Search Documents

By C. C. Henning

In any line of human activity logical handling requires an amount of attention to each phase that is in keeping with the importance of that phase. In the complex and rapidly changing field of modern ferrous metallurgy it is difficult to allot the proper degree of attention to the various subjects, and it is not surprising that one or more subjects of major importance should for a time be neglected. Bessemer steel is a good example of a neglected subject. It is largely taken for granted, inferior physical quality is assumed for it, and there is a • lack of interest in its technical development and commercial application. Availability of supply is limited. In spite of this technical indifference, limited source and lack of commercial exploitation, bessemer steel constitutes a large volume of tonnage in daily use. There is a fairly prevalent idea even among technical people that bessemer steel survives mostly because of low cost and by reason of a dwindling residue of applications sufficiently common to permit of its use. The difference in cost between bessemer and open-hearth steel is governed largely by the relative cost of manufacture of pig iron and the market price of steel scrap. During the past four years there have been long periods of time during which the price of steel scrap was low enough so that open-hearth steel was considerably lower in manufacturing cost than bessemer. As to application, it may be pointed out that thousands of tons of this material in the form of bessemer screw steel are applied for moving parts in automotive and other equipment. Some forging work and considerable heat-treating, particularly carburizing, is performed on this grade. From an economic standpoint the most effective contribution of bessemer steel lies in its free machining qualities. It is by far the freest

Jan 1, 1935

By Benjamin N. Webber

Many of the auriferous placers of the arid Southwest differ widely from the standard types of stream and eluvial deposits of more humid regions, although exhibiting some of the features of each. This divergence in characteristics is of geological and economic importance and appears sufficient to warrant the consideration of these placers as a class distinct from both stream and eluvial deposits. It is hoped that the consideration of these auriferous gravels as a distinct type of deposit will facilitate recognition of morphological and economic features that might remain obscure if these deposits were viewed in the light of stream or eluvial placers whose type locality is a more humid environment. "Bajada placer" is proposed as the designation for this type of placer deposit. Bajada is the Spanish term for slope and is used locally in the Southwest to indicate the lower slope of a mountain range, the portion consisting of rock debris and standing at a much lower angle than the rock slope of the range proper. It has been used in a geologic sense by Schraderl and others. The type locality of bajada placers is the Sonoran Desert,2 where they occur on the bajada or rock debris slope of desert ranges. Stream placers are represented in the Southwest, but most of them lie within the mountain topographic province, the Mexican Highlands2 section of the Basin and Range physiographic province. Eluvial placers may occur in the mountainous semiarid Mexican Highlands but are almost unknown in the extremely arid Sonoran Desert, as mountain slopes are generally too steep to permit the accumulation of any considerable mantle of residual debris. Since their salient distinctions are almost wholly the result of formation under conditions of extreme aridity, bajada placers are largely confined to the Sonoran Desert, although a few occur in the adjacent Mexican Highlands. They may be modified by the action of ephemeral streams, in which case the placer gravels of these arroyos approach stream placers in type and habit of occurrence, but their relation to an arid environment and the bajada type is usually apparent.

Jan 1, 1935

By H. S. Gipson

A process that has come to be known locally as "multistage stabilization" has been developed in the Haft Kel field of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. in southwest Iran, for the recovery of casinghead gasoline. It consists in releasing the dissolved gases from the crude by stages, a practice common in many fields, but which, so far as is known, has nowhere been carried to the extent to which it is employed in Iran. It has been in use there for nearly nine years, during which time some 200 million barrels of crude have been handled by the process. This process of gasoline retention consists in preventing the greater part of the casinghead gasoline hydrocarbons (the butanes and pentanes) from ever leaving the crude, instead of allowing them to be vaporized and then recovered from the lighter gases by the usual compression or absorption processes. Its efficiency is fully equal to that obtained by the absorption process; its disadvantage is that it increases the quantities of ethane and propane in the crude sent to the refinery, but with the growing demand for propane this drawback is vanishing. When casinghead gasoline is recovered as a separate liquid in the Iranian fields, it is blended with the crude, as the only outlet is through the refinery, and the crude-oil pipe line offers the cheapest means of transportation. It is under these conditions that the retention of the butanes and pentanes in the crude by multistage stabilization is a most attractive process, possessing as it does the following advantages: (1) extreme simplicity, (2) low first cost, (3) easy installation! (4) practically 100 per cent operating-time efficiency, (5) no operators required, (6) no water or other services required, (7) negligible maintenance, (8) once established, very little routine testing is necessary. The one essential for reasonably efficient multistage stabilization is that the flowing pressures of the wells should be relatively high; i.e., they should not be less than about one-third the saturation pressure of the crude in the reservoir. This is a very general statement, of course, and much depends on the type of crude and its temperature.

Jan 1, 1940

By Samuel G. Lasky

In a recent discussion of the mineral resource position of the United States, published in the September 1946 issue of Mining and Metallurgy, I expressed my conviction that ore deposits of major magnitude remain to be found in this country and that they can be found without undue cost or risk. I stated with equally strong conviction, however, that if the search for such deposits is to be notably successful there must be, among other things, a reorientation of philosophy and mental habits on the part of many who would be connected with the search. I would now like to enlarge upon that statement. For such a purpose. we may consider that the search for concealed deposits involves four steps: (I) the selection of areas for further study; (2) the geologic study of those areas in order to verify their general favorableness and in order to choose specific patches worthy of being tested; (3) the decision whether exploration of the patches chosen should actually be undertaken; and (4) the exploration itself. The first two steps and the last rest upon the judgment and skill of geologists. The third step—the decision whether exploration should be undertaken—rests upon management. In my opinion, the philosophies or principles that have guided these steps in the past are now inadequate. Philosophy of Appraisal If concealed deposits are to be looked for, how are the places of their possible concealment to be recognized? Every known mineralized area still in the prospect stage has already been repeatedly examined and condemned. As for those deposits concealed under later rocks, there may be not even the clue of a near-by outcrop for engineer or geologist to consider. flow then, are we to know where to look? Geologic Probability In the early days of our mining industry, ore deposits were found mainly by "following the ore." Later, as such opportunities decreased, and as geologic concepts became accepted, deposits were found more and more through use of the notion of geologic probability. Many instances can be cited wherein a courageous operator ignored the implications of the unsuccessful efforts of predecessors and, solely by "following the ore," converted a discredited prospect into a good mine. Similar experience doubtless will occur in the future, but "following the ore" will no longer in itself find new deposits in the amount needed. Nor can enough new ore be expected from further use of the notion of geologic probability, for, as mentioned above, our known prospects have already been ex-

Jan 1, 1949

L. C. Graton, Cambridge, Mass.—The subject of chalcocite occur; rence and its geological significance has, of course, a very important commercial bearing, as shown by the recent remark of a hard-headed mining .man: "This secondary enrichment business is one thing you geologists have put up which we can hang on to, and come out right." Most enrichments of copper ores depend upon the formation Of chalcocite from leaner sulphides. Recently it has been shown that not only does there exist this secondary or derived chalcocite, * but that in certain ores the mineral is present as an initial or original constituent, which therefore we may call primary. The desirability of distinguishing between these two kinds of chalcocite is evident and has recently been emphasized. That constitutes the first problem in this connection. I believe many who are working upon secondary enrichment of mineral deposits are giving much attention to that particular question. It is now possible to distinguish primary from secondary chalcocite in many cases. In such cases, what do we know of the' conditions under which this secondary or derived chalcocite was formed? , This is the second main question in connection with the subject. It is now plain, at least in many instances, that the formation of this derived chalcocite represents a phase of oxidation if we have in mind the primary ore as the thing acted upon. The next important question—and it is most important—is: does such oxidation go on above the zone where the rocks are saturated with water—that is, above the water level—or below, or indiscriminately above and below? Many of you have, or have had, opportunities to study at first hand, day after day, occurrences that' enable valuable conclusions to be drawn upon these and other important questions concerning the formation and significance of chalcocite. It is greatly to be hoped that your testimony will be made available and undoubtedly it will go far toward clearing up some of these doubtful points. John D. Irving, New Haven, Conn.—A short time before this meeting was called, H. V. Winchell, who was unable to be present, requested me to exhibit and describe these two samples of pyrite. (Exhibiting specimens.) They consist of fragments of pyrite inclosed in two small bottles. The first bottle shows fragments of pyrite which were immersed in water carrying copper sulphate but without SO2 for a period of two years. They remained comparatively clear and bright. No chalcocite has been deposited on them. The second bottle shows fragments of

Jan 1, 1915

By Sunder S. Saluja

Man had to learn to break rocks as early as the Stone Age, when they formed his main source of raw material. He started with chipping and over the years has reached a stage where he can employ atomic blasts and break, with one blast, millions of tons of rock. In between these two extremes there have been several stages of development including firesetting, use of the expansion of water on freezing in chipped cracks in cold climates, the use of low or deflagrating explosive black powder in about the 17th century, the use of high explosives with the discovery of nitroglycerine in 1846 by Sobrero, followed by the monumental discoveries of the great Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The attempts to develop a stronger and still stronger explosive force were accompanied by investigations to understand the mechanism of failure of rock so that the force could be used to the best advantage; the latter, of course, have lagged far behind the former. This is mainly due to the fact that the chemical reactions involving high explosives as well as the processes resulting in the breakage of rock take place at too great a rate to be studied with the equipment that has been only recently available. Moreover, the development of stronger explosive forces was prompted by military necessities in the past and competition, at present, among highly developed nations. With the development, however, of the new techniques such as micro- second photography, microsecond flash radiography, extremely high-speed movies, strain gage assemblies, electronic chronographs and other improved electronic techniques, the investigator has in the last decade or

Jan 1, 1968

ONE of the problems that confronts the chronicler of the Porphyry story is to determine the date from which Morenci should be regarded as one of the group. The mines have the distinction of being the first operated in Arizona for copper. A small smelter was in operation as early as 1873 and in the eighties two smelters accounted for a substantial production ranging from 3,000,000 to 6,000,000 lb. per year. The first concentrator was built in 1886, but the ores were principally oxidized, and direct smelting ore still supplied most of the production. As early as 1893, the mining of somewhat leaner porphyry ores, containing copper in the form of the sulphide mineral, chalcocite, was commenced; but these still were of comparatively high grade and the concentrators were plants of 100 to 400 tons daily capacity. Moreover, the backbone of operations was still the production of rich oxidized ores for direct smelting. They assayed 10 to 15 per cent copper and the sulphide milling ores assayed 3 to 4 per cent. A significant comment appears in the Copper Handbook for 1908. Speaking of the Arizona Copper Co., Ltd., which was to become the most important component of the present Morenci enterprise, the editor, Horace Stevens, says: "A tremendous amount of ore is in sight, ore reserves . . . being estimated at 10,370,600 tons . . . " It seems fair to infer from this that the property was not yet regarded as an immense low-grade mine, but that the copper content of perhaps 70 lb, to the ton made an ore of "medium " grade even according to the standards of the time. Although the concentrating ore was typical of that in the porphyry group of mines (except for its greater richness), no one seems to have the least inclination to take from Utah the

Jan 1, 1933

By Eugene Coste

ALTHOUGH some of the observers who first paid especial attention to the occurrences of oil and gas in the strata (such as Hunt in 1859, Andrews in 1861, Winchell in 1865, Mendelejeff in 1876, Höfer in 1876, Minshall in 1881, and I. C. White in 1883) seem to have been impressed with the fact that oil and gas deposits were connected with the disturbances in the rocks caused by their upheaval,1 yet, with the exception of Mendelejeff, and possibly Andrews, these observers do not appear to have understood what is really the one essential factor in the occurrence of oil and gas in the strata: viz., the faulting, uplifting, fracturing, fissuring, and jointing always accompanying even slight rock disturbances, and in certain districts (petroliferous provinces)2 allowing solfataric hydrocarbon emanations to force their way up from the interior and to reach and impregnate the porous portions of sediments subjected to the disturbances. Instead of this simple explanation to account for the observed connection between petroleum deposits and rock disturbances, most of the observers mentioned above, and many others who have followed them on the name lines since, have entirely reversed the problem. To them, instead of the dissemination of gases from fissures into the sediments, it presented the accumulation and concentration, according to anticlinal or other geologic structures, of oil and gas originally present throughout the whole mass of the strata where they were produced by the decomposition or distillation of organic remains. Whether this important problem involves accumulation from sources within the oil-bearing strata themselves, or infiltration and dissemination from outside sources, may be easily determined if all preconceived ideas are put aside and the established facts only are considered.

Jan 9, 1914

By F. Cadena, Fred C. Bond, Walter L. Maxon

Grinding is one of the major problems in present-day milling practice, and in many cases, it represents one of the main items of expense. It becomes necessary from time to time, to compare grinding practice in one plant with that in another plant, and in making such comparisons, it would be very desirable were there available accepted standards of grinding resistance for the materials involved. Such a set of grinding constants would also be of considerable value in planning new grinding installations. There have been some tests published, notably those of Lennox,' which have been generally cited as a basis for such comparisons. Most of the tests made have been based upon open-circuit grinding, in which a weighed sample of the ore was crushed to pass a certain mesh, and was then ground under certain conditions, either wet or dry. Grinding was continued until a certain desired fineness was attained, and the comparisons based on the grinding time, or the samples were all ground for a certain specified length of time and comparison based upon the screen analysis of the products. Such methods have been acceptable where the ore was to be ground in open circuit. However, in modern milling practice, many grinding problems involve closed circuits wherein the oversize returns to the mill and a large circulating load builds up. A method of testing that does not take the circulating load into consideration might yield results quite different from those to be expected in practice, because the minerals in the ore that offer maximum resistance to grinding will accumulate in the circulating load up to an equilibrium value. Thus the nature of the ore charge in the mill at any instant may differ greatly from that of the new feed, with a consequent error in the rate of grinding determined by such a method. For example, let it be assumed that an ore to be tested consists of equal parts of difficult grinding mineral and easy grinding mineral. This is to be compared with an ore used as a standard, and consisting of minerals which are all of about the same grindability. If a comparison

Jan 1, 1935

By Harry L. McNeill

The Selective Media Process was developed by the author in a laboratory provided by The Steams-Roger Manufacturing Co. It is the outcome of an investigation into the possibilities of coarse beneficiation by sink and float without using the conventional heavy media. Commercial work to date has been limited to the treatment of minus 3/8-in. iron ore at the Hill Trumbull washing plant of the Cleveland Clifis Iron Co., at Calumet, Minnesota. Two cut away prints of the machine are shown (Figs. I and 2). A rotary conical impeller is mounted within a stationary cone (Fig. 2). This impeller is adjustable vertically by a 12-ton screw jack. The speed of the impeller can be varied from 14 to 32 r.p.m. by the Reeves variable-speed motor pulley mounted on the 7½-hp. motor drive. Attached to the bottom of the stationary cone is the automatic control valve for sink product, actuated by a ¼-hp. gear motor. The sink product is dewatered in a conventional drag driven by a 7½-hp. motor and discharged onto an inclined conveyor containing from 6 to 10 per cent moisture. Two plants are operated at the Hill Trumbull property. All the ore is first treated in a typical washing plant (Fig. 3). when treating "wash ore" a finished concentrate can be produced by the log washers and Akins classifiers, as the separation involves only fine silica (minus 48-mesh) and free iron. However, when "jig ore" is led to the washing plant the coarse

Jan 1, 1947

By Harry L. McNeill

The Selective Media Process was developed by the author in a laboratory provided by The Steams-Roger Manufacturing Co. It is the outcome of an investigation into the possibilities of coarse beneficiation by sink and float without using the conventional heavy media. Commercial work to date has been limited to the treatment of minus 3/8-in. iron ore at the Hill Trumbull washing plant of the Cleveland Clifis Iron Co., at Calumet, Minnesota. Two cut away prints of the machine are shown (Figs. I and 2). A rotary conical impeller is mounted within a stationary cone (Fig. 2). This impeller is adjustable vertically by a 12-ton screw jack. The speed of the impeller can be varied from 14 to 32 r.p.m. by the Reeves variable-speed motor pulley mounted on the 7½-hp. motor drive. Attached to the bottom of the stationary cone is the automatic control valve for sink product, actuated by a ¼-hp. gear motor. The sink product is dewatered in a conventional drag driven by a 7½-hp. motor and discharged onto an inclined conveyor containing from 6 to 10 per cent moisture. Two plants are operated at the Hill Trumbull property. All the ore is first treated in a typical washing plant (Fig. 3). when treating "wash ore" a finished concentrate can be produced by the log washers and Akins classifiers, as the separation involves only fine silica (minus 48-mesh) and free iron. However, when "jig ore" is led to the washing plant the coarse

Jan 1, 1947

By L. R. Ingersoll, James Fisher, Harry Vivian

The copper mines of the Keweenaw Peninsula in northern Michigan have long been of interest in connection with deep earth-temperature measurements. The extraordinary low geothermal gradient of l° F. in 223.7 ft. announced by Agassiz1 as a result of measurements dating from 1886, although later2 stated as in error, served to focus attention on this region as one offering, because of the great depth of the mines, unusual opportunity along this line. Lane,3 Van Orstrand4 and others have made valuable contributions to this study. Fresh opportunities afforded by the constant deepening of the mines, improvements in the accuracy and reliability of temperature-measuring instruments together with increasing knowledge of the heat conductivities and specific heats of the rocks, led the Michigan College of Mining and Technology in cooperation with some of the mining companies to renew work on this problem. It is planned eventually to complete a survey which will make use of the favorable opportunities for deep rock-temperature measurements presented in these mines. This survey should include the determination of a depth-temperature gradient in both conglomerate and arnygdaloid mines, and also the variations in temperature at the same depth in different geological formations. The first problem has a direct bearing on the question of providing equipment for necessary ventilation with increased depth. The second may show that a relation exists between the natural rock temperature and the mineral content of the formation. The measurements in all cases are to be guided by heat conduction considerations, to the end that they may represent as closely as possible

Jan 1, 1934

By John M. Hartman

On May 19th, 1857, an English patent was granted to E. A. Cowper for heating air or other gases under pressure by means of a regenerator inclosed in an air-tight iron case, having between the regenerator and case a lining of brick. This patent provided for heating the stoves by a separate fireplace, or by gas direct from the blast furnace. A number of forms of interior arrangement of the brickwork are shown in the drawings; also hollow poppet valves with hollow stems, and a pipe inside of the stem for circulating the water; the valve seats have coil cast in them for water circulation to keep them cool; slide valves, with snake coil cast in the discs, are shown, and the use of cold air for cooling the valves is also described. The combustion-chamber of these stoves was central, and openings mere provided at the top and bottom to get into the stoves. These Cowper stoves are all circular in section. November loth, 1865, an English patent was granted to Thomas Whitwell for regenerative stoves for heating air or gas, provided with cleaning openings at the top and bottom capable of being closed with firebrick plugs and doors. The drawings show a rectangular stove inclosed in an iron case. The interior brickwork has numerous upand-down passages through the stove, but there is no claim on the interior construction. March 3d, 1868, an English patent was granted to Charles Cochrane for a slide valve to be subjected to high heats. The disc of this valve was hollow, and had a circulation of water through it by the two hollow stems that operated it. The valve-seat was detachable and had a coil cast in it, through which water circulated. The valve and seat were placed on an incline to the body to cause the valve-disc to lie on the valve-seat. A cap was placed on the bottom of the body to get at the interior readily. January 5th, 1870, an English patent was granted to Siemens, Cowper and Cochrane for the construction of regenerators in firebrick stoves, with numerous vertical passages of sufficient size to allow a brush to pass through and clean them. These passages had slight projections on the sides to tarn the air over and over as it passed through. A claim also covered the use of horizontal passages connected at each end alternately, and the use of blasts or jets of air,

Jan 1, 1880

By L. G. Westgate

PART I.-AREAL GEOLOGY§ PIOCHE lies 240 mi. southwest of Salt Lake City, in southeastern Nevada, 19 in. west of the Nevada-Utah line. It is at the end of a branch line (33 m.), which connects at Caliente with the Los Angeles and Salt Lake division of the Union Pacific System. Its commercial relations are with Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, chiefly with the former. The surrounding area is part of the Great Basin, an arid region of alternating mountain range and intermont plain, the latter floored with outwash from the mountains. About Pioche the plain varies between 4700 and 6000 ft. above sea level. The town lies in a valley at the east base of a low northwest-southeast range (the Pioche Hills) 12 miles in length, which rises about 1000 ft. above the adjacent flat. West of the. Pioche Hills is a higher north-south range consisting of two parts: to the south the Highland Range, between Bennett Pass and Stampede Gap; to the north the Bristol Range, from Stampede Gap to Bristol Pass. This double range reaches altitudes of 8000 to 9000 ft., or more, (the highest point, Highland Peak, is 9395 ft.) and rises some 2500 ft. above the surrounding plain. It is continued in lower hills to north and south. Smaller ranges rise from the flat west of the Highland and Bristol ranges. The area studied and shown on the map (Fig. 1) is covered by 3 one inch to the-mile topographic sheets: the Highland Range, the. Bristol Range, and the Panaca, the latter mapped in part only. The sedimentary rocks of the district include Paleozoic limestones, sandstones and shales, Pliocene tuffs, and modern wash. Igneous rocks are represented by intrusive dikes and stocks and by extensive lava flows of mid-Tertiary time.

Jan 1, 1927

By S. F. Shaw

THE Sierra Mojada mining district is situated in western Coahuila, about 8 km. east of the Chihuahua state line, and about one-half way from the northern to the southern extremity of the state. It is at the terminus of the Mexican Northern R. R., 125 km. northeast of Escalón, Chihuahua; also about 240 km. due west of Monclova, Coahuila. The altitude is approximately 1500 m. above sea level. The Sierra Mojada valley is about 10 km. long, from east to west, with a width of 1 to 2 km. It is approached from the east through the Puerto del Oro, where the Mexican Northern R. R. enters the valley; the slope from west to east is gentle. The Sierra Mojada, of which about. 300 m. is an almost vertical wall, bounds the valley on the south side; on the north side, the slope to the crest of Sierra Planchada is more gradual, rising only 200 or 300 m. above the valley. Water is relatively scarce in the district, and there are no running streams. The rainy season, usually beginning at the middle of June, lasts through July, and occasionally into August or September. In some years the rains fail entirely. The slope of the ground is such that nearly all the water immediately runs off. The arroyos along 'the flanks of the mountains are not very deep, but in heavy rains, sometimes approaching cloudbursts, a tremendous volume of water rushes down them, carrying large boulders. A certain amount of seepage collects in the agglomerate, lying below the conglomerate, and is retained in the local fractures. Some shallow wells have been sunk in this agglomerate, and one well over 150 m. deep was sunk on, the Volcan ranch, supplying about 76 1. (20 gal.) per min. A considerable supply of water is collected in large earth reservoirs in and below the town of Esmeralda. In ordinary years this supply will last until January or February, after which the Volcan well has to be depended on until the next rainy season.

Jan 8, 1922

By E. T. Dumble

(San Francisco Meeting, September, 1915) THE history of the several petroleum deposits of Texas and Mexico, or of the sediments in which they now occur, if the deposits are not indigenous to such sediments, is known in a general way only, but it nevertheless casts strong light on the conditions surrounding them and is of great importance in the search for and exploitation of then. The petroleum deposits of Texas are separable into two main divisions: 1. The deposits of northwestern Texas, which are directly connected with the Oklahoma fields to the north, and have no representatives at all in the Mexican area. 2. The deposits of the coastal area, which extend into Louisiana on the east and connect with those of the Mexican coast to the south. Early in the Pennsylvanian period a series of bituminous shales and limestones were laid crown over a broad area in Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. These are known as the Bend series in Texas, the Caney shales in Oklahoma, and the Fayetteville beds in Arkansas. Following their deposition an uplift occurred, forming the Lampasas geanticlinal, which runs northeastward from the old Paleozoic land area of the Llano region toward Red River. The Bend series is petroliferous in places and has furnished a few producing wells on each side of the Lampasas uplift. This uplift forms the barrier and. dividing line between the two divisions of the Texas petroleum deposits. To the west of it, in waters which were the southern extension of the interior continental seas, in connection with the sediments and coal beds of the Pennsylvanian and Permian, great quantities of petroleum were deposited either as oil or as "potential petroleum." These sediments have been subject to very slight disturbance, and only very gentle folds. are found, with no signs of volcanic action in any part of the area. The conditions, therefore, indicate that the greater part, if not all, of the oil in this area is indigenous to the beds in which it is found.

Jan 8, 1915

By Robert H. Richards, Richard W. Lodge

A great deal of speculation, as well as actual experiment, has been devoted to ascertaining the changes in the materials (luring their descent in an iron blast-furnace, affecting (1) the chemical constitution, (2) the mechanical condition, and (3) the arrangement of the materials. With a view to throw some light upon the third question, we constructed a model and tried experiments which are here described. Our model is a vertical section of a furnace, with the lines of the Edgar Thomson furnace D of 1885 for the use of which we arc indebted to Mr. Gayley. The model is 40 inches high, and made to scale (1/2 inch equals 1 foot), and the horizontal section of the space through which the charge falls at any point in the descent is 11/2 in. x d, d being the diameter of the furnace at that place. We are unable to say just where the idea of making this model came from ; perhaps, partly from The Principles of the Manufacture of Iron, and Steel, 1884, I. Lowthian Bell, p. 124 ; partly, also, from

Jan 1, 1888

By A. S. Adams

A GLANCE at the list of papers1 that have been published since 1920 on the general subject of flotation suggests the variety of ideas that exist regarding the underlying cause of the phenomenon.' Among these ideas, we find several coherent theories, but none that adequately and completely explain the phenomenon. Ralston2 and Bains3 suggested an electrical theory which has to do with the attachment of mineral particles to a bubble by the attraction of unlike electrical charges. This theory has its root in the fact that a bubble of air in pure water is electrified in such a way that the surface is negatively charged while the body of the water is positively charged. This result, which was first discussed by Helmholtz, also obtains when the water contains anything except a high concentration of hydrogen ions, or ions which are trivalent or tetravalent. The theory also holds that the mineral particles have positive charges on their surfaces, and so there is attachment between bubble surface and mineral particles by the old law of electrostatics, which states that unlike charges attract. CONTACT ANGLE AND OIL ATTRACTION The contact angle-the angle formed by a fluid-fluid boundary when both are in contact with a solid-has been indicted several times for complicity in the phenomenon of flotation. This angle is supposed to indirectly measure the surface energy of a solid. Thus if we have two fluids in contact with a solid, we may express the difference between the two fluid-solid tensions as equal to the fluid-fluid tension times the cosine of the angle between the two fluids.4 If the two fluids are in contact with the solid, this is, no doubt, an excellent way of establishing relative surface energies. However, in flotation, we deal with substances which are not wetted by water. What assurance have we, then, that the angle

Jan 1, 1928

UP TO and including 1931, the twelve mines that were treated in THE PORPHYRY COPPERS had produced 17.4 billion pounds of copper worth $2,820,000,000. With a little help from six others (three of them did not start output until 1954) that record had been increased at the end of 1955 to 60.5 billion pounds worth $10,440,000,000. Today, ten billion dollars is not as impressive as it once was; but it still represents a lot of value. It must be remembered that this is newly-created wealth, produced entirely from material considered worthless when the Porphyry era started about fifty years ago. At that time "rock" that contained less than forty pounds of copper per ton was regarded by competent mining engineers as value- less. It was not "ore" in the economic sense. Today, ore is being successfully exploited that contains less than twelve pounds of copper per ton. Also, in Peru, a typical Porphyry operation is being launched by a partnership of four United States mining companies that will involve an initial capital investment of $200,000,000 for mine development, plant construction, and the provision of related facilities. Of this project more will be said at the end of the chapter. The point I want to make now is twofold: (1) that phenomenal progress has been made in Porphyry engineering and technology; and (2) that exploitation of an important Porphyry copper deposit has become an industrial enterprise of truly great magnitude. Much had been accomplished by 1931; but that progress has been dwarfed by the achievements of the past 25 years- a fact that, in the nature of things, is as it should be.

Jan 1, 1957

By Paul M. Tyler, Oliver Bowles

The extensive employment of nonmetallic minerals antedates the use of metals, but only within the last two decades has the production of nonmetals begun actually to keep pace with the complicated activities which characterize the so-called Machine Age. The economic changes ushered in by the Industrial Revolution were reflected first in an increased demand for metals and for fuels. In the modern sense, therefore, the nonmetallic mineral industries are new and afford new opportunities for engineer and economist alike. A certain amount of caution is indicated, therefore, before attempting to apply ready-made formulas to the problems of these industries. Economics is not an exact science. In the field of production technology where the number of variables is fairly well known, the principles of economics are readily applicable, but as the student proceeds through the province of marketing into the unexplored regions of psychology and sociology he must distinguish carefully between scientific reasoning and purely metaphysical speculation, even when the latter masquerades as economics. The present paper attempts to prove no preconceived theorems and is designed primarily to stimulate careful thinking on sundry neglected phases of these industries. An attempt is made to differentiate the general problems into single aspects which afford promise of being comprehended separately; also, some fundamental statistical data are presented, but merely to indicate a method of scientific approach applicable to more intensive studies. Definition Before discussing the economics of the nonmetallic mineral industries, it is appropriate to consider what we mean when we say "nonmetallic minerals." This term, inasmuch as it is merely a negative description, is somewhat loose and ambiguous and gives rise to questions in regard to minerals that, like chromite or bauxite, are alternatively classed either as nonmetallic or as metallic minerals (or ores). The chrome ore used to make ferrochrome for steel manufacture is undoubtedly metallic in character; similar material destined for use as a refractory in the same

Jan 1, 1934