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By Felix B. Shay

THE Agua Fria mine is in eastern Honduras at Lat. 140° 06' N., Long. 86° 36’ W. Danli, the seat of the local municipal government, is the nearest town. The property is approximately 44 miles east of Tegucigalpa, the terminus of a truck road from the Pacific coast. The mine lies at an altitude of 3300 ft. with surrounding elevations as high as 6000 feet. For 20 years the oxidized croppings of the Agua Fria vein had been worked intermittently when in 1927 an attempt was made to open the property. A shaft was sunk 300 ft. and considerable ore was blocked out, but before a mill could be installed financial difficulties arose and the mine reverted to the original owners. Erle P. Halliburton, of Los Angeles, purchased the property in 1934. At that time a careful consideration of all factors involved showed that air transport was the only practical method of moving the equipment and machinery necessary to commence production. The other alternative was by muleback, which required sectionalizing all equipment to a maximum load of 200 lb., and during the rainy season this type of freighting was subject to serious delays. It was decided to purchase a trimotor Ford powered by three Pratt and Whitney Wasp B motors developing 400 hp. each. There were several reasons for the choice: (1) this type of plane was available at a reasonable price, owing to its replacement by faster models on most of the airlines in the United States; (2) the ship was capable of carrying a pay load of 3000 lb. over the required distance; (3) since this airplane had been widely used there would be no difficulty in securing competent personnel or in purchasing spare parts. It was necessary to rebuild the plane for cargo service. The windows were removed and the fuselage was entirely covered. A hatch was cut in the top of the fuselage to receive heavy crane loads and pieces of freight that were too large or too long to go through the rear door. The seats were removed and the interior of the plane was lined with Duralumin sheets. A heavy-duty landing gear was installed and the floor was reinforced. The nearest site for an airport was two miles north of the mine. The necessary grading was done by a small track-type tractor with a wheeled grader, which was brought in overland. Six weeks was required for bring-

Jan 1, 1940

A. Scott Reid, London, Eng. (communication to the Secretary*) :—As a constructor of several glass mine-models, .I have read with much interest the description of the model of the Montana-Toriopah mine-workings by Edmund D. North.

Jan 1, 1910

Executive Committee Board of Directors L F Reinartz, Chairman, H DeWitt Smith, Vice-Chairman, T B Counselman, M L Haider, Philip Kraft Finance Committee Board of Directors Andrew Fletcher, Chairman, A B Kinzel, D Wilson Endowment Fund "X" G F Moulton, Chairman, Erle V Daveler, '55, Philip Kraft, '56, I Brigden, '57 Honorary Memberships W M Peirce, Chairman, '56, M L Haider, ex officio, Andrew Fletcher, ex officio, John M Lovejoy, '55, D H McLaughlin, '57, Henry Krumb, '58, L F Reinartz, ex officio Investments Erle V Daveler, '57, Chairman, W M Peirce, '55, Henry Krumb, '56, G F Moulton, ex officio as Treasurer, Andrew Fletcher, ex officio as Chairman Finance Committee Local Section Appropriations A B Kinzel, Chairman, M L Haider, W S. Cumings, Fred J Meek

Jan 1, 1954

By Frederic Benard

RECOVERY of selenium and tellurium at Copper Cliff by the Ontario Refining Co. has been previously described by the writer.1 During 1935 a new building was erected to house this operation and description of the new plant and process form the subject of this paper. The building, of modern steel and tile construction, covers an area of 5900 sq. ft. with a volume of approximately 165,000 cu. ft. The large monitored center bay is flanked by two smaller outside bays, one of which is devoted to the tellurium section. All equipment, ceilings and upper walls, are treated with aluminum paint, giving good illumination and facilitating good housekeeping, essential from a health standpoint in handling material of this nature. EQUIPMENT Layout and type of equipment conforms to the requirements of the process as described below. In the selenium section, storage tanks, neutralizing tanks and precipitators are of steel construction, lead-lined and. arranged for gravity flow (Fig. 1). The neutralizing tanks are equipped with water-cooled lead coils for controlling solution temperature, agitation being accomplished with compressed air. The precipitators are provided with mechanical agitators, and sulphur dioxide is introduced into the solution through 3-in. lead pipes leading from a manifold attached to the cover of the precipitator. Each precipitator has internal cooling coils and an air-jet exhauster to carry off fumes. Neutralized solutions are filtered in a 29-plate wooden filter press using heavy cotton duck as a filter medium, forced feed being maintained by a Welmet centrifugal pump. Dilute solutions are concentrated by evaporation in a vacuum evaporator, constructed of cast hard lead. Heat is supplied by an outside steam chest operating under 15 lb. steam pressure. The solution is circulated through the steam chest by a pump of antimonial lead at a rate approximating 400 cu. ft. per min. The evaporator is evacuated by a water-jet condenser that creates a vacuum of 26 in. of mercury under normal operating conditions. The capacity of the vessel is 60 cu. ft. and the rate of evaporation 25 cu. ft. per hour.

Jan 1, 1938

By Frederic Benard

Recovery of selenium and tellurium at Copper Cliff by the Ontario Refining Co. has been previously described by the writer.l During 1935 a new building was erected to house this operation and description of the new plant and process form the subject of this paper. The building, of modern steel and tile construction, covers an area of 5900 sq. ft. with a volume of approximately 166,000 cu. ft. The large monitored center bay is flanked by two smaller outside bays, one of which is devoted to the tellurium section. All equipment, ceilings and upper walls, are treated with aluminum paint, giving good illumination and facilitating good housekeeping, essential from a health standpoint in handling material of this nature. Equipment Layout and type of equipment conforms to the requirements of the process as described below. In the selenium section, storage tanks, neutralizing tanks and precipitators are of steel construction, lead-lined and arranged for gravity flow (Fig. 1). The neutralizing tanks are equipped with water-cooled lead coils for controlling solution temperature, agitation being accomplished with compressed air. The precipitators are provided with mechanical agitators, and sulphur dioxide is introduced into the solution through 1/2-in. lead pipes leading from a manifold attached to the cover of the precipitator. Each precipitator has internal cooling coils and an air-jet exhauster to carry off fumes. Neutralized solutions are filtered in a 29-plate wooden filter press using heavy cotton duck as a filter medium, forced feed being maintained by a Welmet centrifugal pump. Dilute solutions are concentrated by evaporation in a vacuum evaporator, constructed of cast hard lead. Heat is supplied by an outside steam chest operating under 15 Ib. steam pressure. The solution is circulated through the steam chest by a pump of antimonial lead at a rate approximating 400 cu. ft. per min. The evaporator is evacuated by a water-jet condenser that creates a vacuum of 26 in. of mercury under normal operating conditions. The capacity of the vessel is 60 cu. ft. and the rate of evaporation 25 cu. ft. per hour.

Jan 1, 1943

By Frederic Benard

Recovery of selenium and tellurium at Copper Cliff by the Ontario Refining Co. has been previously described by the writer.l During 1935 a new building was erected to house this operation and description of the new plant and process form the subject of this paper. The building, of modern steel and tile construction, covers an area of 5900 sq. ft. with a volume of approximately 166,000 cu. ft. The large monitored center bay is flanked by two smaller outside bays, one of which is devoted to the tellurium section. All equipment, ceilings and upper walls, are treated with aluminum paint, giving good illumination and facilitating good housekeeping, essential from a health standpoint in handling material of this nature. Equipment Layout and type of equipment conforms to the requirements of the process as described below. In the selenium section, storage tanks, neutralizing tanks and precipitators are of steel construction, lead-lined and arranged for gravity flow (Fig. 1). The neutralizing tanks are equipped with water-cooled lead coils for controlling solution temperature, agitation being accomplished with compressed air. The precipitators are provided with mechanical agitators, and sulphur dioxide is introduced into the solution through 1/2-in. lead pipes leading from a manifold attached to the cover of the precipitator. Each precipitator has internal cooling coils and an air-jet exhauster to carry off fumes. Neutralized solutions are filtered in a 29-plate wooden filter press using heavy cotton duck as a filter medium, forced feed being maintained by a Welmet centrifugal pump. Dilute solutions are concentrated by evaporation in a vacuum evaporator, constructed of cast hard lead. Heat is supplied by an outside steam chest operating under 15 Ib. steam pressure. The solution is circulated through the steam chest by a pump of antimonial lead at a rate approximating 400 cu. ft. per min. The evaporator is evacuated by a water-jet condenser that creates a vacuum of 26 in. of mercury under normal operating conditions. The capacity of the vessel is 60 cu. ft. and the rate of evaporation 25 cu. ft. per hour.

Jan 1, 1943

CURRENT MATTERS Page Page New York Meeting : v 27th Engineers xl Year Book, 1918 v Professional Classes War Relief. x1i Minutes of Meeting, Board of W. S. S x1i Directors vi American Engineering Standards xlii President's Report vi Hadfield Prize xlv Local Section News: Members in Military Service... xlviii Columbia xiii Personal li San Francisco xiv Positions Vacant liii New York xvi _ Engineers Available liv Southern California xxxi Forthcoming Meetings 1v United Engineering Society xxxii Library...% lvi Engineering Council xxxv Membership lix Other Societies: Institute Committees lxxviii Mining and Metallurgical Soc- Officers and Directors lxxxvi iety of America xxxix

Jan 3, 1918

PERSONAL (Members are urged to send in for this column any notes of interest concerning themselves or their fellow-members.) Members and guests who registered at Institute headquarters during the period June 10 to July 10: J. C. Ralston, Spokane, Wash. E. P. Ashmore, So. Porcupine, Ont., Can. William H. Yeandle, Jr., Mexico City, Stuart Croasdale, Denver, Colo. Mexico. W. E. Hopper, Houghton, Mich. W. C. Minsch, Mexico City, Mexico. D. W. Brunton, Denver, Colo. H. V. Winchell, Minneapolis, Minn. Fred Crabtree, Pittsburg, Pa. W. G. Swart, Denver, Colo. Robert S. Lewis, Salt Lake City, Utah. D. F. Schindler, Madison, Wis. Noel Cunningham, Timmins, Ont., Can E. R. Pettebone has just been elected a Trustee of the Pennsylvania State College, being supported by the votes of the delegates of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Local Section of the Institute and the Engineers' Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Jan 8, 1914

By F. Benard

Recovery of selenium and tellurium at Copper Cliff by the Ontario Refining Co. has been previously described by the writer.l During 1935 a new building was erected to house this operation and description of the new plant and process form the subject of this paper. The building, of modern steel and tile construction, covers an area of 5900 sq. ft. with a volume of approximately 165,000 cu. ft. The large monitored center bay is flanked by two smaller outside bays, one of which is devoted to the tellurium section. All equipment, ceilings and upper walls, are treated with aluminum paint, giving good illumination and facilitating good housekeeping, essential from a health standpoint in handling material of this nature. Equipment Layout and type of equipment conforms to the requirements of the process as described below. In the selenium section, storage tanks, neutralizing tanks and precipitators are of steel construction, lead-lined and arranged for gravity flow (Fig. 1). The neutralizing tanks are equipped with water-cooled lead coils for controlling solution temperature, agitation being accomplished with compressed air. The precipitators are provided with mechanical agitators, and sulphur dioxide is introduced into the solution through 1/2-in. lead pipes leading from a manifold attached to the cover of the precipitator. Each precipitator has internal cooling coils and an air-jet exhauster to carry off fumes. Neutralized solutions are filtered in a 29-plate wooden filter press using heavy cotton duck as a filter medium, forced feed being maintained by a Welmet centrifugal pump. Dilute solutions are concentrated by evaporation in a vacuum evaporator, constructed of cast hard lead. Heat is supplied by an outside steam chest operating under 15 Ib. steam pressure. The solution is circulated through the steam chest by a pump of antimoniallead at a rate approximating 400 cu. ft. per min. The evaporator is evacuated by a water-jet condenser that creates a vacuum of 26 in. of mercury under normal operating conditions. The capacity of the vessel is 60 cu. ft. and the rate of evaporation 25 cu. ft. per hour.

Jan 1, 1944

By Cyril Smith

IN the study of the structure or the properties of a series of alloys or nonmetallic compounds, it is often advantageous to express the com-position not as percentage by weight, according to which the material is always made up and analyzed, but as the atomic percentage of the two constituents. The conversion from the one to the other is repre-sented by the formulas: 100A 100x or 1 x/A+100-x/B B(100-x) _ 100yA 100y [2] X. yA + (100 - y)B or y (100 - y) where x and y are the weight and atomic percentages respectively of the element of atomic weight A, and (100 - x) and (100 - y) are the per-centages by weight and by atoms respectively of the element of atomic weight B. While calculations according to these formulas are simple, they are time consuming if several conversions have to be made. In 1931 Water-man1 constructed a nomograph for performing the conversion, but this did not permit an accuracy greater than about 1 per cent to be obtained in the neighborhood of 50 per cent. Ölander2 has proposed a graphic method simpler than Waterman's and one that gives a uniform precision throughout the entire scale. The possible accuracy is about 0.5 per cent of the whole, depending on the size and accuracy of the coordinate paper used. Recently, Hermann3 has described a slide rule for making the calculations. These devices make use of the simple rearranged equation

Jan 1, 1933

By Thomas F. Donnelly

Discussion of the paper of THOMAS F. DONNELLY, presented at the San Francisco meeting, September, 1915, and printed in Bulletin No. 104, August, 1915, pp. 1759 to 1768. F. LYNWOOD GARRISON, Philadelphia, Pa. (communication to the Secretary *).-The paper is of value in giving the public some first-hand information regarding a copper property that from various causes has attracted considerable attention, especially in Philadelphia, and which has also been the source of several fantastic flotations that had little to recommend them. Since 1906, no work has been done on this property under my direction, with the exception of a topographic survey made last winter by Mr. Donnelly, which was intended as the first step in a sound and logical system of development. From 1906 to 1915, desultory attempts were made to develop these orebodies, but as the work was not in competent hands much money was wasted and even more disappeared in ways regarding which it is perhaps not best to inquire. The result is, this interesting property has now practically no more ore developed upon it than in 1906, despite the fact that a new 100-ton mill is being erected, although, as I have intimated, it is today not much more than a prospect. Turning now to the scientific and more agreeable side of the subject, it is interesting to note that these Santo Domingo copper ores are invariably found in volcanic tuffs and that, in a geologic sense, they are all very old, for there are no evidences of recent volcanic activity in the greater Antilles, of which this island is the second largest. The existence of copper in tuffs in different parts of the world is a notable fact. Often, if not usually, it is present in mere traces, but not infrequently we find it in sufficient amount to be of economic importance. Thus, for example, chalcopyrite and bornite occur in the Tertiary tuffs of Japan, and a number of producing copper mines of that country are either actually in, or closely associated with, rocks of this character. Whether the copper minerals are original primary ores in the tuffs, or were derived from accompanying eruptive dikes, appears not yet to have been determined in any instance. In most of the Japanese cases of which I can find any record the tuffs appear to be associated with shales and limestones. These Japanese copper ores also carry some gold, especially in the upper parts of the veins; in this they resemble the Santo Domingo deposits which not infrequently carry as much as $6 or $7 per ton of gold on the outcrop. As a rule the content of gold in both the Japanese and

Jan 12, 1915

By D. A. Elgillani, S. Atak, D. A. Rice, M. C. Fuerstenau, R. B. Bhappu

Quartz and feldspar cannot be floated with sulfonate at any pH; spodumene floats over a narrow acid pH range, while beryl responds moderately over a broad pH range. After wet-grinding in a steel mill, beryl, quartz, and spodumene float well with sulfonate below about pH 7, whereas the improvement in the response of feldspar is not so marked. A mechanism by which iron can be adsorbed on these minerals is presented. Also, the responses of leached, natural, and wet-ground beryl to amine, sulfonate, and oleate flotation are shown and related to the measured zero-points-of-charge of these materials. Earlier work with leached beryl showed that good flotation could be obtained with alkyl aryl sulfonate over a rather wide pH range using a Fagergren flotation cell.' When a similar response was observed with leached quartz, it was decided that unintentional activation was being obtained from the metallic components of the Fagergren cell. To obviate this difficulty, a microflotation cell was designed, and an experimental technique was devised. These have been described elsewhere. Experiments conducted with the small cell showed that leached quartz could not be floated at any pH with any sulfonate addition,3 which is in agreement with the observations of Kraeber and Boppel.4 Similarly, it was also found that leached beryl responded to sulfonate flotation only over a narrow pH range rather than the broad range reported earlier.1 This early work,1 however, revealed the important effect that wet-grinding in a steel mill has on the flotation response of certain silicates. That is, it was found that quartz and especially beryl floated well over an unusually wide pH range after wet-grinding in a steel mill. Microcline, however, floated poorly below pH 4, even though wet-ground under the same conditions. The work of Eigeles6 on adsorption of oleic acid on leached quartz and iron-contaminated quartz at constant pH is in agreement with these flotation data. Other research has shown that ferric iron, added as a salt to the system, functions as an activator in the narrow pH range in which Fe +++ iron hydrolyzes to its hydroxy complexes.3,5 These phenomena indicate that iron functions differently in flotation systems depending on its method of introduction. The object of this paper is to determine the mechanism by which iron is adsorbed on certain minerals, the mechanism of collector adsorption after iron abstraction, and the role that Fe++ and Fe+++ assume in the selective separation of these minerals. EXPERIMENTAL MATERIALS AND METHODS Sodium alkyl aryl sulfonate, mol wt 450,7 pure potassium oleate, and pure dodecylamine were used as collectors. All other chemicals were reagent grade in quality, i.e., n-amyl alcohol as frother; HC1, H2SO4, and KOH for pH adjustment; and ferric chloride as activator. Conductivity water, made by passing distilled water through an ion exchange column, was used in the experimental work. All minerals used in the investigation were hand-picked specimens. Sample Preparation: Each of the minerals was crushed through 8 mesh, and the product was divided into two groups, one to be ground dry and the other wet. Dry grinding was accomplished with an alumina mortar and pestle. The product was dry-screened to 48 x 150 mesh, cleaned magnetically, deslimed in conductivity water, and dried. Preparation of the samples by wet-grinding involved grinding a 200-g charge of the mineral (-8 mesh) at 60% solids with natural water in a mild steel rod mill for four minutes. This charge was then wet-screened immediately with natural water to 48 x 150 mesh, dried, and cleaned magnetically. Some experiments were also conducted with leached beryl and quartz. These products were prepared by leaching the sized sample (48 x 150 mesh) with concentrated HC1 with a percolation technique until no iron could be detected in the leach liquor. Following this step, the sample was rinsed with conductivity

Jan 1, 1967

[ ] TUNNELS TO BINS. Originally designed for tunnel work, the strong lightweight liner plates used to construct this 30-ft diameter, 31-ft high, aggregate storage bin have several advantages. Bins and conveyor to tunnels can be quickly erected in any season, for permanent service, or to be salvaged and reused. Armco Steel Corp. (16) ROLLER CHAIN: Engineering Data Book No. 2457 published by Link-Belt Co. is a comprehensive 148-page volume on roller chain and its application. Detailed engineering information covers installation, maintenance and lubrication of chains for drives, conveyors, and sprocket wheels. The book covers selection of drives to meet both standard and special installations. (17) LABORATORIES: The Fisher Scientific Co's. line of 21 basic units of standardized steel laboratory furniture is described in catalog no. 25. The Unitized line was designed to combine the advantages of custom installation with the convenience of selection, delivery and continued flexibility that goes with ready-made units. (18) PUMPS: Two similar, but functionally different types of vertical centrifugal wet-pit pumps; a heavy duty bilge pump for handling solids-free liquids and drainage; and a screenless sewage ejector, constructed to handle sewage and solids carrying liquid; are illustrated in a bulletin from Yeomans Bros. Co.

Jan 1, 1952

By R. S. Shoemaker, F. W. McQuiston

CAMPBELL RED LAKE MINES Balmertown, Ontario 1974 Operating Data MINE LOCATION: Balmertown, in Red Lake mining area of Ontario TYPE OF MINE: Underground mine developed by vertical shaft to 4300 feet. Mining active above 3000 ft depth. ORE DESCRIPTION: Gold and minor silver.. Sulfur content about 1.3%. Ar senopyrite , pyrite, pyrrhotite, and stibnite. CAPACITY IN TONS124 HRS: 825 ASSAY: 0.66 oz Au per ton heads MILL PROCESS: Amalgamation, flotation, roasting of concentrate and separate treatment of calcines and flotation tails by cyanide. PLANT BUILDING: Mine mill and service facilities all housed in insulated and heated buildings POWER: Total consumption, mine and mill - 100 Kwh/T WASTE DISPOSAL: Impoundment of tailings. Arsenic to sealed underground storage EMPLOYEES: Total of 300 men on payroll. Housing in Balmertown and nearby communities.

Jan 1, 1975

By Michael Poole, Joseph M. Chelini

Most earthmoving operations using off-road, rubber tired production equipment have abnormally high total tire costs. Achieving informational control over 7 direct and 2 indirect tire cost centers can reduce tire costs more than 50 percent; a 20 percent savings is often guaranteed. This is achieved by utilizing available computer software and implementing tire information management through the engineering deparatment.

Jan 1, 1983

By E. V. Kleber, V. F. Novy, R. C. Vickery

The constitutional diagram has been determined in part for the sgstem Gd-Fe. Seven intermetallic compounds have been found at compositions corresponding to the following Gd-Fe ratios; 2:3, 1.2, 1:3, 2:7, 1:4, 1:5, and 2:17. The GdFe, com-pound has a congruent melting point above 18000C, whereas all of the remaining compounds melt incongruently, A eutectic exists at 13 wt pct Fe at a temperature of 860°C. ALTHOUGH an increasing amount of information is becoming available on the metallurgy of pure rare earth metals, relatively few studies have been made on alloy systems of the rare earths with the transition metals; iron, nickel, and cobalt. Even less data are extant on gadolinium alloys although it could be expected that such alloys might possess interesting structural and magnetic properties. In this paper, we report investigation of the gadolinium-iron alloy system. Studies on systems containing nickel and cobalt will be presented in subsequent papers. Previous data on gadolinium-iron compounds have been reported by Endter and Klemm1 and Jep-son and Duwez.2 Both reports agree on the existence of the GdFe2 phase, which crystallizes with the C-15type structure (face-centered cubic). This is in accord with results of the present work. EXPERIMENTAL The gadolinium metal used was prepared by met-allothermic reduction of high purity gadolinium fluoride. A typical analysis of the metal thus produced indicated the principal impurities to be oxygen, 0.24 pct, and tantalum, 0.2 pct. The iron metal used for alloying was a reagent grade material. Alloys were prepared by arc melting mixtures of the respective metals. Appropriate quantities of the two component metals were carefully weighed, blended and compacted. The compacts were then melted in an arc furnace consisting of a water-cooled copper hearth plate and a water-cooled tungsten-tipped counter electrode contained in a brass vacuum chamber. The furnace was evacuated to an absolute pressure of less than 1 with the leak rate established as being less than 20 per min. The furnace was then back-filled to a pressure of 25 mm of Hg, with a 75 pct He-25 pct Ar mixture. Arc melting at 25 v and 300 amp was maintained for about 30 to 60 sec until the entire visible area of the sample became molten, by which time surface tension had drawn the molten metal pool into a large bead. After allowing the furnace to cool, the alloy button was inverted and the melting process repeated. A series of melts was made covering entire composition ranges from 100 pct Gd to 100 pct Fe. All samples were examined metallographically in the as-melted condition. As the phase diagram became rationalized, and differential thermal analysis had given indications of temperature arrests, annealing was carried out in vacuo or in argon. Generally, compositions containing more than about 60 pct Gd were heat treated at 750°C and alloys containing less than this quantity of gadolinium were annealed at 1000°C. Prolonged annealing times were of the order of 100 to 200 hr. Metallographic examination was repeated on the annealed materials. Although little material loss was noted during alloy preparation, chemical analyses were made on all specimens prepared. The following standard, analytical techniques were used. Samples were dissolved in hydrochloric acid; insoluble material was filtered off, ignited and fused with potassium pyro-sulfate. The cold melt was leached with dilute acid and the solution thus obtained added to the main sample solution. Gadolinium was always determined gravimetri-callv as oxide from oxalate ignition. Iron was removed from an aliquot sample by electrolysis on a mercury cathode at approximately six volts. Gadolinium in the iron-free electrolyte was then precipitated as oxalate which was subsequently ignited to oxide. Iron was determined volumetrically in an aliquot solution by reduction with stannous chloride fol-

Jan 1, 1962

By AIME AIME

COAL preparation will be the main topic discussed at the first fall meeting of the Coal Division at Pittsburgh, Sept. 11, 12 and 13, though valuation, mergers, safety, stream pollution and other topics will not' be neglected. It is particularly appropriate that the great changes taking place in preparing coal for the market should be discussed at length where in the plants of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. and others the opportunity is afforded to see on a large scale just what is being accomplished. In wartime, the United States broke all records in coal production, but, as the late Franklin K. Lane pointed out, every fifth car shipped consisted of dirt. Obviously that constituted a big bur- den on industry and, in the remaking of the business which is now taking place both in the anthracite and bituminous fields, clean coal has properly enough be- come a watchward. Central coal-cleaning plants are being erected as a part answer to the puzzled inquiry of those familiar with metal mining as to why miners of coal have so long been content with what are relatively small units of production. Gradually big collieries comparable in tonnage output to the biggest copper mines are being built, and excellent examples are to be seen near Pittsburgh. Even the age-long tradition of the coal operator in favor of the single shift is

Jan 1, 1930

By George S. Rice

The extremely valuable papers and discussions on coal-cluat explosions by Bache,' Eavenson, Shurick, Mannakee,* and Raymond are of unusual interest to me, since it has been my duty to carry on investigations on this and allied subjects for the Technologic Branch of the United States Geological Survey during the past year, and to make a series of coal-dust tests in the explosion-gallery at Pittsburg during a short periocl when its use could be diverted from the pressing work of testing explosives. In several of the discussions mentioned, it has been assumecl that the Technologic Branch of the Survey mas not paying attention to certain phases of the general problem, or to the specific question of temperature and humidity of mine-air in its effect upon the explosibility of coal-dust. This assumption is not correct, since from the time of the establishment of the " Mine-Accident Division," with its subdivisions of explosives, rescue-work, and mine-investigation, the mining engineer.; of the last-named section have made the subject one of chief consideration. Their general duties, including mine-sampling for governmeilt purposes, emergency-calls for rescue-work, and esplosion investigations, have prevented undivided attention, but all of them have been supplied with instruments for such determinations, and special report-forms have been in use and a great many observations made in mining-districts to which the mining engineers have gone. With the idea of obtaining a uniform system of reporting these data, and in the hope that the work may be of service to mining engineers in the field, the collecting blanks in use are shown in Forrns 1 and 2.

Jan 1, 1911

By C. J. Delisio

The basic concept of tunnel boring has not changed since the late 1800's. R. Stanley of Great Britain obtained a Canadian patent as early as December 1891. Mr. Stanley's machine was a device that consisted of a rotating wheel equipped with drag-type teeth; it had a means of thrusting the cutterhead against the face or heading; it had a means of clamping or gripping the machine in its bore; it had a means of collecting and depositing the cuttings into a screw-type conveyor located near the invert of the tunnel. It even had a means of varying the speed of the forward motion of the machine to suit different hardnesses of rock encountered. This description essentially fits the latest tunnel-boring machines being built today. In short, there has been no significant advance in the basic concept in 70 to 80 years. It may well be that no significant change can be expected for some time into the future. Today's machines, while still basic in concept, offer many advances aimed at faster tunneling. Among these are 1 ) improved cutters, 2) guidance and steering devices, 3) dust-control devices, and 4) mechanisms to aid in installing tunnel supports. CUTTERS The most important part of a hard-rock tunnel borer is the cutter. If the cutter can cut the rock, it is a boring machine. If the cutter cannot cut the rock, no other part of the machine can. When Jarva, Inc. decided to build a machine, the first problem was to find a good cutter. In our search, we looked at most of the cutters on the market. We selected Reed Drilling Tools' cutter because the design of their cutter was aimed at hard-rock tunneling. We feel that they build the best cutter available and provide the best possible service to their customers. As tunnel-boring machine design advanced, the transition from drag bits to roller bits was natural because harder formations required a roller bit, and it is the goal of all mole users to bore harder formations. Roller bits

Jan 1, 1970

Another excellent Swedish underground crushing plant is that at Crusher Station 51 of LKAB in Kiruna, Sweden. Bottom-dump rail cars pass over a dump scroll to discharge magnetite ore into a 288 cu yd (220 m3) pocket equipped with a Hewitt Robins E-13 vibrating grizzly feeder. The grizzly section is 59 in. (1500 mm) long and has bar spacings 3 in. (76 mm) wide. Any oversize boulders which will not pass the chute opening to the feeder are blasted. The primary breaker is a Morgardshammar overhead eccentric 55 in. by 71 in. (1400 by 1800 mm) jaw crusher powered by a 200 hp (149 kw) motor. An open side setting of 10. 8 to 11. 8 in (275 to 300 mm) accounts for the high capacity of this crushing unit (2760 stph or 2500 mtph). This figure compares favorably with the capacity of many gyratory crushers but is typical of the Swedish jaw crushing installations, which are often followed by three more stages of crushing or by autogenous grinding. Crushed ore from the jaw crusher is combined with the grizzly under- size in the crushed ore pocket and is fed by a second vibrating grizzly feeder to the secondary cone crusher. Both crushers are serviced by 50/5 ton overhead bridge cranes. During maintenance operations air -operated gates shut off the flow of ore from the dump and primary crushed ore pockets.

Jan 1, 1978