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By AIME AIME

THE Coal Division holds its fall meeting in the Pocahontas coal field, at the West Virginian Hotel, Bluefield, W. Va., Oct. 9 and 10. The first day will be a busy one-two sessions for the presentation of papers and a dinner in the evening. Hon. E. Fudge, Assistant Undersecretary, Mines Department, and R. V. Wheeler, head of the Mines Research Board of Great Britain, will be the guests of the Division. Mr. Wheeler will discuss the British Mining Act as relates to the coal industry. George S. Rice, Chief Mining Engineer, U. S. Bureau of Mines, will present an account of the recent meeting at Buxton in England, of representatives of England, Germany, France, Belgium and the United States to formulate a plan and to correlate research work now in progress in the various countries. The second day the members will be the guests of the operators on a trip through the Pocahontas field. The work of preparation for the meeting is being actively pushed by committees headed by T. H. Clagett, R. M. Lambie and H. D. Smith, and a good attendance, both local and from the general membership of the Division, is anticipated. Because many will make the trip by car the principal automobile as well as rail-road connections to Bluefield are given here. The program for Friday, Oct. 9, follows:

Jan 1, 1931

By Fuad S. Maayeh, Robert J. Evans, Paul M. Yavorsky

A description and capabilities of the Mine Roof Simulator at the Pittsburgh Mining Technology Center is illustrated for testing longwall roof support equipment. This unique Mine Roof Simulator has the capacity to exert 3 million lbs. of compressive force vertically and 1.6 million lbs. of force horizontally to simulate loads on hydraulic supports typically found in longwall mining. The supports that undergo testing are instrumented with strain gauges and photoelastic coatings such that critically strained areas become readily apparent. These critically strained areas are redesigned or retrofitted with appropriate reinforcement and retested. A data base will be accumulated from several support designs that will lead to an optimized design that will have the potential to reduce downtime by malfunctions of supports and thus increase productivity. A typical test procedure and analysis is given for a two leg 350 ton shield along with a description for placement of strain gauges, displacement gauges, and hydraulic pressure monitors for critical sites.

Jan 1, 1982

By Nelson W. Taylor

With the extensive deposits of potash minerals which have been discovered in the southwestern states, and their rapid development, a permanent American supply of potassium compounds is now assured. The 325-year history of the potash industry in this country has been told by H. I. Smith1, of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the more recent activities of the Survey and of American potash companies were described last year by the same author2. In fact, it may be stated that so great is the productive capacity that two mines in New Mexico and one in California are able to supply more than half a million tons of crude and refined salts over and above that produced for agricultural purposes. The era of scarcity has given way to an era of superabundance. This situatiori makes it desirable for the potash producer to look for other applications for his product, and it is with this in mind that the writer presents some information pertaining to present and possible future uses for potassium compounds in the ceramic industry. Ceramic Products Ceramic products are essentially solid materials containing one or more oxides such as SiO2, Al2O3, CaO, MgO, FeO, K2O, Na2O, TiO2, which are the oxides of greatest abundance in the earth's crust. The typical ceramic process is that of firing or burning the batch, and the product may be glassy, crystalline or mixed. In the glassy or vitreous group come glass, porcelain enamel and glazes; in the crystalline group, refractory materials such as silica brick, or chromite or magnesia; and in the mixed group, porcelain, chinaware, stoneware, tile, brick, etc., which contain both a vitreous and a crystalline phase, in variable proportions. The ceramic industry of the United States is a billion dollar industry, and is important not only because of its magnitude but also because of the key position occupied by certain ceramic products in the whole manufacturing structure. From the standpoint of use of potash, the field of refractories is of no great interest, since K2O lowers the melting point of a refractory oxide and

Jan 1, 1938

By Nelson W. Taylor

With the extensive deposits of potash minerals which have been discovered in the southwestern states, and their rapid development, a permanent American supply of potassium compounds is now assured. The 325-year history of the potash industry in this country has been told by H. I. Smith1, of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the more recent activities of the Survey and of American potash companies were described last year by the same author2. In fact, it may be stated that so great is the productive capacity that two mines in New Mexico and one in California are able to supply more than half a million tons of crude and refined salts over and above that produced for agricultural purposes. The era of scarcity has given way to an era of superabundance. This situatiori makes it desirable for the potash producer to look for other applications for his product, and it is with this in mind that the writer presents some information pertaining to present and possible future uses for potassium compounds in the ceramic industry. Ceramic Products Ceramic products are essentially solid materials containing one or more oxides such as SiO2, Al2O3, CaO, MgO, FeO, K2O, Na2O, TiO2, which are the oxides of greatest abundance in the earth's crust. The typical ceramic process is that of firing or burning the batch, and the product may be glassy, crystalline or mixed. In the glassy or vitreous group come glass, porcelain enamel and glazes; in the crystalline group, refractory materials such as silica brick, or chromite or magnesia; and in the mixed group, porcelain, chinaware, stoneware, tile, brick, etc., which contain both a vitreous and a crystalline phase, in variable proportions. The ceramic industry of the United States is a billion dollar industry, and is important not only because of its magnitude but also because of the key position occupied by certain ceramic products in the whole manufacturing structure. From the standpoint of use of potash, the field of refractories is of no great interest, since K2O lowers the melting point of a refractory oxide and

Jan 1, 1938

By A. T. Yu

As the first year of full-scale shiploading operations nears completion, Chile's twin ports of Chafiaral and Caldera have proved instrumental in promoting the growth of that nation's iron ore industry. Located on the Iron Coast several hundred miles below Antofagasta, the two ports boast of new conveyor shiploading facilities uniquely adapted to their coastal environment. Until recently, iron ore producers in this region of Chile have been hampered by antiquated methods of loading crushed ore on ships for transportation to foreign buyers. Use of the "truck-to-lighter- to-ship" method, which dominated heretofore, was too slow and costly to permit expansion of productive mines and exploitation of new high-grade discoveries to meet the growing world demand for such ore.

Jan 8, 1960

By D. C. Jillson

BRIDGMAN1,2 melted metals in a graphite or hard glass tube and lowered the tube through a furnace to make it cool from one end only. Because of the difficulty of eliminating all vibration of the mold, others have raised the furnace instead. Neither way seems as desirable as a setup with no motion of either the mold or the furnace. A furnace in which both the shape and the slope of the temperature gradient could be controlled and varied over a wide range and in which such a gradient could be moved from one end of the furnace to the other, freezing the specimen from one end to the other, at any desired rate, all by means of isolated external control, seemed to offer definite advantages. In addition to eliminating the possibility of vibration due to moving parts, it might also give better control over the direction and rate of heat flow. Such an apparatus was assembled and is shown schematically in fig. 1. Equipment Furnace: A clay-carborundum tube of 3 1/2 in. ID with a % in. wall thickness was used as the core. This had a main winding of No. 12 B.&S. gauge Nichrome V with some compensation for heat loss at the ends. Taps to this winding were made at points 12 in. from each end. Fig. 2 shows details of this winding and of the two end windings. Each end winding was wound over Micanite over the main winding. No. 15 B.&S. gauge Nichrome V was used for these, and again taps were supplied at two inter-mediat,e points on each. The tube was supported in an 18 in. OD black iron shell with brick insulation. The input to each of the windings was regulated by means of a variable transformer. Temperature Regulation: A chromel-alumel thermocouple located near the furnace wall in the center of the furnace was connected with a Celec-tray controller, type PIC, 300" to 900°C range, which opened and closed a shunt across an external variable resistance in the main winding circuit. An "anticipatory response" device also was incorporated to minimize the cyclic effect of the control mechanism. Eleven survey couples in a common pyrex glass protection tube were located near the furnace wall and spaced 2 in. apart. The couple leads went to a common reference junction box where they were connected to copper leads from a selector switch which, in turn, was connected to a type K potentio-meter. This arrangement permitted rapid temperature surveys. The knob on the controller dial was replaced with a threaded brass spool turned at a controlled rate by a thin iron wire one end of which was attached to a gear train and the other to a small weight heavy enough to prevent slipping of the wire on the spool. The gear train, driven by a 1-rpm Telechron motor, contained a series of different sized interchangeable gears and threaded drums permitting a range of travel speeds from 0.10 in. per hr up to a hypo-

Jan 1, 1951

By F. S. Crawford

IRON and copper are mined in the Lake Superior district. The iron mines of the district have the best safety record for that industry in the country as a whole, while the copper mines of the district rank second in two of the four years recorded (Table 1). In Utah copper comes mainly from open-pit mines, which enables that state to lead easily in safety. All of the Michigan production comes from deep under-ground workings. About 60 per cent of the iron miners in St. Louis County, Minnesota, are employed at open-pit mines; this favorably affects the combined open-pit and underground accident-frequency rate, as this county pro-vides most of the Minnesota-mined iron ore. In Michigan, however, there are few open-pit mines, the bulk of the production coming from underground mines, while all of the Wisconsin production, just across the state line from Michigan, is from underground mines. In spite of the fact that fewer mines in Michigan use the safer open-pit method, the iron-mining industry of that state maintained a consistently low record from 1931 to 1934; however, it was many points behind its nearest com petitor, Minnesota, with its much greater production from open-pit mines.

Jan 1, 1939

By B. M. Larsen

IN endeavoring to put the art of the steelmaker on a more scientific basis, as a means of securing closer control of the product, we must be severely critical of the basis of any theory we use. In particular, we must be careful to distinguish between factors that are primary and those of only secondary importance. The concentration relations that determine the slag-metal equilibria, which are usually more or less closely attained, are of course of primary significance, but a clear picture of the whole process requires that the actual rates of the several reactions be taken properly into account. At the high temperature of the steelmaking furnace, all reactions might be thought to be very rapid, but some of them in fact are not; the essential causes of this condition are important to a proper understanding of the process. This paper aims to present, and to justify, the viewpoint that the most significant reaction is the oxidation of carbon in the metal, the progress of which determines the oxygen pressure levels in slag and metal and produces stirring effects, all of which influence the course of the process as a whole. REACTION RATES AT STEELMAKING TEMPERATURES General experience in reaction rates makes it almost certain that at steelmaking temperatures equilibrium is attained practically instantaneously when the reactants are well distributed in a single liquid phase -that is, in the so-called homogeneous reactions. The actual slowness of some of the reactions in the open-hearth furnace must therefore be attributed to a relatively slow rate of diffusion within the slag or metal phase, which limits the rate at which the reactants can meet each other in the liquid steel or at its surface. That the reactions can be made to go with great rapidity, by proper mixing and stirring of the reacting phases, is indicated by the following illustrations: I. In the Bessemer process there is intimate contact between air and the whole mass of metal, and the reactions are complete in a few minutes. 2. Perrin1 has demonstrated that by pouring liquid steel into slag contained in a deep ladle, and thereby producing almost a slag-metal emulsion, the phosphorus or oxygen content of the steel is adjusted immediately. 3. Barret, Holbrook and Woods observed a quite rapid rate of desulphurization when powdered calcium carbide was stirred vigorously into liquid iron. 4. When a spoonful of liquid steel is poured into a mold containing aluminum wire, the formation and precipitation of alumina occurs in the fraction of a second required to freeze the surface layer of the tiny ingot. The first three examples all show that any means of increasing the effective surface between slag and metal and promoting intimate mixture of the reacting phases, thereby obviating the limitation imposed by diffusion, will enhance the speed of the steelmaking process.

Jan 1, 1941

Adams, Bernard, Student, South Dakota School of Mines. Rapid City, S. D. '30 Ahlskog, Harold A., Student, Washington State College Pullman, Wash. '30 Aldridge, John, Student, New Mexico School of Mines Socorro, N M. '30 Almstrom, Adne A., Student, Met. Engrg., Washington State College Pullman, Wash. '29 Ancell, Virgil F., Student, Missouri School of Mines Rolla, Mo. '30 Ankudinoff, N., Mill Draftsman, Arthur G McKee & (:o., 2422 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio. '30 Apablasa, Salvador C., Student, Univ. of California Los Angeles, Cal. '31 Armstrong, Robert H., Student, Lafayette College Easton, Pa. '31 Armstrong, Thomas E., Student, Univ. of California Los Angeles, Cal '31 Aud, Robert A., Student, Lafayette College Easton, Pa. '30 Backus, Robert Small, Student, Mass.- Inst. of Tech . Cambridge, Mass. '30 Bailey, William C., Student, Univ. of California Los Angeles, Cal '30 Banning, Lloyd H., Student, South Dakota State School of Mines Rapid City, S D. '81 Barclay, M. G., Student, Colorado School of Mines Golden, Colo. '30 Barger, Thomas, Student, Univ. of North Dakota Grand Forks, N. D. '29 Barker, C. L., Student, Colorado School of Mines Golden, Colo. '30 Barker, Edgar Morgan. Student, Univ. of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah. '31 Barnwell, Earl E., Student, Oregon State College. Corvallis, Ore. '30 Bartholomees, Geo. C Box 304, Bonne Terre, Mo. '29 Bartholomees, Louis P., Student, Colorado School of Mines Golden, Colo. '30 Bary, Robert L., Student, Univ. of Kansas Lawrence, Kans. '30 Basham, Lester G., Student, South Dakota School of Mines Rapid City, S D. '31 Bates, Walter H., Student, School of Mines, Univ. of Utah .. Salt Lake City, Utah. '30 Beardshear, George T., Student, South Dakota State School of Mines.Rapid City, S D. '31

Jan 1, 1923

By B. G. Bunting, J. H. Johnson, H. J. Schock

This paper describes an experimental method for monitoring diesel-generated exhaust gas pollutants in a deadended drift to assess the effect of control approaches. Experiments were conducted to determine the relative merits of these ventilation configurations: no auxiliary ventilation, induction ventilation at the entrance to the drift, and ventilation of the dead-ended drift with positive displacement tubing. The drift used in this experimental work was approximately 32 m long and slightly downsloping, with an everage height and width of 2.4 and 8.6 m, respectively. For this drift, it was found that ventilation with positive displacement tubing provided the best removal of diesel-generate pollutants. Induction ventilation appeared to be the least effective of the three methods examined.

Jan 1, 1982

By J. C. Allen, E. V. Herring

CHILE EXPLORATION CO's. oxide plant at Chuquicamata, the largest of its kind, started in 1915 with initial operations at the rate of 10,000 tons of ore per day. Anaconda Copper Mining Co. acquired the controlling interest in 1923 and in the next few years modernized the plant and mine, extending operations to a nominal capacity of 490 million lb of electrolytic copper yearly by 1942. Plant production averaging 495.7 million lb of copper per year was maintained for the eight-year period extending from 1941 to 1948 inclusive. During the World War II production reached its highest level when in 1944 the output was 531.8 million lb. The maximum production for any one month was 49.6 million lb, achieved in May 1947. E. A. Cappelen Smith, consulting metallurgist for M. Guggenheim's Sons, worked out the first process for the treatment of Chuquicamata copper oxide ore about 1913, and directed a staff of 20 young engineers operating a pilot plant at Perth Amboy, N. J., on three shifts for an entire year. The copper is extracted from the oxide ore by a hydro-metallurgical treatment described in detail by T. A. Campbell in AIME Transactions, Vol. 106, Copper Metallurgy, 1933. The Oxide Plant is divided into five main operations as follows: (1) Crushing, (2) Leaching, including dechloridizing and sulphur dioxide treatment, (3) Tailing disposal, (4) Electrolytic precipitation, (5) Smelting and melting. Crushing The present Primary Crushing Plant has been in operation 25 years, during which time 4,342,112 cars of 70 tons net capacity have passed through the dumpers. The ore as received from the mine is frequently blocky and up to 5 feet in section. It is reduced to 9-in. size by two 60-in. gyratory crushers, and transported to the east and west ore bins by 60-in. conveyors. In the secondary crushing operation the ore is first reduced to 2 to 3-in. size by five standard 7-ft cone crushers and two No. 10 gyratories. This product is then reduced to 3/8-in. size by fifty-two 48-in. vertical Symons disc crushers and is transported by belt conveyors to the loading bridges from which it is charged° into the leaching vats. Conveyor belt No. 14 which serves the eight vats in the east section of the leaching plant has transported over 125 million tons of ore, which is a record for any type of conveyor. This 60-in. belt travels at a speed of 600 fpm and carries loads up to 5500 tons per hr. Leaching The ore is leached in 14 vats, averaging 13,500 short tons net capacity each. These vats are lined with a natural mastic which adequately resists the sulphuric acid leaching solutions. The leaching process as presently conducted comprises soaking the ore with successive volumes of leaching solution and spent electrolyte and withdrawing successive volumes of enriched solution from the vat to a total of approximately 3.2 million gal. The first 1.6 million gal of this volume withdrawn is called strong solution and contains about 35 parts of copper per 1000. The balance of 1.6 million gal subsequently withdrawn is stored in a

Jan 1, 1952

By C. H. Curtis

THE valuable mineral content of the current feed to the Miami concentrator is as follows: copper, 0.7 pct total; molybdenum, 0.01. Flotation of this ore yields a sulphide concentrate containing: chalcocite, 44 pct; molybdenite, 0.5; pyrite, 50.0; insol, 5.5. A combination of potassium ethyl xanthate and pentasol amyl xanthate as collectors, and pine oil, as frother, are used in this flotation. Rejection of pyrite is encouraged by holding the amount of collectors used to the minimum consistent with copper recovery and by operating at high alkalinity (equivalent to 0.35-0.40 lb CaO per ton solution of pH 11.0).

Jan 1, 1950

By William H. Hartwig

A paper by Rose1 has called attention to some of the problems of wetting-liquid relative permeability measurement. The premises and conclusions set forth by Rose, namely the applicability of the Hassler scheme of measurement, will be accepted. In addition, it will be concluded that certain electrical analog circuits can be used as a pattern for consideration of possible hydraulic systems of measurements. NEW SCHEME OF MEASUREMENT The object of this note is to propose a new scheme of wetting liquid relative permeability measurement. It is significantly different from those heretofore described, nonetheless it is based on Hassler concepts. The scheme is illustrated in Fig. 1 in terms of the corresponding electric circuit analog. It may be designated descriptively as the "comparison" method of wetting-liquid relative permeability measurement. In this circuit, R, represents the resistance of the core sample which is being studied for relative permeability characteristics, R represents a "standard" resistance, R represents the combined series resistance of the barrier pads, R R2 represent the combined series resistance of barrier pads in the manometer circuit, C, C represent the capacitance of the manometers, E is a constant voltage source, S is the switch or stopcock. The following conditions are imposed upon .the network: Rb » R, and R, R,» R, R, » R., and the condensers C, and C,

Jan 1, 1953

By Norman Weiss

The need for more efficient utilization of labor in the metal-mining industry has been the subject of several recent editorials in the mining press, and one attractive possibility for such improvement lies in the designing of future milling plants particularly with economy of manpower in mind. We are accustomed to think of mill design as the selection and coordinated arrangement of process equipment, but if labor is to be efficiently utilized it must be given early consideration in planning the new mill. There are three good reasons for economizing in labor: (I) to reduce costs, not only in the form of wages but also in housing, hospital, welfare, and other obligations that a company accepts when a new man is added to the payroll; (2) to prepare for recurrent periods of manpower shortage, during which a well-designed plant can manage to get along with skeleton crews; (3) because a milling plant that must depend upon an inordinately large labor force for its operation and maintenance is certain to be inefficient in other respects, for many of the shortcomings in design that make necessary the excessive use of labor are generally not corrected merely by having too many men. A simple example of this is a poorly designed ore-feeding system : if this is inadequate to the extent that one man must be constantly unclogging feed chutes, it may help the situation to put two men or three at this task instead of one, but the feed rate will still be inconstant. First of the factors that affect labor saving is the location of the mill. This is often determined by transportation costs alone, and as a result the mill may be placed close to the mine regardless of the nature of the terrain. The designer must then adapt his layout to the conditions, favorable or not. This happens often at small properties, where capital investment may seem more important than operating expense. In most instances, however, a mill site carefully selected for the advantages it gives the designer in laying out the plant is the most economical in the long run, even if it involves a slight increase in cost of ore haulage. Given some freedom of choice, the design engineer may be able to find just the piece of ground that provides the proper gradient for the needs of the flowsheet, permits installation of essential yards and trackage, and perhaps supplies an excellent site for a tailing dam. Further justification for having placed the mill not too close to the mine sometimes emerges only years later as an opportunity to treat ores from other properties. When it is known from the beginning that the new mill will serve a number of scattered mines, a free choice of mill site is naturally stimulated. The most important single factor in limiting the labor requirements of a mill is its materials-handling system for bring-

Jan 1, 1947

By Norman Weiss

The need for more efficient utilization of labor in the metal-mining industry has been the subject of several recent editorials in the mining press, and one attractive possibility for such improvement lies in the designing of future milling plants particularly with economy of manpower in mind. We are accustomed to think of mill design as the selection and coordinated arrangement of process equipment, but if labor is to be efficiently utilized it must be given early consideration in planning the new mill. There are three good reasons for economizing in labor: (I) to reduce costs, not only in the form of wages but also in housing, hospital, welfare, and other obligations that a company accepts when a new man is added to the payroll; (2) to prepare for recurrent periods of manpower shortage, during which a well-designed plant can manage to get along with skeleton crews; (3) because a milling plant that must depend upon an inordinately large labor force for its operation and maintenance is certain to be inefficient in other respects, for many of the shortcomings in design that make necessary the excessive use of labor are generally not corrected merely by having too many men. A simple example of this is a poorly designed ore-feeding system : if this is inadequate to the extent that one man must be constantly unclogging feed chutes, it may help the situation to put two men or three at this task instead of one, but the feed rate will still be inconstant. First of the factors that affect labor saving is the location of the mill. This is often determined by transportation costs alone, and as a result the mill may be placed close to the mine regardless of the nature of the terrain. The designer must then adapt his layout to the conditions, favorable or not. This happens often at small properties, where capital investment may seem more important than operating expense. In most instances, however, a mill site carefully selected for the advantages it gives the designer in laying out the plant is the most economical in the long run, even if it involves a slight increase in cost of ore haulage. Given some freedom of choice, the design engineer may be able to find just the piece of ground that provides the proper gradient for the needs of the flowsheet, permits installation of essential yards and trackage, and perhaps supplies an excellent site for a tailing dam. Further justification for having placed the mill not too close to the mine sometimes emerges only years later as an opportunity to treat ores from other properties. When it is known from the beginning that the new mill will serve a number of scattered mines, a free choice of mill site is naturally stimulated. The most important single factor in limiting the labor requirements of a mill is its materials-handling system for bring-

Jan 1, 1947

By R. A. Generes, H. C. H. Darley

Laboratory tests showed that at elevated temperatures a reaction takes place between all metal hydroxides and clay muds, which results in a thickening or solidifying of the mud, the extent of which depends on the nature of the ingredients. Calcium hydroxide gave the strongest solidification whereas barium hydroxide only caused a mild thickening, indicating that the use of barium hydroxide muds instead of lime muds would be a good way of preventing high-temperature solidification. It was found possible to prepare barium mud in the laboratory with caustic soda and a thinner in the same manner as lime muds, and these barium muds had the same or better toleration of high solids content, resistance to salt contamination, and low gel strengths as the corresponding lime muds. Three field trials have been made with barium mud. The principal difficulty encountered was in determining the correct proportions of the tourly treatments required to maintain low gel strengths. A satisfactory systern was finally developed, and low gels were maintained throughout the third test. The wells on which the trials were made were not carried deep enough to test the resistance to solidification adequately, but oven tests at 350°F were made periodically and no tendency to solidification was noted except immediately after severe cernent contamination had introduced excessive amounts of calcium into the system. Although barium hydroxide costs considerably more than lime, the total mud costs were as low, and on the last well significantly lower, than the average cost of lime mud wells drilled in the vicinity. INTRODUCTION The advantages of repressing dispersion and hydra-tion of clay cuttings carried in the mud, particularly when drilling through thick clay formations, are well recognized. This repression is generally achieved by the use of lime, and lime muds have in consequence the desirable characteristics of high toleration of solids, low thixotropy, and good resistance to contamination. They have, however, the disadvantage of high-temperature solidification. This phenomenon has been described in detail by Gray et al, who have shown that it is the result of a chemical reaction between the hydroxides and the clay minerals. The work described in this paper was undertaken to find a substitute for lime which would not cause this solidification. LABORATORY EXPERlMENTS The principal positive requirement for a substitute for lime is that it should repress the hydration and dispersion of clay. It is well known that monovalent cations promote hydration while polyvalent cations repress it. Therefore, a few representative polyvalent salts and hydroxides were tested to determine whether they could be used as substitutes for lime. Their efficiency at repressing hydration and dispersion was measured by means of the clay-volume test. It has been shown elsewhere' that this test is a good measure of degree of dispersion of clay in suspension and that hydration accompanies and correlates with dispersion, so that measuring one measures the other. The test is made by centrifuging a 1:100 mixture of mud and 1-N NaCl and observing the volume of sediment—the greater the volume, the greater the dispersion. The tendency to caux solidification was measured by heating the muds in pressure vessels for 16 hours at 150°F and 370°F. An approximate quantitative

Jan 1, 1957

By T. B. Counselman

An iron blast furnace of 1000 tons daily capacity will produce a 100,000 cu. ft. per minute of blast-furnace gas. This contains a 25 per cent of carbon monoxide, and has a B.t.u. value of about 95. gas is used primarily for heating the stoves of the blast furnace, secondarily, under boilers, for steam production. Occasionally it is used in gas engines. The raw gas coming out of the furnace carries about 10 grains of dust per cubic foot of gas, under best operating conditions. With furnace "rolling" or slipping, this quantity may temporarily be gre increased. This dust would, of course, deposit on the checkers o: stoves, or plug the burners under the boilers; therefore the gas : be cleaned. Flow Sheet The first step in the cleaning operation, as shown by the flow s Fig. 1, is a dry dust catcher, of which there are several forms, partially cleaned gas next goes to a primary wet washer, where v sprays knock down most of the solid particles. If further cleani desired, the gas may then go to electrical precipitation. Again, the removed is collected in water. Dry dust catchers reduce the dust col from 10 grains to between 4 and 6 grains per cubic foot, and rec roughly half of the total flue dust in the gas. The wet washers rea most of the remaining dust, reducing the dust content to about 1/4 per cubic foot. Electrical precipitators, if used, further reduce the content to about 0.01 grain per cubic foot of gas. The flow sheet s the dust content of the gas at various steps in the treatment and als content of solids in the water. It should be noted that some plant less water on the primary wet washer than indicated, and that ofte solids content of the scrubber water will be 300 grains per gallon, or much higher. Reasons for Recovering Flue Dust.—There are two main incentive recovering flue dust from the scrubber water: (1) the value of the (2) stream or lake pollution, where such a reason applies.

Jan 1, 1937

South Carolina Geological Survey, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S. C. Stephen Taber, State Geologist Two bulletins have been issued by the South Carolina State Geological Survey: Bulletin 1, A preliminary report on the clays of South Carolina (1908), and 2, Catalogue of the mineral localities of South Carolina. Members of the staff of the Department of Geology of the University have published many papers which have appeared in print from various sources

Jan 1, 1933

By Gerald A. Munson, Fremont F. Clarke

DURING recent years the use of lithium has expanded greatly in industrial, chemical, and metallurgical fields, while at the same time modernized methods of mining and refining lithium have increased production. Technical literature includes many papers describing the geology and mineralogy of lithium deposits. Mining and beneficiating problems, however, have not been thoroughly described. Published reports have failed to emphasize that one of the chief reasons lithium minerals were not extensively mined until recently is the difficulty of beneficiation. Four lithium minerals of pegmatites and the lithium-sodium-phosphate byproduct from the brines at Searles Lake, Calif., have been sources of lithium. Among the pegmatite minerals, only spodu-mene and petaline are known to occur in deposits large enough to support large tonnage operations. Spodumene, a lithium-aluminum-silicate, is the principal lithium mineral mined in the U. S. Lithium Corp. of America, during its rapid development and growth, has successfully employed three different methods of concentration: 1) hand sorting, 2) Heavy Media separation, and 3) froth flotation. Each method, though economic in its sphere, is becoming outdated as extractive techniques improve. The most recent development has taken place at Lithium Corp.'s new operation in North Carolina, where the extractive process yields lithium compounds directly from mined rock without an intervening concentrating step. Until 1954 Lithium Corp. mined only in the southern part of the Black Hills of South Dakota, where the various types of lithium-bearing pegmatite could be used to develop untried processes of beneficiation. Concentrates from these operations are shipped to the corporation's chemical plant in St. Louis Park, Minn., where actual extraction of lithium and production of commercial compounds takes place. Nature of Deposits The geology of the southern Black Hills pegmatite deposits is admirably presented by a U. S. Geological Survey publication.' Only the factors pertinent to exploitation need be mentioned here. Lithium Corp. has been interested primarily in three deposits, the Edison, the Mateen, and the Longview-Beecher No. 2. The history of these deposits dates back to the mining boom of 1880 to 1900 in the Black Hills, when most of the deposits were prospected for tin by the ill-fated Harney Peak Tin Mining Co. The three deposits described here, however, lay idle and unwanted until Lithium Corp. opened the Edison mine in 1943 and the Mateen and Longview-Beecher No. 2 in 1951. Edison Deposit: The Edison deposit is about a mile southeast of Keystone, S. D., on the northeastern flank of the Harney Peak uplift. The deposit consists of no less than four and probably at least six separate pegmatites that coalesce in a central mass from which the individual pegmatites finger outward and downward in complexly folded schist and gneiss beds of the country rock.

Jan 1, 1956

By Frances Hurd, Clark

Iv 1897, Roberts-Austen(l)$ found an arrest in the thermal curves of alloys of 60 per cent. copper and 40 per cent. zinc. This break occurred from 450° to 470° C. Shepherd, (2) working in 1904, was unable to detect any change in the direction of the thermal curve. In 1911, Carpenter and Edwards(3) confirmed the work of Roberts-Austen and called this a eutectoid transformation of beta to alpha plus gamma. Hudson') in 1914, showed that the beta constituent could be produced synthetically at temperatures below the transformation point. He believed the change in the beta was polymorphic in nature rather than a eutectoid. The work of Matsuda(32) in 1922 demonstrated this break by thermal analysis, microscopic investigations, dilatation, electrical resistance measurements, and a thermoelectric study. He believed the transformation to be continuous from 300° to 480° C., and comparable to the A 2 transformation in iron. Later, in 1924, Andrew and Hay, with electrical resistance measurements, confirmed Matsuda's work. Imai(28) showed the transformation to be progressive and therefore a function of the temperature rather than the time. He stated that it was neither a eutectoid nor an allotropic change of phase. Atomistically expressed, it was a change, not of atomic configuration, but of atomic energy of some kind; and again it was compared to the A 2 transformation in iron. Imai believed that his analyses by X-rays led to the same conclusion. In order to study this change, at 470'C., in homogeneous 60:40 brass, Homerberg and Williams «0> and Homerberg and Shaw(41) quenched their material in iced brine to obtain the beta solid solution and reheated at various temperatures. At 200° C., a change in the microstructure and physical properties occurred. A fine-grained structure, which they termed alpha and which had the appearance of a sorbitic steel, appeared, with an increase in the tensile strength to 82,750 lb. per sq. in., and a Brinell ball hardness of 240 with 3000 kg. load. At 470° C., the alpha

Jan 1, 1927