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By Byron W. Cheever

In my paper on the estimation of manganese, etc., presented at the Halifax meeting, in September, 1885 (Transactions, xiv., 372), I said that the colorimetric process "can never be made to give reliable results." This statement was based on the results of many trials made by my assistant, Mr. E. D. Campbell, and myself, following in our work the printed and oral directions of others, and such modifications as suggested themselves from time to time. The accuracy of the statement having been questioned, I have, since then, endeavored to find some method of conducting the operation which would give accurate results; I have also tried the methods used by five different chemists; and I am not able to bring the process within the limits of an exact method. While it can fairly be ranked with the colorimetric carbon-process, and can be used for checking the operations of a steel plant, yet it requires more care to obtain uniform results, and is liable to greater variations from slight causes than the carbon-process, and, in my judgment, is not a safe method to employ when exact results are sought.

Jan 1, 1887

By Edward C. John, Wilbur H. Smith

At the Bingham Canyon pit operated by Kennecott's Utah Copper Division, the demand for geology has recently grown and diversified so rapidly that it has necessitated a revolution in geologic mapping techniques. The most significant changes in method have been in the preparation of the base map and in the computer application of collected data. Formerly maps were prepared by surveying with a transit or plane table. Now, however, a photogrammetric map with a scale of l in. to 200 ft is prepared semiannually and updated continuously to keep pace with the removal of more than 350,000 tons of material a day. Larger-scale bases of areas with specific problems such as un- stable slopes are prepared with aerial and terrestrial photography and photo-mosaics. Note sheets designed for computer application speed the processing of data. The multiplying applications of geology at the Bingham mine now include studies of the effect of structure, rock type, and alteration on slope stability, the relationship of sulfide mineral distribution to concentrating results, the effect of rock and mineral types on waste dump leaching, and the requirements of a reliable internal source of silica flux for smelting, as well as many others.

Jan 9, 1969

By Frank Armstrong

ALL the mining machinery of the Penn Iron Mining Co. has been operated by electric power for several years and when another shovel for stockpile loading was required the advantages of an electric shovel were naturally considered. After considerable study, serious objections suggested themselves the use of a shovel operated directly by electrical apparatus by reason of the complicated control, severe service on the motors FIG. 1.-ELECTRO-HYDRAULIC SHOVEL FIG:. 2-THE SHOVEL AS IT WAS OPERATED CINDER CONSTRUCTION. THE FIRST YEAR. and the heavy surges of current required from the line. It was finally decided to construct an electro-hydraulic shovel using water under pressure to perform all the necessary operations except that of propelling, for which a separate motor was best suited. A car body with boom, dipper handle and dipper of late design, but without any of the steam machinery, was purchased. A motor-driven centrifugal pump, a pressure tank, an air tank, a small air compressor and water cylinders with plungers, pistons and valves, were installed in place of the; steam equipment. Fig. 1 shows this shovel under construction and Fig. 2 shows it as it was operated during the first year, the summer of 1914. The large tank at the back of the car, in Fig. 1, carried air under

Jan 2, 1916

By Felix Shay

THE Agua Fria mine is in eastern Honduras at Lat. 140° 06' N., Long. 86° 36' W. Danli, the seat of the local municipal government, is the nearest town. The property is approximately 44 miles east of Teguci-galpa, the terminus of a truck road from the Pacific coast. The mine lies at an altitude of 3300 ft. with surrounding elevations as high as 6000 feet. For 20 years the oxidized croppings of the Agua Fria vein had been worked intermittently when in 1927 an attempt was made to open the property. A shaft was sunk 300 ft. and considerable ore was blocked out, but before a mill could be installed financial difficulties arose and the mine reverted to the original owners. Erle P. Halliburton, of Los Angeles, purchased the property in 1934. At that time a careful consideration of all factors involved showed that air transport was the only practical method of moving the equipment and machinery necessary to commence production. The other alternative was by muleback, which required sectionalizing all equipment to a maximum load of 200 lb., and during the rainy season this type of freighting was subject to serious delays. It was decided to purchase a trimotor Ford powered by three Pratt and Whitney Wasp B motors developing 400 hp. each. There were several reasons for the choice: (1) this type of plane was available at a reasonable price, owing to its replacement by faster models on most of the airlines in the United States; (2) the ship was capable of carrying a pay load of 3000 lb. over the required distance; (3) since this airplane had been widely used there would be no difficulty in securing competent personnel or in purchasing spare parts. It was necessary to rebuild the plane for cargo service. The windows were removed and the fuselage was entirely covered. A hatch was cut in the top of the fuselage to receive heavy crane loads and pieces of freight that were too large or too long to go through the rear door. The seats were removed and the interior of the plane was lined with Duralumin sheets. A heavy-duty landing gear was installed and the floor was reinforced.

Jan 1, 1940

By John V. Beall

Hard as the Revett quartzite are conditions governing the deep mines of the Coeur d'Al6ne. In fourscore years of mining, heat and pressure have been the rewards of preseverance. Such obstacles are the natural concommitant to search for ore at depth. But high cost and shortage of miners is a creeping frustration of the decade. These grim observations were made on a trip to the mines of the Coeur d'Al6ne in the first week of May. But the bouncy optimism of competent mining engineers and geologists overrides by far the tough conditions. This is the story of what they are doing. I think they are setting the stage for the wonder mines of tomorrow. I didn't meet all the people or see all the mines, so there are unfortunate gaps in the story. Then too, sometimes the muck and water blotched my notes, or I couldn't write fast enough or I was too tired. No matter. There is much to tell and, because it is basically a human story, I am flouting the rules of technical journalism and couching it in the neglected "I" person. First then, a little history . . . .

Jan 7, 1966

By D. B. McDyre

THE object of this study was to compare variations in slag volumes with tap changes while maintaining all other factors constant. This meant: 1. Same type of heat (Spec. SAE 1030). 2. Same charging material (3500 lb foundry, 4000 lb bought scrap). 3. Same amount of sand by weight to fix slag line. 4. Same method of melting with the exception of tap changes. 5. Same method of weighing slag after each test. The equipment of the Dodge Steel Co. consists of a 132-ton Heroult furnace lined with silica brick, using three 8-in. electrodes and a 2000-kva transformer, with four tap changes. In the melting practice we use a Fischer Carbanalyzer and a Herty viscosimeter and try to standardize all heats by making necessary carbon and slag adjustment before boil to keep all heats as uniform as possible.

Jan 1, 1947

By D. A. Dukelow

By using the U. S. Steel oxygen sensor to measure the oxygen content of the steel, deoxidation practices have been developed for silicon-killed fine-grain steel produced by the basic oxygen process. Measurements of oxygen content taken at final turndown are related to the amount of the aluminum addition to the ladle necessary to obtain the desired aluminum analysis for proper grain refinement. In comparison with heats deoxidized by the standard approach, which is based on carbon content, the heats deoxidized according to the oxygen-sensor-based schedule showed a 25 percent decrease in variability from the desired aluminum content. As more heats of a particular grade are made, it is expected that improved quality will result in decreased rejections and better analysis control. Sensor-based deoxidation schedules are also being developed for semikilled, rimmed, and capped steels.

Jan 1, 1972

By Donald W. Barnett

U.S. environmentalists have tended to oppose all new energy developments. Their efforts may be counterproductive because opposition to, say, offshore oil directly leads to the continued use of other energy sources that may have a higher social cost. Rather than attempting to eliminate all pollution from energy production, which would be prohibitively expensive, one should minimize the social cost of energy production for the given demand. Linear programming is used to rank various oils (California State and O.C.S., Gulf of Alaska, Prudhoe Bay, Athabasca tar sands, oil shale and certain foreign crudes) in terms of their social desirability. The objective is to minimize the cost of supplying the California market, subject to resource, sulphur and oil spill constraints. Social desirability is indicated by the inclusion of the oil in the optimal solution and the size of the associated shadow price. the larger the shadow price, the greater the benefits of increased production. The more negative, the greater the cost associated with forcing consumption of that fuel. The environmental shadow prices indicate the size of the trade-off between a particular environmental standard and minimum cost. The trade-offs can be surprisingly large. any reasonable spill standard can be achieved by changing the development pattern. Generally, the further offshore, the smaller is the environmental degradation, but the more expensive is the oil. Foreign oils can be economically and environmentally inferior to domestic oils. Crude from the California O.C.S., San Joaquin Valley end Prudhoe Bay appears a valuable resource, while the Gulf of Alaska, synthetic and foreign crudes appear marginal to submarginal.

Jan 1, 1977

By Charles D. Russell, L. H. Jenks, W. J. Leas

A detailed description is given of an experimental method for determining relative permeability of porous media to gas. Results are presented for natural and synthetic cores. The experimental data for two and three phase systems are compared. The reproduci-bility of the equilibrium gas saturation ii demonstrated and the effects due to a variation in rate of gas flow are discussed. An attempt is made to correlate total permeability and rock textural factors with relative permeability to gas. Capillary pressure curves obtained simultaneously with the relative permeability curves are shown to be equivalent to those obtained in conventional displacement cells. INTRODUCTION The advances in petroleum reservoir technology during the past decade have made increasingly apparent the desirability of a simple, rapid, reliable metliod for obtaining relative permeability data on small cores. Such data are needed in order to study fluid mechanics in porous media and for the more refined reservoir behavior prediction calculations now under development. The early experimental work in this field was done by Wyckoff and Botset1 who measured relative permeabilities for gas-liquid mixtures flowing through

Jan 1, 1950

By H. M. Chance M

The following tables have been compiled from the annual reports of the Inspectors of Mines, to determine the percentages of fatal and non-fatal casualties from roof-falls and explosions of fire-damp. As we cannot assume that every accident has teen recorded by the inspectors ; as many casualties terminating fatally after the lapse of a considerable period, are inevitably recorded as " non-fatal;" and as clerical errors may have crept into the compilation,* the figures of these tables cannot be considered absolutely correct, but the summary is sufficiently reliable to show the features I wish to differentiate. Under the heading " Miscellaneous" are included all accidents not directly attributable to explosions of fire-damp, roof-falls or fails of coal. Prominent among the numerous causes included under this head are premature or delayed explosion of blasts, accidental explosion of powder or cartridges, accidents from mine cam, falls in shafts, machine accidents, sliding of loose coal in pitching breasts, suffoca tion by choke-damp, etc., comprising in all 48 per cent. of the total number of casualties.

Jan 1, 1882

By Charles E. Johnston

By substituting photoelectric automatic car loading for mechanically induced hydraulic automatic loading and by protecting the process against operational failures, the engineering staff at International Minerals & Chemical Corp.'s Carlsbad potash mine has developed a reliable loading process that operates without an attendant. The photoelectric control, developed primarily because of frequent failures in the hydraulic control system, has not changed the basic loading operation and physical layout. Mine-run ore ranging in size from minus 200 mesh to 30-in. lumps is dumped onto a conveyor belt which discharges into a so-called "flop gate chute" which in turn, feeds the ore into six-ton capacity mine cars. Each car is filled progressively by moving the entire trip forward. When a car is filled 12 in. above its rim, the direction of flow into the car is reversed 180º and filling of the next car back is begun while the entire trip is moved forward again. Once the next car is properly spotted under the front chute, the flow is again directed to the forward position.

Jan 9, 1962

By Eugene Guccione

FOREWORD-In an interview published in the May 1975 issue of MINING ENGINEERING, one of the world's most respected scientists, nuclear physicist Hans Bethe discussed the reliability of nuclear power plants and their unmatched safety record. The Nobel laureate also refuted the anti-nuclear lobby's claims that nuclear plants emit harmful radioactive effluents. When asked whether the US has sufficient uranium resources, Dr. Bethe replied that "it depends on the time of introduction of the commercial and advanced breeder reactors which, in effect, can generate more nuclear fuel than they consume." The United States has enough U3O8 to last until the breeders can take over in 1995, said Dr. Bethe. But lie warned that extensive environmental damage would be caused if "environmentalists" succeed in delaying the development of the breeder. Any such delays, he noted, would vastly increase the demand for U3O8 in conventional reactors; this, in turn, would impose an immense burden on the US uranium mining industry, which would then have no alternative but to mine the low-grade Chattanooga deposits.

Jan 4, 1977

By Eldon C. Pattee

Variations of a very reliable geochemical field test for beryllium developed by Patten and Ward, have been adapted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines to facilitate rapid testing of reconnaissance samples and to aid in rapid examination of known occurrences. Although several qualitative tests for detecting beryllium have been described in the literature,1,2,3, the Patten-Ward4 morin geochemical field method has the advantages of being rapid and being quantitative for minute amounts of beryllium. In addition to the morin field method, Patten, in cooperation with Griffitts, have developed a contact- print method for determining beryllium in hand specimens.5 The semiquantitative method can be used for rapid screening of samples in exploration or reconnaissance work. The use of beads for fusing samples provides a more rapid test, but gives less accurate results than the method developed by Patten and Ward. The semiquantitative method, however, requires less equipment and combines three stock solutions into one reagent for easy application. Estimates of samples in the range from 3 to 1000 ppm varied from about 0.25 to 5 times the actual beryllium content.

Jan 5, 1965

Data about shipments in this county are more plentiful than in most others. Canal records, although not complete, are available for 1837-1840, 1856-1857, 1859 and 1864. The census figures, and those of the reports of the Secretary of Internal Affairs, are very evidently too .low. Local consumption within the county has always been large, mainly due to the Cambria Iron Company, and other manufacturing plants, in Johnstown; here a large coke supply was made from coal directly from the mines, neither coal or coke being handled by any outside transportation agency. All available data is shown in Table 35.

Jan 1, 1942

By V. R. Garrias, R. V. Whetsel, J. W. Ristori

World consumption of petroleum and its substitutes in 1940, which, except for the United States, does not include consumption for military purposes even in peacetime, is estimated at 2,006,000,000 bbl., or approximately 21,000,000 bbl. less than in 1939. As consumption figures for belligerent countries and those affected by the war are unavailable, in order to arrive at a gross approximation the assumption has been made that the rate of civil consumption in these countries has declined 80 per cent since the German occupation or the effect of the war made itself felt. In 1940 the total consumption in the United States increased 94,000,000 bbl. over the previous year, while the civil consumption in the countries directly affected by the war—some of them occupied during the last half of the year—decreased 126,000,000 bbl. In the rest of the world consumption increased II,000,000 bbl., resulting in an over-all decrease in world civil consumption grossly estimated at 21,000,-000 barrels. Although no reliable information is available regarding military consumption in foreign countries before or during the war, military consumption and/or addition to stocks in foreign countries in 1940, as

Jan 1, 1941

By J. W. Ristori, R. V. Whetsel, V. R. Garrias

World consumption of petroleum and its substitutes in 1940, which, except for the United States, does not include consumption for military purposes even in peacetime, is estimated at 2,006,000,000 bbl., or approximately 21,000,000 bbl. less than in 1939. As consumption figures for belligerent countries and those affected by the war are unavailable, in order to arrive at a gross approximation the assumption has been made that the rate of civil consumption in these countries has declined 80 per cent since the German occupation or the effect of the war made itself felt. In 1940 the total consumption in the United States increased 94,000,000 bbl. over the previous year, while the civil consumption in the countries directly affected by the war—some of them occupied during the last half of the year—decreased 126,000,000 bbl. In the rest of the world consumption increased II,000,000 bbl., resulting in an over-all decrease in world civil consumption grossly estimated at 21,000,-000 barrels. Although no reliable information is available regarding military consumption in foreign countries before or during the war, military consumption and/or addition to stocks in foreign countries in 1940, as

Jan 1, 1941

By B. J. Harlan

THE trying times experienced by the steel industry during the past four years have emphasized the necessity of producing pig iron at the lowest possible cost. The trend in both design and operation of blast furnaces has been toward this end rather than securing maximum production from a unit or group of units. In the following discussion the trend in design of stacks and auxiliary equipment will be taken up before operation is considered. Although few furnaces have been constructed in the past few years, the trend is definitely toward larger furnaces with a hearth diameter of 24 or 25 ft. Such a furnace is very flexible, being able to produce efficiently any desired daily tonnage between 500 and 1000 or more. The detail of the design of furnace stacks, with the exception of the top, has changed little in recent years.

Jan 1, 1934

There are no data available of shipments until 1858, and then estimated, when railroad service became available. By reason of the iron made in the county, and the large amounts of salt, the tonnage used locally was quite large, and until 1860 these are estimated from the probable salt and iron production. After 1859 the tonnages shipped by rail are partly estimated from the total shipments of the Allegheny Valley Railroad from four counties. It is believed that the totals are below, rather than above, what the actual production was. While considerably larger for the same years than figures given by the Secretary of Internal Affairs and census reports, these data were always too low in those days, partly because of lack of facilities for gathering them, but more largely because of the strong prejudice existing in those days against furnishing such data to any governmental agencies.

Jan 1, 1942

By C. B. E. Douglas

In an interesting article on evaluation of the water problem at Eureka, Nev., W. T. Stuart describes how a difficult water problem, or one phase of it, may be evaluated by means of a small scale test. Test data are plotted by a method rendering, under certain conditions, a straight-line graph that can be projected to show how much the water table will be lowered by pumping at any specified rate for a given time. A formula is then used to determine the size of opening, or extent of workings, necessary to provide sufficient inflow to enable pumping to be maintained at that rate. At first glance this might seem the answer to a miner's prayer, but a word of caution is in order. It may not be the whole answer. Moreover, results obtained by the method described are reliable only for conditions approximating those assumed. Even where conditions do not meet this requirement, however, it may be possible to draw helpful inferences from the results, perhaps enough to facilitate another approach to evaluation of a problem.

Nov 1, 1955

By E. V. Howard

During the recent expansion of precipitate copper production at the Chino Mines Division of Kennecott Copper Corp., Santa Rita, N. Mex., local studies of the dump leaching process were intensified. As these studies progressed, it became apparent that a reliable method for locating leach solutions within the dump was required, since the contact between the leach solutions and the copper-bearing ma.teria1 determines recovery. In the past, the problem of determining leach solution contact has been attacked by various methods, including destructive testing (dump dissection), indirect observation (such as chloride or dye tracers) and mathematical or laboratory model studies, but they have not proved completely satisfactory. The investigation of methods for in situ observation of leach solutions led to consideration of radiation logging in drillholes, which are subsurface techniques used in petroleum exploration and development for locating fluids and measuring porosity. A significant advantage of radiation logging is that, unlike other types of logging, measurements may be made in cased holes, since gamma rays and neutrons will penetrate steel and cement. Three techniques are currently used at Chino: Natural gamma ray logging; neutron-neutron, or moisture logging; and gamma-gamma, or bulk density logging.

Jan 4, 1968