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By S. K. Nicol, A. R. Swanson, J. C. Day

Addition of oil to a suspension of hydrophobic coal particles can influence its dewatering characteristics. An agglomeration process occurs in which coal particles are held together by negative capillary pressure at particle/oil/water contacts. Consequently, the units round which flow can occur are enlarged and this improves dewatering parameters such as drainage rate, solids recovery, and equilibrium moisture content. This paper discusses processes which attempt to use this principle, in terms of metallurgical and economic efficiency. The discussion is augmented by results of recent experiments on the effect of oil addition to centrifuges and vacuum filters.

Jan 1, 1980

By L. B. Slichter

It has been estimated that rock exposures in most mining districts aggregate less than 1 per cent. of the total surface area.1 Conclusions concerning the hidden 99 per cent. necessarily have been based on knowledge of only a small fraction of the surface, and from this limited information the geologist has been obliged to deduce the approximate and general nature of the underlying formations. In the search for ore it is necessary to supplement this general picture with greater detail. Fairly accurate knowledge of relatively small zones is required. This knowledge is carefully sought in many different ways—detailed interpretations of geological history, the tracing of float, the use of test pits, of trenching, of drilling, and of other methods. Practical ingenuity, scientific brilliance, great perseverance and patience, and the expenditure of large sums of money have all been a part of this search. The problem of exploring beneath cover with economy, and of obtaining essential information which this cover hides, is obviously a difficult one. It is also a very important one, for geologist's inform us that already the story of the 1 per cent. exposed outcrops has been largely read.V here remains the nearly virgin field comprised in the hidden 99 per cent.: and the importance of this zone is bound to increase continually. In recent years, the problems connected with the exploration of this "99 per cent. zone" have attracted a constantly enlarging group of investigators and at present greater efforts than ever before are being made to resolve them. This work, in it's various special aspects, has enlisted, beside geologists, the cooperative efforts of chemists, physicists, and mathematicians. The progress made in this development should be kept before those directing explorations in order that due advantage may be taken of a changing situation. My subject concerns certain aspects of one of the older physical methods of exploration, the magnetic method. This method is familiar in principle to most of us, arid because of its age., is especially suitable for

Jan 1, 1929

By J. Jr. Hudy

The objective of this investigation of the Cendrex was to determine the applicability of the X-ray instrument for the measurement of the ash content of coal. Developed by the Dutch State Mines, this instrument is designed to provide ash analysis of any desired coal product with only a 5-minute lag between sample collection and analytical result. The unit could, with limit controls, be used to feed back signals to preset the separating gravity of coal washers, control the ratio of various coals needed to produce an acceptable blend, and permit the sorting of a washed product into two qualities, one which is below and the other which is above a prescribed ash content. This unit can also be used discontinuously for rapid determination of samples of coals taken in the usual manner.

Jan 7, 1968

By S. G. Malghan, A. L. Mular

Size distribution and surface area measurements play an important role in the characterization of crushed and ground granular materials properties. This paper outlines sampling methods of granular materials followed by a detailed treatment of principles of size and surface area measurements of a wide range of sizes from crushers feed to ball-mill ground sub-micron particles. Currently available equipment for size distribution and surface area analysis is described and critically examined with respect to advantages, range of application and precautions in their use. Equipment for on- stream size analysis is also evaluated. Finally, a list of criteria are given for selection of particles size and surface area measuring devices for a particular application.

Jan 1, 1982

By E. H. Ahrens

This paper deals with the responsibilities of an operating geologists and the relationship of operations to exploration. It should be of interest to those soon to enter the profession, those new to mining geology and as a review to more experienced geologists. Subjects discussed include detailed geologic mapping, sampling, core logging, assaying, selection of proper map scale, posting geological and assay data, section preparation, identification of ore controls, delineation of development drill targets and geologic hazards, models and the very important topic of salesmanship. Methods and ideas, proven valid in vein, pyrometasomatic replacement and porphyry copper deposits are presented. Hopefully, these will smooth the path for new members of our profession.

Jan 1, 1984

By E. T. Dumble

THE development in the Gulf Coastal Plain for the year 1923 was entirely devoid of any spectacular feature and was considerably less than that of 1922. No large fields were discovered and the principal advances lay in the extension of the old fields and the finding of a new dome and other possible producing structures, which, however, so far, have given only small wells. While the production of some fields, such as those at Hull and Orange, was materially increased at times by comparatively large wells, the output as a whole shows a marked decrease over that of the preceding year. TABLE 1.-Production by Fields in Gulf Coastal Plain in 1923 FIELD BARRELS FIELD BARRELS Anse La Butte 16,942 Jennings 212,376 Barber's Hill 172,660 Markham 39,290 Batson 391,857 North D ayton 74,983 Big Hill (Jefferson County) 13,853 Orange 5,311,995 Blue Ridge 332,445 Pierce Junction 332,565 Damon Mound 822,355 Richmond (Big Creek) 17,545 Edgerley 176,964 Saratoga 700,661 Goose Creek 6,251,761 Sour Lake 2,091,961 High Island 19,018 Spindletop 309,315 Hull... 7,732,139 Vinton 2,134,430 Humble 2,449,744 West Columbia 6,598,589 36,203,448

Jan 3, 1924

By E. T. Dumble

THE development in the Gulf Coastal Plain for the year 1923 was entirely devoid of any spectacular feature and was considerably less than that of 1922. No large fields were discovered and the principal advances lay in the extension of the old fields and the finding of a new dome and other possible producing structures, which, however, so far, have given only small wells. While the production of some fields, such as those at Hull and Orange, was materially increased at times by comparatively large wells, the output as a whole shows a marked decrease over that of the preceding year. TABLE 1.-Production by Fields in Gulf Coastal Plain in 1923 FIELD BARRELS FIELD BARRELS Anse La Butte 16,942 Jennings 212,376 Barber's Bill 172,660 Markham 39,290 Batson 391,857 North D ayton 74,983 Big Hill (Jefferson County) 13,853 Orange 5,311,995 Blue Ridge 332,445 Pierce Junction 332,565 Damon Mound 822,355 Richmond (Big Creek) 17,545 Edgerley 176,964 Saratoga 700,661 Goose Creek 6,251,761 Sour Lake 2,091,961 High Island 19,018 Spindletop 309,315 Hull 7,732,139 Vinton 2,134,430 Humble 2,449,744 West Columbia 6,598,589 36,203,448

Jan 3, 1924

By J. A. Hren, G. Thomas

A high-temperature stage has been used to study precipitation and dissolution in thin foils of Al-20pct Ag alloy directly in the electron microscope. The results show that the aging characteristics are similar to those observed for bulk materials, and in addition, direct evidence is presented for clustering at the solid solution temperature. The limit of solubility of G. P. zones is-350°C. The heterogeneous precipitation, the growth and dissolution of ?&apos;have been studied in detail. Growth of ?&apos; parallel to the basal planes, occurs by continuous motion of inter -facial partial dislocations. Growth stops at intersecting particles due to formation of sessile a/6 <110> interfacial dislocations. Growth normal to the habit plane occurs by the spontaneous nucleation of partial dislocations on alternate (111) planes and the thickening rate is --10-3= times the lengthening rate. The precipitates dissolve in layers and the final product is a whole a/2 <110> dislocation . The nucleation -growth -dissolution processes are thus completely reversible. Kinetic data obtained from the dissolution rates of ?&apos;particles enable the diffusion coefficient to be determined and the activation energy is found to be 37.5(±4) kcal mol-1, which is that expected for dzffusion of silver in aluminum. The velocity of the interfacial dislocations is thus dependent solely on the rate of diffusion of silver atoms. RECENTLY it was demonstrated that a high-temperature stage could be effectively used in the electron microscope to follow directly the processes of precipitation and dissolution in thin foils of A1-4 pct Cu alloy.&apos; These experiments also provided kinetic data which enabled the diffusion coefficient to be estimated. This new development of electron metallography opens up many fruitful areas of research and it was decided to investigate the aging behavior in thin foils of A1-20 pct Ag alloy, particularly the mechanism of heterogeneous precipitation (i.e., precipitation on lattice defects). This system was chosen because the aging characteristics of bulk specimens are now well known,2"7 and because we wished to obtain more details of the role played by partial dislocations and stacking faults in the nucleation growth and dissolution of the hcp ?&apos; phase. This is of interest for the general case of fcc-- hcp transformations. Part of the A1-Ag phase diagram is shown in Fig. 1. The use of a high-temperature stage also enables a study to be made of the clustering process (formation of G. P. zones) and to determine the structure of the solid solution prior to the usual quenching and aging procedures. It is also possible to obtain kinetic data from measurements of the rates of dissolution of precipitate particles. Unlike the results of previous experiments on A1-4 pct CU 1 where much of the initial precipitation occurred on the foil surfaces, the results on the A1-20 pct A1 alloy were identical to those reported for bulk specimens6,7 and no surface precipitation was ever observed. Thus, it was possible to follow the aging sequence: G.P. zones — ?&apos; — ? directly in the thin foils. This paper is concerned with the formation and dissolution of zones and the ?&apos; phase, and no attempt has been made so far to follow the mode of discontinuous precipitation of ?. I) EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS The high-purity A1-20 pct Ag alloy was prepared by the Aluminum Co. of America in the form of 0.001-in.-thick sheets. These were cold rolled with intermediate anneals to a thickness of 0.0004 in.,

Jan 1, 1963

By M. C. Fuerstenau

Each year during the AIME Annual Meeting, the MBD Division has its Business Meeting. Because many members cannot attend, it has be- come policy for the secretary of the Division to present highlights of the business conducted at the Meeting in Fine Grind. This year the Meeting was held on March 1 in the Americana Hotel. Five major items of business were brought up for discussion. These were: (1) the proposed name change for the Division, (2) institution of the Taggart Award, (3) a name change for a Unit Committee, (4) MBD funding of scholarships, and (5) authorship of Fine Grind articles. The Matter of What We Should Call Ourselves A lively discussion was held on the issue of a name change for the Division. Two names have been proposed: (1) Mineral Processing Division, and (2) Mineral Engineering Division. A number of strong reasons for changing the name from Minerals Beneficiation Division have been pointed out. Perhaps the most important of these is that the term "beneficiation" does not describe all of the functions that engineers in our Division perform. Further, there are inherent problems associated in the term, in that beneficiation is a long word which has the twofold disadvantage of being both difficult to pronounce and difficult to spell.

Jan 1, 1971

By Robert E. Campbell

Mining geophysics in 1969 marked a year of growth and consolidation in the application of ground and airborne geophysical methods and techniques with a 20% rise in expenditures for world-wide exploration. Growth was determined by questionnaire survey of industry, geophysical contractors, universities and government agencies conducted by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Relative position of metlhods is shown in the accompanying table on page 87. Methods and Techniques Electromagnetic airborne and ground methods showed the largest gains in the utilization of VLF-EM instrumentation. The VLF-EM instrument is a directional radio receiver which is tuned to distant radio transmitters in the 15 to 25 kilohertz band range. It measures vertical real and imaginary components of the magnetic field vector, and is used in geological mapping and surveying for various types of conductors in the ground. Ground VLF-EM instruments, Ronka EM-16 and Radem, are manufactured by Geonics, Ltd., Toronto, Ont., and Crone Geophysics. Ltd., Port Credit. Ont.

Jan 1, 1970

By J. E. Lawver, G. L. Samsel

The success of many mineral dressing processes, including froth flotation and electrical concentration, depends largely on knowledge of physical and chemical structures of the mineral surfaces involved. As a general rule solids have surface layers, usually invisible by optical tests, that differ from the substratum. To the mineral engineer, therefore, a knowledge of the surface structures of minerals is of paramount importance. During the past decade one of the most powerful tools in the study of froth flotation mechanisms has been the use of radioactive tracers, but this technique usually cannot give definite information regarding the chemical changes that may or may not have occurred at the surface.

Jan 5, 1959

By Tuncel M. Yegulalp, Malcolm T. Wane

In general, many problems relating to the exploitation of mineral deposits are probabilistic in nature. This derives from the fact that the geologic universe is inherently random. Probability theory and statistics have been found useful for forecasting the behavior of natural events that occur in the geologic universe. The objective of this paper is to outline the application of the theory of extremes to this forecasting problem. Consider the design of an underground structure or the design of a rock slope. The initial step is the formulation of the various possible structural actions which result from the geometry of the layout. For a given structural model, various intensities of behavior are possible depending upon the load, deformation, and material characteristic spectra, respectively. Of popular interest to mining people is the failure behavior or condition. A necessary feature of the analysis is the rupture strength of the material. Information on the rupture strength is derived from testing either in situ or in the laboratory and the usual outcome is a variation in the test results. This variation is overcome by constructing a frequency distribution of rupture strengths, and then determining a measure of central tendency and variability. The main feature of interest in the analysis is the failure characteristic and its percentage chance of occurrence. Hence, one is naturally led to examine those areas of a distribution curve which are termed the tails. The statistical concepts which can most efficiently handle such areas are contained within extreme value statistics.

Jan 8, 1969

By D. Webster

It has been found that cold work and annealing treatments greatly retard subsequent grain growth and re-crystallization in thoria-dispersed nickel and NiCr. It is suggested that this is due to cavities which form at the particle-matrix interface durilzg cold work. Some of&apos; the cavities formed are stable at elevated temperatures and prevent the mouement of large-angle grain boundaries. The movement of these boundaries at elevated temperatures is known to start recrystal-lization and when they are pinned by voids recrystal-lization is made more difficult. TD Nichro,me had a maximun resistance to recrystallization when the initial structure was coarse-grained and had a low dislocation density. A precipitation reaction occurred between 700° and 1200° F in cold-worked TD Nichrome. It has been shown by Grant and his coworkers1-3 that a large part of the strength of dispersion-hardened materials is a result of the cold-worked structure produced during fabrication. In a comparison of the strength of cold-worked copper with and without an oxide dispersion, Grant4 has demonstrated that there is little difference in strength at room temperature. The function of the dispersion is essentially to maintain the cold-worked structure at higher temperatures than is possible in the base material. The dispersion accomplishes this by making recrystallization more difficult. The mechanism by which this is achieved is discussed in this paper. The fabrication history of the material has been found to greatly influence recrystallization behavior and this aspect is discussed in some detail. I) MATERIAL Three different thoria-dispersed materials were examined. 1) DuPont 2 pet thoria-dispersed nickel (TDNi) in 0.050-in. seeet. Thoria particle size is in the range 100 to 2500A. 2) DuPont 2 pct thoria-dispersed nichrome (20 pet Cr, 80 pct Ni) (TDNiC) in 0.125-, 0.060-, and 0.040-in. sheet. In the as-received condition these sheets have

Jan 1, 1969

Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, 76 Beaver St., New York, N. Y. Percy E. Barbour, Secretary and Treasurer. This Society issues Bulletins each year containing papers presented, and accounts of Society business. The Bulletins each year are collected in a volume as the Proceedings for that, year. In 1931 Bulletins numbered 216 to 222, inclusive, were issued in the Proceedings for that year (vol. 24). In addition to the Bulletins two special volumes have been published: International Control of Minerals, $1; and World Survey of the Zinc Indusry, $2.25. A selected list of paper,,-from the last two volumes of the Proceedings: Vol. 24 (1931) : Bull. 216 The cycles of prices of non-ferrous metals, by L. Vogelstein; 218, Marketing problems, by T. M. McNiece; 222, Copper tariff number (a discussion of the copper tariff by a number of authors). Vol. 23 (1930): Bull. 208 to 215, inclusive: Bull. 208, Some aspects of the copper industry, by L. C. Graton; 209, The ethical question of developing Soviet mines; 213, Legal recognition of geophysical prospecting, by A. H. Rogers; The evolution of the metal cartels, by L., Domeratzky and L. Vogelstein; 214, Geological justification for "exploration permits," by L. C. Graton; 215, The future of nickel, by A. J. Wadhams.

Jan 1, 1933

By J. G. Richardson, K. H. Coats

During the initial growth of a gas bubble in an aquifer storage reservoir the injected gas tends to override the water. The resulting low displacement efficiency and high rate of gas travel down-structure make it difficult to maintain water-free production. This paper illustrates the use of two-dimensional, two-phase calculations to simulate this gas-water displacement. Calculations were performed for a stratified aquifer and for several homogeneous sands differing in permeability, porosity and thickness. Results are discussed and compared with performance predictions obtained from the simpler Buckley-Leuerett and Dietz formulas. This comparison indicates the necessity for the two-dimensional calculations in realistically simulating the gravity override of the water by injected gas. INTRODUCTION In recent years natural gas has been stored near markets in aquifers where insufficient storage capacity is available in depleted fields. Operators of these aquifer storage reservoirs have encountered technical problems relating to the gas-water displacement accompanying initial growth of the gas bubble. Injected gas tends to override the water, with a resultant low displacement efficiency and high rate of gas travel down-structure toward spill points. Low displacement efficiency makes if difficult to sustain water-free gas production. Sometimes the fingering of gas down-structure may be so pronounced that the injection rate must be severely curtailed, which excessively lengthens the time required for bubble growth. This paper is concerned with estimating — for given aquifer characteristics and fluid properties — the displacement efficiency, rate of gas movement down-structure and rate of gravity drainage of water behind the gas front. Several published articles relate to simulative capability necessary to handle this problem. The Dietz formula1 and Buckley-Leverett2 method have some applicability to the problem; Woods and comer3 reported one-dimensional, radial calculations which accounted for the two-phase flow of gas and water. Most recent research directed toward understanding aquifer behavior in relation to gas storage has concentrated on single-phase flow in aquifer.4 Douglas, Peaceman and Rachford5 presented a method for calculating multidimensional two-phase flow in reservoirs; their method has been applied in work reported by Nielsen and Tek,6 Blair and peaceman7 and Goddin.8 Refs. 5 and 7 show comparisons between experimental data and calculations similar to those employed here. One purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of two-dimensional, two-phase flow calculations in simulating the difficult problem of water displacement by gas in a vertical cross-section. The pronounced fluid density and viscosity differences combine with the disparity in horizontal and vertical dimensions of the cross-section to pose one of the more difficult problems in reservoir simulation. The calculations described account for capillary and gravity forces, relative permeability and reservoir heterogeneity. An example reservoir is described and calculated results are presented for a variety of injection rates and values of permeability, reservoir thickness and dip angle. A second purpose is to compare the two-dimensional calculations with results obtained from the Buckley-Leverett and Dietz formulas. For this reason most calculations were performed for a simplified example reservoir to which the latter techniques might reasonably be applied. However, the computer program employed applies equally well to cases involving arbitrary spatial variations of permeability, porosity, reservoir thickness and dip angle.

South Dakota State Geological and Natural History Survey, State University, Vermillion, S D. A list of publications will be sent upon request Many of the publications are out of print A series of Biennial Reports of the State Geologist will be sent upon receipt of three cents for postage on each, and are available as follows: 1918-20, 1920-22, 1922-24, 1924-26, 1926-28, 1928-30 Available Bulletins of greatest interest are: Bulletin 4, Pre¬liminary report of the geology of the Rosebud Reservation (1909), 10 cents; 10, Possibilities of oil in South Dakota (1922), 10 cents A series of Circulars (5 cents each) deals with the possibilities of oil and gas in various parts of the state, as follows¬ Circular 8, Eastern Pennington County (1921), 9, Western Dewey County (1922); 10, Northern Dewey County (1922), 12, Eastern Harding County (1923), 13, Northern Ziebach County (1923); 20, Western Ziebach County (1925), 23, Northeastern Meade County (1925); 27, Western Corson County Other Circulars (5 cents each) are: Circular 16, The natural resources of South Dakota (1924), 22, Structures ,in northern Haakon County (1925); 24, The Ragged Butte structure (1925), 25, The structure of western South Dakota (1925), 28, Structures in western Haakon and eastern Pennington counties (1926)

Jan 1, 1933

By F. P. Dewey

At the Wilkes-Barre Meeting of the Institute, Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, in the course of his remarks on some peculiarities in the composition of irons, alluded to the so-called " bucltshot" iron, and exhibited a specimen of this material. He said that when the small granules, or shot, were separatetl from the mass, they could be flattencd under the hammer, and inferred that these particles had been decarburized by the blast before sinking into the hearth of the furnace, and thus we had the exceptional production of wrought iron in the blast furnace. I have recently obtained a characteristic specimen of this variety of iron from one of the furnaces at Orbisona, Pa. Considerable uncertainty existed as to its true nature and the conditions of its production. Its weight seemed to preclude the idea that it containetl much or any slag, yet its lack of strength indicated that it was not homogeneous cast iron. At times considerable quantities had been produced, which could only be utilized by charging in the furnace and remelting. The specimen, on the freshly fractured surfacc, appeared to consist of flattened globules of iron cemented together by a bluish material which one would naturally suppose to be slag, and qualitative examination for lime strengthened this supposition. It was quite difficult to obtain drillings, as there was a tendency to split in several directions as soon as pressure mas applied; but enough was obtained to undertaltc quantitative determinations. They were found to consist of two portions—one attracted by the magnet, and the other not. By repeated separation the magnetic portion was found to be 94.44 per cent., and the non-magnetic 5.56 per cent. Analyses of these gave the following results: Magnetic Portion. Non-magnetic Portion. Percent, Percent. Graphite,.....3.480 Lime,. . 71.41 0 = 24.028 Combined carbon,. .. 0.260 Magnesia,. trace. Silicon,..... 2.790 Protox. of Phosphorus,.... 0.412 iron,. trace. Sulphur,.....0.292 Sulphide of Copper,.....0.110 caleium, 3.67 S= 1.72 0 = 3.440 Manganese,.... 0.500 -Iron (by dif.).,. .. . 91.206 27.468 --Silica,. 24 62 0 = 13.131 100.000 99.90

Jan 1, 1879

By F. E. Bash

WHENEVER electric and open-hearth steel men discuss the relative advantages of their respective methods, the question of temperature is always discussed, so that this paper is written in the hope that definite data may settle some of the questions and encourage further investigations along these lilies. The writer has had the opportunity of taking the tapping temperatures of steel from electric furnaces of different sizes in various plants and from a number of open hearths handling the same kind of steel. All temperature measurements were made with the same disappearing-filament type optical pyrometer and the corrections for emissivity applied were those worked out by Burgess,1 which are 0.40 for steel streams and 0.65 for slag. The correction is applied by calculating the curve giving the relation between the true and apparent temperature in the following formula: Log E = CZ log e( 1 _ 1 x \T2 T1) in which E = emissivity; C2 = 14,500; e = base of Napierien logarithms; ? = wave-length of light used = 0.65/4; T2 = true temperature, in degrees absolute; T,1 apparent temperature, in degrees absolute. The curve showing the relation between true and apparent temperature for steel and slag arc given in Fig. 1. For the purpose of comparison of open-hearth and electric furnaces, there are given in Table 1 the tapping temperatures of two 25-ton Heroult electric furnaces and one 6-ton with one 50-ton acid, one 40-ton basic, and one 65-ton acid open-hearth furnace, all making nickel ordnance steel for guns. The two 25-ton Heroult electric furnaces were finishing steel refined by the triplex process and the 6-ton Heroult finished steel that was partly refined in an open hearth.. In this table, the tapping temperature and the temperature of the steel stream into the first ingot

Jan 9, 1919

By Homer Griffield Turner

The nature and comparative features of anthracite and bituminous coals have been discussed by the writer in two previous papers.&apos; Although this paper is offered as a further contribution to the subject, it seems desirable at the outset to repeat some of the descriptive matter of the early works in order to show the actual connection between various constituents of both coals and the new photomicrographs and other physical and chemical properties. Structure of Anthracite and Bituminous Coals A lump of bituminous coal (Fig. 1) is readily seen to be composed of layers differing from one another in texture, luster and thickness. There are, in general, three kinds of layers, although only two are usually seen. One is deep black, very compact, and has a bright luster; another is grayish black, has a duller luster and is less compact; the third is black, dull and porous in appearance, but because of its thinness is not often seen except on parting surfaces. This last material is charcoal. American students of coal morphology use the names anthraxylon, attritus, and fusain to designate these three constituents of laminated coal. Anthraxylon refers to the brightest bands, attritus to the duller layers, and fusain to the charcoal. Close examination of a lump of bituminous coal shows the brightest deep black layers to be embedded in the duller grayish black laminae. These deep black layers are lens-shaped and vary in thickness from thin sheets to over half an inch. They are often so continuous through the lump that their tapering terminae are not noticeable. On careful examination the duller grayish black laminae (Fig. 7) are seen to contain many very thin sheets of this very bright black material. The charcoal

Jan 1, 1930

By G. F. Tagg

In an earlier paper1, the author described a method of interpreting earth-resistivity curves, based on the theoretical investigation of a single horizontal underlying stratum. If the four-electrode system of Wenner is employed, the resistivity in a homogeneous soil is given by the formula p = 2paR [1] where a is the electrode separation and R is the resistance of the earth between the two inner electrodes. If the earth is not perfectly homo¬geneous, the application of this formula gives an apparent specific resistance varying with the electrode separation. In the special case of the single horizontal underlying stratum, there is a surface layer of thickness h and resistivity pi and a lower layer, extend-ing to infinity, of resistivity p2. It has been shown by Lancaster-Jones2 that the apparent resistivity, obtained by an application of equation 1 is related to the true resistivities, the depth h and the electrode separation a by an expression of the form pa/p1 = 1 + 4F [2] where Pa is the apparent resistivity and F is a function (actually an infinite series), of the ratio h/a, and a reflection coefficient k = (p2 - p1)/(p2 + p1). For given values of h/a and k, the right-hand side of equation 2 can be calculated, and curves drawn showing the relationship between Pa/P1, h/a and k. Such a set of curves for the case when pi > P2 is given in Fig. 1.

Jan 1, 1937