Search Documents

By AIME AIME

A PERIOD of business depression and falling prices always raises questions as to the possible responsibility of the monetary or banking system. This is natural enough, for it is agreed that the supply of money or credit is a very important factor in modern business and in prices. However, it is far from being the only important factor. One of the chief merits of the gold standard is that under its workings the supply of currency and credit is regulated automatically to the masimun extent, in- stead of by the control of any arbitrary authority. The supply of new gold comes from the mines, and mining is free. It is distributed among the countries by the currents of trade and the play of economic forces, with the general result that the distribution tends to be in accordance with the economic development of the countries and their ability to use it or command it. Inasmuch as the accumulated stock of monetary gold is very large in comparison with the annual additions, the total avail- able supply changes but little from year to year, and it may be assumed that price-changes that are properly chargeable to gold will take place gradually rather than suddenly.

Jan 1, 1930

By J. B. Dilworth

I. INTRODUCTION. THE purpose of this paper is, first, to give a general account of a little-known coal-district of SE. Kentucky, its topography, drainage, and mineral resources, for those who may be interested in its economic development; and secondly, so to describe the geologic features of the field as to furnish available data to those engaged on the broader problems of Appalachian coal-geology. The data from which the major portion of the paper has been prepared were obtained, in professional investigations for private individuals and corporations, within the last decade. The area under review, defined by a heavy line on the map, Fig. 1, lies between Little Black and Pine mountains, and extends from Harlan on the west to a N-S. line crossing Looney creek 3 miles from its mouth on the east. This area can be divided for description into a Western and an Eastern Division. The character of investigation pursued in the Western Division, below Fugitt creek, was very different from that employed in the Eastern. In the former, only a rapid reconnoissance was attempted : such coal-openings as had been made by prospectors or by citizens in obtaining fuel were visited, their sections measured and, in many instances, sampled. Elevations were obtained barometrically and approximate locations sketched on a small-scale map. In a field where the coals are so well opened, the reconnoissance method gives a very fair idea of the number and character of the principal beds and their relative positions, and affords much evidence for their correlation over wide areas, without permitting the more refined work required to discover all the seams of the measures and to determine the details of geologic structure.

Feb 1, 1912

By Scott Turner

GOLD AND SILVER, the monetary metals, have presented in the last year a striking contrast; gold has experienced unusual prosperity, while silver has been depressed more severely than ever before. Gold mining has been hailed as the only basic industry that is able to thrive on depression; the new gold produced is thought by many to be the most important material for the reconstruction of prosperity. Silver production, meanwhile, has been sinking to its level of 40 years ago, and its price to a level never before recorded. These factors have reduced the value of silver produced in 1932 to about the value of the average annual production more than a century ago, that of the decade 1801-1810. No other major commodity in world trade appears to have suffered a greater decline during the present depression.

Jan 1, 1933

By Henry M. Howe

(Cleveland Meeting, October, 1912.) Manuscript received Aug. 20, 1912. PROFESSOR RUFF'S most illuminating paper' describing his extremely valuable investigation of the carbon-iron equilibrium diagram assigns definite temperatures to certain very important lines in the diagram, viz.: the eutectic temperature EB (Fig. 1) and the " near-eutectic " temperature E'B', but without indicating clearly enough the reasoning which warrants these assignments. These temperatures are of such primary importance that it is well to indicate the apparent gaps in the reasoning, in the hope that they may be filled in. In his diagram, Fig. 1, the point X and the lines B'D'HI represent the experimental results reached by Ruff and Goecke; 2 AB, AEB, and SE represent the liquidus, the solidus, and the solubility of the carbon in solid austenite in the absence of graphite according to Gutowsky,3 AB being also in accordance with Spiecker's data;4 ,S'E' the solubility of carbon in solid austenite in the presence of graphite according to Ruer and Iljin; 5 GS the line A3 after Goerens and Meyer;6 I and EBC the true eutectic line as inferred by Prof. Ruff from Gutowsky's data. B'D' is the carbon content found in cast-iron which had apparently saturated itself with carbon in the presence of the graphite of the enclosing graphite crucibles in which the determinations were made. From its straightness and its sharp inflection near 6.67 per cent. of carbon, the carbon content of * Professor of Metallurgy in Columbia University. 1 Metallurgie, vol. viii., pp. 456 to 464 and 497 to 508 (1911). 2 Idem, vol. viii., pp. 417 to 421 (1911). 3 Idem, vol. vi., pp. 731 to 743 (1909). 4 Idem, vol. vi., p. 524 (Wüst) (1909). 5 Idem, vol. viii., pp. 97 to 101 (1911). 6 Idem, vol. vii., pp. 307 to 312 (1910).

Nov 1, 1912

By Heinrich Ries

I. INTRODUCTION. THE facts is presented in this paper, based chiefly on recon¬naissance made, during the summer of 1903, by myself and my assistant, Mr. R.. C. Brooks, cover practically all that portion of Texas lying east of the 99th meridian. The work was undertaken for the University of Texas Mineral Survey, and was to have been extended over the entire State, but the sudden termination of the survey prevented even the official publication of the results already obtained. Most of the mineral resources of Texas were fully treated by the First Geological Survey, but the clay-industry was tit that time little developed, so that only a few scattered notes concerning it are to be found in the Survey reports. The extensive exploitation of the clay-deposits, however, has emphasized their commercial importance, and has also made accessible many facts of exceptional interest concerning their geologic conditions. The erection of new plants for the utilization of clay-products is usually preceded by more or less prospecting, which, by reason of the scarcity of outcrops, and the geologic and topographic conditions of eastern and southeastern Texas, is often slow and difficult work. This is especially true in the Tertiary and Pleistocene areas, where the structural conditions much resemble those of the Atlantic coastal plain, the deposits being mostly lenticular in form, and surrounded by beds of sand. II. GENERAL GEOLOGY OF THE CLAY-DEPOSITS. The accompanying sketch-map, Fig. 1, shows the location of nearly all the deposits examined, their relation to the geology of the State, and the type of clay found in each. The geology is based on the published work of Hill, Cummins, Tail, Adams, Hayes and Kennedy, but the boundaries have unfortunately not been determined over the entire region covered by the map, and, in many areas, are only approximate. It will be seen that the clay-deposits range from Carboniferous to Pleistocene in age, the older deposits being found in the northwestern part of the area, while those of Cretaceous and Tertiary age lie to the east, southeast and south. The Pleistocene clays are found in part in a belt along the coast, and in part along many of the larger rivers, where they often underlie extensive terraces.

Sep 1, 1906

By AIME AIME

THE twenty-second annual meeting of the Canadian Mining Institute was held at the King Edward Hotel, Toronto, on Mar. 8, 9, and 10, and was followed on the 11th by an all-day excursion to the International Nickel Refinery at Port Colborne. The meeting was very well attended and dealt with some of the most important matters, both technical and economic, that have ever come before the Canadian Institute. The question of licensing engineers is before the Canadian members as it is before our own in this country and the attitude of the mining engineers across the border is like that of the American mining engineers, opposed to the licensing of the mining. engineer, however they may feel toward the licensing of other branches of the engineering profession. It was well pointed out that such a law, had it been in existence in the last decade or two, would probably have prevented the rapid development of Canada's mines. Whereas one civil engineer can run a line of survey as well as another, perhaps, it is only a question in his case of whether he can or cannot survey. In the case of a mining engineer employed by a man with capital to invest in a development project, unless the man with the money has confidence in the judgment of his engineer the fact that he is a professional man would carry little weight in inducing a large investment toward the development of Canada's resources. It was also pointed out that although the Institute as a whole had not passed on the matter, it would probably be opposed to legislation aiming only for self-interest, but would be heartily in accord with legislation which could be shown to be for the service of the community at large.

Jan 1, 1920

By Cornelius F. Kelley

DURING the war, events moved with unprecedented rapidity. Situations, industrial, economic and financial, arose over night that stressed to the uttermost the ingenuity and ability of those who dealt with them. It was essentially a time demanding action rapid and concentrated, and not one for discussion, either academic or polemic. As a result, matters of importance were necessarily transacted without the desirable opportunity being afforded of enabling a general understanding to be gained as to the relative merit or demerit involved, and in some instances, legislation essential to enable the consummation of an important matter was passed without attracting the public attention then deeply engrossed in the larger aspects of the situation. The result was that so long as the public mind was occupied, little or no concern was given to questions that ordinarily would have invited immediate attention; and in some instances, only when as an aftermath of war a particular subject has become a matter of discussion, criticism not altogether fair is made without first obtaining accurate knowledge as to the conditions that prevailed, the purpose sought to be accomplished, or the results obtained by the action taken.

Jan 1, 1921

By Charles Hardy

?POWDER METALLURGY? is the production of semiformed or fully formed metal products by compressing metal powders. It had its beginnings in the fabrication of tungsten and molybdenum bars and wire by compression, sintering, and swaging. Powder metallurgy, although still in its infancy with other metals, has shown remarkable progress in recent years. Production of Metal Powders-The first step in any powder-metallurgy process is the production of metal particles of suitable shape and size. Mechanical processes for producing metal powders, as by crushing, stamping, or grinding, are usually not suitable, as the resulting particles may cause laminations and decreased strength in the finished articles. The principal metal powders now in use on a large scale are produced by electrolysis or by reduction of metal oxides by gases.

Jan 1, 1936

By A. U. Seybolt, R. E. Honnemon

THE purpose of this communication is to present activity data of nickel in the Ni-A1 binary system that was obtained for oxidation studies in this system. This data has been calculated from previous aluminum activity data at 1000°C1,2 by two types of Gibbs-Duhem integrations. These results should be of particular current interest to oxidation studies of aluminide coated nickel-base superalloys3 as well as other problems. The aluminum activity of Steiner and Komarek1 is plotted in Fig. 1 as a function of composition in Ni-A1 alloys at 1000°C. The dashed parts of the aluminum curves represent our approximate extrapolations from the directly measured regions. In the terminal solution regions (a and L phases) standard parabolic solution functions of the following form are assumed: where i is the component subscript, Ki is a constant at a fixed temperature, and xi is the atom fraction. The resultant nickel activity curve at 1000° C from the Gibbs-Duhem integration4 of the aluminum data is shown in Fig. 1. The solubility ranges of the phases present in the Ni-A1 binary at 1000°C are also denoted at the bottom of Fig. 1. Corresponding values of the nickel activity, aNi and yNi, are listed in Table I at useful compositional intervals. including phase boundary values. The aNi and yNi data listed in Table I are subject to the uncertainties present in the experimental aluminum activity data1 and to deviations from parabolic solution behavior in the terminal solutions. The errors introduced into aNi and yNi due to the parabolic solution assumption are expected to be relatively small (<20 pct of the values given) in all the phases except the liquid phase. Some deviation from parabolic solution behavior in the liquid phase is indicated

Jan 1, 1970

By AIME AIME

BESIDES commanding increasing importance as an alloying element in combination with ferrous and other nonferrous metals, the variety of uses for pure nickel continues to widen. For coinage it is growing in popularity. These coins have been minted for 27 countries in 72 issues representing 69 denominations. Approximately 3,000,000,000 pieces have been struck, the aggregate weight, of which amounts to nearly 14,000 tons. . Danzig, Iraq and Japan are the most recent governments to adopt, pure nickel coinage. France is adding the denomination of five francs to its other nickel currency; they replace silver pieces. Germany is now minting a new issue of one Reichsmark coins of pure nickel. The Japanese program for 1933 called for the issue of 35,000,000 10-sen pieces and 30,000,000 5-sen pieces. In radio tube manufacture the consumption of pure nickel was approximately twice that of 1932. During 1.933 the nickel plating process by which bright deposits may be plated

Jan 1, 1934

By AIME AIME

The first session, held Tuesday evening, February 23, in North Sheffield Hall, was called to order by Louis V. Pirsson, Chairman of the Local Committee, who introduced Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, Dean of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. Professor Chittenden, in behalf of the Governing Board, felicitated the Institute on its visit to New Haven, and cordially welcomed the members and guests to the University and the city. Dr. James Douglas, who presided at the meeting, responded in behalf of the Institute. The Secretary announced that, upon the proposal of many members, the unanimous report of the Committee on Membership, and .the unanimous recommendation of the Council, the following members had been unanimously elected by the Board of Directors Honorary Members in the American Institute of Mining Engineers Prof. Richard Beck, of Freiberg, Saxony, in recognition of his distinguished service to technical literature, and the cordial

Apr 1, 1909

By William B. Plank

IN this paper are presented the results of a complete statistical survey of the enrolment, courses and degrees, and the employment situation of recent graduates in all of the 46 institutions in the United States, including Alaska, and four of the six schools in Canada that grant degrees in mineral technology. The data were collected by the writer by means of a questionnaire in December, 1933, to which all the institutions, except one, replied. Included also are data of a similar study made by the writer in May, 1933, for the S. P. E. E. summer session of mining and metallurgical teachers at the University of Wisconsin and published in the Journal of Engineering Education for December. 1933. Some of the data of a paper of the writer&apos;s entitled, "The Trend of Mineral Engineering Student Enrolment in the United States," read at the A. I. M. E. meeting on Feb. 16. 1931, are given for comparison. Acknowledgment is made to all the administrative officers of the institutions who took the time from their busy lives to supply the in- formation asked for. Their fine cooperation has alone made possible these two surveys with a completeness of detail never before attempted

Jan 1, 1934

By P. B. Leavenworth

Development in the Upper Texas Gulf Coast during 1945 resulted in the discovery of 23 new fields; one Miocene, eight Frio, three Cockfield-Yegua and eleven along the Wilcox trend. The Wilcox trend appears to he the most active at this time. Producing depths of the new Wilcox discoveries range from 2050 to 10,050 ft. Drilling along the Frio trend has been, for the greater part, projected to the deeper downdip sands. Eighteen of the new discoveries are classified as oil or condensate and five are gas discoveries.

Jan 1, 1946

By JOHN JANNEY

STABILIZATION of the adjustment of normal consumption to normal production of world commodities is quite different from reducing production until visible surpluses are consumed. The first means restoration and maintenance of prosperity, the second means merely a temporary alleviation of a condition with the prime cause remaining uncorrected. Overproduction of foodstuffs in some sections of the world while millions starve in other sections represents not so much overproduction of foodstuffs as mal-distribution of foodstuffs. The flour mills of Washington and Oregon normally ship quantities of flour to China. Now, the wheat that would make this flour goes East instead of West. Is this overproduction, or is there something wrong that calls for study, analysis and correction? Can the plan used by the ostrich of hiding its head in. the sand get us by this present world tragedy, or must the challenge to solve this problem be met, constructively? Can we not make out of this breakdown in the world&apos;s economic system an opportunity? And use it as the stimulus for remedying the basic cause of the trouble and not content ourselves with devising temporary expedients that aim at remedying this or that of the obvious conditions, in themselves not causes at all but rather the evidence of causes, or that are the symptoms of the real trouble.

Jan 1, 1931

By AIME AIME

THE American Engineering Council, which is the working body of The Federated American Engineering Societies, held its first meeting in Washington, Nov. 18 and 19, 1920. The Federated American Engineering Societies was formed in Washington in June and is composed of engineering and technical societies, national, state, local and regional. These Member Societies elect delegates to the American Engineering Council, which is the administrative body of the Federated. The meeting was called to order by Richard L. Humphrey, Chairman of the Joint Conference Com¬mittee, and the program (which is printed below) was carried out without substantial change by E. S. Carman, who was elected temporary chairman. Under the Constitution, the Council appoints an Executive Board, the members of which are chosen according to the proportional membership of the vari¬ous Member Societies in their respective districts. Under this plan, with the present membership, &apos;the national societies will have 14 members and the local societies 6 members on the Executive Board.

Jan 1, 1920

By H. O. Hofman

WHEN dry chlorine gas is made to act in the cold upon finely¬divided gold,&apos; it converts the latter with evolution of heat into auro-auric chloride, Au2CI4, a hard, dark-red, hygroscopic salt. Moisture splits this salt into aurous and aerie chloride, Au2C14 = AuCI + AuCI3; treatment with water converts it into auric chloride and gold, 3 Au2CI4 = 4 AuC13 + Au,. Aurous chloride, when stirred with water, undergoes a similar decomposition, 3 AuCI = AuCI3 + Au,. These decompositions of auro-auric chloride and of aurous chloride furnish the explanation for the practice of moistening an ore before it is treated by the Plattner chlorination-process; practical experience having shown that gaseous chlorine gave an unsatisfactory extraction with dry ore. According to Rose,&apos; fine gold is acted upon more slowly by chlorine than gold containing some base metal, e.g., copper. He also states that small quantities of silver increase the rate of solution, but adds that the coating of silver chloride formed checks, and finally stops, further action, if the percentage of silver be increased beyond a certain undetermined amount. Bromine&apos; acts upon finely-divided gold in a manner similar to chlorine; the auro-auric bromide, Au2Br4, however, is not hygroscopic. Upon treatment with water it is decomposed as is the corresponding chlorine salt. It is generally believed that bromine does not act as energetically upon gold as does chlorine. This seems to be borne out by the results in the leach-

Mar 1, 1905

By H. C. Meister

THE zinc-smelting industry of the United States has grown very rapidly in recent years and bids fair to outrival that of all other countries in the future. On account of the geographical situation of the chief ore-supplies, the industry may be divided into two main groups, the eastern and the western. The eastern and older group includes the works of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia, which practically control their own ore-supply. The western group includes the works of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin and Indiana, which do not control their own ore-supply, but are compelled to buy the ore in the open market. It is for this reason that the western zinc-smelting industry has been undergoing continual changes since its inception 40 years ago. During the early discoveries of lead- and zinc-ore in the lead- and zinc-districts of Wisconsin and northern Illinois, the zinc-ore (sinithsonite or " bone " as the miner calls it) had no value and was considered waste; but later, when this ore was found in large quantities, it attracted the attention of metallurgists, which finally resulted, during the early sixties, in the building of the Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Works at LaSalle, Ill., the pioneer zinc-works of the West. A few years later, zinc-ore was discovered associated with the lead-ore in Jefferson county, southeastern Missouri, which started the industry at Carondelet or South St. Louis. Still later, the discoveries of zinc-ore in the lead-ore region, first&apos; at Granby and then around Joplin, lead to the introduction of the industry in the southwest Missouri and Kansas districts. At first the development of the industry was slow, but it progressed steadily and it is now one of the leading metallurgical industries of the middle West.

Jan 1, 1905

By Claus G. Goetzel

POWDER metallurgy is known as the art of producing metal powders and fabricating them in a nonfusion process by a simultaneous or consecutive application of pressure and heat under controlled operating conditions. Before the advent of powder metallurgy, the high melting points of the refractory metals and nonmetals made their manufacture and use practically impossible. Today, however, the uses of refractory materials in high-speed cutting tools, surgical instruments, brake linings, electrical contact switches, and filaments in incandescent lamps are commonplace in industry. Lately designers have even been turning to powder metallurgists to develop new techniques of fabricating refractory materials for extreme-service use in high-temperature zones of such modern products as gas turbines and jet engines. The new techniques being born will undoubtedly provide industry with a great number of new alloys and materials for future designing.

Jan 1, 1948

By Dorsey Lyon

I. INTRODUCTION. In presenting, this paper the writers wish to call attention first of all to the fact that the electric furnace was not developed as a competitor of the combustion furnace, but: 1. For the purpose of doing high-temperature work which it is not possible to do in the combustion furnace; and 2. For the treatment of ores from deposits which. are located in regions where fuel is scarce and costly, and where hydro-electric power is comparatively cheap, as is the case in Chili, in Canada, in certain parts of this country and Mexico.. This paper is not presented with the idea of trying to. prove that the electric furnace should replace the reverberatory or the blast furnace as used at present in the smelting of copper ores, but that it may be substituted for their in those localities which are not favorable to them,) and where either of the two following conditions may exist: (a) A district remote from railway transportation. facilities, and where there is a deposit, or deposits, containing sufficient values to warrant their being worked, but which, due to the cost of getting coke in for operating a smelter and of getting ore out to a smelter, have to remain unworked.. And where, on the other hand, there is plenty of water power which call he developed at reasonable cost for the production of electric power, by the use of which for. smelting the ores in an electric furnace, with subsequent Bessermerization if necessary, a concentrated product may be obtained, which can easily stand the necessary transportation charges. (b) Or,. comparatively speaking, the transportation facilities may be all right, but the cost of fuel be too great to permit of the ordinary methods of smelting, whereas,- on the other hand, hydro-electric power can he developed: in the district at a, low cost,, and the ores could be smelted by the electric furnace at a cost. that would make their treatment possible. With these possibilities in mind we have attempted to make a brief comparative study of the problem for the purpose of aiding those interested in the subject, in determining whether it would be possible metallurgically, and feasible commercially; to use the electric furnace-in those localities where, by reason: of excessive fuel costs, the cost, of operating the furnaces for smelting copper-ores. is either excessive or prohibitive. Although the smelting of copper ores in the electric furnace has received considerable attention and more or less experimental work has been done, so far as: we lire: aware there ate no electric furnaces in the United States which are&apos; being worked on copper ores. In Norway, however, trial smeltings of copper ores with an electric furnace of 1,000 h. p. and an estimated producing&apos; capacity of 2,000 tons per annum, have been

Jan 8, 1913

A record $19.7 billion in minerals was produced by United States industries in 1963. This was some $800 million above the previous high established in 1962. Preliminary statistics compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Mines show that most metals, nonmetals, and fuels gained both in value and volume of production. The 1963 total represents the largest value increase since 1956 and continues an upward trend begun in 1959. Product.ion and value of all mineral fuels rose, with anthracite registering a remarkable 20% value increase. Nonmetals advanced 591 in value, gains exceeding losses by 213 to 1 among individual commodities. Heavier industrial demand and the settling of labor difficulties were among the factors contributing to increased output of such materials as iron ore, bauxite, molybdenum, lead, and zinc, which accounted for most in€ the growth in metal output. Silver prices continued to rise and, as a result, production value of that metal gained 132,.

Jan 2, 1964