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By John M. Cummings, Warren. Harry V.

THE Geology Department of the University of British Columbia has undertaken the task of examining the ores from as many as possible of the gold mines of British Columbia. The object of this work is two- fold. First, it is known that detailed mineralographic studies are useful in attacking ore-dressing problems, and these studies are intended to be helpful to mill operators. Second, it is hoped that mineralogical and mineralographical studies will prove useful adjuncts to those of lithology and structure in throwing more light on problems related to the origin of the deposits. The paper shows that gold, for all practical purposes, is not present in an ore mineral in solid solution nor as a eutectic with any mineral; if the latter were true the gold particles would be distributed equally throughout that mineral. The gold occurs either as native gold or as a gold-silver telluride and is not distributed regularly through any mineral or minerals. The relationship between the gold or gold-bearing telluride and the associated minerals affords a means of classification that is not only simple but also appears to be directly related to the geological nature of the deposit, which may be summarized as follows: 1. Disseminated Gold Type.-Precious minerals in extremely small grains, which are distributed without regard to grain size, fractures or grain boundaries: (1) Hedley variety-gold in native form; (2) Surf Point variety-gold predominantly as telluride. 2. Veining Gold Type.-Precious minerals in grains of various sizes, which occur mainly along fractures and grain boundaries: (1) Cariboo gold quartz-goldin native form. (2) Waneta variety-gold as telluride. Application Te Ore Dressing These mineralographic studies have proved to be of value to mill operators, and future studies of a similar nature should prove increasingly useful because every year provides a further opportunity to correlate

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By M. C. Leverett

THE dynamic behavior of a multiple fluid system is completely describable in terms of driving forces and resistances to flow. The latter are proportional to the vis-cosity of the fluid under consideration and inversely proportional to a property of the system termed the " effective permeability" to that fluid, a property therefore defined by this relation. Since three phases are usually present in oil reservoirs, it is essential to know the effective permeabilities to the several fluid phases, and the relationship between the composition of the fluid in the pore space and that of the flowing stream, in order to handle satisfactorily certain problems of oil production. In this regard, there are many unknown factors and parameters, and many that can be evaluated only indi-rectly. However, it is expected that work along lines similar to this present under-taking will help materially in solving these problems. Previous workers in this field have inves-tigated the two-phase systems, water-gas,1 water-oil2 in unconsolidated sands, and water-gas3 in consolidated sands. The ex-tension of the study of the flow of hetero-geneous fluid systems from two to three phases involved only slight changes in technique. The apparatus used in the present work, except for slight changes to be described, was that used by Leverett in his water-oil experiments.2 Correlation and interpretation of data were made by methods analogous to those used in two-phase work. The relative permeability to a phase-the effective permeability divided by the permeability of the system to a homogeneous fluid-was employed through-out in correlating the rate of flow of that phase with the composition of the pore space. Quantitative measurements of two inde-pendent physical properties of the system were required to determine the composition of the pore space. As in the two-phase work, the fraction of water was determined electrically. The gas fraction was deter-mined by measuring changes in volume accompanying measured pressure changes. Suitable account was taken of the solubility of the gas in the liquid phases, and of the vapor pressure of the water phase. Since this work was exploratory in nature, no attempt was made to obtain highly accu-rate numerical results. Reasonable precision and reproducibility were sought.

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