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By B. VISWANATH

T HE Mysore iron works, at Bhadravati, about 2000 ft. above sea level in the Shimoga district of Mysore, British India, is served by a meter gage branch line of the Mysore State Railways. The works which were designed and erected by Perin & Marshall, who still act as consulting engineers, are surrounded by a thickly wooded country which sup- plies about 400 tons per day of wood for fuel. The ore deposits lie 20 miles to the south, and limestone quarries are close by the works. The Bhadra river sup- plies the works and the town with the necessary quantity of water. Dwelling houses for the employees

Jan 1, 1930

By C. R. Fettke, Bela Hubbard

During the summer of 1916, while on a visit to the United States Agricultural Experiment Station at Mayaguez, Porto Rico, the writers were told by D. W. May, the director, that an occurrence of manganese ore had been reported from the mesa southeast of Mayaguez. A visit to the locality showed that the mesa is covered by a mantle of bright red soil resting upon serpentine. Here and there over its surface concretionary masses of limonite have been mashed out of this soil. These were apparently mistaken for manganese ore. On account of the similarity of this occurrence to the extensive iron deposits of northeastern Cuba, it was thought that a brief description based upon a two days'reconnaissance survey of the area mould be of scientific interest. Mayaguez is on the west coast of Porto Rico, at Mayaguez Bay, which is the third in importance of the harbors of the island. The city itself is about 3/4 mile inland on the low-lying plain at the mouth of the

Jan 1, 1920

By S. H. Chauvenet

Jan 1, 1882

By L. A. Creglow

IN common with many other companies engaged in the mining and processing of ores, research has always been an important activity of the United States Smelting Refining and Mining Company. Much of this research has been carried on at the various plants of the Company by the operating staffs, and over the years has been an essential factor in developing new methods and improving existing methods of operation. In 1917 arrangements were made with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under which the Company had the exclusive use of one or two small laboratories in the then newly constructed MIT buildings and the use of the metallurgical laboratories, subject of course to the Institute's needs. After about two years this work was temporarily discontinued but was resumed in 1920 under the direction of G. H. Clevenger, consulting metallurgist for the Company, who recently retired. Becoming cramped for space, the laboratory was moved to a location near MIT on Amherst Street, Cambridge, in 1924. Establishment of a general research laboratory in metropolitan Boston naturally followed from the fact that the head office of the Company was located there and that the library facilities available for all types of research were, and are, unsurpassed. The disadvantages in carrying on research at great distances from the operating units of the Company were always apparent, but with widely scattered plants this disadvantage could not he overcome. With

Jan 1, 1948

By S. H. Chauvenet

HARRISBURG is situated on the Pennsylvania Railroad, one hundred and five miles from Philadelphia, two hundred and forty-eight miles from Pittsburgh, and ninety miles from Baltimore, and has running through it the Pennsylvania, Northern Central, Philadelphia and Reading, and Cumberland Valley Railroads, and the Pennsylvania Canal. Surrounded by a thickly settled farming country, from which to draw native labor, within easy distance of anthracite and bituminous coal, with ores and limestone near at hand, and with the Susquehanna River as a never-failing water supply, Harrisburg has advantages for manufacturing which warrant the investment of the capital that has already been made, and has a future as a manufacturing city second only to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. THE PENNSYLVANIA STEEL COMPANY, L. S. BENT, SUPERINTENDENT. The works of this company, the largest in Harrisburg, lie between the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroads, on. the Pennsylvania Canal, and are essentially devoted to the manufacture of Bessemer steel rails. Capital stock, $2,000,000; invested in business, $5,000,000; wages per month, $80,000; employs 2000 men; capacity, 100,000 tons of rails per year, which is being increased to 130,000 tons. The plant, as it now stands, comprises five Bessemer converters, two 7-ton and three 8-ton converters, two 15-ton open-hearth furnaces in operation, and two 30-ton open-hearth furnaces in course of construction, one blooming mill, one rail mill, seven steam hammers, two blast furnaces in operation, two blast furnaces in course of construction, foundry, pattern $hop, machine shop, blacksmith shop, and frog shop, and merchant mill in course of construction. Bessemer No. 1 was built in 1865, with two 7-ton converters, 2 spiegel cupolas, 3 feet diameter, and 3 iron cupolas 6' 6" diameter,

Jan 1, 1882

The members of the Institute have probably seen in the daily papers notices of the plans of the Secretary of the Navy to. form an Advisory Board to assist the Government to make available the latest inventive genius of the country. Secretary Daniels has appointed Mr. Thomas A. Edison Chairman of this Advisory Board and has officially invited the Institute to secure the selection of two of its members to serve. on this Board. The Secretary in his letter states: "I feel that the work your Institute has done has been such as to give it the right to be in a way officially represented, and the Navy Department desires in this way to testify to its own appreciation of the splendid work for our country that your Institute has done. I have the emphatic approval of Mr. Edison, and he agrees entirely with me that your Institute should he represented in this way and that no better method of getting the kind of men we need could be devised." The invitation of the Secretary of the Navy has been officially accepted and steps have been taken to nominate the two members. Since the Constitution provides for no meeting of the Board of Directors until September, and as Secretary Daniels urged early action, the matter was discussed at a special meeting of the Executive Committee of the Institute, at which were present as many members of the Board of Directors as were in New York City at the time. Invitations were also extended to other members of the Institute who happened to be in the vicinity. At this meeting it was decided to submit the matter by a special letter-ballot to the Board of Directors and in doing so to suggest or nominate five members of the Institute, accompanying this nomination with the statement that the Directors might vote for two of the members so nominated or for any other members of the Institute not so nominated. It was voted at this meeting that it. was the sense of those present that in view of the fact that this committee was an advisory one the type of men to be chosen should be men of administrative or executive ability, cap-

Jan 9, 1915

By Paul C. Merritt

Samuel Hopkins, an 18th century inventor from Philadelphia, has been little noted nor long remembered by History, but it was he who on July 31, 1790, obtained what no other man can ever achieve -the first patent issued by the Government of the United States. Signed by President George Washington, the patent guaranteed to Hopkins the protection of the American Government for his "improvement, not known or used before, . . . in the making of Potash . . . by a new Apparatus and Process." The patent itself is no longer important, but it serves as a milestone in the development of an industry that is now rapidly moving to fulfill its role as a mineral to feed the world. Potash ranks as one of the oldest products of Man, having been used as a condiment by the habitants of Gaul a thousand years before Athens achieved its Golden Age of culture. By Hopkins' time, the uses of potash had changed considerably, going primarily into glass-making, tanning, soap, and explosives, yet the same sources and techniques of manufacturing potash used during the earlier 2000 years-that is, leaching of plant ashes in iron pots with water, followed by water evaporation and crystallization of the potassium salts-were still being used.

Jan 10, 1966

TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGICAL ENGINEERS: Gentlemen.-I have the honor to present the following report of the President for the year 1919. In order that this report may be printed and distributed to the members in advance of the February meeting, it is necessary that it end with the calendar year 1919. Any activities during the first six weeks of 1920 will be covered in the Secretary's report for the year 1920. VISITS TO MEMBERS Your President has visited each of the Local Sections of the Institute, with the exception of the ones at Washington, D. C., Tulsa, Okla., and the Nevada Section. These three sections have not arranged meetings at which the President could be present. In addition, your President, accompanied by President Jennings and Secretary Stoughton, in the year 1918, attended meetings of members in Minneapolis and Duluth, Minn., and Houghton, Mich. A dinner and meeting of the members in Pitts-burgh, Pa., was also attended, in company with the Secretary and your President also attended the meeting of Canadian Mining Institute in Montreal, in March, 1919.

Jan 2, 1920

By John Johnston

THIS necessarily brief sketch will attempt to summarize the high lights of perhaps the best meeting so far held by the Iron and Steel Division. All sessions were well attended and the discussion was vigorous and of a high order. The technical sessions opened. on Tuesday morning. "Precipitation Hardening of Copper Steels" was discussed by Cyril S. Smith and Earl W. Palmer, and dealt with steel with a 1 per cent copper content. Discussion brought out that there were no fabricating difficulties, but that the surface might be somewhat checked due to intergranular penetration of copper which could be easily taken care of. Probable advantages of steels of this type for high temperatures were pointed out. "An Improved Nickel-chromium Hardened Chilled Cast Iron," by J. S. Vanick, described a wear-resistant cast iron and evoked a lively discussion.

Jan 1, 1933

By Robert W. Elayer

In August 1973, Fluor Utah, Inc. was awarded a contract by the Office of Coal Research (now part of the Energy Research and Development Administration), Department of the Interior, for the examination of the unique problems of large-scale surface coal mining to supply coal conversion complexes. The project consists of two phases: (I) data base development and organization and the formulation of a mathematical computer modeling system for surface mining; and (II) computer manipulation of the data base in accordance with the model to formulate several typical preliminary mine and preparation plant designs. Phase I is scheduled for completion by the end of July 1975 and Phase II is scheduled to be complete by the end of January 1977. This paper briefly discusses the effort for only one aspect of this project-the foundation for geologic modeling developed in Phase I. The Phase I task of geologic modeling can be broken down into two subtasks: (1) identify areas containing sufficient resources of surface-minable coal to support at least one large-scale mining complex, and (2) characterize the coal deposits in these areas for computer storage and retrieval. Identification of Resource Regions The basic production design criteria for large-scale surface mining, as stated in the contract, is the production of 75,000 tpd, or more, of bituminous coal. Based on a constant total Btu delivered to the preparation plant, daily production requirements for the different coals are as follows: Bituminous Coal 75,000 tons Subbituminous Coal 99,500 tons Lignite 143,500 tons Although surface mining on this scale is presently non-existent, it is deemed that future operations, in order to meet the increased energy demands, will have to look forward to much larger scale mining complexes. These tonnage requirements are meant to be used only for the delineation of general areas suitable for large-scale surface mining, termed "Strippable Coal Resource Regions." They were determined largely from the latest complete detailed coal resource estimates of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. Nine strippable coal resource regions, containing over 100 billion tons of strippable coal resources, were identified [(see Fig. 1)]. The delineation of these regions was based entirely upon estimates of surface-minable coal resources and the production design criteria for large-scale surface mining. If surface-mined coal was combined with underground production, or if smaller production rates were specified, then other areas which were omitted here would be included in the regions. Changing the outline of the regions, however, would not add any new mining situations to be studied in Phase II. Characterization of Coal Deposits The second subtask involved the general characterization of the coal deposits contained in the strippable coal resource regions. The geological information gathered

Jan 1, 1976

By Elmer W. Pehrson

NINETEEN FORTY-SIX was an eventful year for the mineral industries. Perhaps the most significant development was the socialization of industry in Great Britain, initiated in 1945 but carried to fruition in the coal industry in 1946. On Jan. 1, 1947, management of the coal industry will be vested in a National Coal Board, responsible to the Ministry of Fuel and Power. A sum of £164,660,000 has been provided to compensate private owners for assets transferred to the Board. The British coal industry has been a problem for many years. Production has declined to a point where serious shortages of fuel for domestic needs have developed. Exports have dwindled to a small fraction of the previous trade. Costs have increased greatly, and quality has deteriorated. The industry's physical plant has not kept pace with the rapidly mounting wage scales in recent years. Some claim that the best and most accessible coal reserves of Britain are heavily depleted. The industry has been harassed by difficult labor problems, including bad morale among the workers and a shrinking labor force.

Jan 1, 1947

By Bjorge, Guy N.

MINING method improve through the gradual process of evolution and in 1340 there were no marked outstanding innovations. On the other hand refinements of detail and betterment: in equipment design continued to progress. Among the most important changes have been the increased application of trucks and highway equipment, including tractors and bull- dozers, to open-pit mining as exemplified by Phelps Dodge's Morenci operations; the Mesabi iron range; and the Tri-State district. Mass or bulk handling contributed its part underground with slurhers and conveyors at Consolidated Coppermines and slushers at Climax; and in open-pit mining. conveyors found increased use on the Mesabi range.

Jan 1, 1941

By Johnson Crawford, Alan H. Hoagland

Zinc mining at Jefferson City began in 1854 with small scale production of oxidized ore from open pits. Significant production began in 1913 with the development of the Mascot Mine by the American Zinc Company. In 1965, four flotation mills were treating crude ore at the rate of about 12,000 tons per day and the Mascot-Jefferson City district currently is the largest zinc producing area in the United States. The producing mines, Mascot, Young, North Friends Station, New Market Zinc, Grasselli, Davis-Bible, Coy, and the Jefferson City, are 15 to 28 miles northeast of Knoxville in the Valley and Ridge physiographic province, an area of gentle relief lying between the more rugged Great Smoky Mountains and the Cumberland escarpment. The ore is strata bound, occurring essentially within a stratigraphic range of 200 feet in the Lower Kingsport and Upper Longview formations of Lower Ordovician age. In the lower strata of the mineralized section, the ore generally is found in coarsely crystalline elastic dolomite breccia containing silica and chert debris within a sequence of aphanitic limestones. The upper strata of the mineralized section are fine-grained primary dolomites that, in the ore zones, have been fragmented in mosaic patterns by solution collapse with the interfragmental space filled by white gangue dolomite and sphalerite. The mineralogy is unusually simple, sphalerite being the only important sulfide. Pyrite is very sparse. Dolomite gangue is abundant, silica was deposited in quite small amounts, calcite is minor, and fluorite and barite are very rare. The principal ore controlling structures are rubble breccia zones that were formed during the post-Lower Ordovician-pre-Middle Ordovician erosion interval by supergene solution as a phase of the development of a regional karst system of underground drainage that extended to' depths of at least 800 feet. The major Appalachian orogenic structures are post-ore and have been superimposed on the ore bodies. There is substantial evidence to support the current thinking of the writers that the ore deposits were formed at a depth not exc1~eding 800 feet.

Jan 1, 1968

By T. A. Rickard

The function of a preposition is to show the relation of one thing to another; it is necessary therefore for the writer to select the preposition that indicates the particular relation, otherwise he will fail to express himself clearly. Is it against common sense' to suggest that a Government is justified, morally as well as constitutionally, in preventing the decay of an industry by insisting upon the amalgamation of the prosperous with the needy? All these seven prepositions are used correctly. With the first dredge introduced in Russia, of Werf Conrad, Haarlem, make, this method of alluvial dining became important. Here the prepositions "with", "in", and "of" are used wrongly. He means: "This method of a1lu;ial mining sprang into importance shortly after the first dredge, made at the Werf Conrad, Haarlem, was introduced into ;Russia." The statement itself ii not true, but for that I am not responsible. Once, while I was serving with him, we were frozen in out of sight of land in the Gulf of Pichili in the North of China. Admiral Fisher wrote thus. He has used nine prepositions in making this brief statement. The sequence of three prepositions "in out of" is particularly awkward.

Jan 1, 1931

By M. B. Hopkins

FOR years the expression "except rubber, tin, and manganese" has appeared in practically every discussion of the natural resources of the United States. Knowledge that natural rubber is not produced in the United States has now spread from the relatively few who have reason to be interested in the country's basic raw material supplies to all those who ride in automobiles, which means everybody. This "everybody" reads in the daily papers that we have a stock pile of natural rubber and that plenty of synthetic rubber is just around the corner. Statistics as to the United States' rubber requirements and sources of supply are of interest to him only to arrive at an answer to the question : "After taking care of rubber requirements for military purposes, will there be rubber for my automobile and the many other rubber articles I want?" More than 30,000 different rubber articles are manufactured in addition to the tires and tubes which use up about 70 per cent of the rubber supply.

Jan 1, 1942

By GEORGE ROBERT DE BEQUE

WHAT is wrong with oil shale? The answer is of interest to the public, to the oil refiner, and to the engineer. Many people have invested in shale land or shale securities, and others would invest if early development of the industry were certain. In the face of increasing demands for oil products, oil refiners are threatened with inability to maintain present output unless the supply of domestic petroleum is supplemented. Development of the oil shale industry would open a new field for engineering services. The object of this paper is to suggest reasons why there is but one shale plant in operation in the United States, and to discuss the probable time when the business will be firmly established in Colorado. As the Colorado deposits are the richest and largest in the world, ample supply of material is assured, consequently, this discussion will be confined principally to technical problems and economic problems affecting shale development.

Jan 1, 1924

By Stirling Huntley, L. G. Huntley

THE controversy regarding the ,'probable future of the Mexican oil fields, and its relation to the oil industry of the United States, has led to the preparation of this paper. As has been predicted by several writers in recent papers, certain of the producing areas in the so-called "southern fields" in the Tampico Embayment have only a limited oil reserve. These areas are being pulled on by every pipe line in that region, and the length of time that they will continue to produce is a direct factor of the daily oil shipments of these companies. However, this is not the whole story, and in the following paragraphs an attempt will be made to show that the life of Mexican oil production will be a long one, and Mexican oil will continue to be a large factor n the market for an indefinite time after the areas mentioned above have been drained. The past and present producing fields will be discussed separately, in order-to establish a basis for comparison, the ,only method by which underground reserves 'can be estimated in these fields.

Jan 1, 1921

As already announced, the Arizona Meeting of the Institute is to be held from the 18th to the 25th of September. There will be a special train from New York City to Arizona and return, to take members and guests of the Institute to the meeting. The Committee in charge consists of Walter Douglas, Chairman, Cleveland E. Dodge, John C. Greenway, Arthur S. Dwight and Julius Kruttschnitt, Jr., and while the plans of this Committee are not complete, it may be announced that the train will be run with the requisite number of Pullman, dining and baggage cars to accommodate those who desire to go, which will accompany the party during the entire week of the Arizona Meeting as per the following program, including, of course, the visit to the Grand Canyon. As soon as details have been worked out, a circular will be issued giv¬ing full information concerning the trip.

Jan 7, 1916

By Kirtley F. Mather

FROM almost every point of view, petroleum was "strategic mineral number one" during the World War that ended in 1945. Even the spectacular advent of the atomic bomb in the final days of the conflict did not displace it from its position of prime importance, although within a few years uranium will almost certainly be the "number one" material in the minds of military strategists, if it is not even now in that position. But both as fuel and as raw material for chemical industries, petroleum will hold the center of the stage for many years to come. Hardly any other substance illustrates so fully the manner in which science and technology may be combined to achieve the utmost success in contributing to human efficiency and comfort. Fundamental to any understanding of the problems implied by my topic

Jan 1, 1948

By A. T. Yu

Over the last 80 years the conveyor belt has advanced from the troughed rubber belt to those with standard steel cable cores and those which can navigate curves or climb steep inclines. Now the latest generation of belt conveyors can claim hitherto unheard of capacities of 20,000 tph and single flight lengths well exceeding 16,000 feet. The stranded steel cable core belt is principally responsible for the spectacular improvement in load carrying ability of belt conveyors. The allowable working tension of these belts ranges from 2,500 lb per in. of belt width for 1/4 in. diam cable to 4,000 lb per in, for 3/8 in. diam cable. These ratings far exceed the 240 lb per in. per ply for rayon or nylon construction, and 30 lb per in. per ply for a lowcost cotton fabric.

Jan 1, 1970