Report of the Committee on Mining and Metallurgy

MINING and Metallurgy closed the year 1928 showing a small profit, the receipts, exclusive of the charge against members, dues for subscriptions, having been $43,067.81, and expenditures $40,925.58. In accord with the policy of the Board the budget is made each year with the purpose of balancing the accounts rather than the maximum of profit from the undertaking since it is the service the journal performs for members that justifies its existence. This service is being constantly increased. Within the year a number of changes have been made in the dress of the magazine, a new cover adopted, color more frequently used, and illustrations more generally employed. These changes seem to have been appreciated both by readers and advertisers. More space has been devoted to papers read before local sections and to the news of their activities. It is believed that this has helped materially in sustaining and increasing the interest in such meetings. The general, regional, and division meetings have also been fully reported and news of Board meetings, of the work of the various committees, of the employment service and other activities of the Institute has been spread before its members month by month. The 570 pages of reading matter printed in the course of the year constitute not only a record of what the Institute was doing but of what the most representative sections possible of the members of the mining and metallurgical professions were thinking. With 9000 members scattered around the world, occupying key positions in the industry, the Institute affords through its own journal an unsurpassed medium for broad contact and enables the readers with the minimum of expenditure of time and at no extra money expense to keep a general contact with the whole range of subjects touched by miners and metallurgists. In these days of intense specialization but rapid change such contact is particularly valuable. The more formal papers presented to the Institute are published in the Transactions, Technical Publications and the special volumes. Mining and Metallurgy carries abstracts of all papers published ,by the Institute and prints in full the shorter, less detailed papers and those which reflect work in progress rather than finished. Such papers have a news value which is supplemented by editorial comment, discussion by members and others, and the actual news of the organization itself. Without therefore attempting to fill the place of a general news sheet, it has a timeliness that gives it an immediate value much appreciated by the readers. In accord with the general policy of the Board every effort will be made constantly to improve the quality of the magazine to the full extent that its revenue will permit. Your Committee feels that, through the intelligent cooperation of the official staff in the office, Mining and Metallurgy has been improved in