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By Walter G. Perkins

In the assay of copper-bearing material for gold and silver, the elimination of copper before the final cupellation is of course essential, because any copper left in the lead-button will carry gold into the cupel; and a method which will effectively remove the copper with the smallest amount of manipullation is desirable. The scorification method is often rendered long and tedious by the necessity of repeatedly re-scorifying the button— to say nothing of the risk of losing Au—Ag thereby incurred. An ore carrying, for instance, 10 per cent,. of copper and only 0.1 or 0.2 oz. gold per ton, cannot be scorified with accurate results, because so many portions would have to be taken in order to get enough gold for weighing. On the other hand, the crucible method, with potassic nitrate and nails, would not do at all in such a case, because all the copper would be reduced by the nails, and (if the charge were 0.5 A. T.) this would defeat cupellation, by causing cupel-absorption of gold. In matte-assays, more concentrated value permits the determination of gold from smaller portions, and thus diminishes the difficulty experienced with ores. The method here described has been severely tested, during use for more than a year, and hart never failed hitherto, in the assay of any ore or product to which it has been applied. It is not proposed as perfect for every variety of ore or matte—probably no method would be that; but it is believed that, intelligently used, with the modifications dictated by practice, it will give better results, with less expenditure of time and labor, than any other known to the writer.

Jan 1, 1902

At the meeting of the Board of Directors the following resolution was passed: "The members of the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Mining Engineers desire: to place on record their appreciation of the very great generosity of one of their colleagues and a member of the Board, George D. Barron, expressed in his gift of $5000 to relieve the financial stringency caused by the unusual expenditures of the Institute for war work and the remission of dues of those members on active service." By-Law VIII. was amended to make a slight change in District No. 5. The report of the Auditing Committee was accepted. Tellers were appointed to: count the ballots on officers and on the proposed amendment. The proposed budget for the year 1919 was presented. The following resolution re Secretary Emeritus Rossiter W. Raymond, which had been prepared, by request, by Dr. A. R. Ledoux was then unanimously adopted. "The Board of Directors of the American Institute of Mining Engineers would place upon its minutes its profound sense of loss and sorrow in the death of Rossiter Worthington Raymond, Ph. D., LL. D., Secretary Emeritus of the Institute. Both as one of its founders and as its Sec-retary for 27 years, his was the guiding spirit of the Institute for more than a generation. "During the greater part of this long period, it might almost have been said that the Institute was Dr. Raymond-and Dr. Raymond the Institute. When with the progress of growth and development, great changes were introduced, Dr. Raymond acquiesced in these in spite of some misgivings, such as those with which a father might contemplate the emergence of his child from the careful supervision of the home; but as Secretary Emeritus for the past eight years, lie was always ready with valuable advice and helpful suggestion.

Jan 3, 1919

By H. B. Fuqua, B. E. Thompson

For a very brief description of the North Texas area and the general geological features with which it is associated, the reader is referred to the summary for 1935. As in previous years, the authors have been unable to undertakc the almost impossible task of isolating statistics for the hundreds of productive "spots" which are included within the generally productive areas of the several counties. However, pools that appear to be definitely isolated—as, for example, the Foard County production and the new pool recently developed southeast of Gainesville in Cooke County—are covered separately. During the year 1936, both routine development in proven or scmi-proven areas and exploratory drilling showed a decrease over the year 1935, there having been a total of 1453 wells drilled in the district during 1936, as compared to 1619 in 1935. It is also of interest to note that abandonments exceeded completions in 1936. Developments during 1936 While a number of local productive spots were found in Wilbarger, Archer and Wichita Counties, and numerous minor local extensions to older producing areas were developed in practically all the producing countics in the district, only two discoveries of sufficient importance to justify special mention were made. Anderson and Kerr No. 1 Bruhlmeyer, about two miles southeast of Gainesville in Cooke County, was completed in April, at a total depth of 2014 ft., for an initial production of 315 bbl. daily from a sand of Pennsylvanian (Canyon) age. Development has been rapid and the field is about drilled up. During November the 100 wells in the field averaged about 40 bbl daily. The structure appears to be a small fold associated with the northeast flank of the main uplift, which extends in a northwest-southeast direction across Cooke and Montague Counties.

Jan 1, 1937

By M. T. Abasov

The work suggests an approach to the problem of optimally planning the drilling and development of gas fields. The approach is based on systems analysis and allows a joint optimal choice of the total number of wells in the field, their spacing in the reservoir, the diameter of production tubing, drilling dynamics, the number and spacing of drilling platforms and well pattern schemes for each plat- form as well. The optimal solution satisfies the set of technical- economical requirements and provides a minimum value of discounted total expenditures (capital costs plus operating costs). A mathematical model of the problem is presented. This work represents an extension of the authors&apos; previous investigations that formulated and solved problems of optimal drilling of oil and gas deposits by directional wells [1] and problems of optimal control of the number of active wells in multi-reservoir oil and gas fields [2], [3]. For construction of the mathematical model we choose a range (Nmin, Nmax) of possible values of the total number of wells, N, which should be drilled in the deposit. Here Nmin, Nmax are minimum and maximum numbers of wells correspondingly, that should be drilled into the reservoir. N[€](Nmin = N1, ... N[o], ..., Nm = Nmax). For simplicity a one-reservoir gas field is considered. It is assumed that: (a) wells are spaced in the reservoir uniformly, (b) there is a certain algorithm providing a uniform spacing of the given number N[o] ([0]=l, . . . , m) of wells in the reservoir, (c) the diameters of the production tubing for all the wells are the same. The relation Qz (x), i.e. the dependence of the cumulative output of gas from the cumulative "well-years" of operations is constructed for each diameter dZ from the given range of diameters d1< ...< dr.

Jan 1, 1977

By R. W. Jenkins

RACKLESS equipment is being used by the T Coplay Cement Manufacturing Co. to develop a folded limestone deposit economically and safely with inexperienced men. Cost and quality of development stone results in a saving when it is used instead of outside sources of limestone. This favorable cost has been attained by following a methods development and training program described in this paper. It is expected that further savings in favor of the mined stone will be made when stopes now being prepared are in production. The present equipment will be used for loading from stope draw points. The limestone is blended with quarried cement rock to serve as raw material for Portland cement, first produced in this country by Coplay Cement Manufacturing Co. from a process developed by its president, David 0. Saylor, in 1873. For many years the cement rock alone or with a small amount of added limestone was used for raw materials. Later as specifications were raised and the richer portions of quarries were depleted, limestone from outside sources was required in increasing amounts. In 1925 D. J. Uhle, the general manager, began to prospect company property for limestone. It was known that the argillaceous cement rock was underlain by crystalline high calcium limestone. After an extensive drilling program it was found that there were large reserves of limestone underlying a recumbent syncline exposed in the south wall of the company&apos;s No. 3 cement rock quarry. A quarry was started on the vertical limb of this fold in 1927, and by 1930 the full requirement of the plant was met. After 1945 production diminished because of the occurrence of dolomite beds in the south wall. The quarry floor was then 135 ft below the cement rock level and 285 ft below surface. In 1949 Gerald I?.

Jan 1, 1955

By Richard P. Rothwell

Though coal has been mined in this country for more than a century, no systematic effort was ever successfully made to ascertain the total amount produced. The production of the Cumberland Basin, Md., and the shipments from the anthracite fields of Pennsylvania, have been placed upon record, thanks to the intelligence and foresight of Mr. C. Slack in the former case, and to the late Mr. B. Bannan in the latter. For some of the years between 1822 and 1842, the production of the Richmond Basin was reported by Mr. R. C. Taylor, but since that date till the author undertook this work it was impossible to obtain any statement of the production of this field. A few of the newer fields, such as that of Mt. Diablo, Cal., have been fully reported, and a few of the newer States have also had this service performed by some intelligent private individuals; but no statistics of coal production have ever been collected either by the State or General Government, if we except the returns for the years 1869—70 of the census report. During the year 1875, by great exertions, I succeeded in obtaining, and July 3d, 1875, gave in the Engineering and Mining Journal what, " though not an accurate statement of our coal production," was " by far the most full and reliable that had ever been published." Though that report showed the production of bituminous coal to be 23,630,094 gross tons, or about six million tons more than had ever before been reported, it was in reality two and a half million tons below the actual output. The more full returns I obtained for 1875 gave many figures for 1874

By Herbert A. Everest

The idea of economical production is usually associated with large operations, tonnages, and mines, with even larger capital behind them. , Nevertheless many small mines operate in the shadow of large competitors and make a good showing on the capital invested despite larger overhead expenses. For the purpose of this discussion I will divide the cost of production into classes, and specify opposite each the approximate percentagc expended thereon: 1. Labor, including miners and company men; 60 to 75 per cent. 2. Development, including all necessary .yardage, room turning, crosscuts, etc.; 7 to 12 per cent. 3. Deadwork, covering payment to miners for handling falls, draw-slate, or faults, rock work, water, and in general, all nonproductive labor; 3 to 7 per cent. 4. Supplies: mine timbers, oil, brattice material, lumber, cement, and repairs to equipment; 2 to 6 per cent. 5. Expense: management, selling, office, taxes, etc.; 1 to 5 per cent. 6. Depreciation of coal reserves and royalties; 6 to 10 per cent. 7. Depreciation of equipment and interest on capital invested; 1 to 3 per cent. 8. Fuel; ½ to 1½ per cent. The labor cost for a small mine is relatively much lower than for a large mine, particularly the sum paid to company men. Idle-pay expense is cut to a minimum; the labor item being larger than all the others together, a saving in labor makes a decided showing on the total cost. The development charges in small and large mines are about the same. There should be a small showing on the deadwork item in favor of the small mine. The unit cost for supplies is usually small in the small mine. The operator of the small mine finds, owing to a limited tonnage, that the expenses of management, selling, etc., are abnormally high. The item, depreciation of coal reserves and royalties, is usually about

Jan 1, 1916

By J. O. McCaldin, P. Duwez

ALLOTROPIC transformations between 1000° and 1900°C have recently been reported for several metallic elements. Since the proposed transformations are based on limited evidence, it was decided to examine the elements in question as well as some refractory metals by thermal analysis with a photoelectric technique similar to that described by Hug-gins, Roll, and Udin.1 In this method, a lead sulphide cell was used to detect thermal radiation from an electric-resistance heated strip specimen. A thermocouple spot welded to the specimen was used to calibrate the temperature of the system under steady temperature conditions, and recording was accomplished with a cathode ray oscilloscope. In the method used by the present authors, the temperature calibration was omitted and the cathode ray oscilloscope was replaced by a recording galvanometer. This technique, in which electric current passing through the specimen heats it, will be referred to henceforth as Method 1. Another arrangement was required for those cases where the specimen could not be formed into a wire or strip suitable for resistance heating. In such cases the specimen was a sintered compact heated by thermal radiation from a hot tungsten strip, Fig. 1. The specimen was insulated from the heating strip with a thin layer of thoria powder or suspended on 0.004 in. tungsten wires. The take-up spring had just sufficient tension to prevent buckling of the heating strip due to thermal expansion. This technique will be called Method 2. Both methods were tested with specimens of iron and titanium and the well known allotropic transformations, a toy and ? to 8 in iron and a to in titanium, were very clearly detected. Fig. 2 shows one of the records obtained for titanium. For this particular experiment, the iodide titanium specimen was a square rod 0.080 in. on an edge and 3 in. long.

Jan 1, 1955

By William White

History.—The making of iron and steel from the ores of northern Mexico was for years a favorite project of the late Don Patricio Milmo, upon whose estate large deposits of coal and iron were known to exist, and with whom Mr. Eugene Kelly, of New York, was associated. Several expert examinations of the property mere made for them; and when failing health forced Sr. Milmo to retire from active part in the matter, Mr. Kelly carried on the project and associated himself with Messrs. Vicente Ferrara, of Monterrey, Antonio Basagoiti and Leon Signoret, of the City of Mexico, and other leading citizens of Mexico, Monterrey and New York, who, in May, 1900, organized the " Compania Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey," with a capital of $10,000,000. The main reason for locating the plant at Monterrey was, that a circle drawn with Monterrey as a center, and the distance from Monterrey to Laredo as a radius, will contain all the known Deposits of iron-ore of Bessemer quality, and the greater part of the available coal, in the Republic. Moreover, Monterrey is connected with all the Mexican trunk railwaylines, and thus with the Gulf of Mexico, and supplies, therefore, the conditions necessary for prosperous manufacturing, namely, cheapness in assembling raw materials and means for wide distribution of product. It also has a number of enterprising citizens, who have been successful in mining, smelting and manufacturing operations, and a sufficiently large population to supply the necessary labor. Iron-Ore.—The company&apos;s iron-mines are on the Carrizal mountain, on the Mexican National, and at Monclova, on the Mexican International railroad. At the former locality, two mines, Piedra Iman and the Anillo de Hierro, sufficiently large

Jan 1, 1902

By Francis S. Kendorski

INTRODUCTION Nuclear waste has been generated since the time of the Curie&apos;s and continues to be generated worldwide at an ever-increasing rate as the world will (and should) rely more and more upon fission (and hopefully fusion) for power. Also, the needs for strategic weapons will also generate so-called defense wastes. The largest class of high level nuclear waste (HLW) is spent fuel, the tail end of the nuclear reactor fuel cycle. At present, spent fuel is stored at the reactors producing it or at a few accepting places for away-from-reactor storage. All such storage facilities, as presently constructed, will begin to run out of usable storage space during the next decade or so. Congress enacted and President Reagan signed into law in early 1983 the National Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. This law provides for the permanent isolation of nuclear waste in deep geologic repositories. The Act sets 1998 as the date at which the first repository should be operational. This date is extremely ambitious, and the Department of Energy (DOE), which is charged with the responsibility of constructing and operating repositories, admits that this date will slip by at least a few years. The Act also provides for licensing of repositories by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a fashion very similar to nuclear power generating reactors. This requirement imposes a very special rigor on the analyses, investigations, designs, construction, and operation of repositories so as to assure the protection of the public and the environment from radioactive contamination. In addition the states and affected Indian Tribes must be consulted, especially concerning siting, and, needless to say, no one wants a HLW repository in their back yard.

Jan 1, 1984

By Tom W. Pfeifle, Paul E. Senseny

INTRODUCTION Engineered structures such as mines, shafts and tunnels, and storage caverns for hydrocarbons, chemical s and brine are being built in natural rock salt formations in increasing numbers. In addition, salt formations are being considered as potential hosts for mined, nuclear waste repositories. The popularity of these formations for engineering purposes stems from the many favorable commercial, physical, and thermal characteristics attributed to the material itself. Not only have the formations been stable and free of dissolution for hundreds of millions of years, but the salt is fairly easily mined and has very low permeability, low water content, and high thermal conductivity. Another characteristic of salt is its tendency to flow or creep when subjected to a shear stress. Although this behavior may be desirable in certain instances, it may be detrimental in other instances since the creep rate may be large enough to produce deformations that tend to reduce the volume of storage caverns or to restrict access to mining operations. In either case, the engineer is faced with the problem of accurately predicting the long-term structural deformations under various combinations of stress and temperature and is required to compare these deformations with long-term design criteria. In the laboratory, deformation-versus-time curves obtained at constant stress and temperature show that creep of salt is similar to creep of many other crystal line solids. Figure 1 shows a typical deformation-versus-time curve for salt. When a shear stress is first applied, the rate of deformation is high, but decreases monotonically. This initial behavior is called transient or primary creep. At some time, the deformation rate no longer decreases but continues at a constant rate. This behavior is called steady-state

Jan 1, 1982

By Utley Wedge

In general, the art of securing copper from sulphide ores or concentrates may be said to consist of: (1) separation, in the molten state, of copper sulphide with some iron sulphide, from the great bulk of gangue-material, followed by (2) elimination of sulphur and iron from the molten matte, by oxidation and fluxing, leaving metallic copper. The definition is made broad enough to cover the general practice, whether or not the ore or concentrate is given a prelimiuary roast for the removal of surplus sulphur. The above process, which I will designate as the smelting process, makes necessary the presence in the ore, or the addition thereto, of such silica, lime, and iron as may be necessary for the formation of a light and fusible slag, together with sufficient sulphur and iron for the formation of copper-matte, and also the addition to the matte of sufficient silica for the oxidation and fluxing-out of the iron. These items, together with the cost of fuel sufficient for melting the mass, constitute important items of cost in the copper-smelting process. Numerous cases where fluxing-materials are scarce or dear, or where fuel is expensive, have caused special attention to be given recently to the wet process of copper-extraction, which may be designated as consisting of forming soluble copper salts which are then washed or leached out of the ore or concentrates by dissolving in water or acid. Metallic copper may then be secured from the solution of copper salts by electrolysis; by cementation; or copper can be brought out of the solution as a hydroxide or other insoluble precipitate and reduced to metallic copper by subsequent melting in a reducing atmosphere.

Jan 1, 1913

By Joseph Taylor

THE Ducktown district is in the extreme southeastern corner of Tennessee, its principal railroad point being Copperhill, on the Blue Ridge division of the Louisville &Nashville Railroad, midway between Knoxville, Tenn., and Atlanta, Ga. The ore deposits were discovered about 1849 and development work was begun in the early fifties. Only the "black copper? ores, products of secondary enrichment, from beneath the gossan outcrops and overlying the massive sulphide deposits, were then mined and smelted for their copper content. Upon their exhaustion, attention was directed to the treatment of the pyritic ore remaining, resulting in the devising of a, process consisting of open-heap roasting, followed by blast-furnace smelting, which was practised until 1903, when semi-pyritic smelting was-adopted. In 1908, the companies operating in the district; on account of litigation brought about by alleged smoke damage to forests and vegetation in the adjoining counties of Georgia, were compelled to erect enormous acid plants to prevent the escape of the sulphur dioxide produced in the smelting operations. The utilization of this sulphur dioxide in the, manufacture of sulphuric acid as a byproduct has added to the revenues of the companies, and at the same time has furnished a valuable source of supply of sulphuric acid to the fertilizer trade of the South, and more recently to the manufacturers of explosives for use in the production of war munitions. The steadily increasing demand for sulphuric acid for the manufacture of fertilizers and explosives, together with the decreasing imports of pyrites, from which the acid is generally produced, now makes it imperative that greatly extended resources of pyrite be developed. While the Ducktown deposits do not predominate in pyrite, they do contain an inexhaustible supply of pyrrhotite, admixed with pyrite, which can be satisfactorily employed to supplement or substitute for pyrite in acid making.

Jan 2, 1918

By E. A. Beck

(New York Meeting. February, 1913.) For a number of years many attempts have been made to use thermit in order to do away with piping in ingots. Some of these attempts were successful, while others did not give the expected results. Nearly every plant had its own method of using the thermit, and no special care was taken to study, the results or to find the causes for lack of success. Formerly the principle of the process was to decrease the piping by introducing a can filled with thermit, attached to an iron rod, into the head of the ingot directly after it bad been poured. In this case the thermit reaction took place in the upper part of the ingot, and it was thought that through the heat produced the head would keep liquid longer and piping thus be reduced. In other words, the aim was to keep the head of the ingot open by making use of the heat of the thermit reaction, which would thereby give the gases in the steel sufficient time to escape. This result can be attained by the application of a large enough quantity of thermit, but it would not be economical in general practice, and could only be used for high-grade material. Many steel-makers abroad and in this country have had this experience. The Th. Goldschmidt A. G., Germany, has, therefore, made a special study of this question with the co-operation of a well-known steel company, and has worked out a new method for. the application of thermit for this purpose. The results obtained have been most satisfactory and reliable, and this- process is now used in Germany on a large scale in many prominent steel-works.

Jan 4, 1913

By J. P. Neumann, Y. A. Chang

Lattice parameter measurements of the hcp phase in the system Ag-A1 near the stoichiometric composition Ag2Al were carried out for specimens quenched from 825°K, annealed for 10 days at 453°K, and annealed for 100 days at 413°K. The three heat treatments resulted in the same lattice parameters at room temperature. None of the specimens showed any superlattice lines. The lattice parameters of this alloy were also measured at temperature from 77° to 750°K. An anomaly in the temperature variation of the lattice paramete.rs occurs in the region near 400°k, which may be associated with local ordering. FROM measurements of the diffuse scattering of X-rays, it is known that the [ phase in the system Ag-A1 near the stoichiometric composition Ag2A1 ex- hibits a considerable degree of short-range order at room temperature.&apos; Moreover, based on the position of the short-range order peaks a superlattice model had been proposed in the same study and it was suggested that lowering the annealing temperature to 420°K might result in long-range order. In the present study, the diffraction patterns and the lattice parameters of three differently heat-treated specimens, i.e., quenched from 825°K, annealed for 10 days at 453°K, and annealed for 100 days at 413°K, were determined from 77" to 750°K. The purpose of these measurements was to investigate 1) whether long-range order could be established by prolonged annealing and 2) whether the lattice parameters at room temperature depended on the heat treatment, since it had been proposed earlier2 that the lattice parameters in this phase are related to the atomic arrangement. 1) EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES Silver and aluminum, both 99.99 pct purity, were melted in a zirconium oxide crucible under helium in

Jan 1, 1969

By Joseph H. Taylor

The Ducktown district is in the extreme southeastern corner of Tennessee, its principal railroad point being Copperhill, on the Blue Ridge division of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, midway between Knoxville, Tenn., and Atlanta, Ga. The ore deposits were discovered about 1849 and development work was begun in the early fifties. Only the "black copper" ores, products of secondary enrichment, from beneath the gossan outcrops and overlying the massive sulphide deposits, were then mined and smelted for their copper content. Upon their exhaustion, attention was directed to the treatment of the pyritic ore remaining, resulting in the devising of a process consisting of open-heap roasting, followed by blast-furnace smelting, which was practised until 1903, when semi-pyritic smelting was adopted. In 1908, the companies operating in the district, on account of litigation brought about by alleged smoke damage to forests and vegetation in the adjoining counties of Georgia, were compelled to erect enormous acid plants to prevent the escape of the sulphur dioxide produced in the smelting operations. The utilization of this sulphur dioxide in the manufacture of sulphuric acid as a byproduct has added to the revenues of the companies, and at the same time has furnished a valuable source of supply of sulphuric acid to the fertilizer trade of the South, and more recently to the manufacturers of eyplosives for use in the production of war munitions. The steadily increasing demand for sulphuric acid for the manufacture of fertilizers and explosives, together with the decreasing imports of pyrites, from which the acid is generally produced, now makes it imperative that greatly extended resources of pyrite be developed. While the Ducktown deposits do not predominate in pyrite, they do contain an inexhaustible supply of pyrrhotite, admixed with pyrite, which can be satisfactorily employed to supplement or substitute for pyrite in acid making.

Jan 1, 1918

By F. P. Dewey

Recent discussions have furnished to the members of the Institute much information concerning aluminum and its applications. The present paper will be devoted almost entirely to the description of a process by which the metal is produced in the form of alloys. The characters which especially distinguish the Heroult process consist in electrolyzing a mass of molten alumina (Al2O3), and at the same time alloying the separated aluminum with a heavy metal, the heat necessary for the fusion of both the alumina and the alloying metal being supplied by the direct passage through the molten Al2 0, of an electric current of high amperage and low voltage. The process has been in active operation at Neuhausen in Switzerland for about two years. It is also in active operation at Froges in southern France. Both these locations were selected for this purpose on account of the presence of large and desirable water-powers. The apparatus consists of a carbon containing-vessel, which may be a single crucible for small operations, or may be built up of slabs or blocks of carbon for large and industrial operations. When built up of slabs or blocks, the whole is surrounded by an iron casing. In the earlier crucibles this iron casing was cast around the carbon, in order to secure close electrical contact. This, however, has been found unnecessary; and in the later crucibles the casings consist of plates bolted together, while pulverized carbon is packed between the carbon blocks and the iron. Electric conductors are united direct to this iron casing, and the current passes from this through the carbon lining to the interior of the crucible. By this

Jan 1, 1890

By Percy Gillie

THE Tralee preparation plant, owned and operated by the Semet-Solvay division of Allied Chemical and Dye Corp., is located on the Virginian railway, near Mullens, Wyoming County, W. Va., and the mine, which is in the Winding Gulf district, produces coal exclusively from Pocahontas No. 3 seam. The property, comprising 4900 acres, is leased from the Pocahontas Land Corp. Prior to 1930 four separate mines were operated in this tract, some having been started about 1916. Plans for the preparation plant were formulated soon after World War 11. Construction began in the spring of 1948, operation early in 1950. The plant was designed to be operated with minimum labor. It was equipped for production of first quality graded sizes of coal for house heating and 3/8x0-in. slack suitable for high-standard metallurgical coke. In the beginning, a thorough investigation was made of the property by means of core drilling, prospect openings, and sections from shallow mines on the property, as well as sections and analyses from mines in the immediate vicinity. After the extent of desirable coal had been established and the average seam section and nature of overlying and underlying strata had been determined, it was decided to install a system of mining which would load the full seam and would clean the product mechanically. Pocahontas No. 3 seam is characterized by draw slate and bone and rock partings. It was not known what the washing difficulties and cleaning plant requirements would be for processing the raw product of full mechanical mining. Arrangements were made, therefore, through the courtesy of the property owner, to obtain a large sample from a section of the mine along the adjoining property line. The

Jan 1, 1954

By F. F. Sharpless

ARRIVING at Davis Junction, after leaving Portland, we expected to wait for an hour and a half, but found the superintendent of motive power of the Southern Pacific, Mr. Williams, waiting for us with a car, and were immediately taken aboard this and whisked off to Sacramento. After dinner, we were taken to the railroad shops to see their work in reclaiming scrap steel. We saw them draw off the slag from the electric furnace, and later make a casting. At about 11 o&apos;clock, we took the train for Reno. A delegation of the Nevada Section, with Mr. Kirchen and Mr. Rives at its head, met us at the station. Immediately after breakfast, we started for the property of the Comstock Mines Co., where General Bulkeley Wells was to be our host. We had a de-lightful ride out to the mines and through the old city of Virginia, or through what was left of that old city, reaching General Wells&apos; camp at about 10:30. This contains the newest thing in cyanidation and a remarkably fine iron and concrete mill building. After a trip underground, we were called to luncheon, where about 250 sat down. The afternoon was spent in the mill, and we were taken to Gold Hill, which is a part of Virginia City, for dinner, again as the guests of General Wells, who made a consummate toastmaster. Governor Emmet Boyle was the first speaker; he was followed by President Dwight, and then came President William Sproule of the Southern Pacific. A song, "The Engineer," was followed by Senator Key Pittman, Professor Jones of the State University, Mayor Stuart of Reno, and ex-Senator Charles Hend-erson. The president of the Western Pacific and the president of the Pacific Coast Line were there, also many notable operators of Nevada and California.

Jan 11, 1922

By Richard P. Rothwell

THOUGH coal has been mined in this country for more than a century, no systematic effort was ever successfully made to ascertain the total amount produced. The production of the Cumberland Basin, Md., and the shipments from the anthracite fields of Pennsylvania, have been placed upon record, thanks to the intelligence sand foresight of Mr. C. Slack in the former case, and to the late Mr. B. Bannan in the latter. For some of the years between 1822 and 1842, the production of the Richmond Basin was reported by Mr. R. C. Taylor, but since that date till the author undertook this work it was impossible to obtain any statement of the production of this field. A few of the newer fields, such as that of Mt. Diablo, Cal., have been fully reported, and a few of the newer States have also had this service performed by some intelligent private individuals.; but no statistics of coal production have ever been collected either by the State or General Government, if we except the returns for the years 1869-70 of the census report. During the year 1875, by great exertions, I succeeded in obtaining, and July 3d, 1875, gave in the Engineering and Mining Journal what, "though not an accurate statement of our coal production," was " by far the most full and reliable that had ever been published." Though that report showed the production of bituminous coal to be 23,630,094 gross tons, or about six million tons more than had ever before been reported, it was in reality two and a half million tons below the actual output. The more full returns I obtained for 1875 gave many figures for 1874

Jan 1, 1877