Search Documents

By R. G. Hall

AN article on the subject of electrolytic zinc no longer needs to be preceded by an apology. The production of zinc by electrolysis is past the laboratory stage and has become an economic factor of considerable importance in the total production of zinc in the United States. The various methods of procedure to be, followed for the greatest economy of manufacture are fairly well known, consequently a detailed description of any method is no longer necessary or desirable. In this paper I shall endeavor to lay down some of the governing conditions in this industry, the relation of methods to ore deposits, freight rates, and sources of power supply. POWER POINTS Assuming for a moment that, for the present at least, the electrolytic production of zinc will be confined too those localities having developed water power, a glance at these powers so developed in the United States, with their relation to known zinc orebodies of economic size, will not be without interest. Northwest In the Northwest we have water powers, developed and undeveloped, in Washington and Montana. These must, of course, bear a close relation to the rapidly growing zinc production of the Coeur d'Alenes and of the Butte districts. In general, the power of the territory in question is relatively low-priced, at least as compared with the cost of developing power from coal, and the near neighborhood of large bodies of more or less complex zinc ores makes these water powers of more than usual interest. The same remarks may be applied equally to the developed water powers of the Canadian side of the line in the Northwest, where we have again commercially available complex ore deposits such as are being exploited today at and near Trail.

Jan 9, 1917

By Thomas M. Chatard

Every one engaged in the mining of phosphates is well aware that the price he gets for his product depends upon tile results of chemical analysis. He knows that the value rises with the percentage of phosphoric acid, whether stated as such or as so-called " bone phosphate," and that deductions are made for certain constituents, such as alumina or oxide of iron, when the amount of these exceeds certain limits. The reason for these deductions is but vaguely understood by many, and there are few who possess the special knowledge required to form a competent judgment, either as to the reli-

Jan 1, 1893

By H. M. St. John

LIKE every present-day manufacturer, the brass foundryman is faced with the necessity of reducing the cost of his finished product without impairing its appearance or quality. He must use every economy that the progress of art and science puts at his disposal and should also be alert to profit by any peculiarity in his own situation or the nature of his product that may give him an exceptional advantage. Much can be accomplished by the adoption of labor-saving equipment and improved methods of melting, molding and handling. Control of pouring temperature, study of defective castings and their causes, laboratory control of molding sand and core mixtures, the use of less expensive alloys, all contribute to the desired end. Assuming that the composition of the alloy is already as inexpensive as the character of the casting will permit, still further savings can be made by the intelligent purchase and utilization of the metals needed to produce the desired analysis.

Jan 1, 1929

By Donald A. Dahlstrom

Stronger Than Armies This editorial by Dr. Dahlstrom is based on his acceptance speech of the 1976 Robert H. Richards Award-Ed. Many public figures are saying that the United States is facing the most critical period in its history, and many of us would agree. But people have always been saying this, and all of them were right. They were right two centuries ago when it took a revolution to give birth to the Republic; and they were right during our Civil War, Pearl Harbor, the Great Depression, etc.

Jan 6, 1976

By E. J. Schmitz

The following abstract of an unpublished treatise, prepared by me, on the geological formations and minerals of the State of Alabama, is deemed of interest to the Institute. This State, called after the river of the same name (which, formed by the junction of the Coosa and the Tallapoosa, waters, with its tributaries, more than half the State), is divided by its main watershed into a larger southern district, sloping south and southwest, and drained into the Gulf of Mexico, and a smaller northern district, sloping generally north and west, and drained into the Tennessee. Geologically the State may be divided (according to historical geology) according to the different formations it exhibits, among which I include the Azoic, the existence of which in Alabama has been doubted by some; or it may be divided (according to structural geology, as closely related to topography) into a north and northwestern, a middle, and a southern zone.

Jan 1, 1884

By L. O. Howard

THE practice of using acid-lined converters at the plant of the Old Dominion Copper Mining & Smelting Co. was discontinued early in January, 1913, and they were replaced by basic-lined converters. The new equipment consists of one electrically operated 12-ft. upright converter stand and two basic-lined shells for same. These shells are provided with twenty-four 1 1/4-in. tuyères. The mouths are 5 ft. in diameter. Owing to the fact that there is no bedding system or other large storage capacity between the mine and the smelter, the furnaces must handle as fast as produced ore and concentrates, which may vary considerably from day to day, both in tonnage and copper content. Consequently the converter is often crowded to its utmost capacity by the frequent fluctuations in the daily matte supply. From the foregoing, it will be seen that in no way can the converter be favored by running light charges or by transferring to it from other stands in operation. Neither can it regularly be allowed to cool between blows, and only occasionally can it be run at as low a temperature as might be wished. No copper precipitate or other foreign material high in copper is available to help out the tonnage. Repairs and alterations or the removal of defective tuyères must wait until such time as a slight falling off in the matte supply-allows the converting operations to ease up. These variable conditions all combine to interfere with the systematic operating of the converter.

Jan 7, 1914

By Luis Toron, Salvador Cortes-Obregon

THE Oaxaca coal fields, shown in Fig. 1, are located in the Alta Mixteca region in the states of Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guerrero. Known out crops are scattered over 3125 square miles. It is probable that further exploration will reveal a more extensive area of deposits. The region is of great importance to Mexico, as at present the only sources of coal are the fields near the U. S. border. Steel mills are also located in the North, and finished products must travel 600 to 800 miles to the area of consumption in central Mexico. The Oaxaca coal, only 120 miles south of Mexico, D.F., lies close to several iron ore deposits. If this coal can be used in steel production is will be possible for the Mexican steel industry to reach new dimensions, commensurate with the growing industry of the central region. Coal can be utilized in thermoelectric plants in this area, which lacks not only petroleum and natural gas but also electric power. It can be used as domestic fuel, replacing charcoal and firewood.

Jan 5, 1954

By C. W. Kempton

IF New England were located in some distant and almost inaccessible region, there is no doubt that its mineral resources would have been ere this well developed and generally acknowledged, but laboring under the disadvantage of nearness, it has been neglected. Its surface, moreover, is not cut up by mountains and canons, and the remnants of many of the old ridges are extensively covered by glacial drift. Having for the past ten months been engaged in the development of a. mineral district in Southeastern Maine, I would take this opportunity to lay before the Institute sketches of results, and try to give some idea of the formations as found. The Sullivan Mining District extends from the town of Franklin, through Hancock, Sullivan, and Gouldsborough, from northwest to southeast, about sixteen miles. A general idea of this locality may be gathered from the map accompanying. (Fig. 1).

Jan 1, 1879

By R. Ward Grosz

The Robinson mining district in east-central Nevada is itself a century of study in the changing economics of the mining business. It began as a boom and bust area. In the district today, just west of Ely, Nev., the hills are pockmarked with the tunnels and shafts sunk in a frantic scramble for gold and silver before the turn of the century. But as the economics of dwindling reserves, rising costs, and changing markets were stamping out the efforts of the gold and silver seekers, copper took over as the king of the Robinson district. Today, Kennecott Copper Corp. has four open pit mines in the district and is planning a fifth. From these mines, Kennecott produces nearly 40,000 tpy (tons per year) of copper. In its hundred years of history, the district has produced more than $1 billion in mineral values, a richer treasure than that from the more famed Comstock Lode of Virginia City, Nev. Prospectors had reported copper outcroppings in the Robinson district as early as 1872. But the first significant copper orebody was not discovered until 1901. In that year, Dave Bartley and Edwin Gray exposed the top of the porphyry orebody that would become the Ruth mine in a shaft at a depth of 120 ft. Subsequently, other larger orebodies were discovered nearby which have resulted in this area being one of the leading copper producers in the country for some 60 years. Following a period of development and exploration, the Ruth mine started production in 1915 and continued as a prosperous underground mining operation until 1948. The mining industry in Nevada experienced the same increasing cost of labor and supplies that all other mining areas had to contend with, and by 1948 the Ruth mine was no longer profitable. The mine was closed down on August 8 of that year. Now, two decades later, the mine is to produce again. The key factor in the case history of

Jan 1, 1969

By G. J. Harmsen

is shown that in any isotropic porous medium there is a fixed ratio, : , between the numerical valrles of the total pore perimeter per unit of cross-section and the specific surface area per unit of bulk volume. The consequences of this fact on the use of the concept "hydraulic radius" in the case of porous media are examined. The validity for consolidated sands of Kozeny's rela- tionship and of the formula derived by Carman for capillary rise are discussed. INTRODUCTION In the course of time several quantities and relations have been put forward in order to describe the texture of a porous medium and the flow of fluid through it. Among these relations the so-called Kozeny formula and a formula for capillary rise, for both of which Carman',' has given a derivation, will be specially considered here. These relations are of a semi-empirical nature and the derivations must be considered to have a heuristic significance only. For unconsolidated mate-

Jan 1, 1956

By F. W. Bloecher, A. M. Gaudin

THIS paper describes the results of a series of tests carried out to determine the partition of dodecylamine between distilled water and the surface of quartz at various concentrations of dodecylamine acetate in solution. An adsorption-column technique was utilized for this purpose. Ralston and Harwood, of Armour and Co., had synthesized marked dodecylamine acetate for us.' In their preparation which we employed, 0.0007 pct of the total carbon was the radioactive isotope, carbon fourteen. Unmarked dodecylamine acetate of high purity was also prepared by them for our use. The presence of carbon fourteen in the dodecylamine enabled us to analyze quantitatively for dodecylamine on the surface of quartz, using a radioactive-tracer technique. The method used was that known as internal gas counting of carbon dioxide, formed by oxidation of the amine. This method has already been described, "3 ' and the reader is referred to these papers for details of the analytical method and procedures. and surrounding liquor, a technique analogous to chromatographic columns was utilized. The experimental setup is shown in fig. 1. The dodecylamine-acetate solution was made up in a volumetric flask and poured into the glass funnel shown. It was allowed to drip slowly onto the quartz bed, the rate of flow from the funnel reser- voir being controlled by a hose clamp. The quartz column was contained in a small, fritted-glass filter (size 20 mm, C). The beaded top edge of the filter was cut off to enable the holder and contents to fit into the open end of the 30/45 joint on the combustion tube. This combustion tube is used in the analytical train described in a previous paper.' A piece of gum-rubber tubing joins the bottom of the fritted-glass filter to a filter flask, which in turn is connected to a vacuum line, or water aspirator. The rate of flow of amine solution through the bed was

Jan 1, 1951

By F. W. Bloecher, A. M. Gaudin

THIS paper describes the results of a series of tests carried out to determine the partition of dodecylamine between distilled water and the surface of quartz at various concentrations of dodecylamine acetate in solution. An adsorption-column technique was utilized for this purpose. Ralston and Harwood, of Armour and Co., had synthesized marked dodecylamine acetate for us.' In their preparation which we employed, 0.0007 pct of the total carbon was the radioactive isotope, carbon fourteen. Unmarked dodecylamine acetate of high purity was also prepared by them for our use. The presence of carbon fourteen in the dodecylamine enabled us to analyze quantitatively for dodecylamine on the surface of quartz, using a radioactive-tracer technique. The method used was that known as internal gas counting of carbon dioxide, formed by oxidation of the amine. This method has already been described, "3 ' and the reader is referred to these papers for details of the analytical method and procedures. and surrounding liquor, a technique analogous to chromatographic columns was utilized. The experimental setup is shown in fig. 1. The dodecylamine-acetate solution was made up in a volumetric flask and poured into the glass funnel shown. It was allowed to drip slowly onto the quartz bed, the rate of flow from the funnel reser- voir being controlled by a hose clamp. The quartz column was contained in a small, fritted-glass filter (size 20 mm, C). The beaded top edge of the filter was cut off to enable the holder and contents to fit into the open end of the 30/45 joint on the combustion tube. This combustion tube is used in the analytical train described in a previous paper.' A piece of gum-rubber tubing joins the bottom of the fritted-glass filter to a filter flask, which in turn is connected to a vacuum line, or water aspirator. The rate of flow of amine solution through the bed was

Jan 1, 1951

I am much pleased by your presentation of my article and flattered to the extent that the cover design refers to it. Incidentally, as between folks who like to work with words, refer to line 6, second full paragraph, page 773 (August Mining Engineering) Would "for" preceding technological have changed the percentages in lines two and three of the bold-face heading on page 770? The intent was coequality among three, (studies of mankind, of science, and of technological empirics). Thirty-three pct for "man" studies is a pretty big bite for engineering schoolmen; 50 pct they won't even examine, let alone nibble at. Arthur F. Taggart For those of you without a copy of the August issue handy, the sentence referred to read: The plea herein is to make the overall time allotment for studies of mankind coequal with those, for science and technological empirics.... Professor Taggart suggests that insertion of the word "for" would clarify the intent of coequality among three divisions of study: The plea herein is ... for studies of mankind coequal with those for science and (for) technological empirics. Editor.

Jan 1, 1952

By Ian MacGregor

INTRODUCTION I retired in 1977 and have been enjoying myself ever since doing odd jobs for various people - on occasions, politicians. I commend it to you as post retirement - get involved in situations that nobody else will take on. It produces all sorts of excitement, it is a lot of fun and, courtesy of the media, you provide great raw material for their current Punch and Judy shows. The example of the adventures in the Escondida financing made me think about the history of the minerals industry in the United States. In order to see more clearly what is going to happen in the future, we have to look at the past and what we have learned, and try to extrapolate from that a scenario for the future. This paper is about global material cycles and the financial needs of the extractive industries. Since about 2,000 years B.C. we have been living in the Iron Age. Since about 4,000 B.C. we have been living in the Copper Age. These have been the two foundations of modern industrial society. Understanding the use of metals and materials helps us understand the civilization in which we live today. Let me focus more closely on the United States, particularly in this century. In the first two-thirds of this century the United States was growing and expanding and developing. It was providing for its inhabitants a society which was enjoying the benefits of a rising standard of living, improved opportunities and the ability to support a population growing at quite a dramatic rate. It is still growing. In the Department of Commerce, there is a clock that shows how many people there are in the United States. It turns all the time; the numbers are going up. On January 21,1980, when Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President, the number on that clock was a little over 220 million, and in the last week before he left, it was travelling towards 245 million. During his period in Washington, we have added , the equivalent of one total state such as California. That gives the dimensions of the U.S. appetite for raw material inputs. The inputs are of critical importance. COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE During the first two-thirds of this century, the minerals sector enjoyed comparative advantages. There was a clear understanding of the importance of minerals enshrined in the tax legislation of the country from the early decades of this century - the depletion allowance. No other country identified as clearly that the supplies of minerals were finite. As they are used up, just as with a wearing-out machine, one must get capital back to replace the resource when the time comes. Within the last decade, that idea has been questioned and criticised. It is now seen as giving money away to a preferred part of the economy, instead of recognizing what depletion is all about. In previous times it insured that the U.S. always was able to regenerate the capital in its minerals industry, so that it could remain competitive. The U.S. had plenty of everything, including energy. We had a growing population. Equally important, we had an agriculture that led the world in productivity, even as far back as the turn of the century. It continues to do so. We still retain that comparative advantage, an ability to produce our foodstuffs in quantity and quality at excellent cost. Look at another ingredient of our comparative advantage, the energy position. We ran through the first two-thirds of the century with ever- decreasing energy costs. In the 1940s and 1950s the coal industry went into a decline. Why? Because the $3.00 - $5.00 a ton cost of mining coal in the U.S. represented relatively expensive energy. A ton of good grade bituminous coal contains 25 million BTU's. $0.20 a million BTU's represents $5.00 a ton at the pithead. That price was undermined by the increasing ability to find petroleum at even lower costs. At the apex of the growth of development of the American dominated

Jan 1, 1990

By Alexander L. Holley

THE 400-ton testing machine, ordered in June, 1875, by the United States Board appointed to test "iron, steel, and other metals," has lately been completed at the Watertown Arsenal, thoroughly proved and accepted by the Board. The excellence of the machine in every respect is more than satisfactory, and its accuracy is at first sight astonishing, although an investigation of its principles must show that if the weighing apparatus will weigh at all, it must do so with perfect accuracy, because all its movements are absolutely without friction. The proof experiments were numerous, and the effects of recoil after sudden ruptures at maximum loads, were watched with great care, but without much anxiety, because the weighing parts affected are by no means delicate in structure, and their motion is almost infinitely small. Among the tests were the following : A forged link of hard, wrought iron, 5 inches in diameter between the eyes, was slowly strained in tension, and broke short off with a loud report at 722,800 pounds. The diameter before breaking at the point of fracture was 5.04 inches; after breaking, 4.98 inches. In order to see if the weighing parts had been disturbed by the recoil, which was obviously near the greatest recoil the machine will ever suffer, a horse-hair was next tested ; it was 7-1000ths of an inch in diameter; it stretched 30 per cent., and broke at 1 pound. Other horse-hairs vary in tenacity between 1 and 2 pounds. Of course, the accuracy of the machine on such delicate specimens, and indeed on specimens having some hundreds of pounds tenacity, has been checked and proved by other weighing machines. A 5-inch round bar, turned down to 3 5/8 inches diameter along the centre, was pulled apart at 430,200 pounds tension. Then some more horse-hairs were tested ; also copper wires 19 1/2-1000ths of an inch in diameter, which averaged 25 pounds tenacity..

Jan 1, 1879

By G. R. Purdy, J. G. Parr

The intermetallic compound Ti2Co was studied by X-ray diffraction and metallographic techniques. The phase occurs off stoickzometric composition, with its greatest variance at high temperature. The solubility limits of the phase have been cletermined, and an amendment to the titanium-cobalt phase diagram is suggested. THE first intermetnllic compound to appear at the titanium-rich side of the titanium-cobalt system was found by Laves and wallbauml to be Ti2Co. They described this compound as isomorphous with Ti2Ni and Ti2Fe, and demonstrated that it had a face-centered-cubic structure with 96 atoms per unit cell. This contention is supported by the work of Duwez and Taylor2 and Orrell and Fontana3 who also determined the lattice parameter to be about 11.30A. Rostoker4 believed that Ti2Co did not exist, and that the phase considered by the other workers to be Ti2Co was Ti,Co20. However, Orrell and Fontana determined oxygen and nitrogen contents and found that their alloys did not contain sufficient of these elements to produce significant quantities of a stoichiometric oxygen compound. The present investigation was initiated to determine the composition limits of the phase Ti,Co.

Jan 1, 1961

By Ralph Arnold

PERHAPS the most striking feature in the three newly discovered fields in the Los Angeles basin is the enormous thickness of oil sand. The total thickness is not yet known in any of the fields, since no well has as yet been drilled deep enough to pass through it. In the Signal Hill area a maximum of 1500 ft. or more of productive sand has been penetrated. In the other fields the interbedding of considerable shale members renders the total sand thickness somewhat less, but in all cases the depth of sand strata is enormous when compared with other California fields. For instance, in the Coalinga field the total thickness of sand on the average has been less than 100 ft., while in the Midway and Sunset fields not more than 250 ft. of actual productive sand has been encountered in any one place. This condition has so upset all previous ideas regard-ing the possible future production that but few of the engineers who have had to deal with the situation feel

Jan 5, 1923

By William Glenn

Almost beyond doubt, the most important contribution to the assaying of copper yet made, is that of Mr. Eustis (Bans., xi., 120) on the " Comparison of Various Methods of Copper Analysis," which indicates in a manner for which the assayer cannot but feel grateful, how a copper sample ought to be treated from the moment it enters the laboratory until the copper is finally weighed. Admitting, as the present writer is inclined to do, that this paper establishes, as the official standard, the method of electrolysis, we may note as one of the few details which it does not finally fix, the kind of battery most desirable for precipitating the copper upon platinum. In this respect each assayer appears to be a law unto himself, while all feel more or less " shaky " as to the results. Classsen seems to suggest a remedy when he directs the measuring of the -gases liberated by the battery employed. But, in fact, that measure is not a constant in the Bunsen elements which he prescribes for copper determination. Furthermore, measuring gases necessitates more machinery and labor than the average assayer has a stomach for. It is, however, but just to Classen, to whom we owe so much, to reeall that he wrote more especially for students in the schools.

Jan 1, 1889

By C. A. Fisher

THE advent of the Rocky Mountain States into prominence as an oil-producing region is comparatively recent. Scarcely more than a decade has passed since the number of producing oilfields in this part of the country were few and their combined yield small and relatively unimportant. However, oil was discovered and recorded near the present site of Lander, Wyo., as early as 1833 and in 1867, on the comple-tion of the Union Pacific R. R., the site of this oil discovery was located, among other things, as a natural resource of economic importance. In that year a well was drilled for oil, to a depth of 480 ft., near Evanston, Wyo., but later was abandoned. In 1883, the Lander district witnessed the successful completion of the first oil well in the state. In Colorado, oil was first produced from shallow open wells near Canon City and sold to prospectors in 1864; in 1887, the Florence oilfield was discovered and a commercial production developed. While the Rocky Mountain States have never gained the prominence as an oil-producing region attained by the Pacific Coast, Mid-Continent, or Gulf fields, a substantial and increasing production is being taken from the Rocky Mountain province. At the close of 1923, the oil industry in this region has 38 oil and 21 gas fields producing, or capable of producing, oil or gas in a commercial way with a combined annual yield of nearly 47,000,000 bbl. of oil, a daily refining capacity aggregating about 90,000 bbl., upwards of 17,000,000 bbl. of crude in storage, and an 8-in. pipeline, nearing completion, 600 miles long which will connect the most prolific oilfield of the Rocky Mountain States with a trunk pipeline between Mid-Continent and the east at Carrollton, Mo. Several of the larger standard and independent operating companies are now represented in this region and, in the last ten years, there has been developed at Casper one of the large refining centers of the west. Fig. 1 illustrates the rise in production of four of the larger fields, also in the total production of the state; in addition there is given the yield of the larger fields of Wyoming and Montana for 1923.

Jan 3, 1924

By W. H. Schacht

The operations of the Copper Range Co. are located in the Michigan copper district at the southern end of the Keweenaw Peninsula, 8 miles southwest of Hough ton (the center of the district). All the producing mines are situated in a long narrow zone paralleling the peninsula and occupying the central portion. This zone is about 25 miles long and 3 to 4 miles wide. The important mines, in their order from northeast to southwest, are, Mohawk, Ahmeek, Allouez, North Kearsarge, Wolverine, South Kearsarge, Centennial, Calumet & Hecla, Osceola, Franklin, Quincy, Isle Royale, Baltic, Trimountain, and Champion; the last three are operated by the Copper Range Co. The existence of copper deposits in this district became known soon after the discovery of America. Many references by early explorers show that copper was found in the possession of many of the American Indians that inhabited the Great Lakes region. There is abundant evidence that exploration of these copper deposits extended into prehistoric times; and some indication that the American Indians carried on operations shortly before the advent of white men. An account of the finding of primitive mining appears in the Government publications of 1850-51 by Foster and Whitney. Although earlier expeditions by white men had been made to the Keweenaw peninsula, an attempt to commercialize the district was not made until after 1765, when Alex. Henry, a British subject, searched the shores of Lake Superior for mineral treasure. His first expedition took him to the Ontonagon River, where he found the famous mass of copper now on exhibition at Washington. In 1771, he started operations along this river with a crew financed by English capital; but after much difficulty and only meager success he found only detached masses while in search for a major deposit. There is no record of any cxploration from 1774 to 1820. In 1838, Dr. Douglas Houghton was appointed state geologist. Prior to that time he had made several visits to this region; and was the first white man to find

Jan 1, 1925