Search Documents

By J. W. Thompson

That the governor is hereby authorized to appoint a commission of seven persons, to be known as the industrial accidents commission-two of whom shall be employers of labor, two of whom shall be employees in either mines or industrial establishments of this Commonwealth, or duly accredited representatives thereof, two of whom shall be learned in the law, and one of whom shall be a person skilled and experienced in making investigations-to inquire into the causes and results of industrial accidents in the mines, mills, factories, stores, and upon the railroads, street railways, ships, wharves, and in all industrial establishments, and in all other places where men, women, and children are employed in manual labor in this Commonwealth; to study the most advanced methods for safe-guarding against these accidents; to inquire into the subject of fair compensation for those who are injured in these accidents, and for the families of those who shall be killed as a result thereof; and to study the operation and effect of the Workmen's Compensation Law of 1913. SEC. 2. The chairman of said co~mission shall be designated by the governor, and the person named on said commission as a skilled and experienced investigator shall be the secretary of the commission, The commission shall have power to employ such legal counsel and other officers and employees as it may deem necessary to properly perform its duties. SEC. 3. The secretary of said commission shall receive an annual salary of $2,400 and his actual necessary expenses; and the other members of the commission shall receive no compensation for their services, but shall be allowed their actual traveling and other necessary expenses. The salaries of any other persons employed by the commission shall be fixed by it.

Jan 1, 1920

By J. P. BONARDI, J. C. Williams

Until the end of 1918 Boulder County ranked as one of the foremost tungsten-producing districts of the world, but in August, 1919, there was practically no production in the district. The operators there could not compete with tungsten ores from foreign sources, particularly China, Burma, and South America. As a. result there · has been a strong movement for placing a protective tariff on all imported tungsten ores and products; and it seems to be the general belief of tungsten producers that some form of protection is necessary to the maintenance of the industry in this country. The stimulus, due to the great demand for · tungsten alloys in the manufacture of munitions during the war, was felt in all the productive localities of the world. The ores of Boulder County were especially in demand on account of their comparative. freedom from • harmful impurities, and this demand greatly extended mining operations in the district and increased the efficiency of the gen~ral milling practice there.

Jan 1, 1921

By Daniel Harrington

On the night of June 8, 1917, the flame of a carbide lamp accidentally set fire to the uncovered and frayed insulation of an armored power cable near the 2,400-foot level of the North Butte Mining CO.'s Granite Mountain shaft. How this, insulation accidentally became exposed is explained on page 15. The highly flammable oiled fabric set fire to the shaft timbers, and as this is a downcast shaft the fire spread with great rapidity, soon filling the mine workings with smoke and gas. At the time 410 men were working underground, 247 of whom escaped by various means, but most of the 163 remaining were probably overcome soon after the fire started, and perished. Only two men were actually burned. The cause of the disaster was purely accidental. The immediate effect was the unexpected reversal of normal conditions; the ultimate effect was great loss of life and the destruction of the main hoisting shaft, putting it temporarily out of service. The work of rescue and fire fighting continued eight days. The following pages present an attempt to draw some practical conclusions and suggestions from this disaster. The property of the North Butte Mining Co. consists of about 220 acres in the northeastern part of the Butte district, Montana. Next to the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. it is the largest producer of the district. In 1916, the year before the disaster, there were 1,160 men employed. The output was 560,947 tons of ore, which yielded 24,498,181 pounds of copper, 1,047,063 ounces of silver, 1,712 ounces of gold, and 412,953 pounds of zinc. The profit was $2,479,595. The total development work for that year was 21,694 feet. During the first half of 1917, the year of the accident, the daily tonnage of ore averaged 2,000, an increase of 400 tons over that of the year 1916.

Jan 1, 1922

By E. W. Dean, H. H. Hill

Gasoline has become of such commercial and military importance that it is now practically indispensable. This product is of special interest because, in addition to realizing its value, the Nation is learn- ing that the raw materials from which gasoline is obtained are not unlimited. ACTIVITIES OF THE BUREAU OF MINES IN PROMOTING EFFICIENCY IN THE PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION OF GASOLINE. The Bureau of Mines has directly and indirectly worked for the conservation and efficient utilization of this important product. Some of the bureau's activities have been along lines widely different from those reported in this bulletin. The work of the bureau toward the increase in efficiency of processes for the production and refining of crude oil is too well known to need mention here. Another line of activity in which the bureau has engaged is the collection and publi- cation of statistics on refinery operations. Finally, as immediate preparation for the present bulletin, two surveys of the gasoline mar- keting situation have been made. The primary object of this bul- letin is to make available to the public information obtained in con- nection with these surveys. PURPOSE OF THE GASOLINE SURVEYS OF 1917 AND 1919. Shortly after the United States declared war on Germany the bureau collected gasoline samples in the retail market throughout various parts of the country. Information regarding the sources of these gasolines and the details of marketing them was obtained, and they were subjected to analytical tests which furnished conclusive informa- tion regarding their properties. The information obtained through this survey proved of inestimable value both to the bureau and the United States Fuel Administration, particularly in drawing up speci- fications and in ascertaining the best means of obtaining supplies of particular types of gasoline that were needed. A similar and more extensive survey was made in the months of April and May, 1919, in order to obtain data needed for the revision of the Federal motor gasoline specification. The specification adopted during the war had been the subject of numerous complaints, and it seemed desirable to determine whether or not these objections were valid before attempting revision.

Jan 1, 1920

By J. O. Lewis, Carl H. Beal

The material for this paper was collected for the most part by C. H. Beal during the years 1916, 1917, and 1918. Many of the conclusions reached in regard to the life of oil wells have already been published by the Bureau of Mines 1 but those presented in this paper deal particularly with the theoretical aspects of oil production. The report discusses some of the fundamental factors governing oil production, taking up first the conditions affecting the. amount of oil in the oil sand, then those factors that control the rate of production of oil wells, and then discusses several related problems, most of which deal particularly with the effect of the production of one well on that of another.

Jan 1, 1921

By A. W. Ambrose

The output or oil and gas rrom the producing fields in the United States is rapidly deelining. Coincident with this decline is a steadily increasing demand ror petroleum and its products, but at present there are no commercial substitutes ror gasoline and lubricating oil. Undoubtedly, many new fields will be discovered in this country during the next rew years. Indeed, there may be periods or temporary flush production that ror a rew months or a year or perhaps two years will afford a surplus. Such peaks are temporary and should not be given too much weight in considering the relation between petroleum supply and our national lire. In considering this problem we must regard a long period or time, and, ir we do that we shall see that domestic production will be unable to keep pace with consumption. Hence, the public good demands t~at the highest efficiency obtainable be practiced in the production or oil. To accomplish this end, the operator or to-day should so organize his rorces ror development and production that he recovers every barrel or oil that can be recovered at a profit. This necessarily involves the use or eeonomical and scientific methods or development a:nd production and the elimination or waste. The Bureau or Mines has ror years urged the conservation or petroleum and its products, and has pointed out that -such conservation should start before the oil is brought to the surface rather than arter it is in storage tanks. Losses or petroleum underground have undoubtedly been rar greater than losses in storage, in transportation, and in refining. The quantity lost usually is indeterminate, and hence difficult to express in terms or money, but by remembering that entire oil fields have been ruined by invadIng waters some idea may be gained or the importance or underground waste. The petroleum engineer is coming to be recognized as an extremely important aid in the intelligent development or oil fields. In this paper an effort is made to outline ror the engineer and producer a field or work whereby science and engineering not only can but have been applied practically. The mining engineer has been the direct- ing hand in the development of mines, and it is being recognized more and more that the petroleum engineer has a similar function in developing oil properties. Thispaper aims to show the general method of procedure in studying underground conditions in producing oil fields and how such study may not only correct but even prevent great unnecessary losses. Such work provides the company with maximum insurance for the field against loss and is accompliphed at minimum cost and minimum risk. Throughout the paper reference is made to oil wells and oil fields, but to a certain degree many of the suggestions relating to oil wells are applicable in the care and protection of gas wells and in solving gas problems.

Jan 1, 1921

By H. W. GILLETr, E. L. Mack

The production of small heats of alloy steels on an experimental scale is often desirable in beginning the study of new alloy steels before large amounts of expensive alloys are used in heats of commercial size. Such small heats can sometimes be made up at crucible-steel plants, but few crucible-steel makers care to undertake experimental heats for other firms. Small electric furnaces offer some advantages over crucible furnaces for experimental work. Hansen1 in 1909 described a small 100-kilowatt single-phase, direct- arc furnace with a capacity of 50 to 300 pounds of steel, and such furnaces, of 200 pounds capacity or larger, are being successfully used by various firms for experimental work. They have the advan- tage of using the same metallurgical procedure as is used in prac- tice for larger electric furnaces. The very small sizes have the draw- back of lack of precision in controlling the carbon content of the steel. Small Rennerfelt two-phase, indirect-arc furnaces of 40 to 60 kilo- watts and small Industrial Electric Furnace Co. furnaces, single- phase with one electrode embedded in the hearth, of 25 to 50 kilo- watts, are also in use by a few firms for experimental work or for production on a very small scale. Hoskins carbon-plate resistor crucible furnaces are also sometimes used. Little seems to have been published on the use of these furnaces in making experimental alloy steels. Keeney' has given data on the making of uranium steels in a tilting Siemens furnace of 25 pounds capacity, and has described a small stationary Siemens furnace.

Jan 1, 1922

By J. H. Wiggins

In 1919 the United States was threatened with a shortage of gaso- line. In spite of this well-known fact, a detailed field investigation has shown that in one stage only of handling crude oil the volume of gasoline that evaporates is equal to one-thirtieth of the country's yearly gasoline production. This loss occurs during the few days that the oil is stored on the leases before being taken by the pipe line, and in 1919, in the Mid-Continent field alone, it amounted to 122,100,000 gallons. Large as it is, it is only a part of the loss on the lease. Investigation has further shown that the gasoline in crude oil evaporates from one-half to six-tenths as rapidly as the same gaso- line after being distilled and stored, all evaporative conditions being the same. Many wastes in the oil fields are called "necessary." By this is meant that the cost of preventing the waste is greater than the gain through saving. Evaporation losses have fallen heretofore in this category, but now they must be considered unnecessary. In other words, it is no longer economical for any handler of crude oil to permit losses through evaporation. In accordance with its purpose of seeking to conserve mineral resources, the Bureau of Mines investigated the loss of gasoline by evaporation in the storage and handling of petroleum. Inasmuch as most producers had not decided that their losses justified cor- rective measures and no evidence was available on the comparative losses in various stages of handling the oil, the investigation was limited to determining by experiment and observation the nature and magnitude of evaporation losses, where the greatest losses are, and the factor controlling evaporation.

Jan 1, 1922

By H. W. Gillett, E. L. Mack

Prior to 1911 the literature on melting brass by electricity consisted entirely-save for some suggestions made in patent literature but not actually worked out-of a few observations by farseeing men ' on the theoretical advantages of melting brass and other nonferrous alloys in electric furnaces. Roeber was the first to see and clearly state the possible advantages of the electric furnace in brass melting. The same factors tha.t make it desirable to manufacture special steels in the electric furnace rather than in crucibles, he declared, apply to brass as well. He pointed out the possibility of using larger melting units, of eliminating crucible cost, of readily controlling the purity of the product. and of nearly eliminating the loss of zinc. "The replacement of the • old crucible process is sure to come," he said; "perhaps it will come in two years, but it will, necessarily, in ten years .... The inevitable advance along this industrial line will have great influence in the metal world and will also provide, in large cities, a new kind of load for the central station." The years 1905 to 1910 may be termed the purely theoretical period of the development of the electric brass furnace, though the Conley furnace was tried out e:xperimenta.lly about 1910 and a few heats were made in an induction furnace. 2 In December, 1911, the American Chemical Society held a symposium on mineral wastes, at which Bassett s discussed the zinc· losses that attend making brass in fuel-fired furnaces.

Jan 1, 1922

By W. A. Dunkley, W. W. Odell

About two-thirds of the manufactured gas supplied to the public by the gas plants in the Illinois district is cnrbureted water gas. The leading generator fuel is coke, ma.de in by-product c.oke ovens or in retorts, chiefly from eastern gas coals. During the fall and winter of 1917-18, when the demand for coke by war industries and the restrictions of the Fuel Administration in connection with the transportation of coke from eastern States made it almost impossible for many gas companies to obtain their coke requireml'nts, several water-gas plants had to use bituminous coal as generator fud. Many operating difficulties were encountered, some of which were solved more or less satisfactorily in different plants. A number of plants attacked the problem rather blindly because facilities for making tests were lacking and because technical men were too busy with labor and supply problems to study thoroughly the conditions involved or to ascertain what other plants had done with this fuel. It was therefore with the hope of assisting the gas industry during this critical period, and of promoting the use of Central District coals for gas making, that the Illinois Mining Investigations, a joint agency of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, the University of Illinois, and the Illinois Geological Survey Division undertook the, tests discussed in this paper. • This report was compiled under the auspices of a technical committee appointed by Gov. Frank 0. Lowden to promote the use of Central District coals in gas manufacture as a war measure. This committee included the following representatives of the various agencies concerned: U. S. Bureau of Mines, E. A. Holbrook and W. W. Odell; Illinois Gas Association, C. W. Bradley and R. B. Harper; University of Illinois, Dean C. R. Richards, Prof. S. W. Parr, and Prof. H. H. Stoek; State Geological Survey Division, F. W. De Wolf, G. H. Cady, a.nd W. A. Dunkley. F. W. De Wolf was chairxnan of the committee and E. A. Holbrook was secretary.

Jan 1, 1924

By Clarence A. Wright, JAMES T. NORTON, JAMES G. PARMELEE

The object of this paper is to give to mining companies and to all others who are interested some idea of the possibilities in the treatment, by differential flotation, of lead-zinc ores of the Coeur d'Alene region and other districts. The purpose of these investiga.. tions is not to evolve a differential flotation process that would replace present methods of gravity concentration but rather one that could be applied to the relatively fine material and slime produced in the mills and treated unsuc_pessfully by gravity methods or by flotation. It is expected, of course, that the products to be obtained by differential flotation would be of much better grade than those now produced by flotation in the Coeur d'Alene mills. In view of the fact that it has been difficult to obtain representative samples of flotation feed from the mills, owing to the necessity of shipping the material wet and free from oil or other foreign matter that might be deleterious to the differential separation of the sulphides, the writers have felt justified in running flotation tests with the mill feeds in order to ascertain whether a differential separation of the sulphides could be effected. However, two different lots of flotation feed were tested for differential flotation, and the results of tests of one of these are given in this report. It is hoped that it will be possible later to test out the flotation feed for differential flotation on a large scale in some of the mills. This paper covers part of the investigations carried on by the United States Bureau of Mines in cooperation with the Idaho Bureau of Mines, the University of Idaho, and certain mining companies of the Coeur d'Alene region. Although the results of the tests included in this report are not to be considered final, they indicate possibilities and may suggest others leading to a solution of the problem of separating lead and zinc sulphides by differential flotation in the treatment of certain ores.

Jan 1, 1921

By J. W. Thompson

Be if enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That deposits of coal, phosphate, sodium, oil, oil shale, or gas, and lands containing such deposits owned by the United States, including those in national forests, but excluding lands acquired under the Act known as the Appalachian Forest Act, approved March 1, 1911 (Thirty-sixth Statutes, page 9G1), and those in national parks, and in lands Withdrawn or reserved for military or naval uses or purposes, except as heroinafter provided, shall be subject to disposition in the form and manner provided by this Act to citizens of the United States, or to any association of such persons, or to any corporation organized under the laws of the United States, or of ;iny State or Territory thereof, and in the case of coal, oil, oil shale, or gas, to municipalities: Provided, That the United States reserves the right to extract helium from all gas produced from lands permitted, leased, or other- wise granted under the provisions of this Act, under such rules and regulations as shall be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior: Provided further, That in the extraction of helium from gas produced from such lands, it shall be so extracted as to cause no substantial delay in the delivery of gas produced from the well to the purchaser thereof: And provided further, That citizens of another country, the laws, customs, or regulations of which, deny similar or like privileges to citizens or corporations of this country, shall not by stock ownership, stock holding, or stock control, own any interest in any lease acquired under the provisions of this Act.

Jan 1, 1921

By N. A. C. Smith, E. W. Dean, W. A. Jacobs, H. H. Hill

Fractional distillation is the most important process in the commercial refining of petroleum. The same procedure, conducted on a small scale, is the basis of a number of analytical methods of wide application in the petroleum laboratory. The Bureau of Mines has studied apparatus and procedure for the distillation analysis of petroleum, and this report is presented as a record of developments up to the present time. The work is incomplete, but the extensive information that has been obtained to date is made available as a guide in handling laboratory distillation problems. The analytical distillation of petroleum is commonly made to determine range of boiling points or to separate the oil. into fractions for detailed examination, or both. When only one of these two ends is sought the procedure involved is notably simpler than when, as is more common, information is required regarding both boiling range and properties of fractions. Moreover the degree of minuteness of measurement and the accuracy of the data required from analytical distillations differ considerably. Often the simplest sort of comparative figures are satisfactory; other tests require complicated and highly tedious procedure. No one distillation method is universally applicable, and it is impossible for anyone group of investigators to foresee all the different kinds of requirements that may occur in the industry.

Jan 1, 1922

By Henry Kreisinger, WALTER T. RAY

This preliminary bulletin was written as the first of a series of several on the significance of drafts in steam-boiler practice, the succeeding bulletins to be along the same lines but of a more advanced character. The conclusions arrived at are tentative, and are the result of a study of one of the many problems growing out of a general plan of the United States Government to increase the efficiency with which the coals of the country are being used. Greater efficiency requires better boiler and furnace design. The experimental study of drafts on which the conclusions presented in this bulletin are based formed part of the fuel-testing investigations that were carried on by the technologic branch of the United States Geological Survey and have been transferred to the Bureau of Mines. The experiments made seem to indicate that it is possible to double or treble the capacity of a plant without making any radical changes the furnaces and boilers. These increases require about double and treble the quantities of air to be put through the fuel beds and boilers. It also seems probable that rebafHing the boilers will often permit the capacity to be doubled or trebled, while still getting more steam than formerly per pound of coal for uses outside the boiler room. These experiments were undertaken with the object of clarifying ideas concerning the passage of air through fuel beds and boilers. Measured weights of air were passed through two beds of lead shot, series, one of which remained always the same and represented a boiler; the other being varied as to size of shot and depth of bed, and representing a fuel bed. Careful observations were made of the weight of air passing through the beds per minute. All data were plotted in many charts, so as to permit the study of them from several points of view. A number of laws were deduced bearing on the relative amounts of power required to force air through fuel beds of various thicknesses, composed of various sizes of coal, and through boilers of various lengths and areas of gas passages. An important part of the discussion relates to an increase in the capacity of boilers by increasing the amount of power applied to pressure and exhausting fans and thus forcing several times as much air through the fuel beds and boilers. may be possible, as a result of these investigations, to raise the rate of working the boiler heating surface to three or even four times its present value. Such an increase would undoubtedly mean new designs of grates, stokers, furnaces, and boilers, especially fitted for high rates of working. Fan equipments designed to supply three or four times as much air under several times the pressure would be provided with more efficient engines, thus giving an additional factor favoring high-capacity working. It must be borne in mind, as stated above, that the results are tentative. It will cost money to force gases at high speeds through fuel beds and boilers, and there will soon be pressing need of such quantitative data as will enable the largest possible part of the energy imparted by the fans to be advantageously utilized. We desire, to thank our superiors, especially Messrs. L. P. Breckenridge and D. T. Randall, for their helpful criticism and suggestions.

Jan 1, 1911

By Raymond B. Ladoo

Talc is a hydrous magnesium silicate having the chemical formula H2Mg3 (SiO8 ) 4 ; it is often called steatite, soapstone or potstorie, and by the trade names talc clay, agalite, asbestine, and verdolite. The term talc may be used to include all forms of the pure mineral, whereas steatite denotes particularly the massive, compact variety, and soapstone the impure, massive form that often contains only 50 per cent of talc. Merrill 1 says: The name soapstone is given to dark-gray and greenish talcose rocks, which are soft enough to be readily cut with a knife, and which have a pronounced soapy or greasy feeling; hence the name. Such rocks are commonly stated in textbooks to be compact forms .of steatite, or talc, but as the writer has elsewhere pointed out, and as shown by the analyses here given, few of them are even approximately pure forms of this mineral, but all contain varying proportions of chlorite, mica, and tremolite, together with perhaps unaltered residuals of pyroxene, granules of iron ore, iron pyrites, quartz, and, in seams and veins, calcite and magnesian carbonates. When pure, talc is soft, having a hardness of 1, but when impure or when it grades into its varieties, the hardness increases to 3 or 4. Talc ranges in color from pure white and silvery white through gray, green, apple green, gray green to dark green, nlso yellow, brown, or reddish when impure. It is rarely, if ever, found in wellformed crystals, but often occurs in foliated plates or in fibrous aggregates. It is commonly compact or massive or in fine granular aggregates. Several analyses of talc from different regions ·are given in Table 1. Talc has several varieties, the most important of which is Rensselaerite. This variety, found in a small area near Gouverneur, St. La.wrence County, N. Y., is a hard, fibrous, -waxlike mineral having the same chemical composition as talc, but lacking its softness and its peculiar greasy feel. Its hardness and its peculiar fibrous form, even when ground, have made its grinding and separation a separate problem. In addition to the varieties of talc and soapstone, the mineral pyrophyllite or agalmatolite, a hydrous silicate of alumina, with the formula H2Al2 (Si08 ), is also mined and sold as talc. It resembles talc in color, feel, luster, and structure, and may be successfully substituted for true talc for most uses. In this paper it will be considered as one of the commercial forms of talc.

Jan 1, 1923

By Richard V. Ageton, Harry E. Tufft, E. A. Holbrook

When an underground excavation is made, the rock surrounding the sides and top of the opening is deprived of its natural support and tends to fall. Whenever caving takes place, the time and extent of the caving depend on the character and condition of the rock. In strong homogenous rock, such as solid granite, even a large chamber may stand indefinitely, whereas a soft material, such as clay or a loose material like unconsolidated sand, falls immediately if not supported. Weaknesses in the rocks induced by structural features, such as joints, :fissures, bedding and cleavage planes, and fractures produced by blasting, will cause the falling of insecure blocks or slabs unless means are provided to support these in place. In an unsupported mine opening, as a tunnel, the first slight settling or adjusting movement of the rocks (the "initial creep" or "set") is caused by the great weight of overlying material pressing down the rock masses above and around the roof and sides of the opening until they key together in roughly the form of an arch. The rock, after it has adjusted itself to this shape, becomes. selfsupporting. Timbering is necessa.ry in all mining only to support, therefore, those comparatively small blocks or pieces of rock which tend to loosen from the top and sides of the opening during or after the formation 'of the natural rock arch, and which lie between this natural rock arch and the opening. This statement, of course, has its limitations. For example; a layer of strong rock, like limestone, may act as a beam; then only the material under the limestone will need support. Timbering is not, as is commonly supposed by the layman, used to supp!ort the huge mass of rock between the back (roof) of an underground opening and the surface. It would be impossible to place enough timbers in a:ny underground opening to support such a mass. This fact is not'·perceived by all miners.

Jan 1, 1923

By Oliver Bowles

Under a cooperative agreement between the Bureau of Mines, the United States Geological Survey, and the United States Bureau of Standards, a study of the stone-quarrying industries of the country was begun in 1914. The results of investigations made have been published from time to time.1 During the World War the Bureau of Mines centered its attention on problems relating to national defense, and detailed studies of stone-quarry problems were not undertaken except for an investigation of labor saving at limestone quarries, reported in Technical Paper 203, which related to a question of military importance. Since the return of peace, the high cost of materials and labor has made more imperative than in prewar times the conduct of investigations for aiding the quarrying industries in every way possible to adopt more economical methods and to utilize the most efficient labor-saving equipment. The publications already issued have had a wide demand, and in the interest of the quarry industries the bureau proposes to issue additions to the series as rapidly as funds are available. In an endeavor to promote economy and the reduction of waste in the slate industry, a study of slate quarrying was begun in 1920 and covered a period of about two years. Sixty-five active quarries were visited, and a detailed study made of all problems bearing on their successful operation. Field study was supplemented by a study of all information available in books or published articles on slate quarrying.

Jan 1, 1922

By E. H. Burroughs

This bulletin is the sixth in the series of petroleum bibliographies published by the Bureau of Mines, Bulletins 149, 165, 180, 189, and 216 being compilations for the years 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, and 1919- 1920, respectively. In this bulletin the same general plan has been followed in arranging the references, but one or two additions have been made in the classification.

Jan 1, 1921

By H. C. George

This bulletin deals with prime movers, power-transmitting machinery, and the surface equipment and methods used to pump oil wells. It does not discuss geological problems nor the methods and equipment used in drilling or at flowing oil wells. Much of the presentation is by photographs and drawings which are described in the text. Underground equipment and methods for pumping oil wells will be discussed in a later publication of the Bureau of Mines.

Jan 1, 1925

By George S. Rice

The prevention of coal-mine explosions has been one of the chief purposes of the Bureau of Mines. In facti the first Federal appropriation relating to mining methods, in 1908, authorized the investigation of the causes of mine explosions and the possible methods of preventing them. When that investigation started the mining industry had not determined the real causes of a succession of terrible coal-mine explosions in various countries, culminating in the great disasters at CoulTièl'es, France, and Monongah, W. Va. Coal dust as an agent of widespread explosions had been under suspicion, and watering to allay the dust was recommended by some mining engineers but the watering of coal-mine dust was adopted in comparatively few mines of the United States and Great Britain, and had not been introduced widely in any country except Germany. Rock dusting, another method of preventing explosions of coal dust, was early tested with success by the Bureau of Mines in its fist gallery at Pittsburgh and, beginnig in 1911, at the experimental mine, Bruceton, Pa. Several of the fist publications i of the bureau suggested that rock dust be used in gaseous or dusty bituminous mines, and in 1915 Technical Paper 842 strongly recommended it. Since that time additional tests in the experimental mine have fully confied this :ft judgment.

Jan 1, 1924