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By AIME AIME

COUNCIL* PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL. JAMES F. KEMP NEW YORK, N. Y.. (Term expires February, 1913.) VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE COUNCIL. S. B. CHRISTY BERKELEY, CAL. R. V. NORRIS WILKES-BARRE, PA. GARDNER F. WIILLIAMS WASHINGTON, D. C. (Term expires February, 1913.) . KARL EILERS NEW YORK, N. Y. WALDEMAR LINDGREN WASHINGTON, D. C. BENJAMIN B. THAYER NEW YORK, N. Y. (Term expires February, 1914.)

Jul 1, 1912

By James F. Kemp

Discussion of the paper of D. Foster Hewett, Bulletin To. 27, March, 1909, pp. 291 to 310. JAMES F. KEMP, New York, N. Y.:-Mr. Hewett's paper is one of exceptional interest, because it not only adds an important contribution regarding one of the rarer, valuable elements, but also because it introduces compounds hitherto unknown and in associations no less novel. While we have occasionally dis¬covered and recorded asphaltite in metalliferous deposits, for example in the Joplin and Granby districts, we have not seen a metallic ore in a deposit essentially asphaltite. The source and method of introduction afford a subject well worth serious reflection. Vanadium was first discovered and recognized as a distinct element in the slags obtained in smelting the titaniferous magnetites at Taberg, Sweden. For a long time, therefore, we looked upon the titaniferous magnetites as its hone. Analyses proved, years ago, that it was present in the ores of this type in New Jersey and in the Adirondacks. It was quite rarely determined, but when looked for it was, I think, invariably found, although the Amount seldom exceeded 0.5 per cent. of V,05., In just what combination it exists in the titaniferous ores is uncertain. One might imagine V2O3 replacing some of the Fe2O3 of magnetite; or, since in the lead series vanadates and phosphates are closely akin, one might wonder if a lime-vanadate could take the place of apatite. Yet no lime-vanadate has been found in nature, and apatite itself is usually rare in the titaniferous ores. When percentage-curves are plotted for a series of analyses of the ores, the line of vanadic oxide shows a curious sympathetic behavior with the line of chromic oxide;' but the data are somewhat limited, and no compound has sug¬gested itself which throws light on the matter. Dr. W. F. Hillebrand has discussed the occurrence and dis-

Oct 1, 1909

By Harold B. Treweek

The development of full scale flotation circuits based on laboratory and/or pilot plant data is discussed. Auxilliary operations, equipment and layout essential for trouble-free start-up and operation are noted. The selection of flotation cell size is discussed as it affects plant capital and operation costs.

Jan 1, 1978

President MRS. ROBERT HURSH River Road, Silvermine Norwalk, Conn. First Vice -President MRS. WILLIAM C. SCHNEIDER 45 Wayne Ave. White Plains, N. Y. Second Vice-President MRS. ERNEST H. WOLFES 180 Riverside Drive New York, N. Y. Third Vice-President MRS. JOHN C. BURTON 271 Fox Meadow Road Scarsdale, N. Y. Fourth Vice-President MRS. S. A. IONIDES 379 Marion Street Denver, Colo.

Jan 1, 1941

By John D. Weibmer

A strong step towards acknowledgement of mining as a skilled trade has been taken by the Tintic Division of Kennecott Copper Corp. In May 2 ceremonies, a pilot program was signed into force which, possibly for the first time in US history, recognizes mining as an apprentice trade and grants journeyman status to those who complete the prescribed training sequence. The apprenticeship standards, hammered out after months of consultation between management, labor, and government, are presently limited only to underground hard-rock mining and only within Kennecott's Tintic Division, but the architects of the program are confident that the concept will spread-first to other underground operations where miners desire documented evidence of their special skills, then to open-pit and soft-rock operations.

Jan 6, 1977

By AIME AIME

LEROY SALSICH has had 37 consecutive years of operating and executive experience in the Lake Superior iron region during 35 of which he has been a member of the A.I.M.E. His recent election as an institute Director to represent the iron and copper country therefore brings to the Board a man long known throughout the area that he represents and well acquainted with the history of the Institute. Mr. Salsich is a native of the area in which his professional life has been spent, having been horn at Hartland. Wis., and graduating from the state university's college of engineering in 1901. A call had come to the college from the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines, at Duluth.

Jan 1, 1938

By Rztssell H. Bennett

A SURVEY of the Mesabi Range iron-ore industry demonstrates that a satisfactory degree of technical progress has been achieved in the last fifteen years. This advance has not been made over a uniform front, but, by salients and bays, according to the different initial positions, economic and technical, of the component producing companies. The producers endowed with rich ore have in general, because of natural advantages, progressed more slowly than their neighbors with leaner properties. The advance has been made step by step all along the line -blasting, loading, hauling and concentrating-and without the benefit of radical innovation. There have been, for instance, no such parallel discoveries in iron ore as leaching and flotation in copper. The much lower unit price of iron operates, of course, to bar the application of these and other practices developed for the higher-priced metals. There exists, however, a radically new concentration process whose technology is well worked out and which may become economically operative in the not too distant future; this, as so often happens in engineering advance, because of recent developments in an entirely unrelated field. First, however, let me devote a paragraph or two to the more important economies effected in mining.

Jan 1, 1932

By A. B. Kinzel

IT has often been stated that the steel industry did no research or development work in the decades preceding 1920. If restricted to organized research on the quality and field of application of structural and engineering steels, this statement may be true. But the industry did conduct a vast amount of process research during this period, although some of the projects were not carried out as separate organized research programs. Securing a low cost of tonnage production was the sole problem receiving serious attention from the industry prior to 1920, and today this is still the major problem. Those in the industry deserve much commendation for the important increase in production capacity per dollar invested and for the markedly lowered cost of production. In recent years, a distinct change may be noted in the attitude of the steel industry toward research involving its product. With the advent of high-speed machinery both in the manufacturing and transportation industries, steel as a quality engineering material has come to the fore. In the past, high-quality carbon steels and alloy steels have been introduced over a period of years, largely at the insistence of the consumer and partly prompted by research carried out by those interested in the use of the alloys. The commercial introduction of these materials made slow progress.

Jan 1, 1935

By G. J. Skoronski

The training school program for operation of a Grate-Kiln System is a comprehensive, detailed presentation of equipment design and maintenance combined with operating philosophy and procedures. An outline is presented relating the sequence of required instruction. The program is initially concerned with acquainting personnel with terminology unique to pelletizing and the Grate-Kiln System. Depending on the scope of each individual contract, a discussion describing process equipment and the process flowsheet is conducted. The process flowsheet discussion describes preliminary unit operations. Grate-Kiln System unit operations, process gas flow and gas flow control philosophy, and system pressure relationship.

Jan 1, 1977

BECAUSE of the impetus given to placer mining since the price of gold was advanced to $35, several types of small dredges have made their appearance, especially in the Lincoln and Oroville areas of California. Some of these are known as "doodle bugs," and have been given considerable publicity, though many believe their performance has been overrated and that complete costs of construction and operation, if known would not put them in so favorable a light. Fig. 1 is a doodle bug owned by E. M. Clark and operated near Lincoln, Calif. It is understood that it was abandoned because of inability to handle deep ground. A similar machine that has been operated-profitably by Comstock Placers is shown in Fig. 2.

Jan 1, 1938

By AIME AIME

To accompanying photograph of the plant of the Beattie Gold Miner Limited, at Duparquet,. Quebec, is taken from the east and shows the open-pit from which the ore is taken during the summer. The buildings on the level ground above the open-pit are the change rooms, steel shop hoist building, compressor building, machine shop, warehouse, carpenter shop, and oil house. The main five-compartment shaft is shown west of the hoist building. The crusher plant adjoins the headframe and a long conveyor transports the fine ore

Jan 1, 1936

By AIME AIME

THE first meeting" of the Iron and Steel Division was held Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 17, with nearly 100 men present and C. B. Murray as chairman. This was a round table discussion of iron ore beneficiation and of its relation to blast-furnace operations, and only one paper was presented, by Clyde E. Williams. Mr. Williams discussed the future of the Lake Superior district in its relation to the iron and steel industry. He stated that although estimates had shown that the total life of the present known iron ore reserves of the Lake Superior district was 20 to 30 years and that many believed that as a result of this depletion foreign ores would be brought to the Atlantic Seaboard, thus causing a displacement of the steel industry to the East, he believed that the Lake Superior district would continue to be the important producer of iron ore used in this country for decades beyond the predicted time before the exhaustion of the present known reserves. He described the three general types of ores that required concentration and pointed out the needs for research and the proper methods to be used in processes for the beneficiation of these low-grade materials. He discussed the effects of fine concentrates and the use of agglomerated ores in the blast furnace. This general summary led to interesting and valuable discussion on the various economic, ore-dressing, and blast-furnace problems in large-scale development of beneficiation. Perry Harrison described recent developments in sintering and the properties of iron ore sinter. T. B. Counselman and W. H. Coghill discussed the merits of classification of iron ore previous to tabling. Robert Faulkner and J. E. Little described the beneficiation plant of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

Jan 1, 1931

By U. C. Tainton

THE world-wide continuation of low prices for zinc in 1934 has militated against any striking changes in the position of the metal. The price of zinc in London at the end of the year, about £11 5/8 per long ton, or 2.5c per pound at the existing rate of exchange, is more than 25 per cent below the average price for last year. In these circumstances probably the most significant event of the year was the putting into operation of the new electrolytic plant of the Giesches company at Magdeburg, Germany. This plant is designed to have an initial capacity of 20,000 long tons per year, and it is planned to increase this to 40,000 tons annually. This development is significant not only as indicating a continued swing of zinc metallurgy towards electrolytic methods, but also because it will make Germany virtually independent of foreign sources of zinc. This will mean that the zinc tonnage normally exported to Germany from Belgium and Poland will. become available for other markets, and it is feared may lead to lower prices unless the production of Bel-

Jan 1, 1935

By J. McD. Porter

IN many of the old placer-mining districts are still to be found large tracts of gold-bearing gravel not suitable to be worked with a dredge, because the bed is too shallow- or the gulch too narrow. Frequently there is not enough grade to handle the gravel successfully by ground-sluicing or a bedrock flume, or it contains too many boulders to be worked successfully with the ordinary pipe or tube hydraulic elevator. In southwestern Oregon, two practical placer-miners named Ruble, after working for years trying to make money out of placer-ground containing many large boulders, invented and patented a hydraulic elevator of an entirely new type, and one . that has been found to work very successfully in flat' ground and in gravel containing many large boulders. It is a very simple contrivance. A few years ago I acquired the property near Pierce City, Idaho, known as the American placer-mine. Various attempts .bad been made to work this ground. A bed-rock flume had been installed by one company, an Evans elevator by another, and still other methods were tried on a smaller scale. All were unsuccessful. I installed a Ruble elevator, and it has proved very satisfactory. Working under 100-ft. (pipe) head, the 'ground has been handled at a cost of a little less than 8 cents per cubic yard. The conditions at the American mine are exceptionally hard, the boulders being large, heavy, and numerous. Basalt-boulders, up to a size of 16 by 18 by 32 in., have been elevated to a height of 16 or 17 ft., with a 4-in. nozzle-stream, under 100-ft. head. Boulders larger than this size are blasted. At the American mine, a foreman, two pipemen, and two laborers are-required per day of 24 hr. to operate the elevator. Several sizes of this elevator are in use, the one at the American mine being the 25-ft. size, having 25 ft. of grizzly

Oct 1, 1909

By Fred E. Carter

AT first sight, the platinum group of metals seem of little import to we, the people," although actually the life of the common man is much influenced by them; this influence is usually indirect, hence his lack of knowledge and interest. He generally associates platinum with high-class jewelry and lets it go at that. Were 11e to go deeper, he would find that platinum metals play their part in his food supply, his clothing. his health, his transportation, his home. And the technical man is in general only slightly better informed, for he usually does not realize how necessary platinum metals are in the manufacture of the many construction materials and chemical products with which he is acquainted. Certainly, our daily lives would be profoundly affected if platinum were suddenly to become unavailable.

Jan 1, 1944

The accompanying sketch shows the interesting position of Salt Lake City with reference to Western mining areas and justifies its title "The Center of Western Mining." In the last twenty years, the area embraced within a circle of 600 miles radius with Salt Lake City as its center has produced 79.87% of the gold, 91.9% of the Silver, 77.47% of the copper, 53.61% of the lead and 26.55% of the zinc produced in the United States, including Alaska. This area also contains the greatest coal deposits of the continent, some of the greatest oil deposits, great iron deposits and many other important mineral resources. The 600-mile circle contained 69% of the active operators of other than coal mines and 40% of the men employed in mines other than coal mines of the United States, including Alaska, for the four-year period ended with 1923.

Jan 1, 1925

By FLOYD T. TAYLOR

IN 1833, less than one hundred years ago, Michael Faraday discovered and stated the laws of electrolysis. His discovery formed the foundation of a new use of metals which has now reached a variety of application not ordinarily appreciated. Furthermore, things can be done with electro-deposited coatings which have thus far defied other methods. Some of the uses of electro-deposited coatings are interesting. The tonnage of metals already finding an outlet through such a channel is considerable. In general electro-deposits have two characteristics: ornament plus utility; utility plus ornament. Both these factors are usually found associated in electro- deposits. Ornament plus utility was probably the first use. For example, the silver-plating of tableware, having its real birth in Birmingham, England, about 1844. However, this same ornament plus utility retarded the development of electro-plating, because in the beginning, electro-plated articles were branded with the odium of imitation and shunned accordingly. The gold brick of the swindler may be an exception to this statement.

Jan 1, 1929

By TRUMAN S. FULLER

THE GREAT INTEREST in decomposition and trans- formation, so evident in the study of alloys during the last two years, was reflected in the many papers on this subject, presented at the first session of the Institute of Metals, Tuesday morning. Dr. F. A. Thomson, of Montana State School of Mines, presented the first paper by C. Wilson, H. F. Silliman, and E. C. Little, "Rate of Precipitation of Nickel Silicide and Cobalt Silicide in the Hardenable Copper-nickel-silicon and Copper- cobalt-silicon Alloys." Dr. R. F. Mehl, in discussing this paper, stated that the title was somewhat deceptive, as it indicated that the rate of precipitation is determined; the method used is a measurement of electrical conductivity and hardness, neither of which is suitable for a quantitative measurement of rates of reaction or precipitation in the solid state. Hardness is also uncertain because it depends so much upon particle size. Of the various methods proposed for the study of rate of reaction and precipitation the evaluation of volume of reaction produced from the area of photomicrograph is the best.

Jan 1, 1933

By EVERETTE DE GOLYER

USE of geophysical methods in the search for new pools and as an aid in the development of known pools and prospects reached a new all-time peak for the oil industry in 1933. The outlook for 1934 is for work to continue at an even greater rate. The area of greatest activity, as in previous years, was in the Gulf coastal plain of Texas and Louisiana, particularly through a belt of territory some 20 to 30 miles wide parallel to the coast line and some 80 miles inland from it-the so-called "Jackson play" or "Conroe trend." This area was surveyed in an attempt to find additional pools of a type similar to Conroe, a pool not discovered directly as a result of geophysical surveys but one which was indicated by refraction surveys before it was drilled and one which was accurately outlined as to structure by reflection surveys shortly after the completion of the first few wells. Surveys were made over this belt, extending from Texas, across Louisiana and into Mississippi and Alabama, chiefly by the reflection method and torsion balance, and to some extent by pendulum and magnetic methods.

Jan 1, 1934

By H. Foster Bain

FROM time to time geologists and mining engineers, impressed by the heavy demands made on our mineral reserves' by modern industry, and particularly by the steadily mounting rate of production necessary to meet that demand, have issued warnings as to the danger of exhaustion. There can be no dispute as to the fact that mineral deposits are exhaustible. New mineral, is not created to replace that taken from the earth and when a crop of mineral is once harvested another cannot be grown in the same area. The evidence of exhaustion 'of particular oreshoots, deposits, or even of whole districts is familiar to all who have mined. If one were to judge solely from the abandoned mills and prospect holes he would rightly conclude that mining is but a short-lived industry. If one were, furthermore, to assemble the data as to known reserves of almost any of the commonly used minerals, and divide them by the annual tonnage mined, he would come to the same conclusion. If, again, one were to consider the most carefully made estimates of competent men seeking to measure the earth's reserves of minerals and plot against them a projection of the curve of past consumption, he would be justified in viewing the situation with alarm.

Jan 1, 1930