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By R. I. Jaff, H. R. Ogden, D. J. Maykuth

A phase diagram for alloys containing from 0 to 66.9 pct Mn was determined. Two compounds, tentatively labeled 6 and y, were found in this range. The 6 compound is located at about 66.9 pct Mn and melts congruently at 1330°C. The ? compound has a composition near 53 pct Mn and originates in a peritectic reaction at 1200°C between liquid and 6. ß and Y enter into a eutectic reaction at 1175°C. The ß phase field terminates in a very sluggish eutectoid reaction between a and ? at 550°C. MANGANESE is one of the important alloying addition elements to titanium. As a ß-stabiliz-ing addition for a-ß and ß alloys, it provides high strength with adequate ductility.' Two of the earliest commercial alloys contain manganese as a major alloying component.' The earliest published data on the constitution of Ti-Mn alloys was that of Wallbaum,~ who reported the existence of the compound TiMn2. The transformation range of commercial-purity Ti-Mn alloys was investigated by Craighead, Simmons, and Eastwood' who found limited a solubility and a lowering of the ß transus to about 790°C at 7 pct Mn. Preliminary work by the authors of this paper, using high-purity titanium, confirmed the ß-stabilizing action of manganese and showed the existence of several intermediate phases in the Ti-Mn system." More recently, McQuillan3 determined the ß transus temperatures for high-purity Ti-base alloys containing up through 4.4 pct Mn. These data are given in Fig. 1. The present investigation covered alloys made with a high-purity base. The constitution of titanium-rich alloys made with commercial titanium has been reported4," by Holladay, Kura, and Jackson. The alloy range covered in the present investigation was from 0 to 69.5 pct Mn. This alloy range extends slightly beyond the composition of the first congruent-melting compound encountered on proceeding from the titanium end of the system. A description of the materials and methods used in the determination of the diagram is given in the Appendix. The partial phase diagram determined for the Ti-Mn system is shown in Fig. 2. Details on equilibria in the titanium-rich alloys are given in Fig. 3. Liquid-Solid Relationships Observations on the cast structures of the arc-melted ingots showed that the terminal solid solution of manganese in ß titanium enters into a eutectic reaction with an intermetallic compound labeled ?. As will be shown later, this compound has a composition around 53 pct Mn. The eutectic reaction temperature was determined as 1175°C by thermal analysis which also showed that the ? phase originates in a peritectic reaction at 1200°C. Fig. 4 shows typical eutectic structures for alloy compositions on both sides of the eutectic composition which is located at 42.5 pct Mn. In alloys over the range of 45.4 through 69.5 pct Mn, a second intermetallic compound, labeled 6, was identifield as the primary phase. This phase consistently increased in amount as the manganese content approached 66.9 pct, and, as shown in Fig. 5, an alloy structure containing 66.9 pct Mn consisted essentially of the 6 compound. Thermal-analysis data indicate a melting point of about 1330°C for the 6 intermediate phase. At 67.0 pct Mn, small quantities of a new, higher manganese-content phase were observed in the form of Chinese-script eutectic particles. Comparison of Fig. 6a and b shows an increasing quantity of this phase as the composition was increased to 69.5 pct Mn. The formation of peritectic ? in arc-melted alloys containing 45.4 pct Mn and above appears to be almost entirely suppressed, as shown in Fig. 7a and b. This is because of the narrow freezing range available for its formation by peritectic reaction and because of the very high cooling rates obtained in

Jan 1, 1954

By W. M. Corse

AT THE TURN of the century the nonferrous alloy industry was awakening to the value of scientific metallurgy, and brass foundries and rolling mills began to establish their own research laboratories for scientific research and control. As the industry grew and its scope broadened it became apparent that an organization was needed that would stand in the same relation to the nonferrous industry as the American Foundrymen's Association did to the iron foundry business. The brass founders' group of the foundrymen's association discussed the matter and it was finally decided to appoint a com- mittee to draw up a constitution for a new organization to be known as the American Brass Founders' Association. Charles J. Caley was chairman and Dr. Richard Moldenke secretary of this committee. The object of the organization as defined by the constitution was the study of the technological development of alloying and founding non- ferrous metals, and furthering the advance of nonferrous metallurgy and the standardization of materials and operations in cooperation with the Bureau of Standards and engineering societies.

Jan 1, 1932

By E. H. Bunce

CONTINUED progress in zinc metallurgy has been shown during 1933 by the adoption of new methods as well as the modernization of old processes and equipment, and by the initiation of new fields of activity for future advancement. The use of suspension roasting continued to grow as its advantages and adaptability became increasingly, apparent. The process developed by the National Smelting Co., Ltd., several years ago, of completely roasting on large sintering machines with utilization of the gas for acid manufacture has worked so successfully that an additional machine was installed during the year. At both the Swansea and the Avonmouth Works all of the ore for smelting is now roasted on the large sintering machines, thereby completely eliminating the old hearth-roasting furnaces. Work continued on obtaining partial purification of zinc ores from lead and cadmium by close control of conditions on the sintering machine, and in a few instances by chlorine additions to the ore before sintering. Ores so treated were either partially roasted or com-

Jan 1, 1934

By Nathaniel Arbiter

T. M. Morris (School of Mines and Metallurgy, Rolla, Mo.)—Rate studies promise to help quantify flotation operations. The author's exposition of rate studies is therefore laudable. However his exposition of a second order rate equation rather than a first order rate equation is not convincing. It is important to use the correct equation, otherwise erroneous conclusions may be drawn. The data assembled by the author and plotted according to a second order rate equation can be plotted according to a first order rate equation. As a matter of fact much of the data used reveals that a second order rate equation is not applicable. According to the method used by the author for plotting data, the reciprocal of the slope of the line is the maximum possible recovery. Physically this cannot exceed 100 pct, yet several graphs yield maximum recoveries greater than 100 pct. For example: l—Curve 2, Fig. 1 yields a value of 120 pct; 2—Curve 2, Fig. 2 yields a value of 115 pct; 3—Fig. 7 yields a value of 110 pct. The real test of the graphical method is, as the author points out, whether or not the earliest points agree with a straight line. The second order rate plot does not fulfill this requirement. Fig. 10 shows the data used by the author to obtain Curve 2 in Fig. 1, plotted according to both a second and first order rate equation. Fig. 11 shows the two rate plots made from data published by Ludt and DeWitt.19 In Fig. 10 the first order rate plot gives a very good fit and obeys the boundary condition of passing through the origin. For the second order rate plot a straight line can be drawn through the last three points but the earliest points are not in agreement with this line. The reciprocal of the slope of the straight line gives a value of maximum possible recovery of 112 pct. The maximum possible recovery according to the first order rate plot is 78 pct. In Fig. 11 the first order rate plot again fits all of the points very well and passes through the origin. The second order rate plot shows wide deviation of the earliest point, indicating that the second order rate equation is not applicable. The reason for the fit of data to the second order rate equation during longer flotation times is that R, the cumulative percent recovery, changes slowly toward the end of the flotation operation, so that when t/R is plotted against time, one is, in effect plotting t against t and one would certainly expect a straight line. The author attempts to show that the second order rate equation is correct by citing evidence which shows that recovery is a function of initial concentration. This is a debatable point especially since, in the author's original presentation of this paper at the St. Louis

Jan 1, 1952

By BERNARD PLANNER

PRODUCTION COSTS, profits, and quality are the primary factors in the peacetime production of iron and steel. In a war emergency, as high production rates and as complete utilization of readily available raw materials as possible, consistent with securing passable quality, become the most important factors. In this connection a discussion of some of the recent developments in the German iron and steel industry, where the problem of scarcity has naturally always been more acute than in the U.S.A., maybe of interest. To get more pig iron out of the existing blast furnaces it was necessary to obtain the maximum efficiency from the iron-bearing raw materials. This was achieved by eliminating all "excess baggage," chiefly by beneficiating the ore. The preparatory work for this was done by various methods which are effective when the ore either is too poor or contains too many impurities or too much gangue. Some of the beneficiation methods are well known, some are combinations of wet-mechanical, magnetic, roasting, sintering, and other treatments.

Jan 1, 1942

By AIME AIME

IN an address before the New York Section. A.I.M.E., Oct. 20, Alex L. ter Braake, speaking on the tin industry of the Netherlands East Indies, interjected a few remarks, at the chairman's request. on the mineral stock-piling project now before Congress in a bill sponsored by Senator Scrugham. The full text of Mr. ter Braake's paper was published in the Nov. 6 issue of the American Metal Market. Following mention of the buffer stock scheme as applied in the tin industry, Mr. ter Braake continued:

Jan 1, 1943

By C. E. MacQuigg

BY and large the education of the engineer has been conservative and the reasons for this are obvious. Quite properly it has been a tradition of engineering education that facts and not fancies must be adhered to. Without a doubt, those men who formed the mold of our engineering philosophy as much as it is possible for such molds to be established-rightly held the highest standards of intellectual honesty. Fortunately, it was unthinkable to them to temporize with untried theories and naturally the men whom they trained as engineering educators carry this philosophy in turn to their students, thus handing down the tradition of stability.

Jan 1, 1943

By A. T. Shurick

WHATEVER the outcome of the Industrial Recovery Act, it has currently injected the first hope and optimism into the coal industry for more than a decade. Compared with the recent drab years the results are impressive: Bituminous production for the first ten weeks, 78,000,000 tons, may be compared with 63,000,000 last year; anthracite, 14,600,000 tons and 9,600,000 tons for the same periods, respectively, bringing the heaviest payrolls in ten years with individual checks reminiscent of former boom times. Hurried calls for long deferred new equipment and replacements have stimulated foundry and machine works and the -invigorating effect on the railroads is indicated by the first actual car shortage in a decade. And even in the welter of confusion over code prices, this heavy tonnage has moved at the most profitable figure the coal man has realized for many years, though with the large volume on old contracts, profits were not as large as many think.\

Jan 1, 1934

By William G. Christy

EFFORTS at smoke abatement date back to the year 1273 in England when a law was passed prohibiting the use of "sea cole." The law was not enforced, so King Edward I, 33 years later, appointed a commission "to enquire of all such who burnt sea cole in the city or parts adjoining, and to punish them for first offense with great fines and ransomes, and for the second offense to demolish their furnaces." Many other commissions have since been named to investigate the smoke problem in England, but it still persists in many British cities. In the United States the movement to abate the smoke nuisance started in certain Middle Western cities, and has made considerable progress. Until recently, the coal-producing industry co-operated little in smoke¬abatement programs, taking the attitude that smoke elimination is the dealer's or user's responsibility; and the dealers, in turn placed the responsibility entirely on the user.

Jan 1, 1942

The world's largest steam-driven mine hoist, built by Nordberg Manufacturing Co. a half century ago, has become a major tourist attraction in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The hoist, designed by company founder Bruno V. Nordberg, is located in the Quincy Mine Number Two, just north of Hancock. Nordberg began construction of the mammoth machine before World War I, but delayed completion until after the war. The hoist became operational in 1920 and continued running until the mine was shut down in 1931.

Jan 9, 1968

By P. Shahinian, R. L. Stegman, M. R. Achter

Creep strength has been determined as a function of oxygen pressure for nickel at 510" and 600°C. Creep-rupture life drops from its highest value at the ultimate vacuum of 10-7 torr to a high pressure plateau of nearly constant life which, at 600°C, commences at torr. This behavior is described in terms of a model that relates surface gas adsorption and the generation of fresh crack surfaces. In a calculation based a this model the predicted pressure beyond which the creep strength should not decrease further has been found to agree well with the observed value. The introduction of oxygen during creep in vacuum was found to cause a prompt rise of the creep rate. The magnitude of the environmental effect was much less than generally observed in fatigue and this is attributed to the diffarent crack morphologies in creep and fatigue. GASEOUS environments are known to affect creep resistance adversely1-5 but the effects have received less attention than the much larger ones in fatigue. At low temperatures it has been shown for nickel that the creep rates are faster and the rupture lives are shorter in air than in vacuum and that these environmental effects can be correlated with faster crack growth rates in the reactive environment.' In support of a mechanism of gas adsorption at the crack tip to explain the above effects, a calculation based on kinetic gas theory showed that surface coverage by gas was not as rapid as the exposure of fresh metal at the crack tip in the ultimate vacuum but was in air.7 In fatigue a number of investigations have demonstrated that the reduction of life with gas pressure usually follows a step curve with most of the reduction occurring in a transition range at intermediate pressures and little or no change at high and low pressure.8 There have been no studies, however, in which creep strength has been determined as a function of reactive gas pressure to see whether similar effects would be found. This investigation was undertaken to study the kinetics of the environmental effect in the creep of nickel. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES The environmental creep apparatus was constructed to minimize many of the experimental conditions which can cause scatter in data. Dead weight loading is employed and weights are contained within the environmental chamber to eliminate bellows and the necessity for compensation for gas pressure changes. Elongation over the specimen gage length is recorded from a Riehle Model DV Controlled Environment Extensometer which provides readout to 2.5 x 10- in. Temperature is monitored and controlled from a thermocouple at- tached to the specimen gage length to +0.5oC or better. The freon trapped oil diffusion pump vacuum system included an auxiliary liquid nitrogen trap and, with a wide range variable conductance leak valve, pressures from the ultimate vacuum of 10"7 to l03 torr of any desired gas are obtainable. Pressure is measured by means of a hot filament ionization gage below 10"3 torr and a NRC Model 530 Alphatron Vacuum Gauge above 10-3 torr. The oxygen, which was leaked into the environmental chamber, was an Aviator's Grade of 99.5 pct purity with a dew point of -80°F. Analysis of the nominal 99.8 pct Ni showed the following percentages of major impurities: 0.02 C, 4.01 Mn, 0.005 Si, 0.01 Cu, 0.02 Fe, and 0.034 Mg. Cylindrical specimens were machined with a 0.180

Jan 1, 1970

By F. R. Brotzen, A. R. Troiano, E. L. Harmon

Precipitation processes leading to drastic property changes are a frequent occurrence in titanium alloys containing large amounts of the retained high temperature P phase. In order to establish the kinetics and nature of these precipitation processes, a series of Ti-V alloys was studied. Time-temperature-transformation diqgrams were obtained for 12.5 and 15 pct V-Ti alloys. These diagrams consisted of two intersecting C-shaped curves: one in the high temperature region for the euilibrium transformation P +u+P, and another at lower temperatures depicting the formation of the meta-stable transition phase, o. Presence of the transition phase retarded the precipitation of the equilibrium a phase. Deformation of retained P resulted in the formation of the o phase. Reversion and retrogression phenomena of the transition phase were observed. A negative temperature coefficient of resistance was found in quenched alloys containing from 15 to 20 pct V. CERTAIN titanium-base alloys can be heat treated to produce appreciable changes in properties. For example, remarkably high hardness values may be obtained by aging or isothermal quenching treatments. Most of the information available to date on the hardening of titanium-base alloys has been systematized recently in an article by L. D. Jaffe.' It was pointed out by that author that the hardening was the result of the decomposition of the retained j3 phase to the equilibrium constituents, a and p, and that this decomposition had many of the characteristics of an age-hardening reaction. Recent work by Frost et al.' 3 has contributed much to the fundamental understanding of the hardening mechanism in titanium-base systems. These authors established the presence of a transition phase in the transformation from j3 to a + j3, which they designated o. The transition phase, in their opinion, was at least partially responsible for the hardening and embrittling effects which accompanied low temperature aging. The present investigation of the mechanism and kinetics of the hardening reaction was carried out for the Ti-V system. Ti-V alloys were ideally suited for a study of the decomposition of j3, since age hardening was known to occur readily in this system." Moreover, no intermetallic compounds occur in this system, Fig. 1, thus simplifying the interpretation of the results. Material and Procedure Alloys containing 12.5 and 15 pct V were prepared by Battelle Memorial Institute from iodide titanium furnished by Watertown Arsenal and vanadium of 99.8 pct purity. Ingots of 8 Ib each were prepared by arc melting in an inert atmosphere with a tungsten electrode and water-cooled copper crucible. Each of the ingots was melted once, forged at 1600°, and rolled at 1400°F. Following this, the ingots were remelted, forged, and then rolled to % in. sq bars, which were subsequently grit blasted, pickled, and wire brushed. Another set of alloys containing nominally 17.5 and 20 pct V was produced by the Research Div., New York University. These alloys were arc melted in an inert atmosphere in lots of 20 g each. Heat-Treating Procedure: Whenever feasible, specimens were heat treated in high vacuum resistance furnaces at pressures below 5x10." mm of Hg. Aging and isothermal quenching treatments were generally carried out in salt baths. Specimens were not attacked by the salt, provided the tempera-

Jan 1, 1956

By J. Kucera, J. Vreštál

DIFFERENT authors1 ' have been engaged in meas-uring the vapor pressure of pure cobalt. The results of their measurements satisfy the expected temperature dependence of vapor pressure and are in mutual agreement, with the exception of the results by De Dyk Man and ~esmejanov.~ The latter authors, by using the effusion method, have achieved considerably higher values than other workers. By using the isotope exchange method they obtained much lower values than other authors. The determination of thermodynamic functions of the binary Ni-Co system was carried out, as far as we know, only by De Dyk Man and Nesmejanov.4 This determination was based on extremely low values of vapor pressure over pure cobalt obtained by the isotope exchange method. Therefore we considered it useful to repeat these measurements. Furthermore, the reliable values of thermodynamic functions should complement the migration characteristics, the inner magnetic field data obtained by Miissbauer effect measurements, specific heat data, and the K effect and positron annihilation characteristics that have been achieved for the Ni-Co system in the Institute of Metallurgy of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Brno.5-9 The measurements in this paper were performed by the isotope exchange method. In this method, as has been shown by analysis,10-'3 the vaporization rate, w, can be calculated from the relation w = k/1oSw [1] i0Sw) [1] where L, is the activity per unit mass of the source, S is the area of evaporation, k is the tangent at the point t = 0 to the curve giving the radioactivity de-pendence of the target vs annealing time, t, and wis the probability for the tracer atom condensation on the target surface. The value for cc. can be obtained from the equation w = a + 2P(l-a) [2] where P is Clausing's coefficient and a is the condensation coefficient. In the present work the cylinder shaped containers for annealing the samples were used, characterized by the ratio 1:d = 1.06. Here 1 is the length and d the diameter of the container. For this ratio P = 0.514 and w =0.5, and w is independent of the condensation coefficient. The vaporization rate is related to the vapor pressure p by the relation where R is the gas constant, T is the absolute temperature, and M is the molecular weight of the component investigated. Measurements of the vapor pressure of the i component over the pure metal, p!, and the alloy, pi, at the given temperature and composition enable one to calculate the thermodynamic activity of this component from the equation ai=pi/pi [4] is and the activity coefficient ri=ai/xi [5] xi where xi is the molar fraction of the investigated alloy component. EXPERIMENTAL Evaporization rate measurements were carried out with pure cobalt and eight different Ni-Co alloys, which were kindly delivered by the Centre National de Recherches Me'tallurgiques Liege, Belgium. The composition of the alloys is given in Table I. The cobalt used in these alloys contained the following impurities: 0.016 wt pct Fe, 0.014 wt pct Cu, 0.01 wt pct Mn. Other elements were present in much lower concentrations. From the melts, samples in the form of small cylinders of 12 mm in diam were ma-chined. The thickness of the targets and sources was 2.5 and 1.2 mm, respectively. The lower thickness of the sources was chosen to make their over-all ac-tivity as low as possible. Sources were activated in

Jan 1, 1970

By M. L. Fuller

IN connection with an investigation in this laboratory on the high-zinc side of the copper-zinc system, it was observed that well developed segre-gate structures of the Widmanstätten type were formed when a secondary phase precipitated from the solid solution of copper in zinc. This paper presents an analysis of the crystallographic relationship between the segregate and the solid solution matrix. The data to be presented are an interesting addition to the literature on segregate structures in that the plane of segregation is one of the less densely populated planes. In agreement with the generalization of C. H. Mathewson and D. W. Smith1 the plane of segregation in the matrix con-tains the direction of closest atomic packing of the lattice. Furthermore, the matrix and the segregate are both hexagonal close-packed, which has not been reported hitherto in the literature.2 The increasing com-mercial importance of zinc alloys containing copper makes this funda-mental study of value to the metallography of zinc alloys.

Jan 1, 1933

By Gerhard Derge

THE orientation relationships resulting from allotropic transforma-tions and the formation of segregate structures in metals and alloys have been the subject of the eight earlier papers in this series1. A brief summary of orientation studies has also been given by Sachs2. A survey of these papers discloses that the factors that determine the orientation relationship of a precipitated phase to its parent solid solution, as Well as the outward form and appearance of the new phase, are not completely understood. It is now evident that crystallographically analogous systems, as a rule, exhibit the same type of Widmanstätten figure and orientation relations, so that useful information is not to be expected from examination of a new alloy involving lattice combinations of which the orientation relationships are already known. Therefore, the determina-tion of the relations existing between lattice types that have not already been studied seems to be the most promising mode of attack upon the problem; both of the systems reported in this paper represent new com-binations of lattice types.

Jan 1, 1937

By F. J. Plecity, J. T. Michalak, W. C. Leslie

W. M. Williams (McGill University)-The authors are to be congratulated on completing this detailed investigation of recrystallization behavior. The present writer has recently completed some research at the University of Toronto on the recrystallization and grain growth behavior of a number of "pure" irons, and he would like to take issue with the authors' contention that recrystallization cannot be followed by means of hardness measurements. Two series of specimens of Ferrovac E, a com- mercially available iron, were annealed to complete recrystallization at 525" and 620" C, measurements being made both of Rockwell hardness and of volume percent recrystallized as a function of annealing time. Good correlation was found between these two quantities and, following the earlier practice of Cook and Richards for copper, hardness measurements were used in an extensive investigation of recrystallization. No anomalous behavior was observed as a result of this practice. Specimens which showed complete softening always showed, (metallographically and by X-rays), completely re-crystallized structures. These observations do not, of course, detract in the least from the results of the work under discus-

Jan 1, 1962

Upon the recommendation of its Technical Committee, The Com-pressed Air Society has adopted the following definitions of, certain terms. Displacement.-The displacement of an air compressor is the volume displaced by the net area of the compressor piston. Capacity.-The capacity should be expressed in cubic feet per minute, and is the actual amount of air compressed and delivered, expressed in terms of free air at intake temperature and at the pressure of dry air at the suction. Volumetric Efficiency.-Volumetric efficiency is the ratio of the capacity to the displacement of the compressor, all as defined above. Compression Efficiency.-Compression efficiency is the ratio of the work required to compress isothermally all the air delivered by an air compressor to the work actually clone within the compressor cylinder, as shown by indicator cards, and may he expressed is the product of the volumetric efficiency (the intake pressure and the hyperbolic logarithm of the ratio of compression), all divided by the indicated mean effective pressure within the air cylinder or cylinders.

Jan 8, 1918

By Robert Glass Cleland

WALTER DOUGLAS succeeded his father, Dr. James Douglas, as president of Phelps Dodge in 1916. Before assuming office, the new president had been assayer at Bisbee, superintendent of the Copper Queen, general manager of all the Phelps Dodge mining interests, and altogether had spent a full quarter of a century in various phases of the company's business. Energetic and imaginative, experienced and courageous, he had need of all these qualities before he surrendered the direction of affairs into younger hands, fourteen years later. For the period of his administration was one of sudden ebb apd flow, flush production, drastic curtailment, quick recovery, and near-disaster. In 1917, soon after Walter Douglas became president, Phelps, Dodge & Co., Inc., which had been formed in 1908 as a holding company, went through an internal reorganization for the purpose of simplifying the structure and changing it from a holding company to an operating company. The Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, which had the necessary charter power and authority to carry on the business of any and all the subsidiary com-

Jan 1, 1952

By Charles W. Merrill

IF we follow the threads of the mining problems, upon which I have touched, we find them all leading to one great fundamental desideratum. The people of this State, of this Nation, and of this world must be brought to a better understanding of the basic nature of our industry-must be made more mineral-minded. It is my belief 'that there is not a man present among this earnest gathering of those interested in the mining industry, who has not a deep-seated and heartfelt desire that the existing unprecedented welfare and prosperity of the whole mass of American people be maintained not merely through our own generation but through the generations of our children and their children. In the decades to come there can be no question of the keenness of the foreign competition which we are doomed to meet, and in this great international contest that Nation which has the best balanced program of development and that broadness of vision in its governmental direction, which recognizes the necessity of a sympathetic attitude toward the upbuilding of such a broad pro- gram will be the Nation which will maintain and pre- serve that welfare of all of its people.

Jan 1, 1929

By MORTON WEBB

Discussion of the paper of Max Boehmer, presented at the Pittsburg meeting, March, 1910, and printed in Bulletin. No. 38, February, 1910, pp. 119 to 122. W. MORTON WEBB, Germiston, Transvaal, South Africa (communication to the Secretary*):-The experience of Mr. Boehmer in the Leadville district and his reputation as an engineer assure the interest of anything he may write on the ore-bodies of that district; and all engineers who have operated in Leadville will agree that the theory of the origin of the Leadville deposits, as given by Mr. Emmons in his famous monograph, does not adequately explain the genesis of all the deposits. The solution of the problem does not, however, appear to be quite so simple as Mr. Boehmer would make it; and the advance pamphlet issued by the U. S. Geological Survey, pending the completion of the main report, shows that there is still much ground for controversy. No doubt the later eruptives had a greater influence on the deposition of the ore-bodies than was thought at the time of the first investigation by the Survey; but it has always appeared to me that the influence exerted by these dikes was more in the nature of a physical than a chemical one. The weight of evidence in recent years is mostly in the direction of ascension rather than lateral secretion; and one of the strongest evidences is the fact that most of the ore-bodies lie under one of the comparatively impervious layers which help to make up the structure of these hills. On Iron hill I have found a very persistent white porphyry sheet, split off from the overlying porphyry and lying from 30 to 60 ft. below the main white porphyry and blue limestone contact. This sheet varies from a few to 50 ft. in thickness, and where found adds another "contact" to that region ; some of the largest ore-bodies on Iron hill lie immediately under this sheet. Above this is the main white porphyry and * Received Mar. 3, 1910.

Feb 1, 1911