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By Paul M. Tyler

NOW that the dust of World War II has settled and we and our allies are faced with extravagant losses of men, money, and materials, virtually the only hope that the United States and Britain have in the way of reparations lies in the capture of industrial, technical, and scientific secrets. Even during the war American and British scientists and technicians gained access to German factories, questioned German personnel, studied German documents, and endeavored generally to keep pace with new discoveries in science, industrial technology, and process development. Under various agencies this work continued for two years after the war. Altogether at least 600 American scientists and industrialists have gone to Germany and brought back reports and several times as many British, Canadian, and. Australian investigators have been similarly engaged under co-operative arrangements designed to assure the maximum of coverage with a minimum duplication of effort. As a result of these investigations and document studies, about 500 or 600 reports have been prepared on metallurgical and allied subjects. Those by American authors or joint teams have been listed in the annotated Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports, issued by the Office of Technical Services in the U. S. Department of Commerce. Many of the British reports are also available in this country through the same office or through a British representative in New York. Since it was my duty to read most of these reports for

Jan 1, 1948

By Edgar C. Bain

A NUMBER probably a sizable group of person with a dominant interest in metals maintain contact with the developments in ferrous metallurgy by reading week by week, as time permits, some four or five periodical devoted in considerable part to this field. It seems possible that some of these, like ourself, find it difficult to see the net results of the development day by day in clear perspective, The impression sometimes seems blurred by the uninterrupted succession of so many accounts, or out of focus from the very impact of so many reports of new things enthusiastic, well written, and understandable though they usually are. It is at times almost as though one were trying to observe, from a fastmoving vehicle, objects all too near at hand. Or perhaps this impression is merely a manifestation of our individual hyperopia ; in which case we should content ourself with an observation that it would be more satisfactory on the whole to discuss in 1941 the metallurgical advances of 1930-35 than those of

Jan 1, 1941

By AIME AIME

PRESIDENT BASSETT'S gavel called the Annual Business Meeting to order shortly after 10 a. m. on Tuesday. On motion of Eugene McAuliffe, reading of the minutes was dispensed with and Mr. Bassett read his annual report of the year's activities as follows : During the year I have visited eighteen of the twenty- seven sections, making an average of GG 2/3 per cent. The invitation to come again has always been extended, but in only one case have I been able to visit the same section twice. Chicago entertained the president twice during 1930. Mrs. Bassett accompanied me on visits to ten sections. Everywhere we have found the most cordial hospitality and a gratifying enthusiasm for the Institute. If anyone had fault to find with the management or felt dissatisfied with what was being done, it was carefully concealed. I am happy to report to you an agreeable, helpful and progressive spirit in each of the sections visited.

Jan 1, 1931

By Paul M. Tyler

FOR the same reason that water is not missed until the well runs dry, the roles of many industrial minerals in wartime are often overlooked. In contrast to the growing shortages of many metals, our supplies of most nonmetallic minerals are limited only by our machinery for taking them from the ground and by our processing facilities. With few exceptions, the demand for increased supplies has been met without fanfare or delay. Only Brazilian quartz crystals, certain kinds of mica, and, latterly, industrial diamonds are on the so-called strategic list, although asbestos, beryl, corundum, cryolite, fluorspar, crucible-grade graphite, ilmenite, iodine, kyanite, monazite, nitrates, rutile, and zircon have caused more concern among those responsible for procurement and are included in our preclusive buying programs. Such specialties are needed urgently, but they are far less important in the over-all picture than the more abundant minerals.

Jan 1, 1942

By Blandford C. Burgess

Mica is an orchid among minerals. It is formed in pegmatites, one of the most bizarre of igneous formations, and is exceeded by few other minerals in the perfection it may attain as to size, color, and cleavage. First used for window glazing, as an ornament and article of trade, it has become one of the most essential insulators of electricity, heat, and shock. Most internal combustion engines use mica condensers or capacitors and such machines of war as planes, tanks, and submarines are immobile without it. The original manuscript of this guide was written in April 1943 at the peak of war emergency. It was not used be- cause shortly thereafter a decision was made to buy on a one price basis eliminating differentials for both quality and size. This is now presented with the thought that from the standpoint of preparedness we can only consider an- other war imminent and every effort should he made to set up in usable form the experience gained during the Second World War. Colonial Mica Corp. was set up by Metals Reserve Co. as a wholly owned government agency to encourage production of domestic mica and to purchase it. It soon became the exclusive buying agency for such mica. The writer as Southern Manager called on all the private agencies buying mica to assist in formulating buying policies, methods, and prices.

Jan 1, 1949

By W. E. Anderson, T. M. Brady

As part of a larger study to identify factors influencing the practical operating life of wire rope used on large draglines in surface coal mining, field trips to operating surface coal mines were made during late 1975. Wire rope performance information was obtained from personnel at 13 mine sites west of the Appalachians. Seventeen pieces of equipment, utilizing bucket sizes ranging from 30 to 220 cu yd (23 to 168 m), were documented. Draglines at large US surface coal mines can be represented as 120 machines having 60-cu yd (46-m3) buckets, moving 1.8 X 109 cu yd (1.4 x 109 m3) of overburden during 6650 hours of productive availability per year. Based on the limited field study, the calculated downtime resulting from rope-related causes averages 105.6 hours per year for each typical 60-cu yd (43-m3) dragline. The total loss in production from this source alone is thereby estimated at about 25 x 106 cu yd (19 x 106 m3) annually. Although study findings did not reveal anything about dragline rope life that wasn't known or practiced by one operator or another, most operators can expect improved rope life by periodic review of their practices and by adopting one or more life-improvement measures employed at other sites. Since rope productivity was found to vary by a factor of five among the sites studied, considerable improved average performance is possible. As little as 10% overall improvement would increase national productivity by 2 million cu yd (1.5 X 106 m3) of solid overburden removal. Associated savings in rope costs would be some $2 million annually, plus a large reduction of labor-related expenses. This report outlines preliminary findings which may prove useful to many operators in extending wire rope life. Some of these modifications or adjustments in maintenance/operating practices would not require capital investment. During the field survey, no company was found which had tried cost reductions by using presocketed dump ropes, or dump rope sheaves that opened like a snatch block, so these are suggested as possible improvements requiring modest capital input. Data Acquisition During the field visits, mine operators provided rope life information about their machines. Some of the rope life data consisted of gross averages; other data was in the form of detailed records, including rope construction and manufacturer, cutoff and resocketing periods, end-for-end switching, and downtime for rope change-out. Trends of average hoist rope life and average drag rope life determined from the field study are shown in [Fig. 1] as a function of bucket size. The three lines on the graph have slopes of 1, M, and 1/4. A comparison of the data shows that hoist ropes moved about twice as much material as drag ropes prior to retirement, although more than a two-to-one scatter within each category is evident. As expected, the larger machines with the larger buckets moved more total volume of material. The four pairs of solid symbols represent those data for which detailed rope life histories are presented in subsequent figures.

Jan 1, 1980

By A. B. Parsons

LAST YEAR (1934) saw the completion of a ten-year program of reconstruction and modernization of the world's largest lead- smelting plant, that of the ' Broken Hill Associated Smelters Proprietary, at Port Pirie, South Australia, which has a capacity for smelting and refining 220,000 (short) tons of lead per year. It deals with the entire output of lead concentrates from the famous Broken Hill district in Australia, being owned .jointly by the three leading companies: North Broken Hill, Broken Hill South, and the Zinc Corporation. These companies, together with the Sulphide Corporation, are credited with a production of 198,000 tons of lead in 1934. When one says regarding any metallurgical plant that modernization is "completed" he should add "for the moment." Development in the art of metallurgy and in the equipment used never ceases; that which seems close to the last word today is likely to be obsolete in a few years even in a process so well standardized as smelting and refining lead. However, the reconstruction at Port Pirie has altered the procedure materially. More im-

Jan 1, 1935

Discussion, at the Virginia Beach Meeting, February, 1894, of the Paper of Prof. Posepny. (Trans., xxiii., 197, 587.) Including communications subsequently received. a T. A. Rickard, Denver, Colorado (communication to the Secretary) : The paper of Professor Posepny was printed so short a time

Jan 1, 1895

By John D. Wiebmer

First, a definition of a small scale miner is in order. The US Bureau of Mines classifies him as one who produces 360 t/d (400 stpd) of ore or less. In Canada, he would be refered to as a "junior company." Mexico identifies the small scale miner as one whose gross income from operations is less than $880,000 per year. A small surface mine in India employs less than 400 people, and a small underground mine employs less than 150. Peru considers a small scale miner one who produces less than 54 000 t/y (60,000 stpy) of ore. Obviously, the term is relative. What may be a small mine in one country is a medium or large mine in another. This lack of agreement is understandable since small scale mining does not often cross national boundaries. Rather, its effects are felt at the regional and local levels within each nation. Its importance doesn't lie with any huge contribution to the GNP or balance of trade. Instead, its value is as a local employer and as a frontrunner in geologic exploration.

Jan 2, 1979

By AIME AIME

AS a new departure the annual business meeting was held at 4 p. m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16, instead of in the morning, as previously. The retiring President, Robert E. Tally, called the meeting to order and briefly spoke of the large measure of success that had been attained in balancing the budget of the Institute in 1931, so that, although receipts had declined over $26,000 compared to the previous year, expenditures had come within $3,000 of income. He referred in complimentary ,terms to the work of the committees on Membership, Admissions, Papers and Publications, and MINING AND METALLURGY, from which more would be heard late:. He also announced that a large and important committee on economics has been under consideration, and will be announced later. As an evidence of growth it was noted that a new Division, Mineral Industry Education, had been organized just an hour previously.

Jan 1, 1932

By L. D. Anderson

IN STUDYING Utah as a lead producing state one is immediately confronted by the fact that few, if any, of the ores of the state are valued for their lead contents alone. More correctly the ores from which this metal is recovered are characterized as silver lead. Even then the whole story is not told for many of these ores carry also gold, copper, zinc, bismuth, antimony, arsenic, tellurium, and other metals. It becomes apparent, therefore, that the production of lead i11 Utah is influenced by many factors. For example, i11 the early part of 1923 there was a marked increase in the production of the lead by reason of the efforts made by silver mines to produce as much silver as possible before the termination of purchases under the Pittinan Act in June, 1923. As nearly all silver ores carried more or less lead the production of that metal was increased with the increase in silver production. Very few, if any, ores of the State are mined for their lead contents alone. Important as Utah's contribution to the lead output of the country is nevertheless it is bound up to some extent with the production of gold, silver and copper.

Jan 1, 1925

By Eugene McAuliffe

THE heavy shrinkage in the production of bituminous coal has reflected adversely in the matter of tonnage produced by stripping arid mechanical loading machinery. The purchase of stripping and underground loading equipment has likewise been circumscribed. How- .ever a growing percentage of bituminous coal is being loaded by stripping and mechanical loading machinery. This situation is due to the fact that numerous strip pits were able to operate in Illinois and Indiana when under- cover mines were subjected to labor interference, a further advantage gained by their ability to produce and market coal at a price below that of the undercover mines. The mines equipped with mechanical loading. apparatus have enjoyed more continued operation for the double reason that the companies using coal-loading machinery are, generally speaking, more substantial and in better financial condition than many of the smaller properties who maintain hand-loading methods, and the market advantage due to lower production costs also reflects to the advantage of the undercover mines using mechanical loading equipment. Where a number of mines are con- trolled by one company, those not equipped with loading machinery and suffering from higher producing costs have often been closed, with the available tonnage concentrated in the more modernly equipped mines.

Jan 1, 1933

The problems confronting the development of Latin America's mineral resources have hinged largely on the political and economic climates-in short, the investment climate--existing and often changing in each nation. .The attractions and risks confronting today's investors in such mineral developments have been described and debated to considerable length during the past two decades, the arguments pro and con colored by the previous experiences incurred by the would-be investor, whether company or individual. In an effort to shed light on the investment climates existing today throughout Central and South America, the Council of Economics brought four experts together at the AIME Annual Meeting last March to give their views on this subject.

Jan 7, 1966

By Anthony F. G. Lucas

BORN on Sept. 9, 1855, in the city of Spalato, Dalmatia. Austria, Antonio Francisco Luchich was the son of Francis Stephen Luchich, a prosperous shipbuilder and ship-owner of Lesina. His mother, Johanna Giovanizio, was known to the people of Trieste as a woman of unusual learning and piety. After receiving his high school training in Trieste, Antonio Luchich entered the Polytechnic Institute at Gratz in the year 1875, graduating two years later as an engineer. He then entered the Naval Academy of Fiume and Pola as a Midshipman, receiving his commission as a Lieutenant in 1878. In 1879, then 24, Antonio Luchich obtained a leave of absence from the Austrian Navy and came to Saginaw, Mich., to visit an uncle. He remained in this country and on May 4. 1885 at Norfolk, Va.. he became Anthony Francis Lucas. an American citizen.

Jan 1, 1945

By H. P. Greenwald

THE Committee on Rock-Dusting was formed after the fall meeting of the Coal Division in Chicago in 1938. Its primary task was to study the recommended American practice for rock- dusting coal mines to prevent coal-dust explosions as approved by the American Engineering Standards Committee. After approximately two years' work he committee concluded that although certain portions of the recommended practice could well be revised, information needed for a logical revision was not at hand, and it was inadvisable, therefore, to make revisions

Jan 1, 1943

By Leo Wolrnan

IN the relations that exist between capital and labor in this country, there is a bright as well as a dark side. After many years of distressing conditions of labor and a plentiful supply of propaganda, it is doubtful that the doctrine of the class struggle, however defined and stated, has been embraced by any influential and numerous elements of our population. Extreme and uncivilized methods of conflict, whether they be the labor spy as used by the employer or the sit-down strike by organized, labor, have come to be abandoned as the result of the pressure of sober and distinterested public opinion. Unwise terms of our law of trade unions and the unbridled zeal of its administrators show some slight signs of being revised in the light of 'experience and the protests of the law's own beneficiaries. At the point where labor policy touches economic conditions, the two powerful factions in the American labor movement appear to look with a less friendly eye on the bewildering succession of economic experiments and to have a deep nostalgia for a simpler and more prosperous economy.

Jan 1, 1938

By Edward Capillon

THE problem of scrap is probably of greater importance inn the production of gold, silver and other precious metal alloys than is the case for base metals and alloys. Remelting of gold and silver scrap in the shop is always a costly process because it involves losses by oxidation of the base metals in the alloy with a consequent increase in the percentage of precious metal. This is most marked in the case of alloys containing the low-boiling and easily oxidized metals zinc and cadmium. Since it is. not generally feasible to assay every shop remelt it follows that the possibilities of lost values are large. So-called rolled gold and silver plate is made by soldering or welding the precious metal alloys onto base, metal. Such plate when defective must be sent to the refinery to recover the gold and silver values, thereby involving additional expense in the form of refining charges. It is obvious therefore that gold and silver alloy scrap is an important item in manufacturing cost and must be reduced to a minimum. The amount of scrap resulting from poor metal will depend on a number of factors in the manufacturing operations, not least among which is the melting and casting practice. The notes which follow are a summary of experiments performed at various times to determine what variables in melting and casting are influential in the production of sound alloys.

Jan 1, 1930

By Dunbar D. Scott

The development in the perfection of mine-surveying instruments has been by no means rapid, as it has depended somewhat on the details of construction borrowed from astronomical and geodetic theodolites, largely on the restrictions laid down by mining companies and the prejudices of mine managers themselves, but more than all on the methods used in conducting surveys and the importance attached thereto. Mine-surveying, in some form or other, has been practiced from the very earliest times; but it has never kept pace with the other branches of surveying, or even with the art of mining itself, and cannot be recognized as an exact science until shortly before the beginning of this century. The works of Hero of Alexandria, who lived in the second century B.C., are still extant, and contain descriptions of a rectangular sighting-instrument, which he invented and called a diopter. His improvement upon this simple construction, which possibly he devised for use in the Greek mines for rough leveling-purposes and for laying out any angle, must be considered, says Hübner," as the origin of the highly perfected theodolite of to-day. Whether this instrument came into general use during the first centuries of the Christian era, is not recorded; in fact, no writer undertakes to tell how mine-surveying was conducted until 1556, in which year Agricola expounds the principles of mining and metallurgy in his De Re Metallica, devoting the entire fifth chapter to the practice of mine-surveying (see Fig. 1). In mediæval times those who possessed any knowledge of engineering skill made strenuous effort to keep their art a secret, partly on account of the miners' proverbial conservatism and partly for their own personal aggrandizement, and were, in

Jan 1, 1899

By A. D. Hughes

C. W. MERRILL*-Mr. Hughes' paper not only is very well presented but is most timely in that it covers a subject of vital interest to the United States. Tin is one of the strategic metals which has not been found here in appreciable quantities. The total United States tin output since the first recorded production over 100 years ago would not supply current consumption for a fortnight. On the consumption side, tin is extremely important in national defense because of its use in tin plate which, in the form of tin cans, makes it possible to feed properly the armies that the United States recruits from its civilian population in emergencies. Moreover, the internal combustion engines so important in powering tanks, planes, and other war machines, require large quantities of tin alloys for bearings and for soldering. These considerations, along with the fact that Malaya, historically, has been the leading source of tin to the United States, make the kind of information that Mr. Hughes has presented so ably, a matter of vital interest.

Jan 1, 1949

A Discussion of the papers of James Gayley, on "The Application of Dry-Air Blast to the Manufacture of Iron" (see Trans., XXXV., 746, 1022, also pp. 315 and 745 of the present volume, and of J. E. Johnson, Jr., on "The Physical Action of the Blast-Furnace," p. 454. Chas. B. Dudley, Altoona, Pa.:—I am not a blast-furnace man, and this always puts me at a disadvantage because I cannot go into the details of the making of iron and steel. I have not the experience, and have to take the statements of other people, so what I say regarding the subject of this paper is not in the sense of an expert. When I first heard of Mr. Gayley's experiments, I said to myself, a I fear they will result in failure, since, apparently, Mr. Gayley has forgotten one chemical fact, namely, that carbon does not combine with oxygen in the absence of mater-vapor." This fact which was so astonishing when it was first brought out some years ago, and which those who are interested may find in the Journal of the Chemical Society of London, for 1885, page 349, and 1894, page 611, led me to think that the drying of the air would be a mistake. The general subject of the influence of water-vapor on chemical action is a large one; but the special point in which we are, for the moment, interested, namely, the influence of water-vapor on the combustion of carbon, was especially treated by Mr. H. B. Baker, in the papers referred to. Apparently, however, as the result of Mr. Gayley's experiments, we are to learn that the amount of moisture still left in the desiccated air is sufficient to secure perfectly satisfactory combustion. In thinking over Mr. Gayley's paper, it occurred to me that there were two alternatives, either of which might be chosen, namely, we might dry the air as Mr. Gayley does, or possibly we might, in a very much easier way, simply saturate the air at a constant temperature, and thus get uniform working and

Jan 1, 1906