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By R. H. Ogburn

THE GROUND now being worked by the Fairbanks Exploration Co., near Fairbanks, Alaska, has been known to be gold bearing since 1901. In the early days it was worked by drift mining and other small-scale methods. In 1922, Hammond started prospecting the gold-bearing ground and obtaining options on the properties desired. Two years later the present Fairbanks Exploration Co. started taking up the options, and preparing to exploit the ground. For the prospect drilling Keystone drills were used, with holes at the points of equilateral triangles 600 ft. apart. Holes were also put down more closely spaced to determine the limits of dredging ground. In the first drilling casing was used to the bottom of the holes, but in later work the casing was put down only to the bottom of the thawed ground, and the rest of the hole put down without casing. The gold content was determined by panning, each 2 ft. of depth being determined separately. Where no casing was used the size of the hole was determined by using water to measure its volume. The greatest concentration of gold occurs at or near bedrock. All the gold-bearing streams head in one big dome. Gold, however, is not found clear to the head of the creeks, the pay being first found some distance downstream from the head.

Jan 1, 1933

By Ernest N. Patty

WHEN an Alaskan prospector makes a new mineral discovery he stakes out his claims and then starts prospecting for a near-by landing field. This may be a convenient lake but more often it is a gravel bar along a river, where, by cutting off some brush and throwing the larger rocks to one side and then tying a flour sack to a pole, he may decoy some intrepid aviator into testing it gingerly with the wheels of his plane. It was only a few years ago that .the fence around the baseball park at Fairbanks, Alaska, was taken down so that planes could get in and out of the ball park without ripping off boards. Today the grandstand is lost among the modern hangars which line one side of a modern and busy airport. Planes come and go all during the day, and in summer, when there is no darkness, the night stillness is frequently broken by the hum of a motor overhead. Fairbanks is the hub of interior Alaska and from that hub airplanes radiate in all directions to mining camps large and small. An air industry of comparable size is based at the town of Anchorage, and in fact there are but few towns of more than 200 population in the Territory that do not have one or more planes based there.

Jan 1, 1937

By L. W. Casteel, E. A. Jones

MINING the lead deposits of Southeast east Missouri has reached a high stage of technical development dictated by the scattered occurrences of low-grade ore through favorable horizons in the Bonne Terre formation. The rock-breaking, handling, and related practices described here have evolved as the best way of mining these particular deposits. These methods are applied in the production of about 19,000 tons of lead ore per operating day from four mines in Southeast Missouri. Development drilling Drifts 10 ft wide and either 8 or 9 ft high are driven in this district on contract. Miners are guaranteed standard wages plus a bonus on the footage advanced, if earned. Labor, fuse, caps, wire, and dynamite used are charged against the contract. Normally the cycle of operations in drifting is performed by a two-man crew, a motor operator and a shovel operator who first load out the rock broken by the preceding shift. The drift crew then sets up two vertical column and mounts the drills. Cleveland HC-10's are used which have a steel lug integral with the cylinder for connection with the air feed. All drilling in drifts is wet. Air pressure is 85 to 100 lb at the face. From 28 to 32 holes are drilled per swing in a pyramid cut. Cut holes

Jan 1, 1947

By Oscar H. Hershey

COMPLAINT has been made that in the literature of economic geology the work of the "company or practical" mining geologists does not get enough attention. I propose to attempt to overcome this com¬plaint in reference to one important lead-mining district, that of the Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho. Furthermore, I will assume that the reader is not so much interested in the geology of the district as in the methods of application used and incidents that have arisen in the work. All the important discoveries of ore in the Coeur d'Alene were made without benefit of geology. Certainly I would not claim the reputed discoverer of the Bunker Hill mine as a fellow geologist. It appears also that the mines were operated quite successfully for many years without geological specialists, though doubtless certain properties were visited at long intervals by such men as Waldemar Lindgren. It was known that the ores occur in quartzite, graywackes and slates as stated by J. R. Finlay in 1903. (TRANS., VOL. 33.) He described the ore as occurring in typical fissure veins that occupy fault-planes of indeterminate displacement. The Bunker Hill lode was based on a definite fissure with the mineralization all on the hanging-wall side, extending as far as 300 ft. from the fissure.

Jan 1, 1933

By Donald H. McLaughlin

ALTHOUGH Cerro de Pasco was well known since the early sixteen hundreds as one of the major silver districts of the Andes, its development on a modern scale did not occur until the first decade of the present century when a syndicate organized by James B. Haggin initiated the enterprise that eventually grew into the complex and widespread operations of the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation. Options on a few claims in Cerro de Pasco that had been brought to New York in 1900 came to the attention of A. W. McCune, a mining man from Salt Lake City, who took them to Haggin and soon succeeded in interesting that creative mining financier in the possibilities of the district. James MacFarlane, an engineer well known to both Haggin and McCune, was sent to Peru early in 1901 to make the initial examinations which promptly led to acquisition of a substantial group of claims in the heart of the mineralized area. A syndicate to which Haggin turned over his rights was organized on Feb. 26, 1902 to provide the necessary funds. The original members were J. B. Haggin, who retained a 34 per cent interest, Edward H. Clark (for Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, the widow of Haggin's old associate, George Hearst), H. McK. Twombly, H. C. Frick, D. O. Mills, and J.P. Morgan.

Jan 1, 1945

By Sydney H. Ball

I. INTRODUCTION. DURING the past 50 years the attention of mining-men has been turned to Africa, and within the past decade prospecting-expeditions sent into Central Africa have resulted in the opening-up of several mines. Having recently spent two years in the Belgian Congo for the Société Internationale Forestiere et Miniere du Congo, it is our purpose to outline briefly the mining-conditions in that part of Central Africa. Before it became, in 1908, a Belgian colony, this region was known as the Congo Free State. II. LOCATION AND AREA. The Belgian Congo lies in southwestern Central Africa, west of the continental divide, is illustrated in Fig. 1. It has a coastline of but 20 miles on the Atlantic, but widens rapidly eastward to points 5° north and 14° south of the equator. Its area is 908,000 sq. miles, which is almost one-quarter that of the United States and Alaska, or more than one and one-half times that of Alaska. Stated in other terms, its area is nearly one-third that of the United States, exclusive of Alaska and the insular possessions, or more than that of all the United States east of the Mississippi river. III. TOPOGRAPHY AND DRAINAGE. From north to south, Africa is made up of three topographic elements: 1, the Atlas mountains, a highly-accentuated region

Apr 1, 1910

By Stanley J. Gasior, Albert J. Forney, Joseph H. Field

Most bituminous coal mined near Eastern industrial areas requiring high-Btu pipeline gas is caking and therefore unsuitable for fixed-bed pres- sure gasification by present techniques. If the caking property of such coal can be destroyed, the resulting fuel can be gasified in a fixed bed at pressure with steam and oxygen as a preliminary step in making a high-Btu gas. To find a practical way to convert strongly caking coals of granular or small lump size to noncaking fuel was the object of this study. In previous work, strongly caking coals of 1/8- to 1½ -in. size were converted to a noncaking coal char by treatment in a static bed in about 3 hours1 and coal of 18-100 Tyler mesh in a fluidized bed in about 5 min.2 An inert gas such as steam, nitrogen, carbon dioxide or a mixture of all three with a small amount of oxygen was used in both studies. In our work a strongly caking bituminous coal from the Pittsburgh seam of 4-8 Tyler mesh size was converted to a noncaking form in free-fall in about 2 sec by dropping it through a countercurrent flow of steam containing 4% to 7% oxygen at 1150º-1200°F and 300 psig. This method should also be applicable to smaller-sized material.

Jan 3, 1965

By CARLE R. HAYWARDC

BEFORE discussing this subject it is necessary to define somewhat the meaning of the tern metallurgical.. When I was a student at M. I. T. ore-dressing was not thought of as metallurgy in any sense of the word, but it was considered as more closely allied to mining, enabling the miner to market an otherwise unmarketable product, or at least to market it to better advantage. Progress in ore-dressing has gradually allied it more closely with smelting, for at present the raw material received by the smelter is predominantly concentrates and smelting practice has been profoundly affected by the products of the concentrating mill. It is not surprising therefore that in many schools ore-dressing is frankly considered as metallurgy and although there may be some dissenting opinions it will be considered as such in this discussion. Twenty-five years ago at M. I. T. metallography was taught in a few optional lectures. This subject has developed rapidly and been expanded into the new and increasingly important field of physical metallurgy. To many metallurgists the -term metallurgy means only physical metallurgy. They know little or nothing about smelting and leaching and even less about ore-dressing. Having then broadened the scope of the term metal¬lurgy to cover ore-dressing, smelting, leaching and phys-

Jan 1, 1930

By Marius R. Campbell

VARIOUS classes of coals are recognized in this country at the present time. These classes depend largely upon physical characteristics rather than upon chemical composition, and consequently they cannot be accurately defined. The divisions into anthracite, semi-anthracite and semi-bituminous are fairly satisfactory; but the term bituminous embraces so large a variety of coal that it is of little value, and the term lignite is so loosely applied that it has little or no place in a scientific classification. At present there is no way of accurately defining the vari¬ous classes of coal, because no adequate scheme of classification, which applies to lignites as well as bituminous coal and anthracite bas been proposed. The object of this paper is to present such a scheme, which is based upon data obtained dur¬ing the past year by Prof. N. W. Lord,1 in charge of the chemical laboratory of the United States Geological Survey coal-testing plant at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis. All the classifications of coals proposed prior to 1877 were based either on physical characteristics or on proximate analyses, including all of the impurities. These schemes were illogical and highly unsatisfactory, for the physical properties of a coal give little indication of its true composition; and impurities, such as ash and sulphur, are largely the results of acci-

Sep 1, 1905

By Waldemar Lindgren

IN spite of a world production of lead amounting to 1,300,000 tons, of which the United States produces slightly less than one-half, it appears that the mines at present are hardly able to supply the demand. For this there are several reasons. The lead deposits, geologically speaking, were formed comparatively near the surface under conditions of lower temperatures, with the richer deposits often residuary; that is, enriched by surface water, and consequently soon exhausted. Lead is practically absent from a great part of the world. The great Canadian shield, the eastern part of the Dominion, contains practically none. Scandinavia contains no lead. It is absent from geo- logical formations of great age, but does occur in large quantities in the deposits in the Rocky Mountain region. These deposits are, more or less directly, of igneous origin, but here, too, there is a tendency of the lead shoots to concentrate in the upper part, and when they go down the deposits turn to zinc-copper and some other metals. This is one of the best established facts of economic geology. The deposits of the Mississippi Valley district, from Kansas-Oklahoma, to Canada, are in comparatively accessible limestone beds, at a depth seldom more than 500 ft. Therefore, the lead is easily mined but more easily exhausted.

Jan 1, 1926

By Robert L. Clayton, Arthur Baker

Two massive sulfide zinc-copper ore bodies are in quartz-sericite schist (probably formed by regional metamorphism of sediments) and andesite of the Precambrian Yavapai Series, on opposite sides of a large rhyolite mass. The Copper Queen ore body is conformable with bedding of its schist host rock, but the Old Dick ore body probably crosscuts the strata. A lens of low-grade mineralization in chlorite schist, associated with the Old Dick ore body, crosscuts through 150 feet of strata. The ore bodies are almost entirely enclosed by premineral faults with less than 150 feet of displacement. The minerals of the ores are pyrite, sphalerite, and chalcopyrite, with minor arsenopyrite and galena and small amounts of intimately associated chlorite, sericite, and calcite. Old Dick sphalerite-chalcopyrite intergrowths have mutual boundaries, and sphalerite grains contain abundant exsolved chalcopyrite. Copper Queen sphalerite-chalcopyrite intergrowths have extremely ragged boundaries, the sphalerite contains no exsolved chalcopyrite, and the ore overall has a schistose texture. The pre-mineral fault on the hanging wall of the Copper Queen ore body has had 100 feet of post-mineral displacement. Wall rocks of the Old Dick ore body locally have been sericitized. Andesite and quartz-sericite schists for at least several hundred feet around both ore bodies have been chloritized erratically and contain traces of copper.

Jan 1, 1968

By PHILIP N. MOORE

IT is a pleasure to realize even at that day the dignity of the engineer's calling was upheld. May I also add my firm belief that today there be many engineers who will qualify to the specifications of our interesting author. Since that time, the development of the world has been chiefly due to the engineer, and so far as human brain can foresee, the material tasks of the future will continue to follow the directions of his judgment. Popular opinion says this is the age of the engineer; literature, which in the long run, voices public sentiment, shows it in the number of engineers who figure as characters of fiction. The engineer has been doing the big things necessary to increase the comfort and efficiency of mankind, but while a certain amount of fame and repute falls to him, too often he figures as the hired man of the entrepreneur, using that term not in the offensive sense of a mere promoter, but to mean the great visioned master of enterprise who has seen ahead of other men, recognized the coming needs of the world, and through ability to inspire others and to hire capital for his use has also been able to hire engineers as needed. Justly enough, therefore, to such men comes the fame as well as the prize of the game.

Jan 1, 1926

By Archer E., Wheeler

COPPER operations in the Congo mean the operations of the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, because there are no other copper industries there. There is a mine at Bwana M'Kubwa, a little way to the South, in Rhodesia, which has been operated on a small scale, and-another farther south, the Falcon mine, but in quite a different section of the country. This Bwana M'Kubwa mine has recently been reorganized financially and the Minerals Separation interests have taken an extensive share in it, so that it may come into operation. The Union Miniere's operations are in Katanga, the most southeastern province of the Belgian Congo, and the company's concession is in the southeastern part of that province. The usual route for going into the country is by way of Cape Town, thence over the South African Railways through Kimberly and Mafe- king to Bulawayo, then by the Beira, Mashonland and Rhodesia Railways to the Rhodesia-Congo border, passing Victoria Falls on the way, and finally by the Belgian road, the Chemin de Fer du Katanga, to Elisa- bethville, the African headquarters of the company. From Cape Town to the border it is about 2150 mi. and from the border to Elisabethville about 158 mi., making a little over 2300 mi. from Cape Town, by rail.

Jan 1, 1924

By R. S. McClellan

Western Talc Company, Inc., with headquarters in Los Angeles, Calif., has just completed an extensive modernization and expansion program at its talc mine near Tecopa, Calif., and at its talc and clay mills at Dunn Siding, Calif., the nearest rail shipping point to the mine. The basic objective of the program was to provide facilities necessary to produce 300 tpd of a wide range of ground talc and clay grades for the ceramic, paint, paper, rubber and other industries. In the planning of the program every effort was made to provide a system which would permit a high degree of quality control and uniformity of the finished products, along with efficient operation. Several years ago, R. T. Vanderbilt Co., Inc. purchased Western Talc Co. after a comprehensive investigation of its properties, including an extensive diamond drilling campaign. Western Talc's properties embraced a number of claims in the Resting Springs mining district in the northern part of San Bernardino Co. and the southern part of Inyo Co., Calif., some seven miles southeast of the town of Tecopa. Operations by the original company were started on a small scale in 1913 and production from that date to the time of purchase of the company by Vanderbilt is estimated at 250,000 tons. The major part of this output was sold to the ceramic wall tile industry.

Jan 3, 1968

By Vernon A. Mrak

The Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming was the first area in the state to receive attention during the early days of uranium exploration. Although the uranium occurrences are many and widespread, most of the known ore deposits are quite small and difficult to mine. As a result of this, detailed regional exploration in the Powder River Basin has been neglected. The uranium ore deposits occur in that part of the Wasatch Formation that is of earliest Eocene age, and they are scattered over an area of about 400 square miles. All uranium ore deposits are associated with red beds or altered sandstones within the Wasatch Formation. Uranium ore was first shipped from the region in 1953. Total production through June of 1965 is 506,257 tons of uranium ore containing 1,922,527 pounds of U3O8. The average grade of ore is about 0.19 per cent U3O8. The major producing area of the Powder River Basin is the Monument Hill district where about 91 per cent of the basin's total uranium ore has been mined. The source of uranium is presumed to have been the Oligocene, Miocene, and perhaps Pliocene tuffaceous rocks that once overlay the area. Joints, fractures, and permeable beds or zones were the passageways for the migration of uraniferous waters from the overlying beds to the Eocene host rocks.

Jan 1, 1968

By Sherwin F. Kelly

THE joint meetings of the Mining Geology Committee and the Society of Economic Geologists proved to be deservedly popular, and the interesting papers drew an attendance which strained the capacity of one of the large meeting rooms.. As might be expected these days when even the Supreme Court can't keep away from the subject of gold, the discussions opened on Thursday morning with several papers devoted to questions of structural and mineralogical relationships of the deposits of this metal. The presentation of Ira B. Joralemon's paper, "Veins and Faults in the Bralorne Mine," by Reno Sales, elicited considerable discussion on the relation of mariposite to gold, and the situation of the gold deposits with respect -to the Coast Range batholith. H. V. Warren stated that lie had observed mariposite always to be associated with gold in this region, but that gold was not always associated with mariposite. He pointed out that there is a series of veins on the west side of the batholith with a different mineralogy that, because of their richness but small size could quite easily make good, small mines. John A. Dresser concurred in this, and said lie thought this region was one of great promise for the mining geologist. He also reported having found mariposite associated with gold values below commercial limits, in the Appalachian regions.

Jan 1, 1935

By S. Marion Tucker

THE aggregate number of "papers" read within any one year before more or less bored and bewildered audiences is simply appalling. We have seventy to eighty engineering societies alone, not to speak of the many hundreds of societies of every other imaginable kind. And each meets at least once a year to tell what it has found out since the last meeting. All this is very fine and fortunate, at least in the case of the scientific and technological societies; for if even only one significant discovery, one new truth, one new idea comes out at the meeting, the session has been abundantly justified. To many of us, not scientists or technologists, the scientific and technological societies seem to release by far the most useful and important information. What they have to say is often of prime importance directly to human life and to industry, and is perhaps even more important indirectly in its final influence upon social and economic conditions, thus ultimately determining the course of what we like to call civilization. The paper read by that quiet, unpretentious man on the platform ma; mean the revolutionizing of a great existing industry, the creation of an entirely new industry, the gain of millions of dollars to some persons, the loss of millions to others. But, lamentably,

Jan 1, 1940

By AIME AIME

COAL preparation will be the main topic discussed at the first fall meeting of the Coal Division at Pittsburgh, Sept. 11, 12 and 13, though valuation, mergers, safety, stream pollution and other topics will not' be neglected. It is particularly appropriate that the great changes taking place in preparing coal for the market should be discussed at length where in the plants of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. and others the opportunity is afforded to see on a large scale just what is being accomplished. In wartime, the United States broke all records in coal production, but, as the late Franklin K. Lane pointed out, every fifth car shipped consisted of dirt. Obviously that constituted a big bur- den on industry and, in the remaking of the business which is now taking place both in the anthracite and bituminous fields, clean coal has properly enough be- come a watchward. Central coal-cleaning plants are being erected as a part answer to the puzzled inquiry of those familiar with metal mining as to why miners of coal have so long been content with what are relatively small units of production. Gradually big collieries comparable in tonnage output to the biggest copper mines are being built, and excellent examples are to be seen near Pittsburgh. Even the age-long tradition of the coal operator in favor of the single shift is

Jan 1, 1930

By William B. Plank

ENGINEERING students to the number of 73,269 had been enrolled in United States and Canadian schools on Nov. 5, 1945, but, as shown in the following tables, even this sizable number will not greatly remedy the 150,000 deficit reported by Vannevar Bush, director of the U. S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, to exist in the engineering and scientific man-power supply. These figures were received in advance from the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, and are given in detail in the January 1946 issue of the Journal of Engineering Education. Although the enrollment on Nov. 5 was an increase of 76% over the low of 41,632 in 1944-45, it was still 36% below the peak enrollment in 1941-42 of 115, 228. These figures include both undergraduate students and graduate students in the schools of the United States and Canada and are therefore comparable. As was to be expected, almost half of this enrollment is in the first or freshman year and 25% of the total are veterans. Also, 1,850, or about 2.5%, are women. A measure of the seriousness of the engineering graduate supply in these two countries is indicated by the trend of the number of first degrees that have been conferred during this period of scarcity:

Jan 1, 1946

By AIME AIME

ALL 32 of the Local Sections of the Institute in the continental United States and practically all of the Divisions as well, had representatives present at the Conferences of Local Section and Division Delegates at the Annual Meeting. Three sessions were held, two on Monday and one on Thursday, both the incoming and outgoing Presidents of the Institute being on hand to con- duct the meetings. H. J. Brown was called to the chair during a portion of the last session, President Fulton having to leave early. Complete minutes of the meetings have ,been sent to all delegates. In general, the Local Sections appeared, from their reports, to have risen to the wartime demands made upon them with their usual resourcefulness. Apparently more difficulty has arisen in the last year in arranging attractive programs and securing acceptable speakers, this being perhaps attributable to the fact that most technical men have been extremely busy. Careful planning ahead .has usually brought good results, however. Another wartime difficulty has been the matter of transportation to meetings, gasoline rationing and congestion on the railroads and buses being a handicap to attendance. Sharing cars has proved practical as a method of meeting this issue, this again requiring planning. Suitable meeting places and a supply of food have been another difficulty for some local groups.

Jan 1, 1944