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By R. B. Falk, F. E. Luborsky

Small iron particles in mercury pow by diffusion of iron atoms through the mercury. Iron particles, with diameters about 200Å, have been stopped from gvowing in size, even up to the boiling point of mercury, by the addition of a third metal. The metal additives were classified according to whether they produced 1) negligible inhibition, 2) some inhibition, or 3) marked inhibition of the growth rate. Metal additives which resulted in a marked inhibition of iron-particle growth form a stable monolayer on the iron particles. Only those metals which may form compounds with iron showed this pronounced effect. The one exception was manganese. Metal additives which resulted in no inhibition of growth, showed no evidence for adsorption and could not form compounds with iron. None of the added metals, even those which strongly inhibited particle gvowth and thus had adsorbed on the particle surface, actually formed any compounds with iron at room temperature at the concentrations required for complete inhibition of growth. ThE stabilization of the size and shape of metallic particles dispersed in liquid metals has important technological implications in "homogeneous" nuclear reactor systems and in elongated particle magnets and is directly related to the problem of corrosion by liquid metals. Growth in these par-ticulate systems may occur by diffusion of atoms from surfaces of high energy, corresponding to a small radius of curvature, to surfaces of low energy or large radius of curvature. Thus, small particles dissolve and large particles grow to increase the average diameter of the particles. reenwood' has analyzed this diffusional growth of a system of particles containing a distribution of sizes and has obtained reasonable agreement with data on the growth of uranium particles in liquid sodium and UPb3 particles in liquid lead. Greenwood concluded from his analysis that the chief factors promoting stability of dispersed particles growing by a diffusion mechanism are large mean radius, high density, and low molecular weight with low values of the solute diffusion coefficient, the solubility, and the interfacial tension. In the case of elongated particle magnets the system of interest is that of iron particles dis- persed in mercury. Previous work,2 concerned with "spherical" particles in mercury, has indicated a diffusional growth mechanism similar to that discussed by Greenwood. It has also been shown3'4 that the addition of certain metals to Fe-Hg dispersions results in the formation of a monatomic layer of adsorbed atoms on the iron particles. In this paper we will show that this adsorbed layer provides the decrease in the iron-atom flux through the mercury necessary for size stabilization. The general features of the stabilization of the iron particles in mercury through the formation of this "coating", with many different metals, will be described. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Iron particles in mercury were prepared by elec-trodeposition,2, 4 and measurements2, 4 of coercive force HCi) and saturation induction (Is) were used to follow changes in size and composition during thermal aging in the mercury in the presence of relatively small amounts of an added metal. In Fig. 1 is plotted the aging behavior of spherical particle samples in the presence of some of the added metals to be discussed. The iron particles have an initial average diameter of 180Å. Each sample was aged for 20 min at each temperature in succession in the presence of a twofold to threefold excess of added metal over that required to form a monolayer on the iron particles. These are the same samples used previously3 to study the adsorp-

Jan 1, 1965

By S. Y. Han

INTRODUCTION More than 97% of the total uranium production of the United States comes from sedimentary deposits (1). These sandstone deposits were formed by reduction of migrating uranium-bearing solutions from volcanic silicate rock sources. Such deposits occur in two major forms, either as relatively flat, lens-like deposits or as crescent- shaped roll front deposits. The lens-like deposits are found as discrete masses enclosed in reduced sandstone which is generally surrounded by oxidized sandstone. The roll front deposits are found along crescent-shaped interfaces between reduced and oxidized sands tone (2). In-situ mining of selected sedimentary deposits has proven to be a viable method of extraction and competitive with conventional mining for relatively deep low-grade ores (2). In in-situ leaching, uranium is recovered by drilling injection and collection wells in the ore body, pumping a suitable lixiviant to dissolve the mineral, extracting uranium from the pregnant solution by ion exchange, and finally regenerating and recycling the lixiviant. Even though there is increasing interest and practice in developing the in-situ technique for obtaining uranium values from deeper, lower-grade reserves, there is a lack of knowledge of the basic leaching kinetics and combined transport processes. In-situ leaching operations, in general, appear attractive for the following three general types of deposits (2): (1) low-grade surface dumps or deposits which lie above the natural water table,

Jan 1, 1983

By W. F. Carew, H. D. Kessler, F. A. Crossley

AS part of a program on phase relationships and transformation processes of titanium alloy systems, the titanium-rich corner of the Ti-Mo-V system has been investigated. This region was surveyed primarily to supply information toward the development of a creep resistant, weldable alloy, with a minimum alloy content, for use in the 425° to 550 °C range. Specifically, the investigation was directed toward the development of a stable ß alloy with less total alloying additions than is found in the Ti-30 pet Mo alloy. A secondary objective was the development of a creep resistant, weldable a-ß alloy for application around 300°C. Molybdenum was selected as primary additive to titanium on the basis of an investigation1 which showed that the Ti-30 pet Mo alloy had promising elevated temperature tensile properties. Furthermore, aging studies1 showed no tendency for this

Jan 1, 1957

By Charles White Merrill

Mankind's progress is measured in minerals. Man's emergence from prehistory is marked by passage through a Stone Age and a Bronze Age and into the present era, sometimes called the Iron Age or the Age of Metals. With the evolution of civilization and the development of a modem industrial economy, minerals become more and more important. Structures, roads, and machines are built largely of minerals; the energy to heat the structures and to drive the machines is mostly mineral; agricultural fertility is maintained by mineral fertilizers and water; and military strength is provided by fortresses, armaments, and munitions, largely of mineral origin. Thus in the material world, in the productivity of the economy, access to minerals has paramount importance. Every evidence indicates increasing dependence on minerals in the modem economy, particularly on the mineral fuels as energy sources to provide the power base for advancing industrialization. Both the total and the per capita consumption of almost every mineral is increasing in the industrialized nations. Moreover, nations with predominantly agrarian economies call themselves underdeveloped and universally strive to industrialize. Most mineral consumption trends in the more advanced economies have been greatly exceeding population growth-which itself has been advancing at an accelerating rate--and sometimes have surpassed the growth in real income. Some minerals have only recently been adopted or grown to importance in use. Titanium as a metal appeared as a commercial product only in 1948, and even coal seriously displaced wood as a source of heat less than two centuries ago. On the other hand, minerals have always played an important role in construction. The prehistoric megaliths that form the dolmens of Salisbury Plain are stone; the pyramids are andesite faced with limestone; and many other ancient structures are built of mineral materials. In modem times the whole course of architecture has been redirected by new building materials, mostly mineral. Most conspicuous is the sky-

Jan 1, 1959

By Harry H. Angst

The history and efficiency of 40-ton capacity dump trucks for surface waste removal at the New Cornelia opencut copper mine, at Ajo, Ariz., are summed up in this paper. Tabulations of truck performance, together with detailed cost figures, prove the value of truck transportation for certain special operations at a large mine. Emphasis is given to the fact that truck transportation not only reduces the haulage costs but also reduces the breaking ground and shovel-loading costs per ton. The New Cornelia opencut copper mine is in the desert. The climate is ideal for seven months of the year, but the five summer months are uncomfortably hot. 'She elevation is 1820 ft. above sea level and the annual rainfall is approximately 6 inches. The ore body is a monzonite-porphyry deposit. The waste-rock capping consists of hard rhyolite, conglomerate and porphyry. All the material is hard and cannot be excavated without blasting. The rhyolite and conglomerate waste is very blocky. The weight of the rock in place is 2.16 tons per cubic yard. The average mine production per day is 22,090 tons of 012 and 18,000 tons Of waste rock, the latter consisting of surface rock and material within the ore body too low in grade to send to the concentrator. The rock is loaded by electric shovels with 4½-cu. yd. dippers. The primary transportation of ore to the concentrator and waste to the dumps is by 30-yd. dump cars and oil-burning steam locomotives; therefore truck haulage of waste is a minor factor of the New Cornelia operation. However, as New Cornelia was one of the first mines to use large-capacity dump trucks for haulage, the results obtained are of interest. Equipment On the south side of the New Cornelia is a hill rising about 500 ft. above the normal surface elevation, roughly 1000 ft. in diameter at its base, called locally Arkansas Mountain peak. Exploratory drilling in this area developed additional ore that could be made accessible for open pit operation only by moving the mountain face a maximum distance of 400 ft. to the south. The slope of the mountain adjacent to the pit averaged 35°, and the small area involved precluded the use of train haulage for the removal of the 4,000,000 tons of waste estimated above the normal pit elevation. A study of dump-truck haulage at Boulder Dam and San Gabriel Dam led to the decision to use large-capacity end-diii~lp trucks rather than smaller trucks, for the following reasons: I. The truck would have to withstand the impact of hard, heavy chunks, some of them weighing as much as 10 tons, which would be dumped from the 4½-cu. yd. dipper. 2. The coarse, rocky, abrasive material would soon damage a light truck body. 3. The body of a small truck could not be efficiently loaded with coarse rock.

Jan 1, 1943

By Harry H. Angst

The history and efficiency of 40-ton capacity dump trucks for surface waste removal at the New Cornelia opencut copper mine, at Ajo, Ariz., are summed up in this paper. Tabulations of truck performance, together with detailed cost figures, prove the value of truck transportation for certain special operations at a large mine. Emphasis is given to the fact that truck transportation not only reduces the haulage costs but also reduces the breaking ground and shovel-loading costs per ton. The New Cornelia opencut copper mine is in the desert. The climate is ideal for seven months of the year, but the five summer months are uncomfortably hot. 'She elevation is 1820 ft. above sea level and the annual rainfall is approximately 6 inches. The ore body is a monzonite-porphyry deposit. The waste-rock capping consists of hard rhyolite, conglomerate and porphyry. All the material is hard and cannot be excavated without blasting. The rhyolite and conglomerate waste is very blocky. The weight of the rock in place is 2.16 tons per cubic yard. The average mine production per day is 22,090 tons of 012 and 18,000 tons Of waste rock, the latter consisting of surface rock and material within the ore body too low in grade to send to the concentrator. The rock is loaded by electric shovels with 4½-cu. yd. dippers. The primary transportation of ore to the concentrator and waste to the dumps is by 30-yd. dump cars and oil-burning steam locomotives; therefore truck haulage of waste is a minor factor of the New Cornelia operation. However, as New Cornelia was one of the first mines to use large-capacity dump trucks for haulage, the results obtained are of interest. Equipment On the south side of the New Cornelia is a hill rising about 500 ft. above the normal surface elevation, roughly 1000 ft. in diameter at its base, called locally Arkansas Mountain peak. Exploratory drilling in this area developed additional ore that could be made accessible for open pit operation only by moving the mountain face a maximum distance of 400 ft. to the south. The slope of the mountain adjacent to the pit averaged 35°, and the small area involved precluded the use of train haulage for the removal of the 4,000,000 tons of waste estimated above the normal pit elevation. A study of dump-truck haulage at Boulder Dam and San Gabriel Dam led to the decision to use large-capacity end-diii~lp trucks rather than smaller trucks, for the following reasons: I. The truck would have to withstand the impact of hard, heavy chunks, some of them weighing as much as 10 tons, which would be dumped from the 4½-cu. yd. dipper. 2. The coarse, rocky, abrasive material would soon damage a light truck body. 3. The body of a small truck could not be efficiently loaded with coarse rock.

Jan 1, 1943

By Robert Anderson

OLIVER C. RALSTON, Salt Lake City, Utah- (communication to the Secretary *).-The literature on the theory of flotation has been enriched, of late, by the views of a number of excellent mining engineers who unfortunately were tyros in physical chemistry and physics. Hence the obscurity and mystery with which the process is supposed to be surrounded. The present paper goes far toward explaining some of the ideas which have seemed obscure or which have been poorly expounded by the men who advanced them, but there are a number of places where the author's explanations are unsatisfactory, or where he has fallen into the same mistakes made by the original propounders of the theories involved. While recognizing the value of constructive compilation, it is nevertheless disappointing to find a paper reviewing the recent theories of flotation which presents nothing-new-not even a new viewpoint. At the bottom of page 1121, there are stated to be present the following "phases" in flotation: "solid-liquid (ore-water), solid-liquid (ore-oil), solid-gas (ore-air)," etc. The writer could not possibly have meant to apply the word "phases" to the ideas involved. Each of the pairs of phases mentioned has an interface in which exists the interfacial tension that he is talking about.

Jan 12, 1916

The Ortiz Mountain property is located approximately 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Santa Fe and 13 km (8 miles) from the village of Cerrillos. The property embodies a Spanish mineral grant from which Gold Fields acquired about 2, 200 hectares (900 acres of surface and mineral rights. Following a period of exploration, metallurgical testing and development of a feasibility study in 1974, the decision was made, because of the higher gold price in the fall of 1978, to place the property into production. the gold is confined in a quartzite breccia; it is an unusual occurrence because the gold in this host rock is leachable at minus 19 mm (3/4 in. ). Total ore reserves are estimated at approximately 3.6 million mt (4 million st) averaging 1.89 g per mt (0.055 oz per st) based on a cut-off of 0.7 g (0.02 oz). The ore will be recovered by open pit mining at a stripping ratio of 1. 2:l. Production is scheduled for 13,600 mt (15,000 st) of ore per week or approximately 680,000 mt (750,000 st) per year. Primary crushing of pit-run material is by a 1,070 by 1,015 mm (42 in. by 40 in.) jaw crusher. Crushed ore is conveyed to stockpile and then to a 2.13 m (7 ft) standard crusher with the screened over- size crushed in a 1.5 m (5 ft) tertiary cone crusher. The screen undersize, the final product for leaching, is minus 19 mm (3/4 in. ). A 1, 360 kg (3,000 lb) sample is cut from the crushed ore stream, further crushed in a small jaw crusher and then sampled in two more stages by Vezin samplers to produce a final 13.6 kg (30 lb) sample for assaying. Pebble lime is then added to the ore on the belt as it is sent to the conveyor gantry spanning the leach pads. A tripper on this moving gantry stacks the leach ore without compaction. The entire crushing plant and conveying system is of open-air construction. Leach pads have a total length of 515 m by 60 m (1,700 ft by 200 ft) wide with usable dimensions of 490 m by 58 m (1,600 ft by 190 ft). The directional length slope is 3. 870 with 370 on the width. The pad is constructed of 175 mm (7 in. ) thick asphalt containing a rubberized asphalt membrane. It is divided by a 300 mm (1 ft) high curb into eight segments. Each segment is loaded with 13,600 mt (15,000 st) of ore, which is one week's production. Optimum working height of a pad is considered to be 3. 0 m (10 ft) with a maximum height of 4. 0 m (14 ft).

Jan 1, 1981

By Richard Hamburger

The purpose of this paper is to call attention to certain methods which will shorten and simplify the calculation of plane tri-angulation. These methods, though not new & do not appear to have been properly publicized in the United States. The cotangent (or tangent) solution of a triangle permits calculation of coordinates in a smooth series of operations of the calculating machine with a minimum of notation. The semigraphical solution permits the simultaneous solution of a number of intersections, at one station, without the added burden of solving additional triangles. This in turn encourages more numerous field checks and more complete office computation than would normally be undertaken. RICHARD HAMBURGER, Junior Member AIME, is Junior Engineer, Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co., Inspiration, Arizona. TP 2798 A. Discussion (2 copies) may be sent to Transactions AIME before March 31, 1950. Tables I and I1 show the distinct advantage which the combined use of the cotangent and the semi-graphical solutions hold over, what might well be called, the standard solution. It will be shown that the positions for the entire net in fig. 1 may be calculated without computing any distances, thus saving much computation. (2) Comparison of Cotangent and Standard Solutions: To compare the cotangent method with the standard method, the notation involved in the solution of triangle 1-X-4, fig. 1, by both methods is shown. Fig. 2 shows the given information, that is, the coordinates and azimuths of Stations 1 and 4, and angles of the triangle or the azimuths from Stations 1 and 4 to Station X. (Azimuths are used here because the author feels that they are easier to handle, but bearings may be used by those who prefer them). It will be seen from the above comparison that the advantages of the cotangent solution of a triangle are: (a) rapidity, (b) full use of the calculating machine, (c) the small number of

Jan 1, 1951

By D. T. Peters, C. R. Cupp

Aging of commercial 18 pct Ni maraging steel and of related binary, ternary, and quaternary alloys has been studied by electrical resistivity, X-ray diffrac-tion, and hardness measurements. The aging process is in three stages: 1) recovery of martensite; 2) two precipitation reactions; 3) formation of nickel- rich austenite. The main objective of this work was to discover the nature of the Co-Mu interaction. Addition of cobalt to the Fe-18 pct Ni-5pct Mo alloy results in acceleration of the pvecipitation reaction by increasing the super-sat~lration 0f molybdenum. The cobalt-containing al- loys show no incubation period for the precipitation reaction, but the alloy without cobalt shows an initial slow reaction. These results are interpreted in terms of precipitation on dislocations. At low aging temperatures, the presence of cobalt leads to the appearance of a second type of precipitate which is a particularly effective hardener. Cobalt was found to retard the formation of austenite. Overaging is a combination of classical overaging and the formation of austenite in the structure. he- activation energy for the precipitation reaction determined from resistivity ,measurements is 42.8 kcal per mole and the growth of the precipitate is found to obey at law at high tenzperatures and a tU3 law at low temperatures. HE mechanism of strengthening of the 18 pct Ni maraging steels has been studied extensively since 1962.'-? The strengthening is due to precipitation hardening of the martensitic matrix. The main precipitate is an inter metallic compound involving molybdenum, but there is disagreement about its identity.

Jan 1, 1967

By T. V. Subrahmanyam, A. P. Rao

The adsorption behavior of chalcopyrite has been studied at different xanthate concentrations and flow rates in a column apparatus with potassium ethyl xanthate as the collector. Based upon the experiment results an equation of the type: 1/F = K3 + m3C + k2/t.Cm2.fm1 is proposed to account for the experimental data. Among copper minerals an early study on chalcocite by Gaudin and Schuman (Taggart, 1951) is well known for its research on the kinetics of the reaction by conventional method of mass balance between the products of reaction and xanthate consumed. The results were interpreted by the concept of ion exchange adsorption. Szeglowski (1977) conducted measurements on the adsorption of potassium ethyl xanthate on copper polarized to various potentials, the adsorption being measured by radio-tracer techniques. The adsorption in the range -1800 to 700 mv was found to be a reversible physical adsorption. The potential range in which the primary electrode process could lead to surface coverage with a minimum number of product layers was evaluated. The adsorption density of xanthate on sulfide surface was found to be related to the concentration of xanthate in solution and concentration of depressants as: [ ]

Jan 1, 1983

By F. C. Blake

The best method for the estimation of copper in ores and secondary products is that proposed by Dr. Steinbeck* for the award offered by the Mansfeld'schen Ober-Berg-und Hutten-Direction. It is based upon the decolorization of the blue ammonia solution of copper by potassic cyanide.7 It is necessary for the accurate estimation of copper in arsenides that the arsenic be separated from the copper before the ammonia solution is made. The presence of a notable amount of arsenic renders the titration by potassic cyanide inaccurate, the end reaction being obscured by the appearance of a yellowish-green tint towards the end of the titration. The change of the color of the ammonia solution from blue to the tint caused by the presence of arsenic cannot be used for an end reaction, for the intensity and quick appearance of the latter color depend upon the amount of arsenic present in the solution. In the analysis of speise, the method of separating the copper by an oxidizing and reducing treatment in the muffle, to volatilize the arsenic, gives poor results, and there may easily be some loss of the weighed sample. The separation of the precipitated sulphides of arsenic and copper by treating with sodic sulphide, gives good results, but the process is tedious. I have used the two following methods, which are simpler and more expeditious than those mentioned, with good results

Jan 1, 1881

By Richard Hamburger

(1) Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to call attention to certain methods which will shorten and simplify the calculation of plane tri-angulation. These methods, though not new,',2 do not appear to have been properly publicized in the United States. The cotangent (or tangent) solution of a triangle permits calculation of coordinates in a smooth series of operations of the calculating machine with a minimum of notation. The semigraphical solution permits the simultaneous solution of a number of intersections, at one station, without the added burden of solving additional triangles. This in turn encourages more numerous field checks and more complete office computation than would normally be undertaken. RICHARD HAMBURGER, Junior Member AIME, is Junior Engineer, Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co., Inspiration, Arizona. TP 2798 A. Discussion (2 copies) may be sent to Transactions AIME before March 31, 1950. Tables I and I1 show the distinct advantage which the combined use of the cotangent and the semi-graphical solutions hold over, what might well be called, the standard solution. It will be shown that the positions for the entire net in fig. 1 may be calculated without computing any distances, thus saving much computation. (2) Comparison of Cotangent and Standard Solutions: To compare the cotangent method with the standard method, the notation involved in the solution of triangle 1-X-4, fig. 1, by both methods is shown. Fig. 2 shows the given information, that is, the coordinates and azimuths of Stations 1 and 4, and angles of the triangle or the azimuths from Stations 1 and 4 to Station X. (Azimuths are used here because the author feels that they are easier to handle, but bearings may be used by those who prefer them). It will be seen from the above comparison that the advantages of the cotangent solution of a triangle are: (a) rapidity, (b) full use of the calculating machine, (c) the small number of

Jan 1, 1951

By V. Vahatalo, E. Hakapaa, H. Tanner

Recently modernized, the surface plant of the Outokumpu mine in Finland incorporates a number of ideas meriting close scrutiny from this side of the Atlantic. The mining methods make extensive use of concrete in some unusual ways. Design of the headframe and surface plant represents the latest thinking of European engineers and includes an integral Koepe hoist. The deposit is in eastern Finland, province of North Karelia, 30 miles west northwest of Joensuu and at 60'44' N, latitude. Pyrrhotite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite mineralization occurs in a shear zone in quartzite near a body of serpentinite. Two lenses have a total length over 12.000 ft, with remaining reserves of the 3 to 4 pct Cu ore estimated at about 15 million metric tons.

Jul 1, 1955

By R. W. Fountain, J. Chipman

THE solubility of nitrogen in iron and steel has been of considerable interest due to the role of nitrogen in strain-aging and in quench-aging. It is generally considered that quench-aging is the result of precipitation of carbide and nitride particles from supersaturated solid solution, while strain-aging results from the segregation of carbon and nitrogen atoms to dislocations.1-9 The rate of strain-aging is controlled primarily by the amount of carbon and nitrogen in solution and the temperature. In experiments on strain-aging of pure iron with only carbon or nitrogen as impurities, Fast" has shown that even after 40 hr at 50°C carbon did not give any strain-aging while

Jan 1, 1959

By Robert D. Thomson

Listed among strategic and critical minerals for stockpiling, mica is an important raw material in electronic and electrical equipment industries. Each year large quantities are consumed in the manufacture of television and radio tubes, radar sets, generators, transformers, electric toasters, and irons. Crude mica, which comes from the mine in crystals or in rough books of various shapes and sizes, is known as run-of-mine or book mica. Structural imperfections, impurities, rough edges, and defective laminae are removed by cobbing, rifting, and trimming to produce a marketable block mica or film mica. After the rough books have been hand-cobbed to remove adhering rock, dirt, and crushed or defective mica they are rifted, or split. In the U.S. a straight-bladed knife is generally used for rifting. Products of this operation are classed broadly as untrimmed sheet mica and scrap.

May 1, 1956

By Hans S. Carlsson

Like most industrial processes, nuclear power production creates wastes, which have to be handled and ultimately disposed of in a safe manner. Some of the wastes contain very long-lived radioactive substances and have to be isolated for very long periods of time before they have decayed to harmless levels. Sweden, like many other countries with similar geology, intends to use crystalline rock for isolating the high-level nuclear waste from the biosphere. The suitability of a rock mass for a repository needs to be investigated extensively. Apart from the political and practical considerations for a site selection, a detailed study has to be performed in terms of geology, hydrogeology, geophysics, geochemistry and rock mechanics. The responsibility of the site selection studies in Sweden is entrusted to the Swedish Nuclear Fuel Supply Company, Division KBS (SKBF/KBS) . The paper gives a brief presentation of the "Standard Program" for the studies that will be carried out during 1980-1990. Modifications of the program are justified on the basis of gained experience or specific circumstances for each site. The program is compiled by the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) in cooperation with KBS.

Jan 1, 1982

By Bruce A. Kennedy

In recent months, public hearings held by the Senate Subcommittee on Minerals, Materials and Fuels on the Stillwater copper-nickel complex in Montana have been reviewed at great length in the press. Although the meetings were well managed by the Subcommittee and questioning was kept in line with the aim of the hearings-namely, how can re- sources be developed in a manner compatible with the preservation of the environment-it was alarming to read the apparently uninformed and questionable arguments presented by some witnesses who were attempting to prohibit mining in the area altogether. One spokesman even went so far as to urge that mining of the area be rejected be- cause, even if the mining operation did not pollute the areas, the effluent and waste produced by the people themselves could constitute a hazard to the environment and to themselves. This, of course, would be true to a point. However, if this or similar types of reasoning were used to reject mining of a large number of orebodies in the future, how is the United States going to meet its future mineral demands and what effect could this have on the economic strength of the country? Fall of the Roman Empire An interesting article in a recent issue of Time magazine came up with a new theory to explain the fall of the Roman Empire. Claire Patterson of CalTec, during a recent study of air pollution, investigated the historical worldwide distribution of lead. As lead was a by-product obtained from silver mining during historical times, he turned his attention to studying the production of silver during those eras. He discovered a very interesting fact-that, I unless the stock of metal is continually being replenished from the mines, accidental loss diminishes a country's stockpile of silver at a rapid rate, as much as 2 per cent per year. Patterson, a geochemist, theorized that with an accidental loss rate of 2 per cent per year, if the country's silver supply dried up, the entire existing stockpile could disappear in about a century.

Jan 1, 1971

By E. K. C. Williams, Nathaniel Arbiter

INTRODUCTION The surface processes involved in preparing ores for flotation and for operations depending on their flocculation/dispersion characteristics * vary widely in agitation dependence. Most of the reagents used for these purposes are added to grinding circuits, pump sumps, launders, or directly to flotation cells with the turbulent flow conditions usually adequate both for mixing reagents and for surface reactions without special conditioners. However, some reagent systems do require specific control of agitation intensities and reaction times, the more important of these being the following: 1. Activation of ZnS with CuSO4. With the usual conditions pH about 10, with collector added with the CuSO4, Cu 2+ is almost completely precipitated as basic compounds and as collector salt. As a result the levels of reagent in solution are extremely low which probably accounts for the need for separate conditioning. The agitation intensities are at about the 0.01 HP/ton level.** 2. Flocculation with natural or synthetic polymers. In this case the agitation problem is two-fold; first, to insure adequate initial mixing of the viscous stock solution of the

Jan 1, 1980

By K. G. Davis

Dilute alloys of silzer in tilz haz been solidzjzed a1 controlled rules, in lzorizontal tubes 2 mrz and 0.5 rn in diam. Radioactive; tracer techniques we?-e used to study solute distvihutions along llze specimens and irmpurity substructures, as functions of the conditions growth. The results have heen mzalyzed using Burton, Prim, and Slichter's tnodel for the solute disty-ihution in the liquid ahead of an advancing solid-liquid interface. DECANTING techniques have been used to establish criteria for the formation of impurity substructure during solidification in several alloy systems An analysis equating the appearance of impurity substructure with the incidence of constitutional supercooling was developed,= in which diffusion was assumed to be the predominant mode of solute mixing in the liquid. Substitution of experimental data into the equations derived from the diffusion analysis gave reasonable values for solute diffusivity in the liquid. However, in these investigations solidification rates of 10 cm per hr and over were used, to minimize the effect of natural conection, whereas for crystals of high perfection lower solidification rates are needed, usually between 1 and 5 cm per hr. A knowledge of the conditions under which impurity substructures will be formed at low growth rates, and the degree of segregation to be expected, is therefore of interest. In the present investigation, radioactive-tracer techniques have been used to study the effect of growth rate, initial solute concentration, and size of specimen on the formation of substructure in uni- directionally solidified rods of dilute silver in tin alloys, over a range of growth rate between 0.5 and 10 cm per hr. Criteria for the formation of substructure were established by auto radiography. This was believed preferable to the decanting technique, for the relationship of the structure on a decanted interface with that of the freezing interface is not clear, since a layer of liquid is left on the surface following decanting.' The effect of substructure on the distribution of solute along the rods was also investigated. EXPERIMENTAL The procedure for sample preparation has been described in detail by einber. Alloys were prepared from tin of 99.999 pct purity and silver of 99.99 pct purity. A"', an emitter of both y and 0 radiation, was used as tracer. Samples of the alloys were drawn up into silica tubes with inside diameters 0.5 or 2 mm, remelted in a horizontal furnace, and solidified at controlled rates. A few centimeters of the samples were left unmelted for a measure of the initial concentration. Total sample length was approximately 20 cm. The temperature gradient in the furnace was kept constant at 36°C per cm in the region corresponding to the melting point for tin. To find how well this corresponded to the actual temperature gradient in the melt, a thermocouple of 38-gage wire was electrically insulated with a thin layer of Sauereisen cement and placed within one of the 2-mm-diam tubes, which was then filled with tin. The maximum diameter of the coated wire was 0.5 mm, the bead of the thermocouple junction being no larger than the diameter of the wire. A plot of temperature vs distance traveled by the furnace is given in Fig. 1 for a rate of furnace travel of 1 cm per hr. The temperature gradient in the liquid

Jan 1, 1967