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By L. Weaver

THE Tennessee Copper Co.'s mines are in the southeast corner of the state of Tennessee. Polk Co., in the well-known Ducktown copper basin. Their new circular production shaft will eventually be the only ore hoisting shaft, and is located for handling ore from Boyd, Calloway, Mary, and Cherokee mines. A circular, rather than a rectangular, shaft was decided upon because: 1-The circular shaft section is stronger when lined with concrete. Reinforcing steel was not required, thus reducing lining cost by one- quarter. 2-Water sealing was desired; it was thought it could best be done with a concrete lining followed by pressure grouting to eliminate water seeps. 3-The shaft labor saving equipment could best be used in a large opening, so the round section was made for economy, sinking, mucking, concreting and water sealing. Less shaft steel is used than could have been possible with steel sets. There are no posts required; center beams and Tee plate assembly placed at 10 ft hold the 100 lb steel guide rails. The shaft is 12 ft 7 1/2 in. ID of the concrete walls. This is large enough for two 10-ton hoisting skips and a ladder compartment. One of the skip compartments is for hauling equipment. The grouting equipment was a 2%xlO-in. Gardner-Denver grout pump, air powered and developing 1000 lb pressure. A grout mixer, also air driven, fed the mixed solution into a tank coupled to the pump suction. Grout materials used were mostly water and Portland cement. Some Bentonite was used to seal porous ground near the surface.

Jan 11, 1950

By Cresap P. Watson

ABOUT the time this magazine reaches its readers, Cresap P. Watson will celebrate his 53d birthday. If he spends that birthday at his West Los Angeles home, he won't be far, as distance is measured today, from Santa Barbara, where he was born on July 8, 1895. He is truly a member of a petroleum family; one brother, N. O. Watson, managed Royal Dutch Shell interests in Venezuela for years and is now general manager of the Caribbean Petroleum Co. at. Maracaibo; another brother, Rex, is vice-president of the Drilling and Exploration Co., while brother-in-law Ben Belt is an executive of Gulf Oil. His own life has centered in the petroleum industry since his first job in 1913 as camp cashier for a Mexican oil field at Tampico. Down on the isthmus of Tehuantepec he advanced to tool dresser and' production foreman for the company. The first World War interrupted his Mexican experience by transforming him into an artillery officer in France. Once the Army ceased to demand his services¬by then it was 1919-he returned to the task of furthering his professional career as agent for the Amerada Petroleum Corp. By 1927 he had reached the position in which he could be called an executive in the petroleum industry, having organized and become president of the Federal Royalties Co. His activities in local and national legislation affecting the petroleum industry increased as has his advocacy of the development of oil and gas fields under sound engineering and conservation principles through unitization or other co-operative forms of operation. Considerable amounts of his time go to the promotion of industry public relations.

Jan 1, 1948

By James Bowron

CONSIDERING the importance of the steel trade and the strategic position occupied in it by the Birmingham District, it may be surprising to many to realize that even the first pig iron smelted with coke was made in Alabama on Feb. 28, 1876, although merchant pig iron had been produced in Rockwood, Tenn., in 1867, a plant which is still in active operation. The heavy deposit of Clinton ore extending from Pennsylvania into Alabama, varying greatly in accessibility on account of geological changes such as erosion or anticlinal upthrow, varies equally as much in thickness and in quality. The brown ores extensively scattered through the South also vary materially in quality, some being relatively low in phosphorus and high in manganese, and vice versa. The red ore varies materially in phosphorus, but the iron produced from these ores was always considered to be too high in phosphorus for treatment by acid Bessemer or open hearth and did not contain sufficient for the basic Bessemer process. Under these conditions there remained only the basic open hearth as a possibility, and for many years it appeared impossible to use it, because, with coke smelted iron, the silicon was too high to permit its use in basic lined furnaces.

Jan 1, 1924

By Augustus Locke

WHY should I, a geologist, be coming before you to talk about finding ore? Certainly, the great discoveries of the past have not been made by geologists, but by men of very different tastes and training. If, in the year 1800, the course of ore discovery could have been foreseen, there would have been no reason to put it into the hands of geologists or other men of technical preparation. It was not geologists but explorers, Indian fighters, prospectors, manual laborers, and hardy financiers, who initiated the American mining industry. Then why this association of geological technique with ore finding? Why this feeling that the way to find ore is to apply to the problem what we call geo- logical principles? Well, to put it broadly, the old method has run out on us. It no longer works. Or, to put it another way, the cost of finding ore by the old method has mounted so high that one old district after another has become, practically speaking, dead, and various other old districts that are still going apparently at full strength are actually beginning to limp, and, with the cost of discovery mounting yearly, to fear, more than they will acknowledge, that the end is approaching.

Jan 1, 1926

By WALTER VOIGTLANDER

FOR nearly 100 years wire rope has been fabricated in much the same way. To the great majority of mine superintendents wire rope is just wire rope, little or no semblance of individuality or identifying characteristics. Such an impression was fairly justified until three or four years ago when a practical means was found of performing or preshaping the wires and strands. This discovery permitted a revolutionary change in wire rope manufacture. Instead of merely twisting a number of wires into a strand, then twisting several strands into a complete rope (which twisting would naturally result in great internal strain, thus reducing the resiliency and over-all efficiency of the completed rope), the preformed wires and strands were laid in place without force or twisting. The obvious result was a rope more nearly approximating mechanical perfection. The applied loads are more evenly distributed throughout the component wires and strands, thus reducing unbalanced wire stresses. This results in a higher safety factor. The fact that preformed rope will not unravel when untied at the ends proves the absence of a torsional stress that exists in ordinary rope. A greater useful allowable stress in the wires is therefore possible in actual operating service.

Jan 1, 1926

By F. Robertson Jones

IF the tendency toward extending the scope of the workmen's compensation system to include life, health, accident, old age, and unemployment insurance for workers is not promptly altered, I believe there will be a complete breakdown of that system. This is not because of any objections, there may he to requiring industries to provide these additional forms of protection in whole or in part to their employees. It is rather because our workmen's compensation laws, their scale of benefits, and the administrative procedure under them are not adapted or suited to such situations. If the compensation principle is limited to its own proper sphere and is not enlarged so as to include all the ills that the flesh is heir to, it is practical, "workable, and beneficent. If it invades foreign realms, it is bound to grow into a veritable Frankenstein' which will harm principally those it 'is supposed to aid, and, at the same time, will promote waste, fraud, and Industrial demoralization. Compensation risks will become almost uninsurable; the cost to business will be intolerable; and the development of sound relief measures which will give to labor the protection now sought by the uneconomic device of enlarging the compensation law territory will be retarded.

Jan 1, 1934

By Brian R. Castle, James J. Scott

INTRODUCTION Referring to a ground support system as a 'band-aid' borders on getting cute, but the application of cable slings in U.S. mining is somewhat analogous. Where problems in the roof or rib require additional support, the versatile cable sling is the answer in a variety of conditions. To fully understand how and why cable slings are used today we must briefly review their development history. Much of the thrust over the last five to seven years in ground support fixtures has been the development of hybrid systems. Taking the best of two or more existing roof bolt fixtures and marrying them into a new fixture which exhibits the good characteristics without the bad of the parent systems. Resin point anchored mechanical bolts, continuous threaded rebar bolts, and others have all be- come important fixtures in rock mass stabilization. HYBRID GROUND SUPPORT SYSTEM The cable sling system is also a hybrid, both in its parentage and in its ground support characteristics. See figure 1. Cable slings combine the techniques of cement. grouting high-strength cables, Friction Rock Stabilizers, and truss-like suspension into a versatile and high- strength ground support system. 1/2" high-strength cable is cement grouted in place in a manner similar to pre-

Jan 1, 1983

By E. M. Wise

WHEN man became dissatisfied with the mere utilization of physical force and began to use weapons, he made a definite stride forward. At first he used sticks, animal bones and stones, often rudely shaped to some particularly lethal form. These devices, while crude, were moderately effective. How- ever, some of the brighter men of the tribe found that certain particularly heavy "stones" were somewhat ductile and could be hammered into more effective weapons than those previously known. Later, probably through the misuse of one of these weapons to stir the campfire, it was found that heating softened and perhaps actually melted the material. The process of annealing had been discovered! Smelting the more easily reducible metals was in all probability one of those fortuitous accidents which was followed up by thoughtful researchers who ultimately developed the technique of mixing various ores to produce bronze and even some of the nickel content alloys. The resulting products were at first lumps of more or less ductile material which could be hammered to shape, and were thus incidentally hardened by this process. The hardening of metals by alloying and cold working remained for many centuries the only known methods for improving their properties.

Jan 1, 1931

By Joseph Jensen

CURTAILMENT of oil production in California began in 1922 and 1923 when certain of the major companies completely shut down some pumping properties. Efforts of this kind were generally carried on without coordination by individual companies until 1923. From May to August of 1923, oil production in the Los Angeles Basin was curtailed because of lack of pipe-line outlets. This work was handled by a small committee of executives and engineers of some of the pipeline companies without any established. Method such as obtains at present. Not all of the major companies participated in ibis curtailment and the effort was not well organized. The problem then was principally to move the oil. The crisis passed in September of 1923 from then on the major companies each on it own initiative, shut in additional production. At Domiuguez, in 1921, Shell, Union and Associated agreed to limit drilling to a 100-ft. zone for one Near. In the summer of 1925, operators at Ingde-wood agreed to limit developments to a 1300-ft. zone during the 1925 drilling campaign. In the summer of 1927, the Ventura operators cut back their production one-third and deft it thus for 90 day. Drilling in this field has always been at a slow and conservative rate.

Jan 1, 1932

By J. F. Poland

B. C. Burgess-—Prior to hearing this paper presented at the San Francisco meeting, I travelled by car from Yuma, Ariz., across south-central California and up through the San Joaquin Valley. After hearing the paper I returned by the coast route to San Diego then along the Mexican border to Yuma. The striking feature of these trips, related to this paper, was the dry river and creek beds at a time of year not the dry season. Contrasted with this was the wasteful use of water in irrigation canals and laterals. Poland says "at least 90 pct of the ground water pumped is used for irrigation." That being the case, it would appear that first consideration should be given to conservation of this use. Probably a small part of this is actually reaching the plants. Some measure of this loss between pump and crops would be revealing. Methods that might be employed to reduce this loss are pipe lines and spraying of some crops such as the banana planters are using in Central America. Another idea which might be investigated is to line canals and ditches with some water-repelling mineral like pyro-phyllite. Perhaps a comparatively thin sprayed-on

Jan 1, 1951

By J. F. Poland

B. C. Burgess-—Prior to hearing this paper presented at the San Francisco meeting, I travelled by car from Yuma, Ariz., across south-central California and up through the San Joaquin Valley. After hearing the paper I returned by the coast route to San Diego then along the Mexican border to Yuma. The striking feature of these trips, related to this paper, was the dry river and creek beds at a time of year not the dry season. Contrasted with this was the wasteful use of water in irrigation canals and laterals. Poland says "at least 90 pct of the ground water pumped is used for irrigation." That being the case, it would appear that first consideration should be given to conservation of this use. Probably a small part of this is actually reaching the plants. Some measure of this loss between pump and crops would be revealing. Methods that might be employed to reduce this loss are pipe lines and spraying of some crops such as the banana planters are using in Central America. Another idea which might be investigated is to line canals and ditches with some water-repelling mineral like pyro-phyllite. Perhaps a comparatively thin sprayed-on

Jan 1, 1951

By Paul M. Tyler

HISTORICAL concepts of the economics of the glass-sand industry are changing rapidly. The greatly expanded demand for glass containers combined with higher freight rates on raw materials and manufactured products have induced a migration of glass factories toward densely populated centers and the creation of new standards of place value for sub- standard sand deposits. This migration has been facilitated by the construction of pipelines to bring cheaper natural gas and liquid fuel to large cities and may be further speeded by the adoption of modern mineral dressing methods to permit economical utilization of local raw materials. Our national resources of naturally high-grade 1 silica sand are abundant, but most of the best de- posits are situated so far from large centers of population that it now costs $3.00 to $5.00 a ton to carry the sand from the mine to the optimum site for a 1 factory making beverage bottles, scientific and electrical glassware, and miscellaneous blown and pressed ware for local markets. It follows that on the basis of freight savings alone it may be economical to use material from inferior deposits closer to the factory even though the f.o.b. cost of mining and treatment may be much high

Jan 1, 1950

By Herbert Hoover

THE time has arrived in our national development when we must have- a definite national- program in the development of our great engineering problems. Our rail and water transport, our water supplies for irrigation, our reclamation, the provision of future' fuel resources, the development and distribution of electrical power, all 'cry out for some broad-visioned national guidance. We must create a national engineering sense of provision for the nation as a whole. If we are to develop this national sense of engineering wand its relations to our great human problems, it must receive the advocacy of such institutions as this. We, together with our sister engineering societies, represent the engineers of the United States. It is our duty as citizens to give voice to those critical matters of national policy which our daily contact with this, the fundamentally constructive profession, illuminates to us. Just as our medical associations voice the necessity of -safeguards to national health; as the bar associations of safeguards to our judiciary, so the engineers should exert themselves in our national engineering policies. We have none; but we need some, or the next generation will face a lower instead of a higher standard of living than ours.

Jan 1, 1920

By ROBERT B. COONS

SELECTIVE SERVICE must meet three important demands for man power: (1) Activities concerned with production of war goods. (2) The armed forces. (3) Civilian activities and institutions the continuance of which are essential to maintaining the structure of our American democracy. In the above enumeration of demands I have placed everything, including most of our most prized possessions and activities, after the demand for men for war production and the armed forces. To establish an order between the latter two is difficult. For the time being, at least, the Selective Service policy is to make sure that we avoid the risk of "too little and too late." No soldier, sailor, or marine should be sent from these shores to risk his life without the assurance of having a gun, clothes, food, and medical supplies. Therefore, the premium is now being placed on man power for war production and in our process of selection no stone is left unturned to see that our agencies are fully informed of the needs of war production. Our procedures set up recourses for employers of war-production man power so that their activities need not be disrupted, at least not until they have had time to train replacements.

Jan 1, 1942

By R. C. Ernrnons, Ray Wilcox

RECENTLY completed experimental work, carried out in the department of geology at the University of Wisconsin, aiming at a prevention of silicosis in industry has been reported in the American Mineralogist. A vast amount of work on silicosis has been reported in the literature, the clinical aspects having been especially well covered. A host of critical observations have been made on the variations in the nature of the silicosis problem in different environments, and a great deal of valuable experimental work has helped to clarify these observations. At present a greater amount of information of a critical sort is available than ever before, which affords a more sound basis for interpretive thought. It has been observed in industry that essentially pure silica dust gives rise to silicosis. Jones would modify this conclusion to place the responsibility on sericite, a silicate mineral present in the siliceous dust. Material such as granite dust, which carries a high free silica (quartz) content, is also a silicosis hazard. But sericite, too, is usually present in granite. In general it is widely believed that silicosis is caused by the presence in the lung of silicic acid regardless of the source. This view is adopted here.

Jan 1, 1937

By A. P. Svenningsen

DURING the work at the test mill in Morenci, it was determined that a suitable feed for the ball mills could be made by a single pass through a short-head cone crusher. These crushers did not require a closed circuit delivering only a screen product to the mills, such as is the practice in some concentrators. By no means does this mean that the practice in these other concentrators is wrong, but just that the Morenci ore can be most economically crushed and ground in this manner. Therefore, the design of the secondary crushing plant was simply a problem of taking 25,000 tons of ore per 16 hour day from the primary crusher, this ore ranging in size from fine particles to 10 or 12 in., and reducing it to minus 3/4 in. Inasmuch as outages must be contended with in any crushing plant, it was assumed that the crusher would operate at full capacity for approximately only twleve hours per day, which is three-quarter capacity for the 16-hour shift. With this in mind, it was necessary to design a crushing plant which would average approximately 1600 tones per hour for the 16-hour day, or 2000 tons per hour for slightly over 12 hours per day.

Jan 1, 1942

The following letter has been received from Prof. Alfred C. Lane, of Tufts College, who is now in charge of the department, of mining in the College of Engineering, American E. F. University, Beaune, France. My DEAR MR. STOUGHTON: I have had a very interesting time here. We were received fast Saturday with great courtesy by the Schneiders at the Creusot plant, and saw many interesting things, from the mammoth guns clown. In one trip I saw a coal mine, an iron mine, an oilshale mine, a gypsum mine, and a most beautiful fluorspar mine. So you see we were not badly located. A mine like Epinac, which has a washery, a briquetting plant, and great central electric plant where coal that might otherwise be waste is converted into electricity and shipped away at 30,000 volts pressure, is of interest mechanically as well as geologically. Many of the French coal seams are very thick here and have especial mining methods. The Department of Mining has been manned by men with whom it was a pleasure and an honor to be associated, as well as with Dean Reber who was in charge of the College of Engineering as a whole. Names like Captain H. C. Ray, former professor at the University of Pittsburgh, on leave in the army, Captain Archbald of the Colliery Engineer at one time, whose work in the Pennsylvania coal mines is well known, Captain Vail of the Engineering and Mining Journal staff and Captain E. C. Dietrich of the Southwest, are familiar to members of the Institute, and Are guarantees of competent instruction.

Jan 7, 1919

By N. W. Lord

There hare been made at one or two places in Ohio, during the last year or two, some irons of rather unusual phosphorus-percentages. The first of these which I had occasion to examine came from Moxahala Furnace, in Perry county. The furnace was built originally to smelt an ore found in large deposits near its furnace in the " black band" horizon. The deposit was easily exposed by simple stripping;" it was from six to eight feet thick, being a blne carbonate ore, very free from silica. This ore yielded, on analysis, from two to 3 per cent. of phosphorus, when carefully sampled. The furnace company had trusted entirely to old analyses made on "outcrop" ore, well weathered, and received all other results with indifference. The result of the first run of the furnace was an iron in large whitish-gray crystals, and so brittle that it could be pulverized in a mortar. This iron contained 4.90 per cent. phosphorus. A limited quantity only was made, which was gradually disposed of as a great ('softener" to foundries. The Moxahala Furnace was subsequently run on Lake Superior ore mainly. The second case of such iron occurred last summer at Mt. Vernon Furnace. A deposit of what was locally known as "Hallelujah" ore, was opened for the furnace. This ore was a blue carbonate, similar to the first-described. The iron made was pure tin-white in color, and showed large crystals without a trace of the grain of ordinary pig-iron. It was sopposed at the furnace to be spiegeleisen, and was sent to me to be

Jan 1, 1884

By James W. Malcomson

The Tigre Mining Co. of Mexico, owned by the Lucky Tiger Combination Gold Mining Co. of Kansas City, decided early in 1910 to enlarge its mill, which consisted of a concentrator milling 3,000 tons of ore per month. The enlarged plant was designed to crush and concentrate 6,000 of ore and to cyanide 7,500 tons per month. The extra tonnage cyanided was to be obtained from tailings which were stored below the old mill. Power was supplied to the old mill from four boilers; a 150-h-p. Corliss engine and two Weber 60-h-p. gas-engines using producer-gas made from charcoal. The total horse-power required, including 60 h-p. used for machine-drills in the mine, was approximately 275. Cord-wood cost $4.32 per cord, 8 by 4 by 3 ft., and charcoal $15 per ton. The fuel supply in the surrounding country was approaching exhaustion; more than 150 mules and 50 men were engaged in cutting and transporting this fuel, and the unsettled political conditions in Sonora were such that it would be practically impossible to keep an organization of this kind together. The price of fuel was steadily rising and at times it became almost impossible to get sufficient fuel to operate. It was estimated that the enlarged plant, together with the mine, would require 750 h-p., as follows: Horse-Power. Old mill, which was left unchanged,..............180 New concentrator,.......................90 Cyanide-plant,........................380 Mine and other requirements,................. 100 Total,........•..................750 In a study of the best manner to obtain power the following alternative propositions were considered:

Jan 1, 1914

By J. H. Slater

THERE is nothing particularly new about the use of sinter in a blast-furnace burden. For many years flue dust has been sintered at the various blast-furnace plants to put it in a form that could be recharged to the furnace with some assurance that it would stay in the second time. This paper is not a compilation of scientific data but only an attempt to give our experience with sinter. There are some unexplained discrepancies in the tests given here, such as the flue dust produced and iron tonnages, but the results given are the results that were obtained. Sinter is not the cure-all for blast-furnace problems. A good coke is still the most important factor in good furnace operation. However, good sinter is a big help. As flue dust is produced under varying operating conditions and fluctuates greatly in carbon content, it is difficult to produce from flue dust alone a uniform sinter, which will give satisfactory blast-furnace results. Sinter made from flue dust alone will change in character with every carbon variation. Almost invariably flue dust con-tains carbon in excess of the amount necessary to make good sinter, and this excess must be burned out, This, of course, necessitates reduction of the speed of the sintering machine and thus a decrease in tonnage, An alternative is to dilute with a carbon-free material to use up the excess carbon. High-carbon material when sintered results in a very dense, undesirable prod-uct, since the excess heat melts the charge into a hard, nonporous mass, and tends to form refractory silicates.

Jan 1, 1940