Search Documents

By Alfred E. Hunt

Tars paper is suggested by the appointment on the part of the American Societies of Mechanical and of Civil Engineers of committees upon the subjects of " Standard Tests and Methods of Testing," and " Uniform Methods of Tests of Material used in Metallic Structures," respectively, and by a study of the report of one of these committees, and other papers. Moreover, the writer has had frequent occasion to hear the complahts of tnanufacturers who furnish structural material subject to specifications, that in the tests prescribed, the number of tests required, and the methods of making

Jan 1, 1892

By N. M. Langdon

It is now about, two years since we began wing concentrates from Port Henry magnetic-ores in the blast-furnaces of Witherbee, Sherman & Co. During this time we have had the usual ups and downs incident to blast-furnace practice, and have used the concentrates in

Jan 1, 1892

By Rufus J. Foster

During the discussion on the Preparation and Utilization of Sniall Sizes of Anthracite (page 613 of present volume), several inquiries were made concerning the use of the McClave grate, which was mentioned by Mr. Coxe as having proved satisfactory in the generation of steam at his collieries, and also at a large number of industrial estal)lishments in Scranton and elsewhere. For a more satisfactory repIy to such inquiries than could be furnished in the oral discussion, I have prepared the following paper to be included in the published proceedings. And, as the use of the fuel under consideration necessarily requires the employment of a blower to change the fire, from a condition giving an incandescent radiant heat only to one giving a hot gaseoua flame as well, I shall add a description of the McClave Argand blower and its method of action. The grate and blower combined form a complete and effective system fcr burning small fuels, such as anthracite culm, birdseye, buckwheat, bituminous slack, etc., in boiler and other furnaces; while the grate alone is now extensively used with the larger sizes of hard and soft coal in furnaces where blast is riot required. Fig. 1 is a view of the RlcClave grate as built in two sections. It is constructed on the principle best approved by practice to prevent warping and burning out; that is, it presents no long lines of

Jan 1, 1892

By W. H. Blauvelt

THat the problem of utilizing anthracite waste is worthy of the thought bestowed upon it, may be shown in few words. In the year 1889, for instance, 35,408,000 tons of coal were sent to market from the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania. According to the report of the State Geological Survey, the amount of coal thrown on the dumps as waste, varies, with circumstancett, from 44 to 60 per cent. of that shipped to market. The lower of these figures represents 16,579,000 tons of waste for that year, and it is obvious that if this, or any considerable portion of it, could have been saved, it would have constituted an important addition to the fuel-supply of the country. It is not surprising, therefore, that so much attention has been given to the utilization of this waste. Among the many lines of experiment pursued with this object in view, the conversion of the carbon of the culm into producer-gas seemg at first to promise the most satisfactory solution of the problem. It is well known that in foreign producer-plants almost all kinds of

Jan 1, 1892

By Axel Sahlin

Since the days of the infancy of metallurgical industries, slags of various kinds have been accumulating. Until a comparatively recent date hardly any employment had been found for these waste products, which have had, consequently, little or no value. An exception to this rule is the basic Bessemer slag, the value of which has become universally recognized. It is to-day one of the standard fertilizers of the world, and a price of from $15 to $20 a ton is considered reasoiable for the ground slag, which, especially in Germany, finds a ready market as fast as it is prepared. The slags from puddling and re-heating furnaces have only found vol. xx.—25

Jan 1, 1892

By John V. Beall

The Glidden Co., a newcomer to the mining industry, will be putting on stream its Lakehurst mine and concentrator this spring. Ilmenite-bearing placer sands will be mined and concentrated in a spanking new combination gravity, magnetic and high-tension separation plant. Glidden, well known as a paint, chemical and food manufacturer, consumes titanium dioxide as pigment in its paint business. The commodity is produced at the company's Adrian D. Joyce Works in Baltimore from ilmenite purchased in India and Australia, The Lakehurst operation, handily located in Ocean County, N. J., will dampen any deficiencies in quantity or price which might occur from foreign suppliers. This objective is no overnight concoction of The Glidden Co., because the move at Lakehurst was preceded by an attempt to start up in Florida. That project was abandoned when it was found that the titanium dioxide values were largely in rutile-a mineral which does not lend itself readily to the digestion process of the Baltimore chemical plant.

Jan 1, 1962

By W. C. J. van Rensburg

Exploration of unconventional mineral resources is stimulated by uncertainties about the cost and security of conventional resource sup- plies. Costs of the latter are likely to increase as a result of inflation, higher energy costs declining productivity, a lack of sufficient investment in politically volatile areas, or through cartel-like action. Exploration of unconventional resources is likely to be delayed by these same factors, insufficient research and development facilities, and a decline in capital formation. World economic growth is likely to be slow, so there will be more emphasis on material conservation. Therefore, the incentive to explore for unconventional resources may be reduced.

Jan 1, 1983

By Ian MacGregor

INTRODUCTION I retired in 1977 and have been enjoying myself ever since doing odd jobs for various people - on occasions, politicians. I commend it to you as post retirement - get involved in situations that nobody else will take on. It produces all sorts of excitement, it is a lot of fun and, courtesy of the media, you provide great raw material for their current Punch and Judy shows. The example of the adventures in the Escondida financing made me think about the history of the minerals industry in the United States. In order to see more clearly what is going to happen in the future, we have to look at the past and what we have learned, and try to extrapolate from that a scenario for the future. This paper is about global material cycles and the financial needs of the extractive industries. Since about 2,000 years B.C. we have been living in the Iron Age. Since about 4,000 B.C. we have been living in the Copper Age. These have been the two foundations of modern industrial society. Understanding the use of metals and materials helps us understand the civilization in which we live today. Let me focus more closely on the United States, particularly in this century. In the first two-thirds of this century the United States was growing and expanding and developing. It was providing for its inhabitants a society which was enjoying the benefits of a rising standard of living, improved opportunities and the ability to support a population growing at quite a dramatic rate. It is still growing. In the Department of Commerce, there is a clock that shows how many people there are in the United States. It turns all the time; the numbers are going up. On January 21,1980, when Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President, the number on that clock was a little over 220 million, and in the last week before he left, it was travelling towards 245 million. During his period in Washington, we have added , the equivalent of one total state such as California. That gives the dimensions of the U.S. appetite for raw material inputs. The inputs are of critical importance. COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE During the first two-thirds of this century, the minerals sector enjoyed comparative advantages. There was a clear understanding of the importance of minerals enshrined in the tax legislation of the country from the early decades of this century - the depletion allowance. No other country identified as clearly that the supplies of minerals were finite. As they are used up, just as with a wearing-out machine, one must get capital back to replace the resource when the time comes. Within the last decade, that idea has been questioned and criticised. It is now seen as giving money away to a preferred part of the economy, instead of recognizing what depletion is all about. In previous times it insured that the U.S. always was able to regenerate the capital in its minerals industry, so that it could remain competitive. The U.S. had plenty of everything, including energy. We had a growing population. Equally important, we had an agriculture that led the world in productivity, even as far back as the turn of the century. It continues to do so. We still retain that comparative advantage, an ability to produce our foodstuffs in quantity and quality at excellent cost. Look at another ingredient of our comparative advantage, the energy position. We ran through the first two-thirds of the century with ever- decreasing energy costs. In the 1940s and 1950s the coal industry went into a decline. Why? Because the $3.00 - $5.00 a ton cost of mining coal in the U.S. represented relatively expensive energy. A ton of good grade bituminous coal contains 25 million BTU's. $0.20 a million BTU's represents $5.00 a ton at the pithead. That price was undermined by the increasing ability to find petroleum at even lower costs. At the apex of the growth of development of the American dominated

Jan 1, 1990

By AIME AIME

IV. THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN STEEL AND IRON. It would be well to decide on a definite carbon-content to serve as a boundary line between ingot-iron and ingot-steel, between puddled-iron and puddled-steel, and between any other varieties of wrought-iron and weld-steel. Two plans have been considered. One is to draw this line at 0.32 per cent. of carbon or its equivalent in other elements, for the reason that this carbon-content appears to correspond to the critical point, 0, in the diagrams of Roberts-Austen and Rooze-boom.8 This has the merit of corresponding to a definite physical boundary. The other plan is to draw the boundary at 0.20 per cent. of carbon, because this is a convenient place to separate the important classes " soft steel " and " half-hard steel," so that if this point was adopted "ingot-iron " would be synonymous with "soft steel," and " ingot-steel " would be the equivalent of the two classes, " half-hard steel " and " hard steel."

Mar 1, 1908

By Frederic E. Carter

THE history of all the civilizations of the Eastern Hemisphere is underlaid and interwoven with the story of gold. Great nations rose, welded by the hand of the conqueror, flourished gloriously because of the wealth of gold inevitably attracted to them, only to fall, either through the sapping of their original virility by the softer living their material prosperity made possible, or by wars made upon them by enemies who craved possession of what was theirs. Imposing fleets sailed the seas, seeking gold or tangible wealth that might be converted into gold. Men suffered untold tortures in its quest. It sent Columbus out into unknown oceans, caused the migration of hordes of people from our Atlantic to our Pacific seaboard in '49 and accelerated the final subjection of our last frontier, probably by as much as a century. The mystic may see both something sinister and something beneficent in this metal that has played such a tremendous part in the shaping of the destinies of men. It has showered blessings and taken them away. It "hath deposed the mighty from their seats and hath exalted men of low degree" and, sardonically, reversed the order yet again. Its peculiar color, its incorruptibility, and its rarity all have contributed to excite the imagination of all races of men. In the Eastern Hemisphere and now in the entire modern world, the predominant emotion excited by gold is avarice. But in the social and economic organization of the civilizations native to the western half of the world, gold has a far different history. Before the advent of the white man, these sun-worshipping peoples saw in the permanently

Jan 1, 1953

By Michael R. Cartwright

The Gold Acres outcrop was located by Lee Lakin in 1922, according to Mr. H. W. Treweek. There was no activity, however, until 1935, when prospect drifts and pits penetrated the deposit. It was then drilled by the Willow Creek Mining Company. Beginning in the late 1930s and continuing to the late 1940s more than 150 churn drill holes were drilled in the Gold Acres area. From this drilling came what is now known as the London Extension pit. Only oxidized ore amenable to cyanide vat leaching was mined during this time. Our records indicated that this period of mining removed some 1.4 Mt (1.5 million st) of ore at an average grade of 0.006 kg/ t (0.2 oz per st). Union Pacific and Newmont Mining Company worked in the area prior to acquisition by the Cortez Joint Venture. Union Pacific drilled a number of core holes in the area. The unoxidized nature of the ore, small tonnage, and low grade undoubtedly prevented mining at this time. From these indications of mineralization shown by previous companies, the Cortez Joint Venture developed and mined 2 Mt (2.4 million st) at 0.005 kg/t (0.15 oz per st) in the Gold Acres pit. This pit is located immediately southwest of the older London Extension pit. Cortez Gold Mines has continued to drill to the west and south of these pits along the downdip continuation of the former ore bodies. The downdip extension is unoxidized and more metallurgically difficult than the normal Carlin type ores, but, more than 2.4 Mt (2.7 million st) have been outlined. It depends now upon the gold price and milling costs to turn this mineralized area into an ore body. A possible lesson to be learned from this deposit is that continued mining success depends upon an ongoing adequately funded exploration-development-metallurgical research program. These three disciplines must always be present to locate the mineralization and to turn this mineralization into ore. [ ]

Jan 1, 1985

By W. J. Millard

VAGUE rumors and stories have been heard, from time to time, about the diamond and gold deposits of southern Venezuela. It is perhaps appropriate, at this time of revived interest in gold mining, to publish a few facts in regard to this country, which has been undergoing exploration since the fifteenth century. Gold and diamonds are found principally in the State of Bolivar which lies in southeastern Venezuela and is bounded by British Guiana on the east and Brazil on the south (see Fig. 1). The famous Mt. Roraima is situated at a point where these three countries meet in a common point (see Fig. 2). Some gold is also found in the southern part of the territory of Amacuro. Good oil prospects exist in the northern part of this same territory. Diamonds are found on the Caroni river from Rio Paragua to the village of Guri. Another small district is on the headwaters of the Cuyuni river. Quartz veins containing gold are chiefly exploited in

Jan 1, 1931

By Charles White Merrill

Money is one of the most .pervasive elements in human life. The compensation for a workman's daily efforts is expressed as a wage and is measured in money. What an individual may consume depends largely on his income which also is expressed in terms of money. If he would start an enterprise its size would be determined in large part by the amount of money available for capitalization and its success would be measured in net income expressed in money. In short, the most widely used common denominator for comparing merchandise, real property, jobs, enterprises, gross national product, or personal success is money. Despite this use of money by almost everyone past infancy to express his appraisal of the in- numerable values he sees around himself, the complexity of the device called money makes its nature and workings a mystery to most users. Some of the difficulty in understanding money results from the fact that it has three distinct but interrelated functions: (1) a medium of exchange, (2) a unit of account, and (3) a store of value. In many statements about money the discussion moves from one function of money to another without the speaker or the listener recognizing the changes. For example, the housewife says "We took the money we had saved up to make the down payment and after twelve monthly payments the television will be ours." When this housewife spoke of "saving up the down payment" she referred to money in its function as a store of value; when she spoke of "the down payment" she was using money as a medium of exchange; and when she referred to the "monthly payments" she spoke of money as a unit of account. Another cause of confusion in understanding money is its paradoxical nature in that it represents both the power to produce and the power to consume. For example, when the rich uncle dies one nephew may regard his inheritance as an opportunity to buy a farm and leave the ranks of the wage earners to become an independent producer, whereas the other nephew may regard his portion as the means of living in complete leisure as a pure consumer.

Jan 1, 1959

By Charles White Merrill

Money is one of the most pervasive elements in human life. The compensation for a workman's daily efforts is expressed as a wage and is measured in money. What an individual may consume depends largely on his income which also is expressed in terms of money. If he would start an enterprise its size would be determined in large part by the amount of money available for capitalization and its success would be measured in net income expressed in money. In short, the most widely used common de- nominator for comparing merchandise, real property, jobs, enterprises, gross national product, or personal success is money. Despite this use of money by almost everyone past infancy to express his appraisal of the innumerable values he sees around himself, the complexity of the device called money makes its nature and workings a mystery to most users. Some of the difficulty in understanding money results from the fact that it has three distinct but interrelated functions: (1) a medium of exchange, (2) a unit of account, and (3) a store of value. In many statements about money the discussion moves from one function of money to another without the speaker or the listener recognizing the changes. For example, the housewife says "We took the money we had saved up to make the down payment and after twelve monthly payments the television will be ours." When this housewife spoke of "saving up the down payment" she referred to money in its function as a store of value; when she spoke of "the down payment" she was using money as a medium of exchange; and when she referred to the "monthly payments" she spoke of money as a unit of account. Another cause of confusion in understanding money is its paradoxical nature in that it represents both the power to produce and the power to consume. For example, when the rich uncle dies one nephew may regard his inheritance as an opportunity to buy a farm and leave the ranks of the wage earners to become an independent producer, whereas the other nephew may regard his portion as the means of living in complete leisure as a pure consumer.

Jan 1, 1964

By William F. Butler, Mo-Hung Che

DEVELOPMENT OF MONEY AND MONEY STANDARDS This chapter is concerned with the rise, and then the decline and fall, of gold and silver as monetary metals. As a first step in tracing the history of this process, it is necessary to consider the nature of money, and the manner in which different forms of money have developed over the centuries. The origins of money go back into deepest antiquity. Once men ceased to be pure nomads and entered into even a rudimentary form of society such as clans or tribes, money had to be invented The first step was barter as farmers or hunters swapped their surplus products for things produced by artisans such as shoes, clothing, and simple tools. But such barter trading is inconvenient even in primative societies It is difficult to match up buyer and seller at any point in time There are problems in arriving at viable and acceptable terms of exchange. The accumulation of savings-wealth-is complicated. No one can be sure that a pile of furs, or wheat, or certainly fish or game can be used in the future to trade for other goods or services. So even prehistoric man saw the need for money. There was a need first for something to serve as a medium of exchange This was an essential first step in the process of specialization-or the division of labor. A farmer, a hunter, or a shoemaker could only devote his full efforts to his trade if he could be sure that he could exchange his surplus production for the other things he needed for existence. This required a medium of exchange-a form of money which would be broadly acceptable. Money was needed for two other reasons Some system of market prices was essential to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. This required some form of common denominator-some standard of value-to govern the exchange process. And there was also need for something to serve as a store of value, a place to put any excess production (savings) with the assurance that it can be used in the future to acquire a general range of goods and services. As a result, money, in one form or another, developed at a very early state in civilization. Yet the centuries have been marked by a search for a form of money which will possess in full measure all of the attributes in money-a reliable and universally acceptable medium of exchange, standard of value, and store of value. -A wide variety of things have been used as money at one time or another: shells, beads, stones, feather, metals, and even the teeth of sharks and dogs. Some of these things were obviously of little or no practical value. They were used because people had confidence in their continued acceptance as a medium of exchange. As the world evolved and as trading ex-

Jan 1, 1976

By Waldemar Lindgren

I. INTRODUCTION AT the time of the discovery of America the old world had a scant supply-of the precious metals. Both the northern and the southern part of the new continent proved wonderfully rich in gold and silver and its treasures were eagerly looted; though the looting has lasted four centuries, the nines of its mountain chains are far from being exhausted. Even the later discoveries in Australasia and eastern Siberia could not rob the Western Hemisphere of its position as the greatest gold and silver producing region of the world, though finally the developments in a narrow and circumscribed area in South Africa wrested from the Americas their supremacy in the production of gold. Nevertheless the history of the two parts of the great western continent has been strikingly different. At first the Spaniards extracted vast treasures of silver from Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, while Colombia and some placer deposits in Peru yielded a smaller quantity of gold. A couple of centuries later, a stream of gold began to flow from Brazil, the silver production from the countries mentioned above continuing strong in the meanwhile. Later on, the yield of South America diminished, but to offset this there began a wonderful series of discoveries in North America. The gold fields of California astonished the world; and when the cream of these had been skimmed off there began a no less amazing development of the Central Cordilleran gold and silver districts, which soon wade the United States the greatest producer of the precious metals. Aided by ever improving technique, extensive exploration, and a system of railroads, the yield was maintained and increased. Still later followed the discoveries of the gold fields of the arctic region and silenced those who had maintained that the zenith in gold production had passed. Recently the province of Ontario in eastern Canada

Jan 4, 1916

By M. W. BERNEWITZ

AUSTRALIANS and New Zealanders, whose countries have respectively yielded gold to the value of £666,000,000 and £96,000,000, are taking full advantage of the current high prices for that metal. There is a marked activity in ordinary prospecting, geophysical exploration, further development of working mines and reopening of old properties, formation of new companies, installation of new equipment and processes, and expansion of operations generally. Australian gold production last year was approximately double the quantity of 1929 and its value three times as great, 1929 being the low of recent years. The 1933 production was about 821,000 oz. From New Zealand, 165,000 oz. was exported last year. Papua and New Guinea contributed slightly over 100,000 oz. What the future price of gold will be nobody knows, but, even if it returns to the former level, Australian producers are almost sure of 110 shillings an ounce until 1940 through the Commonwealth Government's Gold Bounty Act, at present temporarily and necessarily suspended from operation.

Jan 1, 1934

By James R. Finlay

SOMETIMES the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers appears to be a strictly technical society, and if so my paper should deal with the technical operations of finding and producing gold. But I have not been engaged in practical gold mining since 1910. What I have been doing mainly for the last 25 years is to try to figure out what the income of a mine-gold, or any other-would be worth to an investor. So I have been in contact with gold mining, in one way or another, for some 42 years. I say that with a purpose. In that time the industry has been through one of its cycles. The value of gold mines is very dif¬ferent at different points in one of these cycles. For this reason the cycle of gold mining is a highly practical study. The cycle of gold is a more or less rhythmical change in its value or purchasing power measured in the grand average of other commodities, which is the same thing as its price. Taking the price of gold in 1897 as a stand¬ard, a dollar at that time declined to 55c. in 1913, to 26.8c. in 1920, and since then it has risen to 47.4c. in 1930 and to about 64c. in 1932. It is worth about 21/ times as much now as it was in 1920, but less than two¬thirds as much as in 1897. When this change is applied to the value of a gold mine still greater differences are evident. The cost of producing gold is of course measured in labor and other commodities, and as that cost goes down the margin of profit measured in the gold itself increases. Thus a mine which might make only 10 per cent profit in 1920 on its gross output may easily make 25 per cent now. The stockholder gets 2 ½ times more gold that is worth 2 1/2 times as much in purchasing power, therefore the real value of his holding has risen by the one factor multiplied by the other, giving him 61/4 times as much goods or services as he had in 1920.

Jan 1, 1933

By Nicholas S. Young

The one million ounce Newrnont Gold loan has focussed attention on gold's new role as a financing vehicle. This paper explains the background of the new role for gold, and details various gold denominated products now available to the mining industry. The discussion highlights the importance of gold-based products, and how they should be used in developing business strategy for gold mining companies. [ ]

Jan 1, 1990

By Lawrence Wright

THE occurrence of gold, gold-silver, silver-lead-zinc ores in the post-Cambrian sediments in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and their genetic relationship to the Tertiary intrusives, is well known and accepted, but the occurrence of gold in the pre-Cambrian rocks at the Homestake mine, which underlie this Tertiary gold mineralization, has given rise to differ-ences of opinion as to the period of major gold introduction into the older rocks. Fig. 1 illustrates. the distribution of mineralization along the axis of the Tertiary uplift in both pre-Cambrian and post-Cambrian rocks. The following possibilities have been presented: 1. The Homestake gold deposit was formed in pre-Cambrian time and the deposits in the overlying Cambrian sediments formed during Ter-tiary time. 2. The Homestake lode existed at the beginning of Cambrian time, but was enriched by the passage of Tertiary auriferous solutions. 3. The Homestake lode was represented by pre-Cambrian quartz-chlorite sulfide mineralization, very low in gold content and the gold superimposed on the older nearly barren mineralization during the Ter-tiary metallogenic epoch. 4. The sulfides and sulfarsenides as well as gold were deposited in both pre-Cambrian and post-Cambrian rocks during the Tertiary period. Those favoring the first proposition feel that the question is pretty well settled, while the proponents of the second theory are more flexible in their view, feeling that the amount of gold introduced in either period is still an open question. The third and fourth theories, with some modifi-cations, are supported by the proponents of the Tertiary theory, who feel that the evidence strongly favors that period. The following pages are intended to present the evidence and to give the reaction of various observers with my own comments and conclu-sions; also, the accumulated facts of observation gathered over a period of close association with the area under discussion, beginning in 1919.

Jan 1, 1936