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By R. R. Knuckey

HAVING been associated with the operation of the de Vooys process for coal, which has treated 13,000,000 tons per annum, and recognizing the process as of value in ore sorting, Huntington, Heberlein and Co. Ltd. (Great Britain) in 1936 made an examination of all other existing methods. In none of the pioneer applications had recognition been given to the necessity for maintaining certain conditions that are essential for sorting certain ores if a truly efficient separation by gravity alone is to be assured. Consequently, in 1936-1937 Huntington, Heberlein and Co. Ltd., with Pearson, employing certain ideas connected with the de Vooys application, commenced the development of a separator that would allow conformance with optimum conditions in the zone where separation is effected. Later, Holt and Wade added to the value of the original application by Wuensch, Rakowsky and others, whose conceptions are being successfully operated today. Meantime, Trostler had enhanced the value of the original H-H. process by improvements that are now embodied in operating plants, and today the process incorporates an improved apparatus and a stable medium that produce the optimum conditions for separation. These conditions are: 1. Elimination of disturbing currents in the separating zone; 2. Reduction to a minimum of medium-density differences throughout. the separating zone; 3. Stable medium of minimum viscosity to permit the unretarded fall of mineralized particles; 4. Removal of products of separation with minimum disturbance to the separating zone. DESIGN OF SEPARATOR The H-H. sink-and-float separator consists of a pyramidal tank in which the separation actually takes place, connected at the bottom with an inclined bucket elevator. The tank and the elevator are filled with medium to within a few inches of the top of the tank. Medium is fed into the separator at a variety of points, according to the type of ore being treated, and it is withdrawn from the separator at two points: (1) together with the float product, by means of a variable-speed paddle, at the surface of the medium, and (2) by flowing over an adjustable weir cut in the side of the elevator casing. The prepared ore is fed onto the surface of the medium. The intermediate paddles, which revolve at a slow speed of 2 to 5 r.p.m., move the floating ore across the bath from feed end to float-discharge end. The ore, which is heavier than the medium, sinks below the sweep of the paddles and reaches the boot of the bucket elevator, which discharges it without disturbance of the separating zone. These arrangements for withdrawing medium from the separator allow the use of minimum flows, which connote minimum

Jan 1, 1943

By MALCOLM FRASER

I was delighted to be invited to be patron of this Joint Conference, but the challenging task you have set yourselves, and your speakers' depth of expertise, deny anyone, even the patron, the opportunity to be patronizing. Australia's history has been inextricably linked with the fortunes of our great mining industry. That link will remain. Just as the gold rushes of the last century, and the discoveries at Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill changed the lives of generations, so the more recent development activity in iron ore, bauxite, nickel, coal, and uranium are having a significant impact on the lives of Australians today. The minerals industry has contributed to Australia's jobs and prosperity. Mining is not free of problems, but so long as safeguards are strong and appropriate the net benefits the mining industry brings Australia will continue to be enormous. We rely on our mining industry to find, prove, develop and sell our minerals profitably, and my Government is committed to maintaining a healthy mining industry. In the past year there have been positive signs of a resurgence in exploration and development. The North-West Shelf ventures are spending $50 million on a feasibility study to work out the extent of future investment in that project; exploration expenditure for minerals other than petroleum increased by 34 per cent in 1976-77 to $134 million; petroleum exploration increased dramatically last year almost doubling to $94 million-this year it is projected to reach $125 million.

Jan 1, 1978

By Frank Haas

THE public generally has-become aware that there is something wrong with the coal industry and a clamor has arisen for an explanation if not a remedy for this disorder. It is only reasonable that this Institute be looked to for a diagnosis to show the way for some other .agency to prepare the patient for prescription or operation. The subject is extensive, widely diversified, and beyond the efforts of an individual to cover completely; one of the objects of this paper is the initiating of a symposium on the non- technical factors essential to an understanding of the bituminous coal industry. The present condition of the coal industry cannot be described in a few words but, in effect, it resolves itself into a simple statement: The average coal operator is losing money notwithstanding a firm conviction on the part of the consumer that he pays too much for his coal. Without enumerating the many and varied. factors which contribute to this condition, this paper will be devoted to the interrelation of taxation and ownership of coal and its effect on finance

Jan 1, 1930

By Terkel Rosenqvist

J. Chipman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.)—The fact that the experimental work has been applied to copper rather than iron and that the paper is presented to the Iron and Steel Division, I regard as rather significant. It shows the unity of metallurgy and the fallacy of trying to cut it up by metals. This result for the solubility of sulphur in molten copper correlates with Professor Schuhmann's finding that the published data on the other side of the copper-sulphur miscibility gap are also in error. I should like to ask the author to say a little bit more about the sulphur capacity of the slag. T. Rosenqvist (author's reply)-—I hope that Dr. Chipman will find the derivation of the expression for sulphur capacity more clearly explained in the printed version of the paper than in the oral discussion at the meeting. I feel that this quantity, which actually is the ratio of two activities, can be measured more easily than the individual activities. Even if the ratio CaO/CaS is chosen as the standard state, the expression can be used for any slag, even for slags completely free of lime, and it represents a way to put the desulphurizing power of all slag constituents into one bag. Some doubt has been expressed as to whether oxygen ions really exist in calcium oxide and in molten slags. From a thermodynamic view point that question is of minor importance. The term oxygen ion activity, or any activity for that matter, is defined rigorously by the equation: activity = exp p/RT, where p is the change in free energy connected with the transfer of one mol of ions from the standard state into the slag. Whatever happens to the ion in the slag is of no concern to the thermodynamicist. Regardless of whether the ion is "free" in the slag or not, or whether it is present in a very small amount, its activity can always be expressed, and for a thermo- dynamic calculation that is all we need. However, ionic activities will only be of some real value if they are simple functions of the slag composition, or can be measured easily. Concerning the real nature of the oxygen in the slag, my feeling is that the oxygen atom has a rather multiplex nature depending on how strongly it is tied by covalent forces or polarized by the other atoms or ions present. The oxides of iron, cobalt, and nickel differ from calcium oxide and blast furnace slags as to the amount of free electrons that can give rise to electronic conductivity. In slags we know that the conductivity is mostly ionic. The fact that reversible emf's can be obtained with oxygen electrodes in certain salt melts, indicates a significant amount of oxygen ions in these melts. But extended work, e.g. polaragraphic studies and measurements of transference number; are needed to obtain quantitative information about the real structure of the slags. D. E. Babcock (Republic Steel Corp., Youngstown, Ohio)—-With reference to the ion, it might be well to remember Dr. Moses Gomberg. All of his life he had no use for the ionization theory and he contributed greatly to the field of chemistry on the assumption there was no such thing as ions. I do not think we have to worry about whether the oxygen is ionic or not. I think one thing specifically should be brought to your attention and this I think is one of the important contributions of Dr. Rosenqvist. He pointed out what we know as oxygen potentials or what is described as oxygen potentials. I have used this concept for a long period of time and I want to state that if this concept is properly applied, it vitiates much of what we have in the literature, or makes our usual ideas regarding oxidation seem primitive. That one thing is more valuable than almost all the rest of the discussion as a fundamental basis on which to build a reasonable in-

Jan 1, 1952

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Jan 1, 1961

By AIME AIME

MEXICO embraces one of the great metal and petroleum producing provinces of the world. In this respect its history dates back to the overthrow of the Aztec empire by a Spanish force under Hernando Cortes between 1519 and 1.521. Even before then, its richness in silver and other minerals was not unknown. But it was a treasure house for the Spanish conquerors until the country became independent in 1821. It has been computed that in the 400 years following 1521, Mexico yielded 1.55,000 metric tons of silver, worth $3,000,000,000, two-thirds of the entire world production. In 1935 the country accounted for 36 per cent of the world's silver output, 14 per cent of its antimony (in 1934), 13 per cent of its lead, 3 per cent of its zinc and copper, and 21/2 per cent of its petroleum. Contrary to the impression of some, its gold output is now comparatively small, though important in the past. Its oil, as well, formerly hulked much larger than now, in 1921 being one-fourth of the world output.

Jan 1, 1936

By Ellsworth Daggett

THE system of pitwork used with the Cornish pumping engine, and which, for want of a better name, we may call the Cornish system of pitwork, consists essentially of a series of plunger-pumps, situated one below the other, in a shaft or incline, the plungers being operated by a rod called the pitman or pump-rod, which must, therefore, extend from the motor at the surface to the lowest pump. The subject will be best understood by reference to Fig. 1, in which k may be taken as typical of the ordinary plunger-pump, in which S is the suction pipe, u, the lower valve situated in the H piece T; v, the upper valve situated in the valve-box O; I, the mounting-pipe or column through which the water is carried to the surface; L, the plunger-barrel, and P, the plunger working through the stuffing-box, and actuated by the branch rod r, which is attached to the main pump-rod, R. The action of the pump is as follows : On the ascent of the plunger, acting now by suction, the water flows from the reservoir through the valve u, into the barrel, L. On the descent of the plunger, the water is forced up through the valve, v, which acts merely as a check valve, into the pipe, I, through which it is, at each successive down-stroke of the plunger, forced upward until it reaches the next reservoir, from which it is taken by another similar pump, and so on until it reaches the surface or drain-tunnel. The pump is obviously only single-acting, i. e., it acts only during one-half of its entire stroke. The weight of water raised during the up-stroke of the plunger is equal to the weight of a column of water whose base is the area of the plunger and whose height is the mean distance between the plunger-face and the surface of water in the lower reservoir, a distance not usually exceeding 12 or 15 feet, and which obviously cannot under the most favorable circumstances, exceed 25 or 30 feet. The water forced up during the down-stroke is equal to the weight of a column of water whose base equals the area of the plunger and whose height equals the length of the mounting column above the mean position of the plunger-face, say from 150 to 300 feet. Almost all of the useful work, therefore, is done on the de-

Jan 1, 1879

Albin, B. R. Billings, Mont. '28 Amster, Nathan L 25 Broad St., New York, N. Y. '28 Bache, Jules S 42 Broadway, New York, N. Y. '28 Barrett, C. P 5338 Harper Ave., Chicago, Ill. '28 Baum, Frank G., Cons. Hydro-Electric Engr Cassel, Shasta Co., Cal. '28 Bayless, William S Russ Bldg., San Francisco, Cal. '28 Bean, Louis H., V.P., Dwight P Robinson & Co., Inc. 125 E. 46th St., New York, N. Y. '28 Beatty, Ross J 1105 First National Bank Bldg., Chicago, Ill. '28 Benwell, Oswald F 110 Gilpin St., Denver, Colo. '28 Beymer, Albert S., V P., Keystone National Bank Pittsburgh, Pa. '28 Blumenthal, Hugo 44 Pine St., New York, N. Y. '28 Boettcher, Charles Ideal Cement Bldg., Denver, Colo. '28 Bowlus, Thomas H Iola, Kans. '28 Brown, Colvin B. .. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D. C. '28 Burt, Maxwell Struthers Southern Pines, N. C. '28

Jan 1, 1923

By AIME AIME

DURING the morning session," on Feb. 17, papers were presented and discussed regarding a recent wire saw installation, cement rock quarry operations, hydration factors in gypsum deposits and the status of the phosphate industry of the West. Oliver Bolvles presided and there were about twenty-five members present. W. M. Weigel's paper (T. P. 262), "The Application of the Wire Saw in Marble Quarrying," was read by the author. He described the recent installation of the St. Clair Marble Co., near Guion, Ark. Since the use of the wire saw for quarrying is comparatively new and the fact that it has been almost entirely limited to slate quarries heretofore, ?he description and data given in this paper were of much interest.

Jan 1, 1930

By Oliver Bowles

EACH year the broad diversified field of industrial minerals offers a panorama of new and interesting developments that not only concern the welfare of the industries themselves but have a more or less direct influence on the lives of citizens at large. Thus, the home life of multirudes may be affected by new building units that transmit light through walls instead of windows, by illuminated processed marble lighting fixtures and decorations, by the vast impetus given to thermal insulation Ly .mineral wool, expanded vermiculite, and related products, and, more remotely, by fireproof rugs and drap-

Jan 1, 1937

By AIME AIME

FREDERICK WORTHEN BRADLEY, the newly elected president of the Institute, may be said to be the prototype of the men who have built up the great mining industry of the West. He was born in Nevada County, Cal., on Feb. 21, 1863, and studied mining at the University of California from 1882 to 1884, as a member of the Class of 1885. He was in contact with the mining industry from his earliest years and in his reminiscences which we published last month, he told of meeting Thomas Mein and H. C. Perkins in 1877. Beginning as assayer and roustabout at the Eagle Bird mine, in Nevada county, Mr. Bradley was a deputy mineral surveyor in 1886 and 1887 and superintendent of the Spanish mine from 1885 to 1890. There he made a record of mining gold ore at 65 cents per ton that was not only astounding in that day when modern large scale mining had not yet been developed but is still a mark to shoot at. As a result he was called in 1890 to be assistant manager of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan and was made manager in 1893. In 1897, he was elected to the presidency of the company, a position he still holds. H. C. Perkins and D. O. Mills, the largest stockholders in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Co. took over the Tacoma smelter in 1898, feeding it with concentrate from the Coeur d'Alene and Douglas Island mines but also doing a gen-era1 smelting business. Mr. Bradley was put in as president of the Smelting company, and held that position until the plant was sold to the American Smelting Securities Co. in 1905.

Jan 1, 1929

By L., Ormsby

DRILLING and blasting practices in the Morenci open pit have undergone considerable modification in recent years. Changes in the character of the ground being mined, modifications of working conditions, and continuous experimentation have been the contributing factors.

Jan 1, 1950

By R. Chanchani

Single and mixed mineral flotation behavior and the mechanisms for the loss of selectivity in 1:1 and 95:5 apatite: dolomite mineral mixtures are presented. Loss of selectivity in mixed mineral systems is attributed to depletion of oleate ions available for adsorption by bulk precipitation with calcium and magnesium ions dissolved from dolomite. Flotation after two-stage conditioning was found to be a potential technique to separate dolomite from apatite. This method involves conditioning at pH 10 followed by reconditioning at a lower pH. The results indicate that selective flotation of dolomite, a minor mineral in south Florida phosphate deposits, could be obtained by reconditioning at pH below 4.5. Higher selectivity was observed for mixed minerals as compared to that of single minerals.

Jan 1, 1986

By Clyde E. Williams

THROUGHOUT its history the American iron and steel industry has constantly striven to improve the quality and reduce the cost of its products. No one needs to be told how well it has succeeded. Its success in making steel products at such a low cost has been achieved mainly through large-scale production. While costs have gone down as the rate of production and the degree of mechanization increased, quality of product has been actually improved. Thus high-tonnage records are important only in the light of high quality of the steel. Quality is the watchword! Continual improvement in quality has come as a result of research, not only in the laboratory but in the large commercial units in the plant. In fact, so many operations of the industry are on such a huge scale that experimental work must be done under commercial operating conditions so every progressive steel plant is a research laboratory.

Jan 1, 1938

By Oliver Bowles

A NORTH CAROLINA miner dreamed that he found high-grade mica by excavating a certain corner of his mine. The next day he sank a hole on the exact spot and found mica of excellent quality. The dream came true. May not this be as good a method as any yet known for forecasting the valuable mineral content of pegmatites? The Federal Geological Survey has found in its recent detailed studies in New England that good sheet mica occurs most abundantly in zoned pegmatites, particularly in zones lying along the wall or contact of the pegmatite mass. Although this conclusion may be a valuable guide, pegmatite mining operations must still be classed as most uncertain and hazardous enterprises. Finding of the second largest diamond ever discovered in the United States-a stone of good gem quality weighing more than 34 carats-during the course of a horseshoe pitching contest at Peterstown, W. Va., is another example of unorthodox mining methods. These should not be considered, however, as characteristic mining methods developed in 1944.

Jan 1, 1945

By Thomas T. Read

Jan 1, 1913

By Anthony William Deller

MAJOR battles in the present war have been fought in American research laboratories. Without the outstanding contributions made by our scientists, engineers, and technologists in mining and metallurgy, many of our achievements in the present war would have been impossible. All recognize the fact that modern research has found the answer to problems which seemed insuperable. For the duration, many of these inventions must be maintained as war secrets. But aside from these, the record of accomplishment in peace and war, especially in the past few decades, known to all, demonstrates what scientific and industrial research can accomplish. It may be regarded as axiomatic that the development of modern industry is based principally upon research devoted to making inventions and discoveries. We have come a long way from the sixteenth century, when Agricola published his classical "De Re Metallica:" With our vastly increased knowledge we are now commercially producing dozens of metals entirely unknown at that time. Further, with our modern methods of research and development, a large number of invaluable alloy compositions have been produced. These include numerous age-hardenable alloys, cupronickels, "Everbrite", "Everdur", "Duralumin", "Elinvar", "Hastelloy", "Inconel", "Invar", "Monel", "Ni-chrome", "Ni-Hard", "Ni-Resist", "Permaloy", "Silcrome", stainless steels and irons and other alloy steels, "Stellite", and zinc die-casting alloys.

Jan 1, 1945

By ALEXANDER S. CORSUN

THE main orebody in the Hecla mine, Burke, Ida- ho, occurs along a nearly vertical shear zone in the Burke quartzite, with a substantial gouge and lamprophyre dike occurring in an irregular manner throughout the lode. The veins range from 3 to 40 ft. wide and dip from 70 deg. to 90 deg. There is 110 definite line of demarcation between the lode and the wall rock. Stringers of ore are often found in the wall rock for irregular distances. Horizontal but irregular quartz stringers are also found running into the walls and positions of the wall have a tendency to break to the quartz stringers and the accompanying gouge, which causes indefinite, uneven and extremely heavy side and top pressures.

Jan 1, 1930

By C. W. Crispell

THE four nomograms presented in this article were designed to simplify and make more, rapid the calculations connected with the compression and transmission of air. The formulae involved are rather complicated, but the graphic solutions are simple; their use requires an ability to follow explicit directions and to interpolate values on a logarithmic scale. ? For the sake of convenience, the nomograms will be divided into two classes, and the purpose and accuracy of each will be discussed. Compression It is frequently desirable to determine the horsepower necessary to compress a given amount of free air from atmospheric pressure to a certain final pressure. The nomograms in Figs. 1 and 2 present a rapid method of calculating the horsepower required to compress 1 cu. ft. of free air per minute by single or two-stage compression. The general formula for the horsepower required to compress air adiabatically is: HP = S X 144/33,000 PVn/(n-1) [(P'/P) n-1/Sn -1] (1) where: P = absolute atmospheric pressure at compressor, in pounds per square inch. P' = final absolute pressure of compressed air, in pounds per square inch. V = volume of free air compressed per minute, in cubic feet. S = number of stages. n = exponent of the compression curve.

Jan 6, 1917

By Pol Duwez

IN the course of an investigation of the V-CO system, two intermediate phases were found. One of these phases corresponds approximately to the stoichiometric composition VCo and is isomorphous with the sigma phase in the Fe-Cr system.' The second phase has the composition V3Co; its crystal structure is described in the present note. The alloys were prepared by mixing the two metals in the powder form, pressing a small disk weighing about 5 g at 80,000 psi, and arc melting this disk on a water-cooled copper plate in an atmosphere of pure helium. The details of this technique have been described.' The vanadium powder was obtained from Westinghouse Electric Corp., Bloomfield, N. J. This powder is probably of very high purity, since when it is properly sintered or melted in the above-mentioned arc furnace, ductile specimens are obtained. The cobalt powder, from Charles Hardy, Inc., New York, contained 0.5 pct Ni, 0.1 pct Cr, and traces of Si and Fe. After melting, the V,Co samples were sealed in evacuated quartz tubes and homogenized for ten days at 800°C. Powder diffraction patterns were obtained with a 14.32 cm diam camera, using Ka copper radiation. The patterns were readily indexed on the basis of a primitive cubic lattice with a parameter equal to 4.675A. The density, determined by the immersion method, was 6.71 g per cu cm; hence the number of molecules per unit cell is approximately 1.95; i.e., 2. At this point, the possibility that the structure might be that of beta tungstena became apparent. The beta tungsten structure is described as follows: Space group 03,, — Pm3n 2 Co in (a) : 000; ?4lhYZ (hhl) reflection present only if 1 = 2n. Assuming this structure to be the correct one, intensities were computed by means of the usual eauation: 1 + cos220 I oc p F sin 0 cos 6 where F is the structure factor, 0 the Bragg angle, and p the multiplicity factor. The observed and calculated values of sin 0 and the intensities are given in Table I. The agreement between the observed and the calculated sin 0 is good and there are no flagrant discrepancies between the calculated intensities and those estimated visually. The (hhl) reflections for which 1 is odd are not observed, as required by the space group. In addition, the (410), (430), and (531) reflections are missing as expected, because of the special (a) and (c) positions in0%. However, six reflections—(llo), (220), (310), (411), (422), and (510)—which have very weak computed intensities were not observed. For these reflections, the structure factor is proportional to the difference between the scattering factors of the two atoms in the structure. Since the scattering factors of vanadium and cobalt are not very different, these reflections are weak. However, by using Ka chromium radiation, whose wavelength is just above the absorption edge of vanadium, the effective scattering factor of vanadium may be decreased by one or two units; consequently the difference between the cobalt and vanadium scattering factors is increased. It was, indeed, found that in a powder pattern taken with chromium Ka radiation, the three reflections (110), (220), and (310) were actually present. The three other reflections (411), (422), and (510), with spacings smaller than half the wavelength of chromium Ka, were obviously not obtainable with chromium radiation. All the experimental results appear to confirm the beta tungsten structure for V,Co. In this structure, each cobalt atom is surrounded by twelve vanadium atoms at 2.61A; each vanadium atom is surrounded by two vanadium atoms at 2.34A, four cobalt atoms at 2.61 A, and eight vanadium atoms at 2.86A. Acknowledgment This work was done at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract number W-04-200-ORD-455 with the Army Ordnance Department, Washington, D. C. The author wishes to thank this agency for the permission to publish the results of this investigation. References 'P. Duwez and S. R. Baen: X-Ray Study of the Sigma Phase in Various Alloy Systems. Symposium on the Nature, Occurrence, and Effect of Sigma Phase. ASTM Special Tech. Pub. No. 110, pp. 48-54. Philadelphia, 1951. 2 C. H. Schramm, P. Gordon, and A. R. Kaufmann: The Alloy Systems Uranium-Tungsten, Uranium-Tantalum, and Tungsten-Tantalum. Trans. AIME (1950) 188, pp. 195-204; Journal of Metals (January 1950). 3 M. C. Neuburger: The Crystal Structure and Lattice Constants of Alpha and Beta Tungsten. Ztsch. fiir Krist. (1933) 85, pp. 232-237.

Jan 1, 1952