Search Documents

By Earl Bardwell

THE structural relations existing between cuprous oxide and copper -were first systematically studied by Heyn1', who suggested that a study of the microstructure of refined copper might be substituted for the analytical methods in vogue for determining the oxygen content of copper coming from the refining furnace. Hofman, Green and Yerxa,2 in their paper A Laboratory Study of the Stages in the Refining of Copper, working along the lines suggested by Heyn, showed that a study of the microstructure could be made to yield a correct estimate of the oxygen content of the specimen of refined copper under examination. In order to determine the oxygen content of the specimen of refined copper under. examination a photomicrograph was first made. From the relative areas of copper and eutectic, the percentage of cuprous oxide and the corresponding percentage of oxygen were then readily calculated. It was found that the values for oxygen thus obtained corresponded closely with the analytical results. With the idea of utilizing this method of determining the oxygen content of each charge dipped from the refining furnaces at the Boston & Montana Reduction Plant, the physical testing laboratory was equipped with suitable apparatus for carrying out the work. It may be of interest to describe certain of the methods which have been worked out in this connection and give such data as have been obtained bearing on the effect of the oxygen content of refined copper upon its conductivity. Apparatus.-For the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with metallographical apparatus and methods and may be interested to know what equipment is required, a few words with regard to the apparatus is in place at this point.

Jan 7, 1913

By Earl S. Bardwell

The structural relations existing between cuprous oxide and copper were first systematically studied by Heynl; who suggested that a study of the microstructure of refined copper might be substituted for the analytical methods in vogue for determining the oxygen content of copper coming from the refining furnace. Hofman, Green and Yerxa,2 in their paper A Laboratory Study of the Stages in the Refining of Copper, working along the lines suggested by Heyn, showed that a study of the microstructure could be made to yield a correct estimate of the oxygen content of refined copper. In order to determine the oxygen content of the specimen of refined copper under examination a photomicrograph was first made. From the relative areas of copper and eutectic, the percentage of cuprous oxide and the corresponding percentage of oxygen were then readily calculated. It was found that the values for oxygen thus obtained corresponded closely with the analytical results. With the idea of utilizing this method of determining the oxygen content of each charge dipped from the refining furnaces at the Boston & Montana Reduction Plant, the physical testing laboratory was equipped with suitable apparatus for carrying out the work. It may be of interest to describe certain of the methods which have been worked out in this connection and give such data as have been obtained bearing on the effect of the oxygen content of refined copper upon its conductivity. Apparatus.—For the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with metallographical apparatus and methods and may be interested to know what equipment is required, a few words with regard to the apparatus are in place at this point.

Jan 1, 1914

By R. B. Ladoo, C. A. Stokes, R. N. Secord, A. L. Hall

INDUSTRIAL mineral history shows that the entrance of new, nonmetallic minerals into commercial production can be expected to occur from time to time. Latest entrant into the field is wollastonite. Except for one short-lived period in Kern County, Calif., starting in 1933, wollastonite has never before been produced on a commercial scale. But the signs are up for its entrance as an economic factor in the mineral market. Small scale experimental production from a deposit near Willsboro, N. Y., started about 1943. A pilot plant was built in 1949-50 and irregular, small scale, production has continued. In early 1951 Godfrey L. Cabot, Inc. of Boston, world's largest producer of carbon black, took an operational lease on the property to study the deposits and make market surveys. This became Cabot's first venture in the mineral field, when they took over operations and began design of a new mill, expected in production in 1953. Properties The properties and major uses of wollastonite are comparable to New York fibrous talc. It has about the same specific gravity and index of refraction as talc, but is somewhat whiter and softer. The two most important fields of use, paint and ceramics, are the same as for talc. Ground wollastonite has a fiber length as much as 13 to 15 times the diameter. This particular property makes it applicable in the paint field and others. In addition, the length-diameter ratio may be controlled to rather narrow limits by choice of grinding method. Another important commercial property is brightness or whiteness. Wollastonite reads from 92 to 96 pct of MgO on the G.E. brightness meter for a 99 pct -325 mesh grind. Purity and uniformity of product are important. Chemically, the wollastonite now being mined analyzes SiO2 51.76, CaO 47.56, FeO 0.46, MnO 0.04, and H2O 0.09 pct. Theoretically pure wollastonite analyzes SiO2 51.75 and CaO 48.25 pct. This analysis indicates over 98 pct calcium silicate, with only small amounts of contaminating ingredients. That these ingredients are not detrimental to color or brightness is shown by the high brightness value of the fine ground material. [ ] By-product calcium silicate from electric furnace production of phosphoric acid has little physical re-semblance. to this wollastonite, being an off color white, and lacking in fibrous crystalline character. Minerology Wollastonite is a calcium metasilicate, CaSiO3, a white, medium hard, fibrous mineral. In this deposit wollastonite occurs as well crystallized aggregates of bladed crystals intergrown with garnet, and with a few percent of green diopside. The beneficiated product is about 75 pct wollastonite, 15 pct garnet, and 10 pct waste, largely middling. Wollastonite-garnet ore occurs in at least two beds. The main bed, varying in true thickness from 30 to 70 ft, dips into the hill at an average 30° and is enclosed in gneisses. Diamond drilling has proven the orebody to an average depth of 200 ft along 2000 ft of outcrop with adequate tonnage for many years of quarry operation. The wollastonite-garnet ratio varies locally, but average composition is uniform over long distances. A friable ore, it is easy to drill, shoot, and crush. Beneficiation Unlike talc this ore has to be beneficiated. Successful treatment depends upon the fact that it contains virtually nothing but wollastonite, garnet and a minor percentage of diopside. A very pure wollastonite product can be made by high intensity magnetic and/or gravity separation methods.

Jan 1, 1952

By Richard L. Stowe, Donnie L. Ainsworth

The static, rapid, and shock-loading response of rock is of interest to many in the field of rock mechanics. For example, the effects of loading rates on strength and stress-strain characteristics of rock are quite important in defining input loading for use in the design of underground protective installations. Response data on rock subjected to shock loading over a wide range of pressures are also vital in the field of underground nuclear testing. In addition, material response is needed in design of shock-absorbing liners. A number of investigators have reported that ultimate compressive strength of rock increases with increased rates of loading.1-6 Wuerker3 stated that modulus of elasticity, obtained from sonic determinations, increased in some rocks by a factor as high as 4.5. It appears that only a limited amount of work has been done on comparing static modulus and modulus obtained from impact testing.6 Phillips4 showed that with increased rates of loading the deformation decreased. More recent work by Atchley and Furr5 showed that when moderate-strength concrete is stressed with increased loading rates, the axial strain at failure increased. One would expect this to occur if we think in terms of purely elastic materials. For example, if E is constant and maximum strength [amax], increases, the axial strain would also increase. However, in rock testing thus far we have worked almost exclusively with nonhomogeneous and inelastic rocks. From this fact alone the increase in axial strain with increased load application is noteworthy.

Jan 1, 1972

By Irving Hartmann, H. P. Greenwald

READERS of this journal are familiar with the danger of coal-dust explosions in mines and with recommended means for preventing them. The subject was treated in a paper by R. R. Sayers in the January 1943 issue, as well as in several previous articles. Similarly the danger of dust explosions is generally recognized in the handling of grain dust, flour, starch, sugar, and other carbonaceous products. However, until recently, few people realized that an analogous, real explosion hazard exists wherever dust suspensions of certain finely divided metal powders are formed. This lack of knowledge was in part due to the fact that until a few years ago only a small number of metal powders, such as aluminum, magnesium, zinc, iron, and tungsten, were produced, in comparatively small volume, and partly because information on the explosibility of metal powders was lacking.

Jan 1, 1945

By R. W. Raymond

THIS meeting was held in the new home of the Institute, the United Engineering Society Building, 29 West 39th Street, New York City, directly following the Dedication ceremonies. The first session was held in the large Auditorium, Thursday, April 18. The meeting was called to order by Mr. John Hays Hammond, President of the Council, who said Before taking up the reading and discussion of papers, I will call upon Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond, the oldest living past-President of the Institute, who has been in harness almost continuously for thirty-six years, and who has contributed more than any one else to bring this society to its present great success and to establish the reputation of the American mining engineer the world over, for a few words supplementary to those which were uttered to engineers generally, during the sessions of yesterday and the day before. ADDRESS BY R. W. RAYMOND. The generally accepted Darwinian doctrine of the survival of the fittest is sometimes illustrated by persons who are supposed to be the fittest because they have simply survived. I fear that I come under that category. Almost all of my contemporaries in the early history of this Institute have passed away. Only one or two of the original founders remain, and I may fairly say that scarcely any remain who were active at that : time in shaping the organization and the future career of the Institute. In May, 1871, I was thirty-one years old. Next week I shall be sixty-seven years old. All the intervening years have been devoted to the service of this Institute almost continuously, either as President or Vice-President or Secretary. You may easily imagine, therefore, with what pleasure I greet you on this occasion. I am not here to extend to you the welcome of the City - of

May 1, 1907

By Rossiter W. Raymond

(Chattanooga Meeting, October, INS.) THE formal outline of Mr. Hague's life and work is embraced in the following statement, chiefly based upon data furnished by him, at my request, shortly before his death. At that time the probability that I would survive to record his death was apparently small; but I urged upon him the duty of providing, whether for me or for my successor as Secretary of the Institute, trustworthy material for the notice which somebody would some day have to write-and which might otherwise be incomplete or incorrect. Mr. Hague, with characteristic promptness and freedom from affectation, did what I asked of him; and I am therefore . able to present an authoritative sketch-concerning the details of which I shall add my own comments, and some particulars obtained from others of his personal friends. James Duncan Hague was born Feb..24, 1836, at Boston, Mass., where his father, Rev. William Hague, D.D., an eminent clergyman, then resided. After a preliminary, education in private. schools, be studied in 1854 at the, Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University; in 1855 and 1856 at the University of Göttingen, Hanover; and from 1856 to 1858 at the Royal Mining Academy of Freiberg, Saxony. In 1859-1861 he was attached as chemist to a South Sea exploring expedition, sent by W. H. Webb, of New York, to examine Jarvis, Baker, and other islands for phosphate-deposits. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he entered the U. S. Navy, serving for a year as Judge Advocate to the fleet stationed at Port Royal, S. C. In 1863 he became Superintendent of the Albany and Boston copper-mine, in the Lake Superior region, where he was also connected with the earliest development of the Calumet and Hecla property. In 1867 he became the First Assistant Geologist in Clarence King's famous Exploration of

Feb 1, 1909

By AIME AIME

THE Annual Meeting-numerically the 162d meeting-of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers will be held at the Pennsylvania Hotel, 7th Ave. and 33d St., New York, Feb. 18-22, with the exception of the following events: the Mineral Industry Education Division will meet Sunday afternoon and evening at the Columbia University Men's Faculty Club, 400 West 117th St.; and a meeting of the Section Delegates, the annual business meeting of the Institute, and an executive session of the Board of Directors will be held in that order Tuesday afternoon in the Engineering Societies Building, 29 West 39th St., where the Directors will meet in the evening following their annual dinner to the Section Delegates. The Pennsylvania--one of the Statler group of hotels-was selected as headquarters because it has the physical equipment and facilities-for registration, technical sessions of all sizes, luncheons, social events, etc.-as well as the prominence and location desirable for an Institute annual meeting. (A tip for Tuesday afternoon and evening: You can walk underground from the Pennsylvania to within half a block of the Engineering Societies Building,)

Jan 1, 1945

DETAILED programs for the Regional Meeting to be held at Boston, on Aug. 29, 30, 31, will be available on arrival at the Copley-Plaza Hotel, where registration will begin at 10 a. m. on Wednesday morning. The opening session will be non-technical in character and will be called to order at 11 a. m. Hector J. Hughes, Dean of the Graduate School of Engineering of Harvard University, and others will speak, and in the afternoon visits are to be made both to Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wednesday afternoon will be devoted mainly to the opening of an exhibit of geophysical instruments and methods at Tech. On the way back to the hotel a tour of Old Boston will permit the visitors to see many of the historic points of the city. A special meeting of the Board of Directors has been called to be preceded by the usual subscription dinner at the University Club at 6.30 p. m. Owing to limita-tions of room, invitations have been sent only to the usual list designated in the By-Laws, the Directors, past officers, chairmen of sections and of technical committees. The dinner and a brief business session of the Board will be followed by a technical session at the Copley-Plaza at 8 p. m. and this in turn by a buffet supper at the University Club at 10 p. m. Sep-arate entertainment is being provided for the women for the evening. Thursday will be devoted to technical sessions both in the morning and afternoon. If necessary to permit adequate discussion, an overflow session will be ar-ranged in the afternoon. In the evening, a subscription dinner will be given at the Copley-Plaza at which past-presidents John Hays Hammond and Robert H. Rich-ards will be guests of honor. It is promised that speeches will be short and dancing will be arranged for following. The women will be offered a luncheon and bridge party at one of the country clubs on Thursday, and Friday will be devoted to an all-day excursion for both men and, women. Members are asked to register promptly on arrival so that the various committees will know as early as possible for how many to provide. The major part of the technical program has been provided by the Committee on Geophysical Methods of Prospecting, and a series of papers of great value and interest in this new field has been brought together. Abstracts of substantially all of them are printed in this issue of MINING AND METALLURGY and the papers themselves will, with one or two exceptions, be avail-able in printed form at the meeting and later in the regular publications of the Institute.

Jan 9, 1928

By Richard Rothwell

At the last meeting of the Institute, Mr. Per Larsson read a very interesting paper on the Chapin mine of Michigan, in which he described the systems of mining that had, at different times, been tried in that great ore-body, and especially the system now in use, which consists in working the ore out from the bottom upward in lifts. Shortly after that paper was written, but before it had been published, or that I had had an opportunity of reading it, I bad the pleasure of visiting the mine. At that time I was making a profes sional examination of a nnmber of the mines on theGogebic Range, and others in the Menominee region, Michigan and Wisconsin, and had occasion then, as during several previous visits, to study closely the methods and cost of mining in these districts. As the outcome of these investigations, it appeared evident to me that the system of working on the chamber-and-pillar plan, which up to that time had been the only method of underground work adopted in the Gogebic

Jan 1, 1888

By Frank Julian

The determination of manganese by precipitation with potassium chlorate from a solution in concentrated nitric acid, filtration through asbestos, and solution in a reducing agent whose excess is estimated, is open to the objections that the filtration and subsequent solution of the binoxide are apt to be very slow, and that the asbestos may (according to Troilius), unless perfectly purified, affect the titration. In the following modification, filtration is avoided. I give the method as I use it for Bessemer steel. In an 8-ounce Griffen beaker dissolve 1 gramme drillings in 15 c.c. nitric acid (1.2 sp. gr.). Evaporate to 5 c.c.; add 20 c.c. concentrated nitric acid and precipitate with chlorate as usual, avoiding a large excess; then add about 60 c.c. warm water, and 10 c.c. of the oxalic solution; stir until of a clear light yellow color, and titrate with permanganate while the solution is at about 80' C. The binoxide should dissolve immediately when the oxalate isadded. The titration is rapid, and the end-reaction, though transient, easily caught after a little practice. The standard solutions used are: 15 grammes crystallized ammonium oxalate to a liter, and 1.6 grarnmes potassium permanganate to a liter. For standardizing the permanganate, to 10 c.c. of the oxalic solution is added 50 c.c. of hot water, and a solution of 1 gratnme of steel in concentrated nitric acid, from which the manganese has been removed by potassium chlorate and filtration through asbestos. I have made a large number of determinations in steel, pig-iron,

Jan 1, 1888

By Robert H. Richards

It has long been known to boiler makers and to the users of cylindrical pipes of many kinds that when a tube is exposed to internal fluid pressure the resolution of forces is such that the material of the walls of the tube is exposed to twice the stress in the direction tending to produce longitudinal rupture, as it is in the direction to produce circumferential fracture. By longitudinal fracture is meant the fracture by a rent parallel to the axis; by circumferential fracture is meant fracture by rents running round the cylinder. In consequence of this the makers of boilers always lay the fibre of their metal in direction round the boiler, and the same is true with the makers of gun-barrels. I have never seen any good and simple illustration of this law until I met with it in blowing glass. If a thin bubble of glass be blown out in a spherical form and then exploded it will be found that the particles tumble into totally irregular shapes, showing no special direction in the molecular structure of the material. If now a bubble of glass be blown out and so manipulated that it will take a cylindrical form (see accompanying illustration), and then be exploded, it will drop into ribbon-shaped pieces from end to end, and the only parts that will be found to differ from this form will be the two hemispherical ends which will remain whole, having a fringe of ribbons representing the line of their fracture from the cylinder. The main point of difference between this experiment and the

Jan 1, 1883

By Charles A. Schaeffer

IN the early part of last year I received a small amount of powdered mineral from Williamson County, Texas, to be examined for silver. The specimen proved to be limestone, slightly colored

Jan 1, 1883

By Scott Turner

HOSTS of friends will rejoice that T. A. Rickard has been given honorary membership in the Institute. It might well have been done long ago, since, when one reviews distinguished services rendered by individuals to our organization and our profession, it is at once apparent that his name ranks high and that he has merited this distinction for more than three decades. Our by-laws restrict this list to twenty names; "T.A." becomes the sixteenth living member. Young engineers should particularly be pleased; Mr. Rickard has had a career rich in human interest, and full of useful suggestions to the younger men; he has given them good advice and set them a notable example; he, more than anyone else, has shown them how technical writing can be clear and concise; he has inspired youngsters to do their best; he has been their friend. No one has more first-hand knowledge of these facts than the writer of this appreciation:

Jan 1, 1935

By T. PH. D. Egleston

THE Boston and Colorado Smelting Works are situated in the town of Black Hawk, Gilpin County, Colorado, on the Clear Creek Narrow Gauge Railway, 55 miles from Denver, in the Rocky Mountains, at an altitude of 7800 feet. It was one of the first works erected for the metallurgical treatment of gold ores, and the only one established in Colorado on a large scale which has been uniformly successful. Both gold and silver ores are treated, and gold, silver, and copper produced. The lead is not separated from the ores nor paid for, if it exists, and is entirely lost in the residues. The works were planned and built by Professor Hill, formerly Professor of Chemistry in Brown University, Providence, R. I., and is still managed by him, assisted by Mr. Richard Pearce, formerly professor in the School of Mines at Truro, England. They are very advantageously situated with regard to the ore-producing regions, having Boulder County on the north, which produces, besides ordinary gold ores, a series of tellurium minerals, such as altaite, sylvanite, and hessite, which are very rich in gold and silver. They are associated with copper and iron pyrites, blende, galena, and the carbonate and oxides of iron. Gilpin County itself produces for the most part the pyrites of iron and copper rich in gold, with a small quantity of galena and blende, which is rich in silver. In * By consent of the council of the Institute, this paper was first published in London Engineering, from which the engravings are here reproduced.

Jan 1, 1876

By William R. Barton

It is generally conceded as axiomatic that the aggregate producer and the average urban resident have mutually incompatible goals. The producer wants to be near his mass market and the average resident wants him as far away as possible. The traditional economic decision to mine local material to avoid transportation costs is increasingly challenged by zoning and planning bodies and by citizens' groups. This conflict generated much written and spoken word and offered opportunity for great flights of rhetoric. The pressure on the producer also has forced re¬appraisal of the need for the classic confrontation with indications that much of the conflict is more apparent than substantive. In New England several factors combine to increase complexity of the siting problem. It is a region of high land values and population density. Due to the proximity of metropolitan areas, even rural communities have experienced a prolif¬eration of environmental groups with concomitant enthusiastic regional planning and critical watch over land use. In New England where there is little public understanding of the necessity for, and the realities of, mineral production a sophisticated approach to aggregate production site location is required.

Jan 1, 1975

Jan 1, 1883

By Thomas T., Read

IT is difficult to judge how much influence the success attained during its first year, 1864-65, by the School of Mines at Columbia had on developments in education for the mineral industry elsewhere in the immediately subsequent years. The facts are as follows: 1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology began giving instruction in February 1865, with a mining course included in its curriculum. 2. Early in 1865 the faculty of the Department of Science, Literature and the Arts of the University of Michigan requested permission from the Regents to establish "a course of study to be called the School of Mines . . . Also that the degree of Mining Engineering, be conferred on students who should complete the course of study prescribed in the same." A resolution authorizing this was adopted by the Regents on March 28, 1865. 3. Samuel Hooper endowed a Sturgis-Hooper professorship of geology at Harvard in 1865 with the intention of making it a nucleus of a new School of Practical Mining and Geology. 4. Yale appointed Alfred P. Rockwell professor of mining in 1865. 5. Lafayette College appointed Henry S. Osborn professor of mining and metallurgy in 1865. 6. Washington College (as Washington and Lee was then known), rising out of the ashes of Civil War destruction, made a fresh start in 1865, with Generalized as its president, and offered a mining course in the first catalogue thereafter published. 7. Lehigh University, founded in 1866, had a mining curriculum from its beginning. 8. Rensselaer Polytechnic began offering a curriculum in mining and metallurgical engineering in 1867. It would be natural to suppose that these events were a reaction, to the success of the school at Columbia, - and possibly they

Jan 1, 1941

By Richard P. Rothwell

REVOLING slime-tables with stationary sprays and oscillating brushes have for many years been a favorite apparatus used for working slimes in German dressing-works, often displacing Rittinger tables and the many variations of Cornish buddles. The difficulty of building these tables larger than 5 1/2 meters (17 feet) in diameter, increasing the cost and making them unwieldy, rendered it necessary also to concentrate the slimes in several operations, because the travel over so short a length of hearth would not suffice for close concentration. A preliminary sizing is effected in a system of spitzkasten. Herr C. Linkenbach, general manager of the Ems Lead and Silver Works, Germany, devised a buddle, in 1878, which has since worked well and found much favor in Germany, and has been in one instance copied here, at Colorado Springs, without any credit having been given to the original inventor. Linkenbach's plan has been to reverse the functions of the table and the washing apparatus of the old German revolving table. He makes the tables stationary and rotates the washing apparatus,, thus enabling him to save in power, and, within certain limits, to increase the dimensions of the table, without in any way affecting its durability or materially increasing its cost. In its earlier form, the buddle was single, and that type is still

Jan 1, 1883

By J. C. Bayles

It is seldom the privilege of one who contributes to the Transactions of a technical society, to describe a new industry in which, by processes employed for the first time, are attained results of conspicuous value. There are but few such patches of virgin soil worth the tilling, within the area circumscribed by the industries which have experienced a regular and uniform development. New and startling methods in production are often announced as about to be introduced; but, as a rule, they take their place among the " large desires with most uncertain issues," or give new significance to the historic words of an eminent statesman concerning " the bright beginnings and the bitter end of a halcyon and vociferous proceeding." In this paper I shall have the pleasure of briefly describing a new industry which has been established without announcement or proclamation — the manufacture of serviceable pressure pipes of great strength, from strips of steel or iron wound spirally, heated only along the overlapping edges, welded by hammering and finished into tubes of uniform diameter, and of such length as mag be found convenient in handling and transportation. As such tubes are now manufactured on a considerable scale, in a range of sizes which will soon include everything between 4 inches and 30 inches, and as much larger as may be needed, both process and product are likely to be of interest to engineers in all departments of professional work. The raw material of the industry is the ordinary sheet-iron or steel of commerce, of such lengths and widths as it is convenient to roll. The range of the ganges of the metal which can be employed has riot yet been determined. The lightest metal thus far successfully made into pipe is No. 29 iron, and the heaviest a steel gauging somewhere between 12 and 14. Heavier machines are now building which will bend steel .165 of an inch in thickness, or No. 8 of' the Birmingham gauge. Probably No. 20 or No. 22 will be the lightest used in making commercial pipes; hut the experiment with No. 29 was interesting as showing the readiness with which the flame can be controlled. To get a welding heat with such thin

Jan 1, 1888