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By E. William Heinrich

With the mounting emphasis on unconventional energy sources, total consumption of lithium minerals will increase significantly in the next decade. The recent development of the lithium battery, for example, may greatly boost the demand for lithium metal. At the same time, the growth in the ceramic, glass, and chemical industries is bound to increase the demand for lithium minerals. In fact, the entire consumption or utilization breakdown of lithium minerals will change considerably from its current pattern. Briefly, today's market for lithium minerals' can be grouped into three categories: (1) Lithium concentrates. Accounting for 57% of market use, these concentrates are beneficiated Li-A1 silicates for ceramic, glass, and glass-ceramic raw materials. The concentrates are chiefly spodumene; inverted iron-depleted beta-spodumene; and petalite or its isochemical decomposition product spodumene + quartz intergrowth ("squi"). In the past, lepidolite has also been used.

Jan 9, 1974

By J. M. Mutmansky, T. K. Greer

This paper takes a look at the optimal velocity to be used in coal mine entries and determines a statistical relationship for optimal velocity that can be applied under current mining conditions. This relationship provides the optimal velocity for coal mine airways under variations in power cost, mining cost differential, airway friction factor, time value of money, airway lifespan, and quantity of air carried. This enables the ventilation engineer to make an easy, rapid determination of the optimal velocity for planning purposes.

Jan 1, 1985

By F. C. Blake

THE test of the English cupellation furnace should be so supported that the cupeller can change readily the elevation of the test, and at the same time watch the litharge channel. It is also important to raise or lower either side, independently of the other, in me of uneven wear of the side walls or of the breast. If the refined silver is poured from the test, it is much better to control the lowering of the test from the front than to raise the back by screws or a lever. In order to enable the cupeller to manipulate the test with one hand, when the litharge is running, and to pour the refined silver from the test without aid, I have altered the common support to the test, as shown in the accompanying drawing. The common method of supporting the test is by four screws, working in cross-bar nuts beneath the test. The points of the screws set, into the test plate upon which the test rests. These screws are usually worked by pounding or pulling upon the heads, which may be either small pulleys or straight bars, as shown on the back screws in the drawing. The screws are also worked by turning a crank, which is

Jan 1, 1882

TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGICAL ENGINEERS Gentlemen:-I have the honor to present the following, report for the calendar year 1920. The activities which seem to call for special comment are: THE NEW FORM OF MAGAZINE MINING AND METALLURGY appeared every month during the calendar year and has been developed until it contains some ten departments. It has brought forth more commendatory letters than have been received at headquarters on any other subject throughout the year. Less than a dozen letters unfavorable to the change have been received, and the indications are that the magazine has met a want deeply felt, especially by members distant from headquarters. The technical papers printed by the Institute are published in abstract in the magazine and opportunity is given to members who desire them to receive full copies of any or all papers published. The Bound Volumes, as usual, contain all the papers in full and discussions thereof. FINANCES The greatly increased cost of paper and printing has put a tremendous burden on the Institute's finances, since the dues of $12 per year are only 20 per cent. greater than the members paid when the Institute was founded forty-nine years ago. This has resulted in a temporary deficit, similar to that encountered by many of our sister engineering societies. The fact that our Institute has lower dues and gives more in the way of publications to its members than any other of the national engineering societies has rendered the situation more difficult for us. MEETINGS The Annual Meeting in New York, the Field Meeting in the Lake Superior District, the meeting of the Petroleum and Gas members at St. Louis, and of the Institute of Metals Division in Columbus, Ohio, have all been described in full in the magazine.

Jan 1, 1925

This brief resume of the events transpiring in Mexico, culled from the daily New York newspapers since the last Bulletin went to press, does not show any degree of improvement in the situation. U. S. WITHDRAWS ARMY FROM MEXICO The American invasion of Mexico lasted less than 24 hours. The troops which crossed the Rio Grande June 15 to put a stop to the firing that was causing death and injury in El Paso were back in their billets on the American side of the border the next night. They had broken up the battle between Villa rebels and the Carranza garrison and driven the rebel forces headlong out of Juarez and into the hills. The Carranza Consul, Garcia, and Gen. Francisco Gonzales are reported by American officials to be pessimistic, if not indignant, at the swift reprisals made by the Americans against the stray shots which were falling in El Paso during the Villa attack on Juarez. In announcing his action in ordering Americans into Mexico Brigadier General Erwin in a formal statement said he had done-so to prevent the indiscriminate firing into El Paso by rebel soldiers, endangering the lives of Americans. "But on no account were they to undertake an invasion into Mexico," continued the statement. Americans with interests in the vicinity of Chihuahua are alarmed lest Villa, smarting under the defeat administered his troops by the American forces, should make a campaign of destruction. General Candido Aguilar, President Carranza's confidential ambassador to the United States, issued to the press, on June 17, a formal statement that "the government and people of Mexico consider as a violation of Mexican sovereignty the crossing of United States soldiers into Mexican territory" and expressing the hope ?that the situation created by the latest occurrences in Juarez will be satisfactorily adjusted between the two countries." Discussion of Mexican affairs was evoked in both houses of Congress by the crossing of the Rio Grande by American troops.

Jan 8, 1919

By John Nelson

AN OUTLINE survey of the economic outlook for the United States export trade in petroleum products resolves itself broadly into two general divisions; first, a consideration of our present position in this trade, and second, a discussion of the visible factors which promise to affect appreciable changes in the immediate future in that trade. The UNITED STATES PETROLEUM EXPORTS OF MAJOR PETROLEUM PRODUCTS 1925, 1926 and 1927 Gasoline, Naphtha, and Other Light Products 1925 1926 1927* Quantity (gal.) 1,286,787,796 1,784,154,802 1,851,494,190 Value $197,491,588 $263,199,938 $214,721,652 'Illuminating Oil, Kerosene 1925 1926 1927* Quantity (gal.) 885;136,041 924,680,979 827,162,280 Value $84,699,724 $100,352,877 $80,358,082 Gas and Fuel Oil 1925 1926 I 1927 Quantity (gal.) 1,365,358,988 1,449,688,394 1,815,130,464 Value.... ? $49,040,024 $45,354,108. .. $50,343,031 Lubricating. Oil 1925... ....1926 .. 1927 Quantity .(gal.) 402,572,584 388,767,055 403,369,512 Value $90,596,671 $86,414,621 $88,926,815

Jan 1, 1928

By Edward B. Durham

At the Richmond mecting in February, 1901, I presented for discussion the proposed rail-specifications of Committee No. 1 of the American Section of the International Association for Testing Materials, with a review of their work, and other matters relating to the heat-treatment and chemical composition of steel (Trans., xxxi., 455). In order to bring out the views of our members on the important points referred to, I offered for discussion the following questions and comments (trans., xxxi., 972): " 1. The advantages to be gained by using more metal in the flanges and web of the heavier sections of rails.

Jan 1, 1903

By Richard P. Rothwell

At the Boston Meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in February last, Mr. George W. Mansfield read an interesting paper on " The Electric Motor in Mining Operations," and he entered into the calculations of power required and cost of transmitting energy in great or small quantities to a considerable distance. I do not intend to go over this ground, or to enter into any discussion of the technical details of transmitting power by electricity, but merely to set up a milestone on the road of progress to show where we now are, how far we have come, and if possible

Jan 1, 1889

By W. Spencer Hutchinson

THE outstanding engineering accomplishment of the last three decades has been the development and application of more and cheaper power and its use instead of the labor of men and animals. Substitution of power for manual labor has taken effect on every hand in the United States. With the aid of energy mechanically available to his hand, one man does the work that only a few years ago required two, three or even a greater number of laborers. The results in respect to the favorable economic effects are well known; namely, increased production, higher wages and lower costs. On the other hand, the vast social effects, both good and bad, have been none the less important, even if less understood and only casually regarded. The chief sources of energy today are the mineral fuels, coal and petroleum. In the United States they yield more than 90 per cent of the total energy demand. Thirty years ago the proportion of energy supplied by the mineral fuels was likewise above 90 per cent, but the division according to origin was very different. These relations. are shown for the years 1900, 1930 and 1950 in Table 1.

Jan 1, 1933

By J. B. NEALEY

MANY nonferrous smelting plants have recently adopted natural gas as fuel with resultant economies, both in cost and efficiency of utilization. Not only has this fuel been used for roasting, reduction, sintering, drossing, and smelting, but also for power. All of the three big smelters near Salt Lake City, Utah, have been changed over from coal and oil firing to gas. Among these is the plant of the International Smelting Co., Tooele, an Anaconda subsidiary, smelters of both copper and lead ores. In the roasting division at Tooele are 32 MacDougall six-hearth roasters, each 16 ft. in diameter and 19 ft. high. Two gas burners are installed on each furnace. These burners are of the single-valve, automatic gas-air proportioning type using high-pressure gas at 10 lb.

Jan 1, 1933

By C. R. Boyd

Without attempting to do more than give a preliminary or skeleton report upon the geology and minerals of Southwestern Virginia at this time, I am led to hope that the great commercial importance of the sixty miles of cross-section here crudely treated of

By L. M. Higgins

Dust or fume control systems are devices for capturing contaminants at their source and preventing their discharge to atmosphere. The Primary Components Of Any Dust Control System Include: An enclosure around any potential dust source such as conveyor belt transfer, crusher, screening machine, bin loading and loadout. Ductwork including hood takeoffs (transitions) to convey the collected dust laden air away from the source of dust generation to a convenient location. A dust collector for separation of particulate matter from the air stream prior to its discharge to the atmosphere. A prime mover generally a fan, to draw air into an enclosure and to overcome resistance to flow in the ductwork, dust collector and stack.

Jan 1, 1978

By F. S. Norcross

MANGANESE has long been considered one of the United States' most important strategic raw materials. Its indispensability in steel manufacture makes it vital to the nation's industrial life. Coupled with this indispensability is the fact that domestic producers have not been able as yet to supply more than a small part of the nation's manganese needs; consequently the United States has had to depend upon such distant foreign sources as the U.S.S.R., British India, the African Gold Coast and Brazil for the major portion of its ore. The great bulk of the mineral is consumed in the form of ferromanganese, an alloy that averages 8o per cent manganese and 20 per cent mainly iron and carbon. Manganese is used as a deoxidizer and desulphurizer in steel manufacture. By combination with the residual oxygen and sulphur of the bath, it helps to produce a clean, sound metal. Approximately 14 lb. of manganese, it is estimated, is used in making one ton of steel. For standard-grade ferromanganese, the ore should have a minimum of about 48 per cent Mn and preferably more. Beneficiation methods have not yet been developed for making the immense low-grade deposits in the United States salable at prevailing prices. Dependence upon foreign sources thrust the United States into serious difficulties during the World War. At the start of hostilities in 1914, the nation was obtaining about four-fifths of its ore from the Eastern Hemisphere. Domestic production had been negligible, amounting to only 3000 to 7000 tons a year. As the war continued, shipments from the East, endangered by sea attack and blockade, dwindled rapidly. Imports from Brazil mounted. In this grave emergency, the United States, starting almost from scratch and under the stimulus of high prices, succeeded by 1918 in producing a peak of 311,000 tons, about 3 5 per cent of its consumption that year. Since the war, the United States has depended upon foreign sources for more than nine-tenths of its high-grade ore. During 1936, 1937 and 1938, imports for consumption averaged 736,000 tons a year. During the same period, domestic shipments averaged 21,000 tons a year. Of the imports, the U.S.S.R. accounted for an annual average of 280,000 tons, the Gold Coast 208,000 tons, India 74,000 tons, and Brazil 72,500 tons. But India and Brazil, which in 1936 ranked third and fourth in the list of importers, were displaced in 1937 and 1938 by a new and much nearer source-Cuba. From less than 1 per cent of United States imports in 1931, the island republic increased its shipments to more than 27 per cent in 1938. Cuba's average for this three-year period was 97,000 tons, and its total for 1938 was 131,000 tons.

Jan 1, 1940

By J. I. Drever, C. R. McKee

The push-pull test, which is a simple injection and pumping sequence of ground water spiked with solutes of interest, is presented as a method of determining the adsorption characteristics of a formation. Adsorption properties are necessary to predict restoration from both in situ coal gasification and in situ uranium extraction. The major problems in applying laboratory measurements to the field concern scaling the effect of particle size, and obtaining representative samples. Laboratory measurements are conducted on gram to kilogram scale samples, whereas the push-pull test evaluates a sample weighing approximately 130 to 1,000 metric tons, depending on volume injected and porosity. The problems in translating laboratory results to the field appear to be less severe for sedimentary uranium bodies than for coal. Laboratory measurements are useful in delineating possible ranges in adsorption properties, and in planning the field experiment. The adsorption properties of a formation are characterized by the cation exchange capacity (C) and the distribution coefficient measured at low concentration, (kd) 'Laboratory procedures for their measurement on coal and uranium ore are reported. Two field push-pull tests were conducted on uranium formations in Wyoming. Adsorption properties estimated from these tests on the basis of a simple cell model were compared to the laboratory values. In the first case, excellent agreement was observed between the values estimated from the field test and the values measured in the laboratory. In the second case, the value for kd determined in the laboratory was 5 times higher than the field value. It is recommended that push-pull tests be conducted on coal formations being considered for in situ gasification in view of the great uncertainty in extrapolating 1aboratory.adsorption properties to the field.

Jan 1, 1979

By Persifor Frazer

During the Centennial year some of our leading geologists in the United States and Canada conceived the happy thought of calling an International Congress of Geologists for the purpose of agreeing upon such important though subsidiary matters as the colors by means of which the different geological formations should be expressed ; the terms that should be applied respectively to these formations; and also upon the far more important problem of the limits and values of these different formations. The first session of this Congress was held in Paris in 1878, the second session in Bologna in 1881, and the third session in Berlin in 1884. The third session found the preliminary difficulties so far cleared away that some definite and tangible results could be attained. After a great deal of free discussion had taken place at Paris and Bologna, during which every one's views were listened to with attention; and a great deal more painstaking scientific work had been accomplished by the International Committees, having before them the objects of unifying the nomenclature of the science, and of preparing a scheme of colors between the second and third sessions of the Congress; and after the provisional results had been subjected to a searching criticism by the Congress in Berlin; it was decided to make an attempt to embody these provisional results in some work which should include as many as possible of the difficulties to

Jan 1, 1887

By S. H. Chauvenet

The binding of the boshes and inwalls of blast furnaces has always been an expensive piece of work. When the old stone stack was replaced by the iron shell, the brickwork was kept at a thickness of five feet or more. These five-foot walls were still too thick, and the practice now is to have as thin walls as possible and to have a free circulation of air about the brickwork of the furnace. The " basket," or lattice-work biuding, accomplishes this object, but it is expensive, m to first cost, and, if any change in the diameter of a furnace has to be made, it necessitates an alteration of the binding or of the thickness of the walls.

Jan 1, 1882

By Joseph W. Mills

In 1956 the discovery of nickel on Jumbo Mountain, Snohomish County, Washington, focused attention on this part of the Cascade Range, far more renowned for its timber than for its mineral resources. Hand specimens assaying as high as 13 pct Ni encouraged Discovery Mines Inc. of Mount Vernon, Wash., to stake 12 claims in Township 31 North, Range 9 East of the Willamette Meridian. The property was leased to Climax Molybdenum Co. in January 1957. Trenching, sampling, and geologic studies were carried out during the late summer of 1957 when most of the snow had disappeared. Although the deposits are only about four miles south of the logging town of Darrington and about two miles, as the crow flies, southeast of the end of a good gravel road from that town, all camp supplies and equipment were air-dropped, owing to the extremely rugged nature of the terrain.

Jan 3, 1960

By C. P. Williams

THE lead-bearing area of Missouri has been subdivided, geographically, into the Southeastern, the Central, and the Southwestern

Jan 1, 1877

By Roy A. Hardy

THE Getchell mine is a comparatively recent discovery in the old Potosi mining district, Humboldt County, Nevada, a district organized in the seventies and eighties, in which some prospecting was done in several metamorphic zones along a monzonite-sedimentary contact. The district had no production in the early days and no further work was done until the same metamorphic zones were prospected for tungsten (scheelite) in 1917 and 1918, when a few small lots were shipped. It again lay dormant until 1934, when prospectors investigated a large siliceous escarpment at one end of the old district where outcroppings were a prominent feature of the topography. Undoubtedly, during the early prospecting of the district, the outcroppings had been investigated for mineral, probably by panning, with negligible results because the gold later found is invisible in the concentrate and is refractory. A fire assay revealed the presence of sufficient gold to warrant development work. The outcroppings were easily prospected by short tunnels having their portals in the siliceous material on the hanging-wall side, with a maximum distance to crosscut to the footwall of 135 ft., or a distance at right angle to dip of 60 to 90 ft. Development work, reaching a depth of over 600 ft. on the dip of the vein, was done by means of various crosscut tunnels, winzes and laterals. A churn-drill hole was also sunk, which intersected the vein at a depth of 1100 ft. on the dip. Sufficient development work of this character was completed by 1937 to justify the erection of a reduction plant to roast the sulphide ore and cyanide the calcine, and to treat the oxidized ore by straight cyanidation, to make a doré bullion for shipment to the mint. The erection of the plant was started that year and finished early in 1938, with a combined capacity of about 800 tons per day. It has operated continuously since erection and recently was enlarged to handle 1000 tons per day. The vein dips with the slope of the mountain, and by stripping the hanging wall the ore may be mined by power shovel for several hundred feet below the outcrop. Thereafter underground methods will be necessary.

Jan 1, 1940

The engineering personnel shortage, present and impending, so well brought out in the article in Mining Engineering in the August, 1951 number, both in the editorial lead and the article by William B. Plank and Henry J. Petrie, has left untapped and has ignored a potential source of supply that would fill the need ably and with complete satisfaction. This source is comprised of the women engineers- and geologists, both presently, trained and able to handle work at all levels, and the many who would make splendid engineers and geologists if they could hope for even a modest taste of the square deal that should be theirs, but, as we all know, is not. I write from experience. It is not pleasant or sensible to have to urge borderline cases among men students to consider engineering and geology as careers to fill the need, when I have far more able, interested and suited young women students whom I must divert into other channels. It does not make sense to scrape the bottom and sides of the barrel to induce potentially second or third rate male engineers and geologists to enter the profession when we have superior material among the women, eager to do good work in these fields. It does not make sense for these men to become second or third rate in these fields when they might be first rate salesmen, musicians, advertising copywriters or policemen. Nor does it make any more sense to force potentially first rate female geologists and engineers to become second or third rate and very frustrated typists, kindergarten teachers, dress sales-women or clerks. At this point I am willing to admit that where superstitious -miners object to women in underground workings, men are available for the jobs. Moreover, it is not necessary for women to be sent into the most difficult country, if there is reluctance on either side of the contract. There may be fewer of them eager for the roughest assignments, in proportion to the men, but women are so accustomed to discrimination far more complete than that against any racial or religious group, that a reasonably tough assignment would seem like a heaven-descended joy. In my own experience, I have found that my girl students majoring in geology, could keep up with me in the field in the roughest terrain, but. the men, all but the best students and the most physically fit young men, complained that they could not keep up with me and that I always "walked their-legs off. The women, a few men and I always returned with bags heavy with well chosen specimens and proper notes. Most of the men carried no specimens and-but poor scraps of notes on loose bits of paper. Yet the men were urged to prepare for a career in engineering or geology if their examination marks were reasonably good. When we find that we still have a shortage of engineers and geologists, after putting all the qualified women to work, then we may begin to worry. Until then, we are simply fooling ourselves as we wander in, a forest of outmoded tradition and emotional habit reactions. MARY W. GARRETSON ASSOC. MEMBER, AIME SCARSDALE, N. Y.

Jan 1, 1952