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By Luther Wagoner

HAVING given in a former paper1 the results of assays of sea-water, bay-mud, dredgings from San Francisco bay, etc., and' believing it might be interesting to extend the work to include' some deep-sea dredgings, I procured from the Smithsonian Institution six samples taken by the U. S, steamer Albatross, and marked as follows

Jan 9, 1907

By R. B. Moore

IN 1914 the writer and K. L. Kithil announced, through Bulletin 70 of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, that the United States possessed the largest deposits of radium-bearing ore in the world. At that time a small amount of this ore was being, mined and shipped to Europe, and one company was preparing to start the extraction and recovery of radium in this country. The importance of our carnotite deposits in Colorado and Utah up to the publication of Bulletin 70 was not, however, appreciated by anyone.. At that time the total supply of radium in the world was about 10 g., calculated as element, and when I estimated that at least 100 g. of radium element, and probably 200 g., would be produced from our carnotite deposits, there was a considerable amount of skepticism. Up to the present time almost 200 g. have come from this ore, and some writers put this figure a little higher. Uranium ore was found in the copper mines of the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga at Luiswishi in 1913. Later discoveries were made at other places in the Belgian Congo, and the Katanga ores now represent the largest supply of radium-bearing ore in the world. In fact, since 1923 very little radium has been produced from American carnotite, the Katanga ore representing practically the world's supply of. radium since that date.

Jan 1, 1930

By J. Kent Smith

VANADIUM is generally spoken of as a rare element; but, even in the light of our resources as known a couple of years ago, this description could be accepted in a qualified sense only. In fact, vanadium is very widely distributed, being a constituent of most clays, while even caustic soda has been shown to contain almost regularly a minute proportion of it, although the quantity in each case is so small as to render impracticable the extraction of the metal there from with profit. The opening-up of a large deposit of vanadium sulphide ore in South America has put a new phase on the commercial outlook of vanadium, the technical value of which for the improvement of steel has been proved by rigorous scientific investigation.

Sep 1, 1907

By R. S. Dean

THE commercial production of electrolytic manganese on a small scale commenced in 1939. The writer made a short report on the progress of production and utilization in MINING AND METALLURGY for January 1941. Progress during the last two years, naturally, has been more rapid. In June 1940, Congressman (now Senator) Scrugham presented a proposal to Congress for an appropriation authorizing erection of a pilot plant for "the production of metallic manganese by electrolytic or other means." As a result of this, a pilot plant, having a capacity of a few hundred pounds per day was built at Boulder City, Nev. Subsequent appropriations permitted expansion of the plant to about a ton per day. Much has been learned in this plant about electrolytic manganese, and the product even in its small way has found war uses of considerable importance. Meanwhile, the Knoxville plant of the Electro Manganese Corporation, the sole commercial producer, was expanded to about 4 tons per day to supply needed material for the war program. Other proposals for commercial plants have not been favorably received by the War Production Board. The Bureau reported on one such proposal by the American Alloys and Chemical Corporation. PRACTICE AT BOULDER CITY The present practice, as carried out at Boulder City, which is being described in more detail in a current paper by the Bureau staff at Boulder City, starts with a manganese dioxide ore containing about 20 per cent manganese. Currently this ore comes from the Three Kids deposit near Las Vegas. The steps for the production of electrolytic manganese, in general, are as follows: I. The manganese in the ore is reduced to MnO. 2. The MnO is dissolved from the ore in spent electrolyte, which contains about 38 to 47 grams per liter of free sulphuric acid, 135 grams per liter of ammonium sulphate, and 10 to 12 grams per liter of Mn as sulphate. In the leaching step the manganese is built back up to 32 to 36 grams per liter of Mn as sulphate; the pH is adjusted to neutral by means of gaseous ammonia and passed through thickeners. 3. The electrolyte is purified by adding H2S, which precipitates the heavy metals. After filtering, ferrous sulphate is added to the solution and oxidized with air and the solution is filtered and clarified on a precoat filter. 4. The purified catholyte is electrolyzed in a diaphragm cell using stainless-steel cathodes and lead-silver anodes. The current density is about 45 amp. per sq. ft. Current efficiencies of 60 to 65 per cent are regularly obtained.

Jan 1, 1944

The necessary funds have been provided for the award in 1915 of three prizes, respectively of $50, $30, and $20, for the best essays, or other papers, submitted in competition by Junior Members and Members of Affiliated Student Societies. The following rules for the competition are therefore established in accordance with the instructions of the Board of Directors May 22, 1914: (1) A competitor for the President's Prizes must be, at the time of submitting his essay, either a Junior Member or a Member of an Affiliated Student Society of this Institute.

Jan 1, 1917

By J. L. Gillson

In this past year of our Institute's life, February 1960 to February 1961, we had some major problems to face, as did our members, since businesses in which they were engaged were feeling the recession. The major problems confronting us during this past year were: 1) Financing the new Engineering Center. 2) Keeping our three almost autonomous societies working together and toward a stronger AIME. 3) Cooperation with other engineering societies the Functional Plan. 4) Licensing and registration, and the Model Law. 5) The reorganization of the Council of Section Delegates. 6) Combatting the slump in the appeal of engineering to the young students.

Jan 4, 1961

By Arthur Dwight

ARTHUR SMITH DWIGHT, president of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, was born in Taunton, Mass., on March 18, 1864. He is descended on both sides from early settlers, one of whom was Richard Warren, of the "Mayflower." His forebears included Col. Benjamin Church, Tim-othy Dwight, and the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, third president of Princeton College. Mr. Dwight was graduated in 1882 from the Poly-technic Institute of Brooklyn, N. Y., and three years later from the Columbia School of Mines, with the degree of Engineer of Mines. In 1914, he received the honorary degree of Master of Science from Columbia. On leaving Columbia in 1885, he went to Pueblo, Col., and for thirteen years was associated with the Colorado Smelting Co. Beginning as assayer he rose to be general superintendent. When he gave up the latter position he became connected with several large companies in the mining and smelting of lead, copper and the precious metals in the Rocky Mountain region. This work occupied him from 1897 to 1906, and six years of that time were spent in Mexico. He was general manager of the Greene Consolidated Copper Company at Cananea, Mexico, in 1906, when trouble first developed against the régime of Diaz. A general uprising was planned to seize the mines, and with money and supplies so obtained, carry the revolt through the interior. Mr. Dwight turned his industrial organiza-tion into a military unit almost over night, stemmed the tide of revolution, and had the situation well in hand before the arrival of troops. In the fall of 1906 he returned to New York and began practice as a consulting mining and metallurgical engineer. He next developed important metallurgical patents for the roasting and agglomeration of fine ores, known as the Dwight and Lloyd sintering process, now extensively used ail over the world.

Jan 3, 1922

Edward Payson Mathewson EDWARD PAYSON MATHEWSON, President of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgi-cal Engineers, was born in Montreal, Canada, Oct. 16, 1864, of Scotch-Irish ancestors. After preparation in private and public schools, he graduated from McGill University with the degree of Bachelor of Applied Science, in 1885, having specialized in mining engineer-ing and metallurgy. He spent the succeeding summer as a surveyor with the Canadian Geological Survey, being employed in the lake region of Ontario. The following spring he left Canada for Colorado, where he immediately obtained a position as assayer with the Pueblo Smelting & Refining Co. Within three years he became superintendent of the plant, and his success in this position brought him to the attention of the Guggenheim family, whose employ he entered in 1897. He was first in charge of their Pueblo plant, but was soon transferred to their refinery at Perth Amboy, N. J. During the succeeding five years he was in charge of important smelting operations conducted by the firm in Mexico and South America. In June, 1902, Mr. Mathewson accepted a position at the Washoe reduction works at Anaconda, soon thereafter becoming manager of the property. It is unnecessary to recount the improvements and enlarge-ments instituted at that plant under his management, until it became the Mecca of all metallurgists visiting the United States. The esteem in which Mr. Mathew-son was held, not only by the men directly under him, but by all his fellow citizens, was expressed in a send-off such as probably no other plant manager has ever received, when he left Anaconda in October, 1916, to accept the general managership of the British America Nickel Corporation, at Nickelton, Ont., Canada. Soon thereafter Mr. Mathewson accepted an appoint-ment as director of the American Smelting and Refining Co., acting as consulting metallurgist for the company and its subsidiaries. In November, 1919, he resigned this position and opened an office in New York City as a consulting metallurgist.

Jan 3, 1923

By John Wulff, Richard P. Seelig

THE importance of the pressing operation in the forming of articles by powder metallurgy depends to a great extent on the type of product to be made. While in some few cases the pressing is merely a means of compacting loose powder particles into a solid mass preliminary to a sintering treatment in most applications it constitutes a molding operation with the purpose of shaping the raw material in powder form into a certain predetermined, accurately defined part not altered in shape by sub- sequent sintering. In still other cases, no pressing at all but sintering in molds gives useful articles. A limited number of products are made by the simultaneous application of pressure and heat. The factors that control the product of the pressing operation are raw material, lubricant, type, size and shape of die and compact, magnitude and time of application of pressure, as well as temperature of pressing. All such factors need to be con- trolled; yet, depending on the function of the pressing operation, greater emphasis may be placed on processing factors other than the pressing operation. In any complete discussion of pressing, subsequent sintering cannot be disregarded. For the sake of brevity, the present paper has been limited to the mechanics of pressing and only occasionally refers to sintering. For the same reason, hot-pressing has been omitted as beyond the scope of this paper. In any survey of the literature on the pressing of metal powders, the 1938 paper of Balshin1 on the theory of the process of pressing deserves mention. The first attempts at an interpretation of pressing phenomena were made by Balshin1 and Rakovski.2 The experimental results of both are of great interest. Since the experimental results are not described, the work was repeated, using our own interpretation of the possible techniques, and is reported in the following pages. The basic theory of Balshin,1 based on a hydro- dynamic analogy, however, leads to but another way of plotting density and pres- sure against height of a pressed compact. Since it does not give any new insight into the phenomena, nor account for the influence of side-wall friction, a discussion of the theory has been omitted from this paper. DENSITY GRADIENTS IN COMPACTS The process of pressing metal powders in a die (disregarding for this consideration the powder filling and ejection operations) may be divided into three phases: (I) packing, (2) elastic and plastic deformation, (3) cold-working with or without fragmentation. It must be emphasized that these three steps do not follow each other in sequence; on the contrary, in practice

Jan 1, 1946

By P. D. Bush, E. H. Gates, M. D. Vijayaraghavan, L. F. Engle

The process developed over the last few years by Republic Steel Corporation in conjunction with Colorado School of Mines Research Institute has been used as a basis for the conceptual engineering of full size plants. The paper will cover the equipment design criteria, equipment design itself, and the integration of the complex unit operations. There are unique features of agitation and use of gas media through- out. The paper will provide an illustrative example of the process requirements for a variety of raw material feeds. It will discuss the materials of construction approach required.

Jan 1, 1973

By Ralph H. Sweetser

IN the recent world-wide deflation of commodity prices the coal industry, including both anthracite and bituminous coal, had reached a level where the actual delivered market prices received by the operators were usually less than the cost of production. Many steel companies and public utilities, operating their own "captive" mines, could have bought coal during the past three years for less money than the true cost of coal produced at their own properties. Competition within the coal industry itself was cruel to the point of profitless operation, and the competition of other forms of fuel was bearing heavily on the coal producers. They were thus forced into methods of production and utilization that they had hitherto ignored; there had been almost complete absence of any appreciation (by the bituminous operators especially) of the necessity of real research work in finding better methods of preparing coal for specific uses, and in finding new and profitable uses for different kinds and grades of coal.

Jan 1, 1933

By Betty J. Laswell, Gerald W. Laswell

The stepped-up pace of US open-pit and surface mining during the 1970's is a direct response by mining firms and equipment manufacturers to rising costs and declining ore grades. In the race for bigger and more efficient machines, rotary drills have emerged as the foremost leader in primary drilling at major US surface operations. At least 12 different manufacturers now offer rotary rigs in the 102- mm-diam. (4-in.) or greater blasthole size range. With capital investment for the larger units quickly approaching $1 million, the question is asked, "What's been the performance record to date of rotary drill rigs operating in North America?" To answer that question, a comprehensive study of rotary blasthole drills was conducted which qualitatively reveals various problem areas inherent in the rotary drill market and indicates some new directions for improvement.

Jan 6, 1978

By Elliott J. Roberts

The theory is developed that the tons ground through a given mesh per day in a wet ball mill is proportional to the percent plus that mesh in contact with the balls and the net power applied to the balls at this point. A grindability test is described.

Jan 12, 1950

By C. K. Leith

WE face the postwar problem of the use of minerals as sanctions to control the armament and the re-armament of the Axis powers at the source, minerals being the raw material of armaments. That is the subject of today's discussion. It is one thing to talk about controlling minerals in the interest of rearmament, and it is another thing to put any such ideas into effect. A provision for min- eral sanctions-not by that name but under broader terms-was contained in Article 16 of the League of Nations, and an attempt was made to apply min- eral sanctions when Italy cut loose in Africa. That was a failure because the plan was badly thought out. They did not have the right minerals included in the list. Also, they did not have the machinery set up at all. Somebody said to the League of Nations: Let's apply the sanction, and it was assumed that that was all that was necessary. It turned out to be a rather sad perfor- mance. However, that certainly cannot be taken as an example of what will happen if a properly thought-out pro- gram is adopted.

Jan 1, 1944

By J. J. Kantner

CREEP investigators have made extensive studies to determine the interrelation of stress, temperature and the tensile creep rates of metals. It has been suggested that at small stresses the secondary or constant creep rates obey a simple viscous law. Building upon this suggestion, departure from pure viscosity as stress increases may be expressed mathematically as a consequence of reversibly altered viscosity or "flowability" in the same sense that temperature change reversibly alters viscosity. From the index to alteration of viscosity, a value for the energy of secondary creep may be derived having the magnitude of the free energy of vaporized metal. The suggestion is made that applica-tion of stress alters the energy of secondary creep. Strain energy is argued to be but a minor factor in the energetics of secondary creep. A deformation mechanism involving the large energy associated with secondary creep implies a sort of solid self-diffusion process. Evidence indicates that creep strain above the recrystallization temperature takes place by crystallographically directed self-diffusion at grain boundaries and points of crystal defects. A self-diffusion theory of secondary creep is proposed, embracing the principles of the Dushman-Langmuir theory of solid diffusion. An equation is suggested whereby the rate of tensile creep may be related directly to the physical and struc-tural character of the solid metal.

Jan 1, 1937

By Paul A. Bailly

Geology is not the problem. Because of inflation, taxation, and politics more reserves are being reconverted to uneconomic resources than there are new reserves created by exploration and extraction technology.

Jan 1, 1976

By Lester Uren

WITH the depletion of our older, and relatively shallow, oilfields and the necessity for securing new production from deeper horizons, much attention is being given to the improvement of oil-well pumps in order that they may function satisfactorily under the more difficult conditions imposed by increased depth. Until recently, practically all of the world's petroleum was secured from wells less than 3000 ft. deep, whereas horizons are now being explored to depths of from 5000 to 7000 ft. in some of the more prolific fields, and it seems probable that the greater part of the future supply must come from depths in excess of 3000 ft. While much of the early production in a new field is obtained by natural-flow methods, when the stimulus of high gas pressure fails, recourse must be had to some method of pumping. The perfection of a pump capable of economically and efficiently lifting oil from depths ranging from 3000 to 7000 ft. is therefore a matter of prime importance to the oil-producing industry. This paper is offered as an estimate of the present state of development of the oil-well plunger pump and as a review of the general principles involved in its operation in deep-well pumping. A design for a new type of oil-well pump embodying several novel features, is also described.

Jan 9, 1925

SINCE you have asked me many times in particular how those mirrors are made that are commonly called spheres,* and even though I have told you at other times, I do not wish to omit writing of it here again in detail, so that you may have as complete information as I can give you, both in order to satisfy you fully and because it belongs among the subdivisions of the subject that I have proposed. Concerning this, I first tell you that it was an ancient discovery, and in those times as today was celebrated, and worthily so. For the effects these mirrors produce are miraculous things incomprehensible to me, and the more I think about it the more I am bedazzled with wonder, nor do I know how to explain by theory of perspective the causes demonstrated by their effects. Marvelous indeed is the beauty of their shining clearness, but much more so is the fact that (according to the shape that the craftsman has chosen to give them) they reflect back the shadow of the things

Jan 1, 1942

AFTER the aforementioned subjects, I wish to speak to you of the method of welding bells that are cracked. This seems to me an ingenious thing, little used, but of great usefulness. Bells are cracked by the blows of too large a clapper or by excessive and forced ringing. This often cracks them at the rim, in the heart, or in some other place so that they lose their tone because of these cracks, and give no more

Jan 1, 1942

By Carl Samans

IN their recent complete review of the subject of age-hardening,1 R. F. Mehl and L. K. Jetter classify the main types of precipitation-hardening alloys under two headings, depending upon the nature of the precipitate and the character of the precipitation. In the alloys falling under the first heading, which display "continuous precipitation" and are typified by the aluminum-copper alloys, "precipitation seems to occur without much regard to grain boundaries and apparently at much the same rate at every point," although an acceleration in regions plas-tically deformed has definitely been established .2 In the second type of alloys the precipitation is "discontinuous," as in the copper-silver system for example, and "seems to start in restricted regions, primarily those contiguous with the grain boundaries, and to spread inward in an advanc-ing wave." The reasons for the occurrence of these two greatly different types of precipitation are unknown, as are those for many other reactions that take place in the solid state. In the present paper only the first or "continuous" type of precipita-tion will be dealt with, for which a complete crystallographic mechanism has been worked out for the process of precipitation from a supersaturated solid solution of copper in aluminum. Based upon this mechanism, an explanation of the various property changes found experimentally will be developed in the second paper of this series. In later papers "dis-continuous precipitation" in copper-silver alloys will be explained, and an effort will be made to rationalize the two processes and types of precipitation.

Jan 1, 1940