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Last spring the suggestion was made that the national engineering societies offer to assist the War Department in the formation of an engineer reserve in the United States Army. The suggestion was brought to the attention of some of the officers of the Army, who commended it and confirmed the belief that the need of such a reserve was a real one; that the European war had distinctly shown that engineers in time of war are required on a scale never before realized and of great varieties of experience. In our own army no adequate provision is made for great numbers of engineers, for although the corps of engineers is composed of men of the very highest professional proficiency in certain lines it is greatly short of the numerical strength that would be immediately required. Acting on this suggestion, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Institute of Consulting Engineers appointed committees authorized and directed to take such steps as might be advisable to urge the organization of such a reserve corps as part of the. regular army, and so assist in putting the United States in a better condition of prepared-

Jan 10, 1915

By L. S. Panyity

The question of natural-gas supply is receiving careful consideration in many parts of the country, as in the winter months it is quite a problem to have on hand sufficient gas to satisfy the demand. Increasing the output of wells by the application of vacuum has been tried with various results and large companies have attempted to keep up the supply with gas compressors. The possibility of storing natural gas in the sands of exhausted gas pools has been tried in a few instances with satisfactory results. This method may prove of practical value in solving the problem, especially in the case of towns that formerly obtained gas from their immediate vicinity, but now must search for new pools. Town Plant Regulator High Pressure Line Exhausted Gas Field used for Storage Producing Gas Field FIG. 1. In all cases, only part of the available supply is utilized during the warns weather, so that many wells are shut-in, yet during the winter months, the supply is not sufficient even with all the wells on the line; in such cases it would be of great value if a large volume of stored gas were on hand, obtained through wells that would have been standing idle during the summer.

Jan 1, 1919

THE ladle is a small hearth made on a cage of iron bars like a bird-cage, and has a handle so that it can easily be taken from the forge and carried wherever desired. It is a common device and is much used among masters for small castings, but with a large weight you would have difficulty in lifting it by hand even though you were aided by levers and winches. If you should indeed do it, it would be just as if you had lifted the aforesaid hearth by force, and this would be unwise if you could do anything less difficult. A forge is likewise made for this, with a good pair of large bellows that are well covered with cloth. When the small hearth has been made with good clay, baked, and well covered with ashes, it is placed in front of the mouth [of the bellows] and a crown of two or three brick ends is built around it on top of the rim so that the charcoal may be held better and in greater quantity. Then, having lit the fire and heated the ladle and the charcoal, the pieces of material that you wish to melt are gradually put on

Jan 1, 1942

By N. B. Hoffman

Much of the drill steel produced in America is manufactured into hollow rods. After all forging has been finished the entire bar should be thoroughly annealed and heat treated before the point is hardened and tempered, at least where the drill has heavy duty, such as working in deep holes and hard rock. A large number of tools of like character and doing work requiring similar properties are now being made of alloy steels; for instance a steel with a carbon content of 0.75 to 0.85 per cent., manganese 0.25 to 0.35, phosphorus under 0.020, sulfur under 0.030 and vanadium 0.18 to 0.23 has proved very satisfactory for chisels. A steel of this type properly manufactured will be far superior to the ordinary carbon steels, while at the same time is one whose price range should not prove prohibitive. Much of the cutting efficiency of a drill depends on proper heat treatment. This vanadium steel has a far greater safe hardening and forging range than ordinary carbon steels, making it more nearly foolproof. It will harden nicely at 1400" I?. but will also harden well and satisfactorily at 1550" F. retaining its quality of hardness and toughness in either case.

Jan 1, 1922

The School of Mineral Industries is dedicated to education in mineral conservation and research by which the means may be found to make conservation effective. This includes diligent search for mineral truths and the energetic discovery, complete recovery, and maximum utilization of irreplaceable mineral resources. Standards of living depend upon two factors: human resources-intelligence, imagination, initiative, know-how, work; and natural resources-plants, animals, and minerals, including water, air, soil, heat and light from the sun, and all other such resources that are useful to man. Human relationships have not kept pace with scientific achievement; as a result man, in desperation, wittingly, premeditatively sacrifices freedom for security. Many natural resources, through overproduction, mismanagement, and greed, have definitely moved over into the exhausted or exhaustible category. The United States cannot maintain present standards of living on an agricultural economy alone, and serious harm can ensue if there are marked disproportions in numbers and relationships between city and rural populations. The most materialistic New Yorker must see virtue in bucolic loveliness. The United States is rated wasteful and inconsistent most of the time. It does not make sense to dole out through the keyhole what a wage earner can bring through the open door; to raise wages to lower the cost

Jan 1, 1950

By W. B. Mather

R. G. Wuerker (University of Illinois, Urbana)—Mr. Mather is to be congratulated for stressing the most urgent need for a program of testing the physical properties of rocks, as they are encountered by the petroleum engineers on their drilling jobs and by the miners on their excavating, roof control and mineral preparation tasks. Another valuable source of information is the Handbook of Physical Constants.22 It stresses the physicist's approach rather than the engineer's procedure. The study of hardness, and rock hardness in particular, is beset with many difficulties. There is no satisfactory definition of hardness yet, and the term hardness is used to describe a number of quite dif- ferent properties. Hardness tests are grouped into static and dynamic determinations. They should be expressed with reference to the mechanical action of the applied force, like indentation hardness, scratch hardness, abrasion hardness, rebound hardness. A discussion of all these various hardness tests and of the special difficulties encountered in hardness testing of such heterogeneous material as rocks is given in the U. S. Bureau of Mines' standard proposal. The more critical student may be referred to the book by D. Landau: Hardness, which is in my opinion the best existing treatise on this subject.

Jan 1, 1952

By R. J. Quigg, G. P. Conard, J. F. Libsch

IN a recent investigation of the Mn-Ge system by Zwicker it was reported that two inter-metallic compounds in this system, Mn,Ge, and Mn,Ge,, exhibited ferromagnetic properties. Of these, Mn,Ge, was reported as "strongly magnetic" and Mn,Ge, was said to be "weakly magnetic" but no actual values were given. In a study of magnetic alloys of nonmagnetic elements sponsored by the United States Army Signal Corps at Lehigh University, test bars having the nominal composition of these compounds were prepared by pressing elemental powders and sintering them in a purified helium atmosphere. Magnetic values obtained on these compounds are reported in Tables I and 11. It should be cautioned that the test bars were somewhat porous and that X-ray patterns run on these materials indicated that the homogenization in the samples was not complete, but that in each case the compound reported on was the dominant phase. The (B-H) max and particularly the Br values for pure dense M&Ge, can, therefore, be expected to be somewhat higher than those reported herein, while those for Mn,Ge, may be in error in either direction. Further details on this investigation are available in previous publications.23

Jan 1, 1956

The Mineral Industry, Published by McGraw-Hill Book Co, New York, N Y. The Mineral Industry is an annual review of the mineral industry It is a standard and complete reference on the mineral industry for the year covered Through the cooperation of the A I M E its publication in 1933 was made possible Mineral Industry for 1930 contains sections devoted to the production, consumption, trade, market, uses and technology of the following headings: Abrasives, aluminum and bauxite, antimony, arsenic, asbestos (b), asphalt, barium and strontium, chromium (b), coal and coke, cobalt (b), copper, diatomite, fluorspar, gold and silver, graphite, gypsum, iron and steel (b), lead, magnesite, manganese, mica, molybdenum, nickel, petroleum and petroleum products, phosphate rock (b), platinum group metals (b), potash, precious and semiprecious stones (b), quicksilver, radium (b), uranium and vanadium, slate (b), sodium salts, sulfur, pyrite, sulfuric acid, talc and soapstone, tin, titanium and zirconium, tungsten (b), zinc, minor metals, minor nonmetals, ore dressing and coal washing (b). Sections marked (b) have appended a bibliography of recent literature on the subject. Each section is written by an acknowledged expert. Other volumes contain similar material Prices -The Mineral Industry, 1892-1930, vols. 1 to 39. Complete sets of this work, uniformly bound, except vols 25 and 26,

Jan 1, 1933

Today there is unparalleled opportunity for constructive effort in the national mineral economy on the part of the Land-Grant colleges and universities. The matter is too important to be pushed aside. It is inevitable that in the aftermath of World War II, conscientious Americans the country over should want to take stock of national resources. Attention is now centered, as never before, on our mineral potentialities. Opportunities and responsibilities are unparalleled and a condition exists which will not occur for another generation. Mineral industries educators cannot pro- vide the answer without taking stock of its component parts, organizing, planning, and taking action in a real dynamic sense. The services encompassed by the various fields of mineral industries must be utilized to help in the solution of problems provided by the international emergency, the country's needs, the people's needs. Mineral industries colleges have a vital role in technical aid to backward countries through foreign student programs, especially in the Latin Americas.1 By helping them to help themselves develop and utilize their resources to the fullest, we will be helping ourselves. One day they may be a Godsend in a solution of the American demographic problem. They may be prepared to

Jan 1, 1950

By John V. Beall

W hen the blasts went off on West 11th St., just off 5th Ave. in New York City, James Michaels, editor of Forbes magazine, was in his office a few doors away reviewing color layouts with his production manager. Having once been a reporter, he grabbed his trench coat and dashed for the street to be con- fronted by the demolished townhouse which had been turned into a bomb factory by youths. To Michaels, this shocking episode supplied the exclamation point to thoughts he was formulating that an era had ended and a new one was beginning in the economic and social climate of the U. S. "For twenty years corporate profits, the stock market, middle income pay have gone up and up. . . The illusions of twenty years are in confrontation today with changed needs," he said. "International omnipotence is economically beyond our means, . . The anti-pollution and community renewal people are not nuts in tennis shoes who will go away. . . That corporation presidents can report an increase in earnings every year is an illusion that will be dropped. . . There has been a $200 billion shrink in value of stocks and bonds since Nixon came into office" were some indicators Michaels mentioned.

Jan 1, 1970

Discussion of the paper of George K. Burgess, J. J. Crowe, H. S. Rawdon, and R. G. Waltenberg, Finishing Temperatures and Properties of Rails. By Albert Sauveur, R. Trimble, William R. Webster, P. H. Dudley, George B. Waterhouse, M. H. Wickhorst, James Aston, E. F. Kenney, A. W. Gibbs, W. A. Aiken, and G. K. Burgess . . 767 Discussion of the paper of Albert Sauveur, Manganese Steel and the Allotropic Theory. By G. K. Burgess and J. E. Stead 787 Discussion of the paper of J. V. Emmons, The Surface Decarbonization of Tool Steel. By Albert Sauveur, Bradley Stoughton, E. G. Spilsbury, Oliver W. Storey, H. O. Hofman, and J. V..Emmons 790 Discussion of the paper of Richard H. Rice, Turbo Blowers for Blast-Furnace Blowing. By S. G. Valentine, W. McA. Johnson, L. Iversen, J. E. Johnson, Jr., Karl Nibecker, W. Trinks, Otto Banner, H. S. Braman, Arthur G. McKee, and Richard H. Rice . . . 794 Discussion of the paper of J. K. Furst, The Plant of the Duplex Process for Making Steel. By W. McA. Johnson, Arthur G. McKee, Henry D. Hubard, and Bradley Stoughton . . 810 Discussion of the paper of E. C. Harder, The Iron Industry in Brazil. By I. C. White and E. C. Harder 813

Jan 4, 1915

GEORGE K. BURGESS,* Washington, D. C. (written discussiont).-Professor Sauveur refers to the International Aircraft Standards Board in terns that would indicate his non-familiarity with, the organization and the working of this Board which, of course, is excusable on account of Professor Sauveur's absence in Europe at the time. He implies .that the work of this Board was entirely dominated by American interests, whereas diametrically the opposite was the case. The Board, was organized for the purpose of facilitating purchase in the United States, on the basis of common specifications, by the Allied air, services in the United States, and the Board performed a very valuable service in unify-ing the specifications of Italy, Great Britain, France, Canada, and the United States for such purposes. The proceedings of the Board were car-ried out on the basis of unanimous agreement of the representatives of the five countries and all the members from each of the countries were technical specialists or, had the advice of technical assistants. It would be difficult to find an instance of greater unity of purpose, readiness to' compromise, and efficient production than was shown by this Board, which produced seventy-eight specifications, in the preparation of which representative American manufacturers appeared before the Board.

Jan 12, 1919

Meeting of Feb. 16, 1915.-The Committee on Membership was appointed with the following personnel: John H. Janeway, Chairman; Karl Filers, Lewis W. Francis, Louis D. Huntoon, and Thomas H. Leggett. President Saunders announced the appointment of the Committee on Increase of Membership, as shown on p. xxviii of this Bulletin. The reproduction by the anastatic process of 100 copies of Volume IX of the Institute Transactions was authorized. The sum of $50 and the exchange of the Bulletin. was awarded to the commission publishing the Annual Table of Constants. The sum of $49.07 was contributed to the expense of the John Fritz Medal Board of Award for the year 1914, and the Institute agreed in the future to share the annual expense for the John Fritz Medal Board of Award not to exceed one-quarter of $500 in the year. Upon the recommendation of the Committee on Membership, 36 Members, 1 Associate, and 13 Juniors were elected. The resignations of 26 members were accepted. L. D. Ricketts was elected a Vice-President of the Institute to serve the unexpired term of W. L. Saunders. George D. Barron was elected a Director to serve the unexpired term of L. D. Ricketts.

Jan 4, 1915

By AIME

PERHAPS, back in the early eighties, the fates were advised that the world had need of a determined man, yet one who could always inspire teamwork; at any rate on Dec. 20, 1881, Louis Shattuck Cates was born to Edwin Wallace and Emily Allen (Johnson) Cates, in Boston. To his friends he has always seemed a little more determined than anyone else they knew-yet his capacity for organization and enlisting friendly co-operation from all with whom he became associated has perhaps been his greatest asset. His will and imagination set the goal, but his friendliness and qualities of leadership brought results. He was born just nine years after the great Morenci mine was opened by Robert Metcalf and his associates. Educated in the public schools of Boston, Mr. Cates was graduated from Boston High School, and since at that time Boston was headquarters for many of the great mining enterprises and promotions in the country, he chose Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the college which would best prepare him to succeed in the mining industry. He was granted a Degree of S.B. from "Tech" in 1902, but already his getting-along-with-people talent had won him honors. He was class president in his junior year, and "First Marshal" at graduation.

Jan 1, 1946

By Joseph M. Dawson

Although eight new fields were discovered along the south central fault-line district of Texas during 1938, only one can be considered as of major importance. and as a whole the year was one of no very great development. Several prospects, particularly two, were condemned through drilling, which had been considered important for probable Edwards limestone production. The oil produced was approximately the same as during 1937; namely, about 9 million harrels. This, of course, does not represent potential production but that allowed under proration. The year witnessed the very rapid decline of operations and interest in Austin chalk production. It has been found that only in rare instances mill chalk production pay for itself, because the wells decline extremely rapidly and the recovery per acre, formerly estimated at 2500 bbl., is now considered to he around 1000 barrels. There was an intent interest in the drilling arid producing of edge and abandoned properties in the three Edwards lime producing fields; namely, Luling, Salt Flat and Darst Creek. Many good wells were completed on properties formerly considered below the water level or produced beyond the economic limit The Edwards is penetrated only a few inches and a very small charge of acid is used. The results have been surprisingly

Jan 1, 1939

By Joseph G. Wargo

An investigation of trends in exploration expenditures for a selected group of mining companies was undertaken for the interval 1968-1971. These trends were compared with financial factors that are associated with various groups of companies and the implications of these trends are indicated. The sample consists of 21 mining companies, of these, 19 are listed on the New York Stock Exchange and 2 are listed on the American Exchange. Twenty are American, one is Canadian. All are fundamentally "mining companies" in that they derive the bulk of their income from the ex- traction, sale, and at times, fabrication of metals from their own mines. This is in contrast to companies which have mineral exploration departments but derive the bulk of their revenues from sources other than mining, such as oil and gas sales. No companies which can be considered strictly as exploration companies are included in the sample. This definition held up in 1968, however, its strict application became more difficult through the years. In 1971, three or four of the companies were changing their character in that they were phasing out of the mining business and deriving a substantial part of their income from activities other than mining.

Jan 5, 1973

INTO their great Pacific Northwest counting house went the members of the Industrial Minerals Division recently, to count their blessings amidst the scenic grandeur and mineral wealth of the State of Washington. From their vantage point in Seattle, those who attended the IMD's fourth Pacific Northwest meeting turned their sights to the South and Southeast, scanned Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Utah, and predicted a very healthy economic future for their region. The praises of Idaho's booming phosphate industry were sung by Earl W. Murphy, secretary of that State's Chamber of Commerce. He said the establishment of Fort Hall, on the banks of the Snake River near Pocatello, first turned the eyes of the world toward what is now the center of the greatest known deposits of phosphate rock-the section adjacent to the common corners of Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. With the founding of Fort Hall, Mr. Murphy said, historians will also rank the construction of the first electric furnaces for the production of elemental phosphorous as equally significant in the commercial history of the West. Those furnaces were installed only last year by the Westvaco Chemical Div. of the Food Machinery & Chemical Corp. at Pocatello, at a cost of $8 million.

Jan 7, 1950

By T. D. Tiemann

Extraction of silica from the taconites of the Wisconsin Gogebic range by high temperature digestion in caustic solutions has been described.1,2 The ores consist essentially of hematite, goethite, and microcrystalline quartz, detailed descriptions of which appear in the literature.1,3 It is the purpose of this communication to describe some results obtained from a laboratory investigation of an alternative method, that of sintering the ore with sodium carbonate followed by water extraction of the sodium silicate produced. This is analogous to the Deville-Péchiney4,5 soda ash sinter process for the production of alumina from bauxites in which soluble sodium aluminates are formed. Raw mixes of the desired composition were prepared from 10.0 g minus 200 mesh samples of taconite and sintered in nickel crucibles in a muffle furnace controlled to within ±10°F of the operating temperatures. The resulting sinters were pulverized and then leached in distilled water with continuous agitation for 30 minutes at 95°C. The suspensions were vacuum filtered and the residues dried, ignited and weighed. Iron assays on the ignited samples were made by the standard dichromate procedure after dissolution in hydrochloric acid. The percentage of extraction was calculated from the iron assays by the relation:

Jan 1, 1964

By E. P. Jennings

The abundance and value of the tellurium minerals of Colorado is well known, but, as yet, few analyses have been made of them, and I offer these as a small contribution to the chemistry of these valuable ores. 1. Native Tellurium.—The specimens from which the analyses of this mineral were made are from the " John Jay" Mine, Boulder County, Colorado, where it occurs in quite large masses, though mixed with more or less silica and iron pyrites. It is usually a finegrained, tin-white mineral, but sometimes occurs in distorted, hexagonal prisms in cavities in the quartz. Before the blowpipe it gives the reactions for tellurium, sulphur and iron; by cupellation, it yields a small amount of gold. An analysis of a coarsely crystallized specilnen gave the following results : Specific gravity, 5.10.5. Tellurium,.........68.40 Gold, :.........1.36 Iron pyrites,........24 92 Ferric oxide,.....4.37 Silica and silicates,........11.54 Silver, lead, and mercury,... traces. 100.59 Deducting the pyrites, iron oxide and silica, we have for the con]position of the mineral: Tellurium,..........97.78 Gold,.......... 2.27 100.00 Or, considering the gold to be in combination with tellurium to form sylvanite, we have : Nativc tellurium,........96.50 Sylvanite (An, Te3,),........4.50 100.00

Jan 1, 1879

ARTHUR KNAPP, Ardmore, Pa. (communication to the Secretary*). -The author has failed to consider the point which in my mind is the most convincing in advocating some sort of a bureau for the collection of well logs. I venture to say that 90 per cent. of the logs as taken today are absolutely worthless to any one but the one who has taken the log. This is largely due to the careless use of nomenclature. The author says on page 289, "He must ascertain which of the many factors might account for the dry hole in question and often only careful examination of well logs will convey this information." I believe that even a most careful examination of the average log reveals nothing. I have at hand a book on petroleum, by a well-known author. This book has a number of logs from fields all over the world, from which I shall illustrate. In a well log from Kansas I find "Soft gray shale" and in one from Humble I find "Hard blue shale." As a matter of fact the shale from Humble is softer than the shale from the Kansas well. The difference is that the drillers in Kansas, being used to limestone and

Jan 5, 1917