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By Lucien Eaton

VENTILATION in the iron mines of the Lake Superior region in nearly all cases is natural; that is, it is induced by the difference in elevation between different outlets in the mine and by the difference in temperature of the air in the mine and that outside. This difference in temperature is frequently augmented by placing a steampipe in the upcast shaft; but aside from this, artificial aids to ventilation have been rare until - recent years. In some of the older mines, as at the Cliffs Shaft mine at Ishpeming, Mich., in the 80's, fans have been used when there was only one opening to surface, but their use was abandoned as soon as a natural circulation of air started. In recent years, the Newport mine at Ironwood, Mich., was the first to use positive mechanical ventilation. The installation was not large enough, however, to give definite results, reliance being placed largely on natural ventilation. With the coming of warm weather in the spring of 1914, the necessity of positive mechanical ventilation at the Lake mine of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. at Ishpeming, Mich., became evident. The workings of the Lake mine are under the bed of old Lake Angeline, which was pumped out in 1894, and the mine had been in operation for 6 years prior to that date making a total of 26 years of continuous operation. The total production, up to 1914, amounted to over 8,000,000 tons. The ore was first mined by square-set rooms and pillars, but this was later changed to top slicing and caving. Both methods required the use of large amounts of timber, probably 80,000,000 board feet in all, practically all of which remained in the timber mat. The slow oxidation of this timber was one of the principal causes leading to the installation of mechanical ventilation. The mine was served by only one working shaft, called No. 4, a second outlet being provided by a raise to the surface from the old workings on the south side of the mine. This raise was the "down cast;" but it was very small and the drifts and raises leading to it were too small and crooked to permit an adequate amount of air to enter the mine, especially during the warmer weather. Measure-

Jan 8, 1920

By H. F. Moore

We have studied the simple case of repeated stress, without considering impact, which might bring in other factors. This investigation has shown that steel under repeated applications of stress, reversed from positive to negative, will not fail below some fairly clearly defined limiting stress that, so far we can see, does not bear any definite relation to the ordinary elastic limit, being as large as the elastic limit in some cases and about one-half the elastic limit in others. According to one theory, fatigue is the result of changes in crystalline structure by repeated stress. I do not know of any evidence in favor of this theory. The crystals are broken under repeated stress. According to Bauschinger, under repeated stress some inherent property of the material changes its elastic limit; possibly some property of the amorphous cement between the crystals. A third theory is that all fatigue of metals is the result of the spread of damage from little localized overstresses. While I do not feel justified in accepting the last theory rather than the second, I have yet to run across a case of failure of steel or other metal, either in the laboratory or in service, that could not be explained by the gradual spread of damage from some nucleus. We have found, for example, that it is possible to subject a homogeneous steel, like Armco iron or a 0.90 per cent. carbon steel, that has been thoroughly annealed, to one hundred million reversals of stress as high as the elastic limit of the steel with no sign of failure. On the other hand, a complex structured steel, like a chrome-nickel steel that has been hardened with very little drawing, will fail at a stress about 58 per cent. of its elastic limit. Between these two we get a variety of results. In the steel work of any building, there are undoubtedly many thousands of places where structural damage was done—where riveted members were bent into place cold and where the rivets were fitted with drift pins, etc. Locally the steel in the building was stressed beyond its yield point in many places. These little localized overstresses do no damage at all; the building is entirely safe. But if this building were subjected eight or ten times a day to a mild earthquake, these little localized overstresses might be nuclei from which damage would spread

Jan 1, 1922

By J. A. Herrick

Some time ago the writer needed a cheap, light, and portable hydraulic lift or crane, that would be universal in its application, and that might .be suspended from crane-arms, overhead tramways, beams, etc., and serve all the uses of ordinary hydraulic cranes. This was accomplished by the use of a closed cylinder of wroughtiron hydraulic pipe, provided at its top with the ordinary gland and stuffing-box, through the centre of which passed another similar pipe of slightly smaller diameter, forming in effect the ordinary plunger of the regular hydraulic crane. Over the top of this centre pipe or plunger or piston a disk of iron is placed with two arms projecting several inches from the rim, as may be required. Through these arms long iron rods pass, one on each side, and are fastened in place by nuts screwed to a bearing immediately above and below the disk. These rods also pass through the enlarged head of the lift down through a casting which closes the bottom of the cylinder, which, at the same time, gives them a bearing, and they terminate at a point below the casting equal to the height of the lift of the crane. The rods at this point pass through a disk similar to the top disk and are similarly secured in place. A common hook arranged with a swivel passes through the centre of the disk, and on this hook the load is suspended. For a stationary hanging crane the apparatus is suspended by two rods passing through the head of the lift in similar manner to the two already described, at right' angles to the first, and of sufficient length to let the first set play between them and rise to the full height which the plunger will allow. The second set of rods terminates in an iron disk similar to the one at the bottom of the first set, and a hook through this in turn suspends the entire apparatus. In order to adapt the lift to an overhead tramway, single or double, in place of the suspending rods, a projection or offset is arranged on each side of the head of the lift and a journal cast in, allowing the lift to be suspended on pivots arranged as follows:

Jan 1, 1879

By George W. Small

The ore, as it is raised from the mine, has all average assay-value of $11 per ton, chiefly in the form of free gold. All the ore goes directly to the stamp-mills, of which there are two. The older and larger mill contains sixteen batteries of five stamps each, with one Frue vanner to each battery. The new mill has eight batteries of five stamps and two Frues to each battery. The large mill is driven by Leffel turbine wheels, with a pressure of eighty feet, and a consumption of 600 miners' inches of water. The smaller mill is driven by "hurdy-gurdy" wheels with a pressure of about 550 feet and a consumption of 150 inches of water. At both mills the tailings from the stamps pass over about 20 feet of plates on their way to the Frues. In each set of plates the first or upper one is copper, the rest are so-called silver plates. The bullion from the stamps is about 800 fine in gold and 200 in silver. The concentrates from the Frues average from 11/4 to 1 ; per cent. of the ore stamped. They very rarely exceed 2 per cent. I was unable to get the exact assay-value of the concentrates, but it is said to vary between $100 and $200 per ton. The concentrates are treated at the chlorination works at the rate of one hundred tons per month. The capacity of the works is somewhat greater than this, but as the supply of concentrates is limited it is not deemed advisable to work them up any faster. Care is taken to keep the concentrates always damp until they are put into the roasting furnace. If this is not done, a decomposition of the pyrites begins, forming lumps which do not roast, and which consequently cause a loss of gold in the residues from leaching. A Fortschaufelungsofen is used for roasting. Its dimensions, incloding fire-box, are 12' X 80'. The hearth is one continuous plane, but the charges, of which there are three in the furnace at one time, are kept entirely separate. The furnace-men call the three compartments, the "drying," the " burning," and the " cooking" compartments. In the middle, or "burning" compartment, the ore is spread

Jan 1, 1887

By William Hutton Blauvelt

The type of gas producer in which the ashes are fluxed and run off as slag was among the very earliest made. Ebelmen built the first one in 1840 at Audincourt, France, only a year after the installation of the first gas producer of which we have record. Charcoal was used as the fuel, with blast-furnace slag and clay as flux. My interest in this type of producer began when as a boy I saw the fluxing producer at Chester, N. J., which was invented by W. J. Taylor, and described by him in 1881.' This producer was invented independently by Mr. Taylor to meet the difficulties he experienced in making producer gas for roasting sulphurous iron ores. It will be of interest to review briefly his description of his producer. It was built like a small blast furnace, having a hearth 24 in. in diameter and 24 in. high. The bosh angle was 25' from the vertical; the diameter at the bosh 4 ft. and at the top 3 ft.; the total height 12 ft. The producer contained one water-cooled tuyere 12 in. above the bottom, with a 1.5-in. nozzle. Depth of the coal above the tuyere, 6 ft. Mr. Taylor mixed the coal with from 30 to 40 per cent. of basic blast-furnace slag to flux the ash. Occasionally some limestone was also used, but never limestone alone, as the use of the furnace cinder gave a larger volume of slag and made it easier to maintain a proper fluidity. The producer was blown with a small Weimer blowing engine, delivering 300 ft. of air per minute, at from 1 to 1.5 lb. pressure. The slag was tapped every 2 hr. and was black and glassy in appearance. Broken or egg size anthracite was used. The fine sizes of anthracite could not be made to work. Mr. Taylor expressed the belief that bituminous coal could be used if not too fine, but no experiments were made with this coal. Runs were made of four weeks' duration, with no stops or changes. Mr. Taylor reported the following advantages: 1. Excellent gas, very uniform in quality. The high fuel bed permitted no air to pass unconsumed, and the gas was almost entirely free from carbonic acid.

Jan 1, 1914

By Ralph E. Esarey, G. F. Fix

The oil and gas industry in Indiana in 1938 showed considerable improvement over the preceding year. Most of the drilling and development during the year, as in the past several years, was in the Indiana portion of the Illinois Basin, but increasing interest was apparent in the old Trenton area, for possibilities of further production in the Trenton formation and the underlying St. Peter sandstone. Interest in all other portions of the state was at a new peak, since many areas have never been prospected. Natural gas production continued to drop during 1938, since new discoveries have not been able to keep pace with the rapid decline in older areas. Oil production increased considerably, chiefly through the discovery of new fields. Older fields contributed about the same quantity of oil during 1938 as during the preceding year. There were 159 wells completed in Indiana during 1938, an increase of 25 over the preceding year. Of these, 48 were oil wells, 41 were gas, and '70 failed to find commercial production. Forty-three, or about 20 per cent, were wildcat. Six of these were productive—three oil wells and three gas wells. Thirty-nine wells on which operations started during the year had riot been completed by Dec. 31. Fourteen others were temporarily abandoned, with the possibility that several will be drilled to completion in the near future. A new oil field (Heusler) was discovered in May 1938, in sees. 1 and 12, T. 7 S., R. 12 W., Posey County. Production was found in the Waltersburg (Upper (Chester) sandstone at a depth of approximately 1775 ft. At the close of the year, Heusler field had nine producing wells and two drilling. The Point township area, Posey County, near the confluence of the Wabash and Ohio Rivers, held promise of good production from the McClosky lime, but offsets to the, discovery well had only shows of oil. The discovery well declined rapidly in production arid was finally plugged. In the Oaktown field, Knox County, a wildcat came in with a good flow of gas, extending the field to the east, and proving considerably more acreage. A new gas area was discovered in Sullivan County, and four good wells were completed. The discovery well was in sec. 35, T. 8 N., R. 10 W., and had an initial

Jan 1, 1939

Discussion of the paper of W. C. PHALEN, presented at the Pittsburgh meeting, October, 1914, and printed in Bulletin No. 93, September, 1914, pp. 2249 to 2265. DAVID T. DAY, Washington, D. C.-Consider the United States broadly and the distribution of the salt industry. Think of the old solar-evaporation process up in New York State, then of the more recent processes in Michigan and Kansas and Louisiana, where the rock salt furnishes a large industry, then of the solar-evaporation process at Salt Lake, then turn to the crucial place in the United States, where there is an embarrassment of salt, and that is California. I am not forgetting' the immense body of salt east of that in the Virgin River country of Utah; but in California the situation is interesting. There are very large quantities of salt in the Searles Marsh region; again, in Southern California, at the southern end of Death Valley, there are two or three mountains of salt which have been explored recently, where the salt is sufficiently pure to be used at once. There is also a large deposit of gypsum, and it would be possible there, by extremely cheap means, to produce an amount of salt sufficient to furnish the United States' greatest needs. The principal reason that capital has been deterred from developing such a large mass is not the fact that solar evaporation produces a great deal of salt around San Francisco, but the fact that if potash salt is to be produced in connection with the salt in the borax region a, great deal of ordinary salt must be disposed of. It cannot be dumped, for it would get back into the brine again; the first rains would bring that salt back into solution again. It must be sold, given away, or hauled to a distance, which would mean a considerable freight charge. The salt will be going begging. E. G. SPILSBURY, New York, N. Y.-The remark of Dr. Day's regarding the likelihood of the production of a large amount of waste salt brings to my mind the condition that obtains in Germany in all of the potash fields. In Germany salt is a government monopoly. In the development of the potash deposits, it becomes a grave question as to how much salt they may be allowed to extract and bring to the surface.

Jan 4, 1915

IT IS impossible to speak in exact terms of the effect that selective flotation has had, is having, and may have on the State of Utah. Its results enter into the economic structure of the state in so many ways and its ramifications are so widespread, that every line of industry is affected. Some effects can be definitely determined; others can be reasonably approximated; but the effect as a whole can not be set out in exact figures. Utah is essentially a mining state; mining is its basic industry and always will be. Agriculture, equally a basic industry, and of course, equally vital, can be practiced on only 6 per cent. of the 85,000 square miles of its area. It follows, therefore, that the economic future of this state depends upon a development of its natural resources. About 6 or 7 years ago, the mining industry in Utah was at a low ebb. This condition was caused partly by postwar conditions and other temporary causes, but prevailed also, which was most important, because the direct-smelting ores of the state were being rapidly exhausted and the cost of treatment of complex ores was almost prohibitive. Furthermore, the wet concentration of low-grade ores was unsatisfactory and did not result in producing a good smelting product. On visualizing this situation, one of the large smelting companies in the valley had the courage, ability and faith to develop and expand the principles involved in selective flotation of complex ores. This example has been followed by other smelting and reduction companies and the result has changed the entire aspect of the mining industry in Utah. The utilization of the zinc in the low-grade, lead-zinc-silver ores was the principal problem to be solved. The average yearly production from the State of Utah for the 10 years beginning 1914 and ending 1923, was something less than 10,000 tons of zinc concentrates. This period includes the world war, when abnormal prices stimulated production. In 1924, selective flotation began to be practiced on a considerable scale, replacing concentration by gravity and bulk flotation which had been used generally until this time. PRODUCTION AND VALUE OF ZINC CONCENTRATES The production of zinc concentrates during 1924 was approximately , 24,000 tons, or twice the average yearly production of the previous 10

Jan 1, 1928

By T. C. Clarke

The history of iron construction in this country well illustrates the three phases of thought described by Auguste Comte, the French philosopher. The first is the era of faith, when belief in the safety of structures rests on the authority of the designer. The second is the era of criticism, when plans of structures are analyzed with much mathematical skill, but the data upon which the chain of reasoning depends is assumed upon insufficient experiment. The third, upon which we are now entering, is a scientific era, which demands experimental proof. It also demands that this proof shall be derived from experiments made on full-sized specimens, such as are in actual use, and not upon toy models. Until the construction of the United States testing-machine, now at Watertown Arsenal, it was impossible to make such experiments with accuracy. We now have a machine in which we can test full-sized specimens of every part of a bridge or other structure that we want to use, and under the same conditions in which it is actually used. The next thing is to get money to make these experiments available. No private individuals can afford to do it, and even if they could, they might wish to keep the results to themselves. So that the next point is that we want money, and that, I believe, everybodly thinks we should ask Congress for. We want also, as has been said, some one who shall make a business of testing, and who has plenty of time. Persons who are employed in private business are too much in a hurry; they want to do a thing and get done with it, and then do something else; but government officers are entirely free from this feeling; time to them is of no account, and in experimenting that is the very element that is of value; it does not do to be hurried; the great thing is to get it right and to test your results, and go over it, again and again. And the experimenter who operates the machine must be some person educated up to the use of it. We then want a general advisory board who will indicate a plan of experiments, collect the results; and publish them. Some experiments were made the other day at the Watertown Arsenal upon full-sized

Jan 1, 1882

By C. Y. Garber

INTEREST in the sink-float plant operated by the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining and Concentrating Co. at Kellogg, Idaho, has recently been largely confined to the preparation and reconditioning of the galena medium. The ease and simplicity of these operations in a concentrating mill producing a flotation lead concentrate has occasioned enough comment to possibly justify a brief description. The subject is treated from an operator's viewpoint only; no effort is made to discuss it in a theoretical or technical manner. PLANT AT BUNKER HILL The sink-float plant was first operated in December 1941. It was built for the purpose of quickly increasing mill capacity with a minimum of equipment. It is the Huntington-Heberlein sink and float process using galena medium and is operated under license from the Sink and Float Corporation, New York city. Lead-zinc ore from the Bunker Hill mine is crushed to pass a I ¼ in. screen and is then washed and separated on vibrating screens having 4 ½ -mm. round-hole punched plates. The screen undersize, amounting to 33 per cent of the mill feed, is dewatered and sent to the ball-mill feed bins. The screen oversize goes to the sink-float plant, where 50 per cent of the oversize, or 33 per cent of the mill feed, is float, which is washed free of medium and disposed of as a tailing. The remaining 33 per cent is sink, which, after washing, is crushed to pass ½ in. and joins the undersize in the ball-mill feed bins. The normal plant capacity is 1700 tons per 24 hr. About 1.7 per cent of the total lead and 3.3 per cent of the total zinc in the feed is lost with the sink-float tailings (Table I). [ ] More complete descriptions of the H. H. process and Bunker Hill sink-float plant are given in several recent articles, listed at the end of the paper. PREPARATION OF MEDIUM AT BUNKER HILL New medium is made intermittently as needed, usually 12 hr. in each 6 days. A small portion of the current mill flotation concentrate is diverted from the lead cleaner cells to a I-in. vertical sand pump and pumped to a two-cell 36-in. Agitair flotation machine, where NaCn and ZnSO4 are added and the grade of concentrate is improved as shown in Table 2. Tailing from this operation is returned by gravity

Jan 1, 1946

By C. K. Leith

1 apologize for attempting to talk in a field in which 1 am by no means a specialist, but some of the problems brought up have much in common with other minerals. It touches the field in which we are all interested and it is a field in which our Mineral Inquiry has been giving special attention during the last two years. While it is the primary business, of course, of this Institute to consider the physical facts and technology of minerals, we now face the necessity of considering the minerd industry in its broader economic, social, and political relationships. We have run into a traffic jam—as though a load of hay had been spilled on the road. It makes no difference whether we are drivers or passengers, technical or nontechnical men, we have to get the load off the road before we can go farther. We are conscious of very many difficulties which are outside of the ordinary range of cost accounting or methods of mining or the usual thing with which we concern ourselves. We have extensive readjustments to make in our social and economic and political contacts. It is up to us to find out what is the matter. As a matter of fact, we do not know what is the matter in any comprehensive way. We have many suggestions as to difficulties here and there. Many people are working on the problem, but when the mineral industry as a whole is asked what is a reasonable course of procedure, what is its program, what would be a reasonable state or national policy, I think you will agree with me that we have no spokesman able to outline even a semblance of such a general policy. We sit back and criticize when somebody else steps in, as Governor Murray stepped in, and as many others of our state governors and legislators are stepping in, to do things which we do not think are reasonable. When they say, "What is a reasonable program? " we find ourselves caught napping. We have not agreed on a program. The other day in talking with one of the leaders of the western radical movement, I was twitting him on having no sound and comprehensive conservation program. He said, "What is yours, and what is the program of the mineral

Jan 1, 1932

By R. I. Jaffee, H. R. Ogden

AT the present time, there appear to be two conflicting opinions on the solubility of boron in titanium. P. Ehrlich' has indicated from X-ray diffraction work that boron is soluble in titanium up to TiB0.8 (17.8 wt pct, 44 atomic pct). The X-ray diffraction pattern for titanium was found in compositions up to TiB0.05_0.07 (1.1 to 1.6 wt pct); then, without a phase gap, superlattice lines appeared up to TiB0.8 On the other hand, Craighead, Simmons, and Eastwood' have estimated the solubility of boron in both alpha and beta titanium to be less than 0.1 wt pct, based on results of metallographic analysis. In some recent work done at Battelle, results were obtained which shed more light on the titanium-rich end of the titanium-boron system. Iodide-type titanium and high-purity crystalline boron were used in this investigation. The boron was prepared by hydrogen reduction of boron tri-bromide and deposition on a hot tungsten wire. The alloys were prepared by arc melting in an argon atmosphere of 10 cm Hg pressure on a water-cooled copper hearth. The ingots were hot rolled to strip at 850°C. Alloys containing up to 1 pct B could be hot rolled. Those containing 2 pct or more B could not be hot rolled. Metallographically, it was found that a second phase was present in alloys containing as little as 0.4 pct B, and that the quantity of second phase increased with increasing boron content. This is illustrated in Figs. la and lb, which show the microstructures of a Ti-0.4B and a Ti-1B alloy annealed in argon at 850°C. X-ray diffraction patterns of alloys containing 1 and 5 pct B revealed the presence of extra lines which correspond to the superlattice lines reported by Ehrlich.' However, no evidence was found of a shift in the lattice constants of alpha titanium indicating that there is very little, if any, solubility of boron in alpha titanium. This fact, coupled with the fact that the alloys were definitely two-phase, indicates that the extra lines are not superlattice lines, but are more probably the result of a second phase of a hexagonal structure almost identical in cell

Jan 1, 1952

By P. P. Gregory

Natural petroleum gas occurring in the oil-bearing reservoirs is found to exist either as free gas associated with the oil and/or in solution in the oil. In some virgin fields practically no free gas is encountered under the reservoir conditions of pressure and temperature, although in other fields a considerable section of the "pay" horizon is occupied by free gas. In other words, a given oil field may or may not have a gas cap before the exploitation takes place. However, when the reservoir pressure is reduced to a point below the critical saturation pressure by withdrawals of fluids from the producing formation, the gas dissolved in the oil inevitably begins to come out of solution and becomes free gas. Under the controlled methods of production and drilling, a portion of this gas is produced with the oil to the surface and a portion of it remains within the reservoir to accumulate at higher structural levels toward which it migrates by virtue of its low specific gravity. The rate of growth of a gas cap in a given structure depends primarily upon the rate of decline in the reservoir pressure. If the rate of pressure decline is rapid, the gas cap likewise will grow rapidly. On the other hand, shrinkage in the gas-cap area was noted in some fields in which reservoir pressures wereincreasing. Determination of Gas-oil Contact and Thickness of Gas Cap The gas-oil contact can be conveniently located in the process of drilling a well and by electrical logging. However, very little can be found in the petroleum literature concerning methods of predetermining gas-oil contacts in producing reservoirs. Therefore, the writer feels justified in describing briefly a simple, workable, and inexpensive method of determining gas-oil contacts and outlining the limits of gas-cap areas in a field where such knowledge may be essential for efficient production and development operations. The method involves the determination of the following data: (I) Structural data, such as the depth or elevation of the top' of "pay" horizon; (2) reservoir pressures; (3) tubing and casing pressures at the well head; (4) static oil-pressure gradient; (5) static gas-pressure gradient. These data can be secured with a minimum of expense, inasmuch as the

Jan 1, 1938

By G. S. Hume

IN. THE autumn of 1922, British Petroleums Ltd. found oil of 14° Baumé in a sand 17 ft. thick in its. No. 2 well at Wainwright, 120 miles southeast of Edmonton. This greatly encouraged drilling in the Wainwright-Irma area and this past summer several wells were started, three of which are now completed and the others still being drilled. Of the three completed, No. 4 British Petroleums contains oil; No. 3 British Petroleums gave a show of oil but so far has not given much hope, of becoming a commercial producer; and No. 1 Maple Leaf Co., as now finished, is a. gas well with a daily flow of gas of about 2,500,000 cu. ft. at a closed pressure of 700 lb. An oil sand is reported to have been encountered below the producing gas horizon in the Maple Leaf well but has not been tested. Operations on this well have been suspended for the winter. The Geological Survey of Canada this past summer undertook a geological investigation of this area with the object of defining the structures with which the oil and gas are associated. The structure underlying this portion of the plains was supposed to be a terrace with the western edge dipping into the Alberta syncline and with a monoclinal structure to the east. By accurate leveling on known geological horizons on this terrace, a number of gentle folds were located and -it is in these folds that the oil and gas are found. At the British Petroleums Nos. 2 and 4 oil wells, the western flank of the fold has a gentle dip of only a few feet to the mile to the southwest whereas the strata on the eastern flank dip to the northeast about 40 ft. in ½ mile, the strike of the fold being northwest and southeast. How far oil will be found down the gentle southwest dip is unknown but probably the productive part of the fold will not exceed 1 mile in width, and possibly less. No. 3 British Petroleums well is on the strike of the fold 1 mile southeast of the two oil wells. The sand that was productive in Nos. 2 and 4 wells was not present in this well or, if present, was very thin and unproductive. Two other sand horizons, however, were encountered. The upper of these

Jan 3, 1925

By E. G. Leonardon, Irving B. Crosby

ElectRical prospecting by potential methods has been applied to mining problems for some years and determinations of the depth to bed rock have been made, but so far as is known it has not been used previously in the solution of civil engineering problems, such as investigating the foundations of dams. During the past winter and spring the senior author has been engaged as consulting geologist in studying the site of a large dam on the upper Connecticut River and has had the satisfaction of introducing electrical prospecting to foundation problems. The valley across which the dam is to be built is underlaid by a deeply buried preglacial gorge which is filled with glacial deposits. An extensive drilling campaign was in progress, but the work was unusually slow and expensive on account of the number of boulders in the overburden. The necessity of speeding up the work was pressing and it was decided that much of the needed information could be obtained by geophysical methods. After investigating the various methods and conferring with the company engineers and with the consulting engineer, Albert Crane, a contract was made with the Schlumberger Electrical Prospecting Methods, and an observer with apparatus was sent to the dam site the first of April, 1928. The problem was to determine the depth to rock at various points in order to prepare a contour map of the bed-rock surface and outline the buried gorge in the vicinity of the dam site. Over one hundred determinations of depth have been made and the bed-rock topography is now known in considerable detail. In addition, some information has been obtained about the nature of the overburden. The drilling has been continued; in fact, two additional drills have been put to work, and the electrical determinations have been checked at several points. At one of these the depth to rock given by the electrical work was 142 ft. and the drill found rock at 147 ft., an error of less than 4 per cent. The electrical work has also been checked by the geological study, and it has been found that when the electrical determinations are in agreement with the geological expectations they are probably reasonably accurate. When the electrical interpretation of the subsurface topography is incon-

Jan 1, 1929

By J. H. Swislzer

TWO-LIQUID miscibility gaps have been found to exist in both the CaO-SiO, system above 1705 and the Cr,03 system above 2200"c. Glasser and 0sborn3 studied the extension of these miscibility gaps into the Ca0-Si0,-Crz03 ternary system and reported that the two-liquid region is not present at temperatures below the monotectic temperature of 1705°C in the CaO-SiO, system. The present authors, in connection with other work on surface-tension measurements and foam stabilities in the same ternary system,4 observed that the miscibility gap exists at temperatures as low as 1600°C. A brief experimental study was devoted to deter- mining tie-line positions in the two-phase region. The technique used was to obtain a separation of phases at 1600°C, then to quench-in the high-temperature phases and obtain a chemical analysis of each phase. It was necessary to take special precautions in obtaining a phase separation because of a tendency toward emulsification of the two liquids. The procedure followed is described in the schematic drawing in Fig. 1. A small platinum crucible containing several pinholes on its sides was placed inside a larger platinum crucible. An excess of Crz03 was placed in the outer crucible, together with a prefused binary CaO-Si02 mixture, and the Cr203 was allowed to diffuse through the pinholes and saturate the same binary CaO-SiOl mixture in the smaller crucible. After equilibration at 1600°C, the inner crucible contained only the lighter liquid (liquid A) saturated with Cr203. The outer crucible contained layers of both liquids. Experimental data were obtained by analyzing the entire contents of the inner crucible and only the bottom layer of the larger crucible (liquid B). The upper layer of the outer crucible was not suitable for chemical-analysis purposes because dispersions of the second phase sometimes were found in the samples. The technique is described in more detail in Ref. 4. The same method was used by Grieveson and urkdoan' to study a miscibility gap in sulfate-ferrite melts, where the liquids were difficult to separate because of similarities in density. In addition to the phase-separation experiments, a few others were conducted to obtain information

Jan 1, 1964

The following correspondence relating to a paper bearing the above title, presented by J. F. Wolff, at the New York meeting in February, 1917, and published in the Transactions, Volume LVI, page 142, has passed between the author of the paper, and Mr. Anson G. Betts, and is interesting, although it was received much too late for incorporation in its proper place in Volume LVI. ANSON CT. BETTS, Asheville, N. C.-1. I should like to ask Mr. Wolff if he finds-from analysis of the iron formation and of the iron ore, and from the relative amounts of each in each unit area of the formation, unleached and after leaching, that the iron remains entirely insoluble and the total quantity still remains present; or whether he finds that some of the iron is removed, or possibly even added by deposition from the water passing through the formation. 2. The water that passed into the iron formation had to go somewhere; was it absorbed by underlying formations through hydration, or, after passing through the ore formation, did it come to the surface in springs at a lower elevation, or how did it escape from the ground? 3. I should like to ask Mr. Wolff whether he finds that the iron formation in the sedimentary series does not, come next to the quartzites and generally between the quartzites and slates. J. F. WOLFF, Duluth, Minn.-1. In common with others, you appear to have some hesitancy in accepting the fact of the removal, by solution, of the enormous quantity of silica which has been leached out of portions of the Biwabik iron formation, thus forming orebodies of merchantable iron ore. I believe that even Dr. Waldemar Lindgren once hesitated to accept this fact. However, the evidence is so simple and absolutely conclusive that the fact is established beyond all question. At the contact of orebodies with their rock walls, the bands of iron ore in the orebody can be seen in contact with the corresponding bands of original iron oxide in the rock wall, and the chert layers in the rock wall can be seen to give place to fine granular material (fine silica and iron oxide) and pore space. This is especially noticeable where slumping at the rock walls his not been so great as to displace the layers in the orebody from their contact with their corresponding layers in the rock wall.

Jan 9, 1918

By G. S. Hume

IN THE autumn of 1922, British Petroleums Ltd. found oil of 14° Baume in a sand 17 ft. thick in its No. 2 well at Wainwright, 120 miles southeast of Edmonton. This greatly encouraged drilling in the Wainwright-Irma area and this past summer several wells were started, three of which are now completed' and the others still being drilled. Of the three completed, No. 4 British Petroleums contains oil; No. 3 British Petroleums gave a show of oil but so far has not given much hope of becoming a commercial producer; and No. 1 Maple Leaf Co., as now finished, is a gas well with a daily flow of gas of about 2,500,000 cu. ft. at a closed pressure of 700 lb. An oil sand is reported . to have been encountered below the producing gas horizon, in the Maple Leaf well but has not been tested. Operations on this well have been suspended for the winter. The Geological Survey of Canada this past summer undertook a geological investigation of this area with the object of defining the structures with which the oil and gas are associated. The 'structure underlying this portion of the plains was supposed to-be a terrace with the western edge dipping into the Alberta syncline and with a monoclinal structure to the east. By accurate leveling on known geological horizons on this terrace, a number of gentle folds were located and it is in these folds that the oil land gas are found. At the British Petroleums Nos. 2-and- 4 oil wells, the western flank of the fold has a gentle dip of only a few feet to the mile to the southwest whereas the strata on the eastern flank dip to the northeast about 40 ft. in 1/2 mile, the strike of the fold being northwest and southeast. How far oil will be found down the gentle southwest dip is unknown but probably the productive part of the fold will not exceed 1 mile in width, and possibly less. No. 3 British Petroleums well is on the strike of the fold 1 mile southeast of the two oil wells. The sand that was productive in Nos. 2-and 4 wells was not present in this well or, if present, was very thin and unproductive. Two other sand horizons, however, were encountered. The upper of these

Jan 3, 1925

By S. R. Elliott

The Spies mine is located in the eastern half of the northwest quarter of section 2443-35, near the village of Iron River, Mich., and is operated by The Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co. Speaking generally, the jasper hanging walls of most of the deposits in the Iron River district dip at a steep angle and are exceedingly strong, standing without caving, even after mining has been continued for years and after large excavations have been made. The ore is fairly hard and tough and contains no slippage faces. It occurs in large masses, which are often egg shape, with the smaller end down, and can be mined in open stopes without the use of timber. The common system employed in the district is the shrinkage stope, or some modification of it. The Spies system was developed to utilize the advantages of the open-stope method and to avoid the disadvantages of the shrinkage stope. The Spies shaft was sunk to such a depth that the bottom, or third level, was in rock at a short distance below the bottom of the orebody, the shape and extent of which had been previously determined by diamond drilling. This is shown in plan and by the ore contours at the first, second, and third levels in Fig. 1, and in section in Figs. 2 to 7. In order to provide the necessary mills and raises, three parallel crosscuts were driven on 25 ft. centers on the bottom level. Drifts on the second and first levels were driven to the orebody and followed the foot wall in a southerly direction to the end of the ore. In crosscut 3, Fig. 1, raises 30, 40, 50, and 60 were carried up on the foot wall and holed into the second level, and were ultimately carried up and holed into the first level. These foot-wall raises carry the pipes and ladders, provide a means of ventilation, and furnish safe communication to all working places in the stope. From crosscuts 1, 2, and 3, raises were completed to a height of 32 ft., or the elevation of the first sublevel. They were then connected by east and west crosscuts to the main foot-wall raises 30, 40, 50, and 60, shown in Fig. 4. The crosscuts in raises 1 to 5 were then driven west and the

Jan 1, 1923

By C. W. Reith

The development of production in West Texas during the year 1933 was largely confined to the expansion of proven areas, especially Ward County, Iatan and North Winkler. Wildcat activity was at a comparatively low ebb and resulted only in discoveries of probable minor importance in Ector County. The interest shown in deep wildcatting to test beds of pre-Permian age was a new development, which should soon throw light on the possibilities of deeper production from the present producing fields. The important pre-Permian tests of the year were: 1. Stanolind Oil and Gas Co., Todd No. 1, a unitized test, in north central Crockett County on a probable continuation of the Big Lake trend. The well encountered several showings of oil and penetrated an Ordovician section very similar to the productive zones at Big Lake, but was abandoned when sulfur water was encountered at 8041 feet. 2. Gulf Production Co., McElroy No. 103, in the McElroy Field, Upton County. The well was drilling at 8553 ft. at the close of the year in beds of probable pre-Permian age. The test is an important one because it should prove or disprove deep production in the Church-Fields-McElroy pools and also throw geologic light on the deep possibilities of other fields in the western part of the Permian Basin. 3. Humble Oil and Refining Co., White and Baker No. 1, in Pecos County, about 11 miles west of the Yates field. The well is on a nonproductive Permian high and should indicate the deep possibilities of the Yates field. At the end of the year, drilling had progressed to 7200 ft., where beds of pre-Permian age are believed to have been penetrated. The major fields in West Texas, in which present-day proration had its inception, were produced under increased restrictions. A date of importance in the proration history of the area was $ept. 8, 1933, when the Railroad Commission issued an order placing all producing wells under proration. The severe reductions in total outlet made during 1933 were well compensated for by a more than threefold increase in the price of crude oil. Acid treatment was one of the general engineering developments of interest. The work had not progressed sufficie~ltly at the close of 1933

Jan 1, 1934