount of sulphur, which, however, seems to be combined with all the metallic elements present, forming a sub-sulphide of definite composition. I am informed by Mr. Wharton that he has had for a long time the sample which I have analyzed, and that it probably is about the same age as that which he first described. It is worthy of note that the material does not show any signs of oxidation, but that the crystals preserve a brilliant metallic lustre. The first two analyses, made by Mr. J. Voigt, are those given by

Jan 1, 1888

By Frank Calvin Roberts

An examination of the various devices employed for operating blast-furnace charging-bells has led me to design the arrangement slrown in the accompanying figure. In order to contribute to the even distribution of stock, the movement of the bell should be in a vertical line, since any tendency to side-thrust which may be in-

Jan 1, 1888

By Theodore A. Blake

At the Chicago meeting of the Institute, May, 1884,I had the pleasure of announcing the introduction of a new machine for fine crushing, or The Blake multiple-jaw crusher, which, in combina tion with the ordinary Blake breaker, could be used in the reduc tion of ores or any hard and brittle substance to almost any degree of fineness. I am now able to give some practical results derived from its use on an extensive scale, on the gold ores of South Caro lina and the iron ores of Lake Champlain, together with some accurate and detailed statistics of the cost of crushing over one hundred thousand long tons of magnetic iron ores of the Chateaugay Ore and Iron Company at Lyon Mountain, Clinton County, N. Y., about thirty miles west of Plattsburgh. The construction of the multiple jaw-crusher, since the date of my first paper, is the same, except in the substitution of main swinging, instead of main sliding, or toggle jaw,—thus doing away with the upward thrust on the tension rods and the wear incident thereunto. (See Fig. 1.) It has also been found, in case of the fine crusher, that is, in machines of not over 4 inch width of opening, that the use of several small machines with a series of jaw openings, say 15 inches by 4 inch, is better than one large machine with a series of openings 24 by 4 inch, or 36 inches by 4 inch, as at first constructed. Many details of the method of holding in jaw-plates, etc., have been perfected. Without giving any details with respect to the different mills built upon the Blake 'system, let me state that, although it has proved possible to carry any hard and brittle material with crushers alone to a fineness such that all particles will pass a 30-mesh wire screen, still the economical limit of such crushing will be found somewhere between 14 and 20. If it is necessary to carry all the material to a fineness greater than this, the system must be supple

Jan 1, 1888

By William P. Blake

This camp is just now startled by the alarming suggestion that unless there shall speedily be an appreciation in the value of silver, and a decrease in the cost of salt, it will be prudent business policy to close the Alice mines and mills until the conditions of production are more favorable. Such an event would be a great blow to the prosperity of Butte. It would throw some hundreds of men out of employment, and it might lead to the adoption of the same policy by other companies, which, like the Alice, have not been able to pay dividends to their shareholders for a long time. The question arises, and becomes emphatic: If, under the present adverse conditions, the mines and mills cannot be made to pay a proper profit, why should they continue to be worked ? The owners mentally ask: Shall we go on exhausting our mines, pouring out a stream of silver for the maintenance of the community, and the support of the rail ways, or shall we husband our reserves, withdraw the miners from our slopes, and wait for more favorable conditions ? This is the impending question, and all concerned dread to meet and answer it. Let us briefly review the situation and forecast, if possible, what the solution of' the problem will be. It must be understood that the discussion does not include, or refer to, the immense copper-producing interests of the camp, which may or may not be upon a very much more satisfactory basis. It will be confined chiefly to the operations of the Alice company, sta tistics of which are at hand, without involving the other silver com panies in the conclusions beyond those inevitable from well-known facts, patent to all. There are at present in Butte and in its vicinity in the principal mills an aggregate of 290 stamps dropping upon silver-ores: Alice,...........80 stamps. Moulton,. .........40 " Lexington,...50 " Silver Bow,.........30 " Blue Bird,..........90 " The Alice mills at present, with their 80 stamps, devour, in round numbers, from 100 to 120 tons a day. The actual amount

Jan 1, 1888

By John Birkinbine

In the belief that a resume of what will be exhibited during this meeting, and a brief record of progress in the seven years which have elapsed since the Institute's first visit to Lake Superior would be interesting, the following statistical data have been prepared or copied from the most reliable sources, and considerations are also presented concerning the development or utilization of some of the resources of the Lake Superior Region. When the Institute, on the return trip from enjoying the charming panoramas of Thunder Cape or Isle Royale, and inspecting the unique development of Silver Islet, passed, in August, 1880, through the St. Mary's Falls ship canal, en route to Escanaba, the boat was lowered from the level of Lake Superior to that of Michigan and Huron lakes (18 feet), through two locks each 70 feet wide and 350 feet long, which had been in use since 1855. But as these locks accommodated vessels which drew 12 feet of water or less, a new lock 80 feet wide, 515 feet long and admitting vessels of 16 feet draught was approaching completion and was opened in September, 1881. The time required to pass the locks was utilized by the members in examining the work upon this new lock and in viewing the Sault Ste. Marie, which in discharging from Lake Superior all average volume of 90,783 cubic feet of water per second, forms a rapid, falling 18 feet in one mile. But the lake traffic through the St. Mary's ship-canal has developed so rapidly that another and larger lock is now required, and work has been commenced by the

Jan 1, 1888

By S. F. Emmons

[The following notes of observations made during a visit of a few days in the month of October, 1886, which was cut short by a sudden summons East, are offered, in spite of their incomplete and tentative character, in the hope that they may aid the members of the Institute, in their coming visit to this region, to a clearer understanding of the general geological conditions under which the ore-bodies occur.] The Butte mining region lies in a sort of a depression in the mountains which is drained by Silver Bow creek and its various tributaries. On the east it is bounded by high north and south ridges of granite, and on the west by lower ridges, also running north and south, which, as far as examined, were found to consist of rhyolite. High mountains also inclose the depression on the north and south, but at a greater distance than the more immediate bounding ridges on the east and west, the distance between which is hardly more than six miles.

Jan 1, 1888

By Clemens Jones

An interesting paper by J. E. Merion and Edward Hart, in Volume I., No. 2, of the Journal of Analytical Chemistry, on the Decomposition of Blast-Furnace Cinder by Acid, describes a plan of sampling the cinder by means of a previously-heated iron bar thrust into the cinder car or into the cinder at the notch, and then allowed to cool, thus chilling the cinder which adheres to the bar, and rendering it decomposable by hydrochloric acid, of 1.12 sp. gr. A short series of results is given, from which the deduction follows that blast-furnace cinder " is decomposed perfectly when chilled." Where many silica determinations are to be made, this method, if reliable, would effect notable economy of time and reagents. The conversion of insoluble silicates by fusion with an alkaline carbonate, together with the subsequent solution, evaporation, drying, etc., is destined to remain the standard method. But all fusionmethods are time-consuming and expensive. Chilling appears to render the supplementary method available for all practical purposes, in the determination of silica in cinder. But, with a view of securing more evidence on the subject, and in view of the fact that uniform results were not obtained by employing this method, it was decided to test the method in the laboratory of the Thomas Iron Company where a large number of silica determinations are made. The experience met with may not be devoid of value, both theoretical and practical. Mr. Iles's paper, in the Chemical News, Volume L., 1881, doubtless suggested to several chemists, connected with iron metallurgical

Jan 1, 1888

By O. J. Hollister

Jan 1, 1888

By Joseph H. Allen

In the old Kentucky reports, made by the Survey of which Prof. Owen was director, the veins of the Western Kentucky coal-field were numbered from 1 up to 12. Later Prof. Shaler used letters, beginning at the top. For instance, Owen's 12 is Shaler's A.

Jan 1, 1888

By Edward Nichols

As far as known to the writer, no discovery has heretofore been made in the United States of deposits of beauxite, or the hydrated oxide of alumina. The deposit which forms the subject of this note was discovered in Floyd County, Georgia. Numerous "float" specimens, covering an area of about half an acre, indicate the location of the main deposit, which has thus far been opened to an inconsiderable extent only. The excavations show the beauxite to exist apparently as large masses in clay. The formation is Lower Silurian, as determined by the Geological Survey of Georgia. The surface in the immediate vicinity is covered with numerous angular fragments of chert, which is a characteristic rock throughout this formation in Georgia. An examination of the mineral shows it to have the oolitic structure common to several beauxites. It. varies in color from a light salmon to dark red, depending upon its contents of iron oxide. The light-colored specimens are comparatively soft, while the dark mineral is much harder, spots in the latter being

Jan 1, 1888

By Richard H. Terhune

It cannot be said that the development of processes for roasting in Utah has been evolutionary. Some of the best systems were contemporaneons with smelting here, and one of the most primitive methods, pile roasting, is still entrenched, to the exclusion of all others, at one works. This is certainly not because we have not had sulphur, in place and out of place, to contend with, but rather because roasting has not been a necessity, we having, like most other smelting districts in America, a good share of oxidized ores.

Jan 1, 1888