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By Howard N. Eavenson

ALL of the matters so far taken up by the Institute Committee on Stabilization of the Coal Industry will be of help, but it seems to be that under present conditions not very much can be expected until the railroad situation has been improved. As an instance of this, I would cite the fact of our experience at our mines in West Virginia and Kentucky. During 1917 and 1918 at our West Virginia plants we produced for our own consumption, practically entirely in the Chicago district, about 4,750,000 net tons of coal. In 1919 our output was reduced to 3,500,000 tons, this being caused partly by the shortage of orders in the few months following the armistice, but more particularly by The car shortage which began last September and continued throughout the remainder of the year, with the exception of December. This car shortage has been more acute since the first of the year, and while we now have an actual capacity here of 20,000 tons daily and have the equipment to produce it, with the possible exception of a few houses, we are able to average only about 12,000 tons, and in consequence, about 30 per cent. of our by-product ovens in the Chicago district are idle, and a number of blast furnaces are down for the want of coke. These figures, of course, refer to conditions before the strike of switchmen in April was started.

Jan 1, 1920

By WALDEMAR T. SCHALLER, EDWARD P. HENDERSON

THE material available for mineralogic study, consisted of drill cores, 2 to 3 in. thick, supplemented by small well cuttings. Such study has added no essential new information regarding the minerals, though the refractive indices, used for determinative purposes, have been determined more accurately than before, permitting the development of a scheme for the rapid identification of these minerals. The essential points brought out by the investigation are two: (1) that certain mineral associations evidently point the way to an understanding of the geologic history and (2) that a definite sequence of mineral formation has taken place so that the original minerals formed have been in part-reacted on producing new compounds and associations; Twenty minerals have been found. The most important are :

Jan 1, 1929

By James Aston

INDICATIVE of the practical importance of the achievement of James Aston , recipient of the Robert W. Hunt Medal for 1930, is the following prosaic item from the financial columns of a recent issue of a New York newspaper. "According to private advices from Pittsburgh, production costs of the A. M. Byers Co. for 1929 were reduced about $5 a ton by the use of the Aston process for making wrought iron pipe. A greater saving is anticipated for 1930, when more of the company?s requirements will be produced by the new method."

Jan 1, 1930

By John H. Puffer, Andreas H. Vassiliou

The Bemco mine area is within the Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rock terrain of the New Jersey Highlands province. Rocks In the area include a pyroxene granite, a hornblende granite, a quartz-oligoclase gneiss and a pegmatite and its host rock, a lens of amphibolite which becomes a sulfide-rich pyroxenite near the ore zone. The ore-bearing zone occurs along the hanging wall and foot-wall contact of the pegmatite which was emplaced discordantly into the amphibolite-pyroxenite.

Jan 1, 1985

By J. E. Johnson

OF the many items of information necessary to the successful management of the blast-furnace, few are more important than knowledge of the location and movement of the stock-line: whether the furnace is full and has. been kept so; whether the stock is settling regularly or slipping; and, if slipping, how often it has slipped, at what times, and how far at each time. To obtain these data, a man is sometimes stationed at the top of a. pair of mechanically-filled furnaces, simply to watch and gauge them by hand in the old-fashioned way. - A more recent practice is the suspension of test-rods from ropes leading over pulleys to the ground-level, where the ropes are wound on small drums with graduated peripheries and provided with crank-handles, whereby the skip-man or some other person can quickly and conveniently gauge the position of the stock-line in the furnace. I believe the credit for this great improvement belongs to Messrs. McClure & Phillips of Sharon, Pa., who were, as far as I know, the first to apply it, and who have a patent for it. The valuable indications gained by application of the Uehling pyrometer to the down-comer are Dot to be ignored; but the information thus furnished is somewhat indi¬rect, and there is no scale for the translation of "top-tempera¬tures " into " feet down." Moreover, this apparatus as a whole is delicate, and the cost of its installation and maintenance is high. If the record furnished by the Uehling pyrometer is not in the most desirable form, the test-rods, on the other hand, give no record at all, except through the memory, or notes of a man who, to say the least, is not gauging continuously, and who may omit to report an improperly low stock-line, if it be due to a fault of his own.

Mar 1, 1905

By AIME AIME

ANNOUNCEMENT of the annual meeting to be held Feb. 18 to 22 inclusive will be mailed the latter part of the month to all members. Particular attention is called to the fact that application has been made for reduced rail- road fares on the Certificate Plan. When you purchase your railroad ticket be sure to ask for a CERTIFICATE for yourself and members of your family. Last year over 400 members and dependent members of their families attending the meeting secured return railroad tickets at half price by means of this certificate, thereby saving thou- sands of dollars. Those who fail to obtain this certificate when purchasing going tickets will lose money. Unless 250 certificates are validated at headquarters it will be impossible for anyone to secure the reduced rate.

Jan 1, 1929

By Peretti, E. A.

Since its development about forty years ago by J. V. N. Dorr (Cyanidation and Concentration of Gold and Silver Ores, McGraw Hill Book Co., 1936, 1-5), and others, continuous countercurrent decantation has not only become one of the standard methods for extracting gold and silver from their ores, but has also found wide application in other metallurgical and chemical industries. In 1917 L. B. Eames published an excellent paper (Countercurrent Decantation, Trans AIME, 1917, 57, 143- 158), in which he determined the effects of grade of ore, ratio of solution precipitated to ore treated, variations in the density of the thickener spigot discharge and variations in the value of the barren solution upon the gold assay of the solutions discharged from the thickeners in the system. Eames showed that, other things being equal, the dissolved gold lost in the tailing varies directly as the value of the ore and as the value of the barren solution. The tailing loss de- creases rapidly as the ratio of solution precipitated to ore treated is increased to about three or four to one. Beyond this point the improvement is negligible.

Jan 1, 1949

By Russell G. Haworth

Three companies, United States Potash Company, Potash Company of America, and International Minerals and Chemical Corporation, are now operating potash mines and refineries in the Carlsbad, New Mexico, area. The three mines are located approximately twenty miles east of Carlsbad. The deposits have been found ideal for mechanized mining methods. This summary has been compiled from information made available by the three operating companies.

Jan 1, 1949

By R. T. Gallagher

FOLLOWING recent precedent, the Mineral Industry Education Division opened its first session on Sunday afternoon at the Columbia University Men's Faculty Club with an unexpectedly large attendance. The first session was presided over by the Division Chairman, A. F. Greaves-Walker. The first paper, a preliminary report on college enrollments in mineral technology curricula, by W. B. Plank, though incomplete, pointed to a general over-all reduction of 38 per cent in enrollment in mineral industry curricula. Following that, A. C. Callen's paper elicited many comments. It presented the results of a survey (no direct questions asked) addressed to officials in the mining industry. J. L. Bray spoke on war production drive methods and results and his slides gave visible evidence (and much laughter) of the success of the drive. C. L. Wilson's able presentation covered not so much present status but the future status of accelerated mineral technology programs after the war. The last paper of the first session by Edward Steidle, was handed out in mimeographed form.

Jan 1, 1943

By John Hays

AT the December Board meeting, the report of the William Lawrence Saunders Medal Committee, recommending the award of the medal to John Hays Hammond, was received and unanimously approved. The citation is: "For his notable work as an engineer and developer of mines at home and abroad, his industrial leadership and his public services." The medal will be presented as usual during the meeting in February, presumably at the annual dinner at the Waldorf, on Feb. 20. The other medals to be given on the same occasion are the James Douglas, which goes to Paul D. Merica, and the Robert W. Hunt, which is awarded this year to Edgar C. Bain, as already announced. This will be the third award made of the Saunders Medal for "Achievement in Mining," previous recipients having been David W. Brunton in 1927, and Herbert Hoover in 1928. The list is a distinguished one and Mr. Hammond's name is appropriately included. His career is so widely known that it is not necessary to repeat the account, published in MINING AND METALLURGY last April.

Jan 1, 1929

Jan 1, 1908

By Augustus Locke

San Francisco Meeting, October, 1911.) Two Opposed Interpretations of the Tonopah Structure.-The important geological publications concerning the Tonopah mining-district are those of Spurr 1 and of Burgess.2 In these publications are presented fundamental differences of interpretation, which are the more interesting because both authorities have had ample opportunity for observation, and because both are geologists of proved ability. I was vastly puzzled to know which had the better of it, and in order that I might reach a conclusion in my own mind, I recently spent some time in the district going over the physical evidence. Surprising as it may seem, this evidence looks agreeably conclusive. A review of it will, I believe, be of interest to those who are familiar with the previous publications. The general geological features of Tonopah are shown in Fig. 1, and the differences of interpretation referred to are outlined in the accompanying notes. Briefly, Burgess regards the various rocks as flows, lying in the order of their deposition. Spurr regards them in part as flows, and in part as flat-lying intrusives. The disagreement, then, concerns the rocks regarded on the one hand as intrusives, and, on the other hand, as flows. These rocks are chiefly the so-called calcitic andesite, the upper rhyolite, and the lower rhyolite. Economic Importance of the Question of Interpretation.-The economic importance of the question of interpretation is, of course, limited to its bearing on the probable distribution of 1 Geology of the Tonopah Mining District, Nevada, Professional Paper No. 42, U. S. Geological Survey (1905). Report on the Geology of the Property of the Montana-Tonopah Mining Co. (1910). An abstract of this report is given in the Mining and Scientific Press, vol. cii., No. 16,p. 560 (Apr. 22, 1911). 2 The Geology of the Producing Part of the Tonopah Mining District, Economic Geology, vol. iv., No. 8, pp. 681 to 712 (Dec., 1909).

Feb 1, 1912

By Edward Halse

The occasional occurrence in metalliferous veins of rounded fragments of rock, matrix or ore, lying loose, embedded in clay, or enclosed in some kind of cement, may be attributed to four causes:— I. They have been washed in from the surface, or from an upper portion of the vein.. II. They are of concretionary origin. III. They have been produced by movements in the country-rock or in the walls of the vein. TV. They have been formed in situ, by the upward, downward or lateral flow of water in the vein itself. In this paper the word " conglomerate " is confined to a rock composed of rounded fragments or pebbles cemented together, as distinguished from a " breccia," in which the rock-fragments are angular. * I. Boulders and Pebbles which have been Washed in from the Surface, or from an Upper Portion of the Vein. In this type it is presupposed that the vein at one time communicated by a fissure or open space with the surface, or with the upper portion from whence the fragments have been washed. One well-authenticated occurrence was described long ago by Fournet. Owing, no doubt, to later dislocations in the lode, pebbles from an old alluvium and sands containing titaniferous iron, as well as fragments of wood, were found in a vein at Huelgoet, in France. " Toutes les parties tendres du filon de Pranal ou ces phenome'nes sont les plus prononces ont 6th excaves jusqu'a d'aasez grandes profondeurs par I' impetuosite des torrents, qui out depose la matiere alluviale.'"

Jan 1, 1906

New zinc fuming plant of the Cia. Metalurgica Del Norte S.A., a subsidiary of the American Smelting & Refining Co., nears completion at the Avalos Smelter, near Chihuahua City, State of Chihuahua, Mexico. The plant is scheduled for completion on July l, 1952. The erection contractor is Utah Construction Co. Supervising engineer for Asarco is Leslie E. Harris, AIME. [ ]

Jan 1, 1952

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS EUGENE McAULIFFE, Chairman. L. E. YOUNG, Vice-chairman. CHESTER A. FULTON WIILBER JUDSOIN PAUL D. AMERICA FINANCE COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS ERLE V. DAVELER, Chairman. HENRY KRUMB H. Y. WALKER ADMISSIONS FELIX E. WORMISER, Chairman GEORGE D. BARRON. Vice-Chairman CARROLL A. GARNER PHILIP KRAFT E. M. WISE

Jan 1, 1942

By Walter Harvey Weed

INTRODUCTION. IN a previous paper upon the enrichment of mineral veins by later metallic sulphides,† the writer has shown that certain masses of rich ores, such as are found in many mines, either near the water-line or as bonanzas in depth, are of secondary origin, and are due to a leaching of lean ore and the concentration of the material by reaction between the solution and the unaltered ore below. The geological and mineralogical evidence is believed to form an adequate basis for a chemical and physical explanation of the phenomenon. In the present paper the writer will give a brief synopsis of this theory, and will apply it more particularly to deposits of the precious metals, laying special emphasis upon the dependence of such enrichments upon the presence of iron sulphide (as pyrite, etc.) in the primary ore, and upon structural features which control the circulation of the enriching solutions below the water-level. It is believed that many, though not all, of the bonanzas and pay-shoots of rich sulphide ores, especially those carrying gold and silver, which are encountered in ore-deposits, are of such secondary origin. Apparently it is essential that the occurrence and structural relations of such ore-masses should be understood, as the success of the mine is often dependent upon the finding and extraction of these ores. A legitimate deduction, too, is that such ore-deposits decrease in value with depth. As my own studies have been mainly in Montana, my illustrations must be drawn from the ore-deposits of this and adjacent States, with such as I have noted in hurried visits elsewhere. The literature of ore-deposits doubtless affords also

Jan 1, 1902

By H. K. Livingston

A TECHNIQUE has been developed which makes it possible to determine the spreading pressure of liquids and solids, for simple systems. Data for surface tensions, interfacial tensions, spreading pressures, and contact angles for water, heptane, and silica are tabulated. These results can be applied to the evaluation of capillary rise and displacement pressure in a petroleum reservoir. Appropriate equations are presented and the application of these equations is discussed. The presence of surface-active components affects both capillary rise and displacement pressure and also seems to influence the rate of fluid flow.

Jan 1, 1942

By Rossiter W. Raymond

(Read at the Wilkes-Barre Meeting, May, 1877.) THE 12th of April, 1877, witnessed the celebration, at Freiberg, Saxony, of an event profoundly important for the ancient mining industry of that district, and full of interest to mining engineers throughout the world-namely, the connection of the famous Roth-

Jan 1, 1878

By Y. P. Chugh, R. A. Missavage

Moisture has been known to influence strata failures in coal mines for a long the. A concise review of what is known about effects of moisture on strata control with emphasis on the Illinois basin coal mines is presented in this paper. Some approaches to mitigate the effects of moisture-leaving coal in the roof, guniting, shotcreting, application of sealants-are then briefly discussed.

Jan 1, 1982