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By R. G. O’Meara, S. M. Runke

THE Bureau of Mines has been charged by Congress to investigate processes for the production of alumina from low-grade bauxite, alunite, and clay. As one part of the program, an investigation of the application of ore-dressing methods to improve the grade of high-silica bauxite is in progress at the Mississippi Valley Experiment Station at Rolla, Mo. This paper summarizes data obtained so far and presents detailed results of tests on four typical samples. MINERALOGY OF BAUXITE The name bauxite originally was used to designate the dihydrous aluminum oxide (A1203.2H20). The designation has been retained, although the existence of a specific mineral of such composition has been disproved. The term is now applied to ores of aluminum consisting of various mixtures of the minerals gibbsite (A1203.3H20), diaspore (A1203.H20), and boehmite (A1203.H20). The predominant hydrous aluminum oxide in most American bauxite, however, is gibbsite. In some instances bauxite may be amorphous mixtures of the hydrous aluminum oxides that approximate the composition of dihydrous aluminum oxide (A1203.2H20). The proposed name for this material is cliachite. Gibbsite and boehmite, the trihydrate and monohydrate, are soluble in a solution of sodium hydroxide at elevated temperature and pressure, whereas diaspore is practically insoluble. The solubility of these two minerals is the basis of the Bayer process of alumina extraction. All bauxites contain certain impurities, the commonest of which, in the order of their importance, are: silica, principally as a constituent of kaolinite, and to a lesser extent as quartz; iron, as hematite, limonite, and siderite; and titanium, as ilmenite, rutile and leucoxene. Minor impurities are zircon, cobalt and nickel. Bauxite is produced commercially in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee, but the most important deposits in the United States are in Arkansas, in the vicinity of Little Rock. HISTORY OF BAUXITE BENEFICIATION The literature on bauxite beneficiation is limited, but the reports of Gandrud and DeVaney1 and Clemmer, Clemmons, and Stacy2 show the possibilities of flotation as a means of beneficiating bauxite. Their work has also developed reagent

Jan 1, 1944

By H. C. Rogers

A phenomenological study of the failure of polycry stalline ductile metals at room temperature was carried out using light and electron microscopy. Tensile fractures as well as sections of partially fractured bars of OFHC copper in particular were examined. The initiation and growth of the central crack in the neck of a tensile specimen occurs by void formation. After the formation of the central crack the f'racture may be completed in either of two ways: by further void formation or by an "allernating slip" mechanism. The first leads to a "cup-cone" failure; the second, to a "double-cup" failure. In the past decade or decade and a half there has been a great deal of emphasis on the solution of the problem of the brittle fracture of metals, particularly those which normally exhibit considerable ductility such as steel. Since the problem of the fracture of metals after large plastic strains has less immediate commercial or defense significance, there has been considerably less effort expended in describing the details of the phenomenology and determining the mechanism of this type of fracture. The present research was undertaken to increase our knowledge in this area. The problem of ductile fracture has not been neglected completely, however. Ludwik1 first found by sectioning a necked but unbroken tensile specimen of aluminum that fracture began with a large internal crack which appeared to have started in the center of the neck. Examination of the fracture indicated that the crack had propagated radially with increasing deformation until a point was reached at which the path of the fracture suddenly left this transverse plane and proceeded at approximately 45 deg to the stress axis until the surface was reached. This gives rise to the commonly observed cup-cone tensile fracture. When MacGregor2 was attempting to demonstrate the linearity of the true stress-true strain curve from necking until fracture, he found that copper was anomalous in that the stress dropped off markedly from the straight line value before fracture occurred. Radiography indicated that in the copper an internal crack was formed long before the final fracture, the stress decreasing during the growth of this crack. One of the most significant advances in the understanding of ductile fracture was the result of work by Parker, Flanigan, and Davis.3 By the use of etch-pit orientations they were able to demonstrate conclusively that the fracture surface at the bottom of the cup, although on a gross scale normal to the tensile axis, did not consist of cleavage facets as had been previously supposed by many investigators. Recently, Forscher4 has shown evidence of porosity near the tensile fracture of hydrogenated zirconium which he attributes to hydride decomposition. The workers at the Titanium Metallurgical Laboratory5 have also shown evidence of porosity in a number of the commonly used metals after heavy deformation. Many metals have relatively low ductility during creep tests at high temperature. The fractures are intercrystalline, resulting from the nucleation and growth of grain boundary voids. The work in this area has been recently reviewed by Davies and Dennison.6 It is possible that some of the observations and conclusions may have a bearing on the present study? especially since at least two studies7,' have been extended down to room temperature and below using magnesium alloys. However, since magnesium does exhibit low-temperature cleavage, these results may not be pertinent to the present one. The use of the electron microscope as an aid to the study of fractures has been extensively exploited by Crussard and coworkers.9 The examination of direct carbon replicas of the fractures of a large number of metals and alloys showed that the bulk of the fracture surface was covered with cup-like indentations of the order of 1 to 2 µ in size. These frequently had a directionality by which Crussard claims to be able to tell the direction of the crack propagation. With this rather disconnected background of information, this investigation was undertaken in the hope of presenting a unified picture of the initiation and propagation of a fracture in a ductile metal. To this end all of the techniques previously used were employed simultaneously so that there might be a good correlation of the data obtained by different techniques. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE The metal which was chosen as the starting material for this investigation was OFHC copper. Of the dozen or so materials considered, it best fulfilled the requirements of commercial availability in large sizes, good ductility, relatively high melting point compared with room temperature and

Jan 1, 1961

By Arthur E. Hall

Tax operation of "softening" in lead refining is designed, as the word implies, to separate from the bulk of the lead the elements that tend to make lead hard. These elements, which invariably are present in argentiferous lead, interfere with the desilverization, and must be almost entirely absent in refined desilverized lead. They are mainly copper, antimony, arsenic and tin. The properties utilized in accomplishing this separation are the low solubility of copper or copper sulphide in lead at its freezing-point temperature, and the greater and selective affinity for oxygen of the other elements at temperatures of the order of 700° to 900' C., or, in the prcsence of sufficient, alkali, at a temperature of about 500' C. The major problems of softening lead bullion lie in the necessary subsequent treatment of the by-products of the primary operation, which contain, either chemically or mechanically, lead or reagents that must be isolated for market or re-use. Therefore an important objective of the primary operation must be the highest practicable concentration of these elements in the by-products. Within the past three decades, during which the writer has been engaged in lead refining, the technique of softening lead bullion has had as many variations as there were lead refineries. This was the result of the variation in composition and character of lead bullion recived. The writer has received for refining shipments of lead bullion varying as widely as indicated by the following table: Sb, Per CEnt As. Per Cent Sn, Per Cent Cu. Per Cent Ag. Oz. per Ton 1.00 0.05 nil 0.05 70 0.50 2.50 2.00 0.50 200 3.50 0.50 nil 0.30 350 At times these have been received uniformly and at other times irregularly with a variation from week to week as wide as those shown. Under such conditions, establishment of a universal softening technique presented many problems. Such variations existed because refinery tolls too often were based on a ton of bullion, whatever its composition, and

Jan 1, 1937

By A. L. Field

This general subject has been so thoroughly discussed by Dr. Herty and his associates, especially with regard to the degree of oxidation of the metal at the time that the silicon pig or spiegel is added, that I am not going to spend much time on that today. I should like to propound a question, which is based on my own observations made some years ago while with a large alloy-steel company which had two open-hearth furnace plants. It is true that one of these plants was not engaged particularly in making alloy steels, but there were certain relations between slag and metal composition which appeared to me to be entirely different in the two plants. I have an explanation for it that is more or less incomplete, but possibly Dr. Herty or Mr. Reinartz or some of the others may be able to complete it. Suppose we take our three layers; the metal on the bottom, on top of that the slag, and on top of the slag, the gas. We cannot overlook the gaseous phase. Regardless of the effect of the iron oxide in the slag on the rate of carbon elimination—and that, of course, is rather important in alloy practice since it is not desirable to have the carbon dropping too rapidly at the time the deoxidizing is had in the furnace—it will probably be admitted that it depends on the iron oxide in the metal for a given carbon oxide. I have seen cases where with approximately identical metal and slag compositions one furnace would work twice as rapidly as another in removing carbon. Of course, there is some explanation of this in what others have already said, that the question of the exact lime and silica content of the slag determines the activity and viscosity of the slag; but I am convinced, without having reviewed the actual records since I was asked to make this talk, because they were not available at the time, that the slags in these two furnaces were not materially different. Putting it another way, one furnace would have

Jan 1, 1935

By A. L. Field

This general subject has been so thoroughly discussed by Dr. Herty and his associates, especially with regard to the degree of oxidation of the metal at the time that the silicon pig or spiegel is added, that I am not going to spend much time on that today. I should like to propound a question, which is based on my own observations made some years ago while with a large alloy-steel company which had two open-hearth furnace plants. It is true that one of these plants was not engaged particularly in making alloy steels, but there were certain relations between slag and metal composition which appeared to me to be entirely different in the two plants. I have an explanation for it that is more or less incomplete, but possibly Dr. Herty or Mr. Reinartz or some of the others may be able to complete it. Suppose we take our three layers; the metal on the bottom, on top of that the slag, and on top of the slag, the gas. We cannot overlook the gaseous phase. Regardless of the effect of the iron oxide in the slag on the rate of carbon elimination—and that, of course, is rather important in alloy practice since it is not desirable to have the carbon dropping too rapidly at the time the deoxidizing is had in the furnace—it will probably be admitted that it depends on the iron oxide in the metal for a given carbon oxide. I have seen cases where with approximately identical metal and slag compositions one furnace would work twice as rapidly as another in removing carbon. Of course, there is some explanation of this in what others have already said, that the question of the exact lime and silica content of the slag determines the activity and viscosity of the slag; but I am convinced, without having reviewed the actual records since I was asked to make this talk, because they were not available at the time, that the slags in these two furnaces were not materially different. Putting it another way, one furnace would have

Jan 1, 1935

By H. A. Schwartz

By analyzing cementite separated electrolytically from white cast iron of known composition and history, the distribution of silicon between austenite and cementite during and after freezing has been followed. The results constitute a contribution to our knowledge of equilibria in the ternary (metastable) system iron-carbon-silicon. Incidental information was obtained, also, with respect to the distribution of manganese, silicon, and phosphorus, when only relatively small amounts of each are present. The major conclusion of the paper is that during solidification, equilibrium is attained when the silicon is all rejected to the liquid phase, permitting silicon-free austenite to separate. OF THE outstanding investigators of the system iron-carbon-silicon, Gontermann,1 Charpy and Cornu-Thenard,2 and Honda,3 only the first touched on the chemical composition of the solid and liquid phases in equilibrium with one another. He concluded that his data did not permit a decision as to which of an indefinitely large number of pairs of compositions of liquid and solid would be found in any given case. If through the three dimensional equilibrium diagram of the iron-carbon-silicon system an isothermal plane is passed in the region of partial solidification, two lines of intersection with the liquidus and solidus, respectively, are obtained, also a point marking the alloys' composition. If, in this, plane, a straight line is drawn through the point, and intersecting both the liquidus and solidus isothermals, the two intersections mark a liquid and a solid alloy that may be chemically in equilibrium at the chosen temperature. From thermal data alone, Gontermann could not assign any particular direction to the line and, hence, could not determine which pair of conjugate points to choose.

Jan 7, 1924

By D. G. Deveraux

A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE DAVE JOHNSTON MINE The Dave Johnston coal mine is located near the southwestern extremity of the Powder River Basin in central Wyoming. This mine is operated entirely for the purpose of furnishing fuel to the 750,000 Kw Dave Johnston power generation station located five miles east of Glenrock, Wyoming on the North Platte River about 24 miles east of Casper, Wyoming. Coal is delivered to the power plant by a company-owned railroad moving the coal 15 miles downgrade from the mine to the power plant. The mine first belonging to Pacific Power & Light Company has now been transferred to Northern Energy Resources Company (NERCO), a mining subsidiary of Pacific Power & Light Company. The coal beds which make up the field at the Dave Johnston Mine are locally referred to as the School and Badger seams and occur beneath gently rolling terrain in the Fort Union formation. The School seam is found approximately 180 feet beneath the Badger in the southern portion of the field and about 110 feet beneath the Badger towards the north. The coal beds dip down toward the northeast on about a four percent average inclination. The School seam has an average thickness of about 35 feet and the Badger seam about 16 feet. The climate at the Dave Johnston Mine is semi-arid, with annual precipitation varying between 10 and 12 inches with 70 percent occurring during the months of April to September, with the maximum occurring in May. A few storms occur in July and August which are usually torrential in character, often causing erosion damage to un- protected soils. Snowfall averages 50 inches a year at the mine with 12 to 15 inches of snow yielding one inch of moisture. However, snow seldom

Jan 1, 1983

By W. W. Colpitts

To me, as to many other students of railroad needs, the necessity for reducing the dead weight in railroad rolling stock, both passenger and freight, has been apparent for, many years. The problem of weight reduction of passenger cars is so entirely different from that of freight cars, is so much more to the fore at the present moment and would seem to be so much nearer solution, that I shall confine myself in these remarks to the former. On the surface of things there would appear to be no close association of thought between the decline in traffic on the railroads, which is largely responsible for their present deplorable financial condition, and new metal alloys. It sounds like a trick riddle a school boy might propound to his parents. But that there is a relationship between the two, and one that bids fair to be of great mutual benefit to the railroads and the makers of .high-strength metal alloys, I hope I shall be able to show before I have finished. To make the situation understandable to those who are not entirely familiar with the problems of railroad management, and, who feel that the railroads have not moved as rapidly as they should in the direction of greater use of newer materials and newer appliances, I shall have to review briefly the course of recent railroad history. If in this part of my talk I seem to the professional man to be a little off key I feel sure my remarks will be fully appreciated by the business man who cannot understand why he is not making better headway in selling things to the railroads. To do this I shall have to go back to war times for a moment.

Jan 1, 1936

By Leo F. Reinartz

The history of steelmaking in the United States is a fascinating story of determination, sudden tragedy, exploitation, and inventive genius rolled into one gigantic plot. Mr. Reinartz' flowing interpretation of the progress made in the last one hundred years is being presented in a series of four articles. THIS is the Age of Steel. We live in a mechanized era. Our everyday lives--everything we see or do-are organized and influenced by this versatile metal. Our industries, our farms, our homes, and our transportation-yes, our vocations and avocations, or luxuries and necessities-all are dependent upon smelting iron and making steel. Take away iron and steel and soon our vaunted civilization would revert to a primitive existence. These metals, often in crude forms, have been known for thousands of years. Down through the ages, until about one hundred years ago, steel was made laboriously, and at high est, in small batches. During those years, methods of manufacture did not change very much. Over long periods of time only warriors, royalty, and wealthy people could afford to use articles made of iron or steel. History has recorded that the nations which were expert in iron and steel manufacture, and had access to rich iron-ore deposits, were the leaders in war or in peaceful pursuits. At the end of the 18th century, thirteen struggling American colonies had broken not only the political shackles that bound them to Great Britain, but also many of the economic bonds. They had showed their skill, Yankee ingenuity, and energy by making iron and steel articles for their own use. After the Revolutionary War, more and more hardy American pioneers pushed westward through the Allegheny Mountain passes and down the rivers into the fertile Ohio River and Kentucky country. Demands for articles made of iron increased. The iron industry on the east coast grew and prospered. As this trend continued, iron industrialists moved their plants westward to be near the large deposits of high-grade coal in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and nothern West Virginia. They also desired to use the local iron ores and water resources of those areas. Blast furnaces and ironworks were built in the Pittsburgh, Youngstown, southern Ohio, and northern West Virginia districts. In 1810, the United States produced 53,908 gross tons of cast iron and 917 tons of steel. Iron ore discovery A white man first discovered large deposits of iron ore in the northern Michigan and Lake Superior country in 1844. One year later, the Sault

Jan 1, 1961

By R. Floyd Farris

Al thorough knowledge of the behavior of cement slurries under elevated temperatures and pressures is necessary in order to solve properly the many problems presented in deep-well cementing operations. In the earlier days of the petroleum industry the depths of wells were shallow as compared to those of today, and the subsurface temperatures and pressures were not of sufficient magnitude to affect seriously the problem of proper control of cement-slurry properties. Today, however, the search for new reserves has extended drilling to such depths that bottom-hole temperatures of more than 200°F. and bottom-hole pressures of 3000 to 5000 lb. are not uncommon. Moreover, there is every indication that within the next few years wells will be drilled to even greater depths and bottom-hole temperatures and pressures will be correspondingly higher than those with which we are concerned today. It has been realized for some time that the behavior of cement slurries at high temperatures and pressures might be very different from that at atmospheric tempera-ture-pressure conditions, but while the temperature effects have been investigated with a reasonable degree of thoroughness, the pressure effects have received little public attention. While the trend toward deeper drilling may make changes in cementing technique and the choice of cements imperative, it was the purpose of this investigation to consider factors having a bearing on the latter, only secondary consideration being ,given, for the present, to details of tech-nique and equipment for oil-field use. More specfically, the purpose of this work was to consider the effect of temperature and pressure upon the behavior of cement slurries. Although it has long been recognized that cements thicken and set rapidly with increasing temperatures, practical methods for the quantitative determination of these effects are comparatively recent developments. In 1935 Silcox and Rule1 presented such a method, describing apparatus designed to measure the consistency-time relationship of cement slurries at relatively high temperatures. The practical importance of this apparatus in furnishing useful data for the evaluation of cement slurries for cementing operations has been emphasized in various technical publications by such writers as E. L. Davis,~ I. F. Bing-ham,3 and J. E. Weiler.4 A paper describing the numerous tests now used to evaluate cements for oil wells was presented in 1939 by W. W. Robinson.= Robinson describes the Consistometer and the Thickening-Time Tester, showing similarity of data from the two devices, and points out that the purpose of each apparatus is to determine the allowable time that a cement may be pumped at a given temperature. At the present time, however, it is believed that results from the Thickening-Time Tester and the Consistometer have not given a

Jan 1, 1941

By R. Floyd Farris

Al thorough knowledge of the behavior of cement slurries under elevated temperatures and pressures is necessary in order to solve properly the many problems presented in deep-well cementing operations. In the earlier days of the petroleum industry the depths of wells were shallow as compared to those of today, and the subsurface temperatures and pressures were not of sufficient magnitude to affect seriously the problem of proper control of cement-slurry properties. Today, however, the search for new reserves has extended drilling to such depths that bottom-hole temperatures of more than 200°F. and bottom-hole pressures of 3000 to 5000 lb. are not uncommon. Moreover, there is every indication that within the next few years wells will be drilled to even greater depths and bottom-hole temperatures and pressures will be correspondingly higher than those with which we are concerned today. It has been realized for some time that the behavior of cement slurries at high temperatures and pressures might be very different from that at atmospheric tempera-ture-pressure conditions, but while the temperature effects have been investigated with a reasonable degree of thoroughness, the pressure effects have received little public attention. While the trend toward deeper drilling may make changes in cementing technique and the choice of cements imperative, it was the purpose of this investigation to consider factors having a bearing on the latter, only secondary consideration being ,given, for the present, to details of tech-nique and equipment for oil-field use. More specfically, the purpose of this work was to consider the effect of temperature and pressure upon the behavior of cement slurries. Although it has long been recognized that cements thicken and set rapidly with increasing temperatures, practical methods for the quantitative determination of these effects are comparatively recent developments. In 1935 Silcox and Rule1 presented such a method, describing apparatus designed to measure the consistency-time relationship of cement slurries at relatively high temperatures. The practical importance of this apparatus in furnishing useful data for the evaluation of cement slurries for cementing operations has been emphasized in various technical publications by such writers as E. L. Davis,~ I. F. Bing-ham,3 and J. E. Weiler.4 A paper describing the numerous tests now used to evaluate cements for oil wells was presented in 1939 by W. W. Robinson.= Robinson describes the Consistometer and the Thickening-Time Tester, showing similarity of data from the two devices, and points out that the purpose of each apparatus is to determine the allowable time that a cement may be pumped at a given temperature. At the present time, however, it is believed that results from the Thickening-Time Tester and the Consistometer have not given a

Jan 1, 1941

By Alan K. Burton

The number of trucks required to perform a certain task is a function of the productive capability of one independent truck and the total tonnage required. Hourly productive capability of one truck is the product of trips, or cycles, per operating hour and effective payload. One cycle is made up of load, dump, and travel time, the sum of which comprises theoretical cycle time. This time is then derated by a productivity factor, giving an average effective cycle time which is used to calculate the number of cycles per hour. Rated payload is the truck's designed tonnage, while effective payload is the average amount that is actually carried. Manufacturers, particularly of the larger trucks, produce various body sizes designed to carry materials of different densities. However, it is not always possible to carry the rated payload because the material might be lighter than expected, a body of the required size cannot be produced, or because of spillage on particularly steep grades.

Jan 12, 1975

By Roy E. Gilbert

IN what ways can conventional geophysical methods be used in the search for quartz-sulphide veins covered by several feet of overburden? The New Park Mining Co., in search of an answer to this question, empirically tested simple geochemical, electrical, and magnetic methods over known ore bodies and geologic structures. Geochemical methods were the only ones found to be applicable to direct ore search. Indirect uses were found for electrical and magnetic tests. Experiments were conducted in the southeastern part of the Park City mining district. Ore in this part of the district is found principally in steeply dipping veins which are localized along faults and fractures that cut Paleozoic sediments and quartz diorite intrusives. Extensive soil cover effiectively hides both veins and country rock. The type of vein most likely to

Jan 1, 1953

Among the bills now pending in Congress is one to authorize exploration for and disposition of coal, phosphate, sodium, oil, oil shale, and gas on, public domain. One, to provide protection and government revenue for potash and for zinc ores and products. One to prevent withdrawal of mineral lands from entry and occupancy by law, also to promote, production of quicksilver, tungsten, sulfate, pyrites, and sulfur, and of manganese and manganiferous ores. Three resolutions have been introduced to suspend requirements of annual assessment work on mining claims during year 1919 and one to relieve owners of mining claims mustered into military service.

Jan 8, 1919

By R. C. Dorward

DIFFUSION considerations are necessary to describe many technologically important metallurgical and physical processes. Since most commercially important alloys are comprised of more than two components, diffusion calculations applicable to binary systems are often unjustified. However, in many instances the more general equations valid for three-component systems may be employed. The phenom-enological description of ternary diffusion is now well-established,1-4 and the theory has been applied with some success to a few practical situations.5"7 The flux equations for the solutes (components 1 and 2) of a ternary solution may be expressed by:

Jan 1, 1969

By J. A. Holmes

As the Appalachian mountains reach their maximum development in western North Carolina, we find also in that region indications of extensive dynamic disturbances and alterations undergone by the rocks in' connection with these mountain uplifts. Among the minor results of these changes have been the formation of numerous dikes or a veins " of exceedingly coarse granitic materials, which in some places are mined for the mica which they contain, and in other places are quarried for kaolin. These dikes are filled with quartz, feldspar, and mica, in varying proportions, very coarsely crystallized. Sometimes the mica (generally muscovite), sometimes the feldspar (generally albite or orthoclase) predominates. When the mica is present in considerable quantity, and in large crystals, the dike is usually spoken of as a mica-vein, and is often worked for mica. Sometimes these crystals of mica occur on one side or the other; sometimes on both sides; and sometimes they are largely concentrated toward the middle of the vein, or, it may be, distributed throughout the dike with a considerable degree of uniformity. In many cases the crystals of mica are too small and few to permit the working of the vein as a micamine ; in other cases, very little mica is present, and the feldspar constitutes the larger part of the material. This feldspar of the dikes undergoes, through the weathering action of the atmosphere, certain chemical changes, resulting in its alteration from feldspar into kaolinite—the kaolin of commerce. These dikes vary considerably in size, ranging from a few inches to several hundred feet in thickness, and up to many hundred yards in length. They are generally parallel to the schistosity of the crystalline rocks, which, however, in some cases, they cross at varying angles. The kaolin in those dikes which occur in the Unaka or

Jan 1, 1896

By C. P. Parsons

To properly account for the various characteristics of drilling muds obtained in different areas and geological horizons, it is necessary to study the composition of the mud from a chemical and physical standpoint as determined by the proportions and activities of the various solid contituents that are present in various states of division. Briefly summarized, science teaches that there are three states of division into which these solid constituents or particles may be grouped: namely, the suspended state, the individual particles of which are known as suspensoids; the colloidal state, in which the individual particles are termed colloids; and the crystalloidal state, wherein the individual particles are held in true solution and are termed crystalloids. The suspended state is one wherein the particles are fairly large and are present as molecular complexes, having none of the properties of colloids or crystalloids. Since matter varies in physical character and in chemical activities with its state of division, these coarser suspensoids do not themselves materially affect the physical or chemical properties of the solution in which they are suspended. On the other hand, they are distinctly detrimental in drilling muds and it is desirable that they be removed. Under the general classification of suspensoids are included sand, gravel and cuttings which contribute nothing to the colloidal stability or other desirable properties of the drilling fluid. As the state of division approaches but does not reach a molecular simplification, the term "colloidal state" is used in describing this condition. The colloidal state arises when one form of matter is in a very fine state of division and is distributed through a second phase. The material in the finely divided state is called the dispersed phase, while the liquid in which it is dispersed is called the dispersive phase. These particles of matter are in a colloidal state and will not settle out from the dispersive phase so long as colloidal conditions are stable. Moreover, they exhibit the property of having an oscillating movement around a central position in solution (the Brownian movement). In the third state of division, the crystalloidal state, the individual particles are held in true solution and are usually present as single molecules or ions. In a drilling fluid the water content of the fluid contains

Jan 1, 1931

By L. R. Budrow, R. T. Mishler

The Lucky-Tiger mine is a silver-gold property, situated at El Tigre, in the northeastern part of Sonora, Mexico, at an elevation of 6000 ft. in the Sierra Madre Mountains. It is 30 miles by wagon road from the Esqueda station on the Nacozari railroad. Since its discovery in 1903, the mine has produced forty million ounces of silver. The ore has averaged 40 oz. silver and 0.25 oz. gold per ton. Copper, lead and zinc have been of minor importance, having averaged 0.4 per cent., 1.1 per cent., and 1.5 per cent., respectively. The richness of the ore, combined with its occurrence in narrow veins, required the use of the more expensive methods. of mining. Geology Wall Rock The wall rock is rhyolite and rhyolite tuff, both of Tertiary age. In rare instances, post-mineral andesite dikes have been intruded along the veins. In the upper part of the mine, the walls were fairly solid. On the lower levels, the walls are usually cither kaolinized and soft or silicified and fractured, both conditions requiring closely filled stopes or much timber. Veins The veins have been deposited along fracture planes in the volcanics. There are three principal veins, about 600 ft. apart, all striking nearly north-south and dipping steeply to the west. Table 1 records the approximate dimensions and assay of the veins. Although the average

Jan 1, 1925

By George H. Ashley

It has been said that the Pittsburgh bed is the most valuable single mineral deposit yet known to man. The figures in Table 1 are presented in substantiation of that claim. Production and Value In order that the figures of Table 1 may have any weight, a statement must be made to show how they were arrived at. Because, to the writer's knowledge, no accurate separate figures ever have been kept of the production and value of the Pittsburgh coal bed, the states will be considered separately. Pennsylvania Accurate figures are obtainable for Pennsylvania for recent years because recent reports of the Pellnsylvania Department of Mines show the production from each mine and the bed worked at each mine. For recent years, therefore, it is only necessary to list the mines working in the Pittsburgh bed and add up their production. The value was obtained by treating each county separately, applying the average price for the county to the production of Pittsburgh coal in that county. Unfortunately for great accuracy, while production figures for individual mines are available for many years, the name of the bed being

Jan 1, 1938

By George H. Ashley

It has been said that the Pittsburgh bed is the most valuable single mineral deposit yet known to man. The figures in Table 1 are presented in substantiation of that claim. Production and Value In order that the figures of Table 1 may have any weight, a statement must be made to show how they were arrived at. Because, to the writer's knowledge, no accurate separate figures ever have been kept of the production and value of the Pittsburgh coal bed, the states will be considered separately. Pennsylvania Accurate figures are obtainable for Pennsylvania for recent years because recent reports of the Pellnsylvania Department of Mines show the production from each mine and the bed worked at each mine. For recent years, therefore, it is only necessary to list the mines working in the Pittsburgh bed and add up their production. The value was obtained by treating each county separately, applying the average price for the county to the production of Pittsburgh coal in that county. Unfortunately for great accuracy, while production figures for individual mines are available for many years, the name of the bed being

Jan 1, 1938