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By Winston W. Spencer

ALTHOUGH by far the largest A consumer of platinum metals in the world, the United States until recently has been in- significant as a producer. Writing in the "Minerals Yearbook" for 1939, H. W. Davis states that 1938 probably marked the beginning of an- other period of transition in the world production of the platinum metals. In that year, he says, their production in the United States jumped to 49,380 oz., or fourth in the rank of world output. In the ten-year period 1925 to 1934 United States output ,averaged only 8300 oz. Practically all of this sudden in- crease in production is attributable to the introduction of mechanized equipment at the placer deposits in the Goodnews Bay district of Alaska. This district adjoins the Bering Sea and Kuskokwim Bay (accented on the first syllable), and is approximately 120 miles south of the mouth of the Kuskokwim River. The nearest village and post office is Platinum, which lies about eleven miles north- east of the Goodnews Bay Mining Company's camp. A good gravel road connects the mine camp and the village.

Jan 1, 1940

By AIME AIME

FEATURES of the second fall meeting of the Petroleum Division for 1941, held at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, Oct. 29-30, were the forum on the Paloma Plan on Thursday after- noon, the large attendance from east of the Rockies, and the dinner on Wednesday evening sponsored by the Southern California Section and at which President Suman spoke on the strategic minerals and metals situation. The attendance was large and the technical fare uniformly good ; the presiding officers had the proceedings well in hand at all times and kept things humming. Some- times it was necessary to taper off the discussion because of pressure on time. All this was due to careful groundwork before the respective sessions. These presiding officers deserve citation: L. W. Huebel, Howard Pyle, E. K. Parks, Carlton Beal, E. G. Trostel. R. W. French, Jr., John Dodge, and H. N. Marsh. The Los Angeles local commit- tees and the Southern California Section deserve much credit for the arrangements, which were recognized by suitable resolutions at the end of the meeting.

Jan 1, 1941

By Clyde E. Williams

IN planning a postwar program for manufactured products, it is essential that the bases for the plans be wisely chosen. First we must make certain assumptions as to the war's ending. Let us assume: (1) complete victory by the United Nations, (2) peace terms that will ensure the direction of the economy of all nations of the world toward peaceful pursuits, and (3) an early ending of the war, that is, before the nations of the world, excluding the enemy, are near the point of physical and spiritual exhaustion. Thus, our manufacturing plants and transportation facilities will still be in good shape. The plants and transportation facilities, as well as the cities of a large part of Europe, however, will be badly crippled. The rich mineral and other raw material resources of the world, little of which was under control. of the Axis powers before the war or will be after the war, will not be used up. Control of these raw materials, or at least an important part of them, will remain in the hands of the strong peaceful nations.

Jan 1, 1943

By R. V. Norris

LAST October, Mr. R. V. Norris and Mr. Matthew C. Fleming were appointed to represent the Institute at the Second National Industrial Tax Conference, which was held in New York City on Oct. 22 and 23. After reading the report submitted by the Committee, Mr. Norris and Mr. Fleming addressed the following to the Tax Committee of the National Industrial Conference Board: The tentative report of the Tax Committee of the National Industrial Conference Board was received too late to make it possible to lay it before the Board of the Institute, and the undersigned themselves have not had sufficient time to digest its interesting contents and recommendations carefully. So that we desire to make it clear that the comments we make on the report are the expression of our personal opinion only. In the first place, we feel that the Committee which drew this tentative report is entitled to the commendation and thanks of the country for what has been manifestly a work of tremendous labor and for the able and conservative report which they have presented. With

Jan 1, 1921

By W. M. Corse

AT THE TURN of the century the nonferrous alloy industry was awakening to the value of scientific metallurgy, and brass foundries and rolling mills began to establish their own research laboratories for scientific research and control. As the industry grew and its scope broadened it became apparent that an organization was needed that would stand in the same relation to the nonferrous industry as the American Foundrymen's Association did to the iron foundry business. The brass founders' group of the foundrymen's association discussed the matter and it was finally decided to appoint a com- mittee to draw up a constitution for a new organization to be known as the American Brass Founders' Association. Charles J. Caley was chairman and Dr. Richard Moldenke secretary of this committee. The object of the organization as defined by the constitution was the study of the technological development of alloying and founding non- ferrous metals, and furthering the advance of nonferrous metallurgy and the standardization of materials and operations in cooperation with the Bureau of Standards and engineering societies.

Jan 1, 1932

THE relation of labor to the accident rate in mines is admirably epitomized by Thomas T. Read in his paper presented at the St. Louis meeting, in the sentence "Reliance for accident prevention must be upon the individual worker himself." In connection with the inspection of mines for the fixing of merit premium rates for insurance under workmen's compensation, it has been the practice of The Associated Companies to allow 60 per cent.of the credits for safeguarding of the physical hazards of the mine and 40 per cent. for the human element. By "human element" is meant. that inherent tendency of the industrial worker to be careless, negligent or disobedient, in respect to his own safety, and after that also f his fellow workman. This is a tendency not only of the laborer or of the skilled miner, but of all human beings, working or traveling, anywhere. This element of mine safety, sometimes called the moral hazard, has been admirably shown by statistics compiled from the records of the Department of Mines of the Union of South Africa to be clue in about equal measure to the carelessness of the miner and to that of the operator. These statistics show that about one-half the fatalities in mines are clue to the so-called hazard of the industry, or what is sometimes called the dangers inherent to work or misadventure. Of 2497 fatalities investigated, including over 200,000 employees, for a period of over 2 ½ years, it was found that 17.5 per cent. were due to faulty plant or material, fault of the foreman, or of the management-in short were-clue to the operator; 17.1 per cent. to disobedience of orders, carelessness or ignorance of injured persons; and 5.9 per cent. through fault of others, including fellow workmen. The fault of the operator is evidenced by failure to give proper warning, failure to inspect, failure to furnish proper equipment, and neglecting to comply with the recommendations of the inspector. That education and training of the mine operator as well as of the mine worker

Jan 2, 1918

JESSE L. JONES,* Pittsburgh, Pa.-I would like to ask Miss Erskine if down-draft has been used in any of the foundries where heavy fumes have to be removed, instead of the overhead draft.? L. -ERSKINE.-The system of overhead draft to remove heavy fumes has been very much more successful. The entire efforts of the New Jersey Department of Labor in regard to stabilizing conditions in the foundry are the result of the physical examination of the foundryman himself on first-hand information as to the prevalence of the minor ailments and the bad timekeeping that naturally accompanies them. These ailments are a factor in not only increasing the labor turnover but in increasing the percentage of bad work as well. The physical exertion of the foundryman himself is of course an important factor. In certain standard shops the amount of energy expended runs from 11 to 13 tons of foot-pounds of energy a day. In certain shops on piece work, I found a record of the energy expended per day to run as high as 22 tons. In one shop, during the war period, the management established a bonus system, and the men increased their output from 60 to 100 molds a day. The result was an increase of some 60 per cent. in output, and an increase of 400 per cent. in defective castings. The question of the physical exertion in the unsanitary foundries, of course, is very much complicated by other factors, for which reason the department has devoted a good deal of attention to estimating what is a reasonable exertion in a sanitary, well ventilated foundry. We have met certain physical difficulties in the brass foundries that the iron foundries did not have. All that information is available through our Bureau of Industrial Information. The question of the physical energy exerted by the molder is found to have a very distinct bearing on the question of contracts, for the possibility of increasing production is balanced by the extra overhead involved. JESSE L. JONES.-I would like to ask if any evidence has been noticed of carbon-monoxid poisoning among the employees of the foundries.

Jan 4, 1919

By R. S. Reed, D. L. Ward

This paper is the result of a study, in 1919, to determine how much surplus power could be produced through the proper utilization of the entire gas flow from the two furnace stacks at the Federal Furnace Plant, South Chicago, 111. Obviously, the problem was to measure the flow of gas through the main beyond the point where the amount necessary for stove operation mas rermoved. In all probability, blast-furnace gas is the most difficult gas to measure, because of the high moisture and dust content, and the widely fluctuating flow from the furnaces. This wide fluctuation of flow forbids the acceptance of any one group of flow road-ings as indicative of normal operating conditions. A study of the conditions showed that a recording device on gas flow was necessary. As the gas at the point of measurement had passed through met washers, and accordingly was saturated with water and contained considerable dust carried past the scrubbers in the form of sludge, no form of Pitot tube could be used, for this sludge would quickly plug the dynamic. and static holes, spoiling the gage readings. An even more serious objection to the use of Pitot tubes was the impossibility of accurately measuring the cross-sectional area of the gas main on the plane of Pitot-tube installation. Given an absolutely clean gas and a perfectly circular pipe, it would be safe to assume, through measurements of the pipe diameter, that the gas main was of a certain cross-sectional area. But the continual depositing of sludge and the fact that the main mas fabricated from riveted sheets led us to discard the idea of using Pitot tubes for. this service. The Venturi tube mas then considered, and had there been a sufficiently long straight run of gas main to accommodate a tube of the required size (72 by 28 in.) such an installation would very likely have been made. A plate with a sharp-edged orifice was eventually accepted as it possesses all the characteristics of a Venturi tube, requires less space, and

Jan 1, 1922

By W. D. Bennett

AN interesting effect has been observed in the vacuum etching of titanium in the high temperature ß phase. Using a high vacuum annealing furnace, operating at less than 2x10-6 mm with a tubular titanium liner, it has been found possible to etch polished metallographic specimens at different temperatures between room temperature and 1000°C without contamination or increase in hardness.' Heat etching of titanium has been reported by other workers,' but the following example is of interest as an experiment under high vacuum in the absence of any contamination. Two polished specimens of iodide-processed titanium are placed at different positions along the axis of the furnace corresponding to temperatures of 900" and 800°C above and below the a-ß transus. The specimens are then raised to these temperatures and annealed simultaneously for 3 hr under the same high vacuum conditions. After cooling and withdrawing the specimens, their surfaces are photographed without further treatment. Figs. 1 and 2 show the results for the 800" and 900°C specimens, respectively. Fig. 1, corresponding to a vacuum etch in the a region, shows a typical equiaxed structure with what appears to be a slight shift of grain boundaries. Fig. 2, corresponding to a vacuum etch in the ß region, shows an equiaxed type of structure with the growth of striations in certain grains. The striations are only superficial, as a light polish and chemical etch restores the clean equiaxed structure. The vacuum etch, occurring as it does above the a-ß transus, records the state of the metal in the ß phase by means of the surface relief produced by the selective evaporation of metal from different grains; the metal itself reverts to the equiaxed a on cooling. The nature of the ß etch" (Fig. 2) suggests that, in transforming from the close-packed-hexagonal a to the body-centered-cubic ß lenticular-shaped laminae are formed parallel to common planes of the two structures. This would explain why some grains appear to be unaffected by the etch. The technique has interesting possibilities in the investigation of the mechanics of high temperature transformation. Acknowledgment This note is published by permission of the Deputy Minister, Dept. of Mines and Technical Surveys, Ottawa, Ont., Canada.

Jan 1, 1956

By W. E. Mitchell

The ore that is being treated by the present plant lies between the leached zone, or capping, and the mixed sulfide and oxide zone. The principal copper minerals are chalcanthite (CuS04.5H20), brochantite (CuSO4.3Cu (OH)2 and atacamite, (CuC12.3Cu (OH)2). There are, in addition, some other minerals such as cuprite and kröhnkite (CuS04. Na2S04.2H20). These minerals, with many others, occur in a greatly crushed granodiorite rock. most of the copper-bearing minerals occur in the cracks and veinlets, but there are disseminated values and it is probably the relative proportion of these that accounts for some otherwise unexplainable variations in extraction. The entire mineralization of the ore is complex and varies with depth. This variation, the problems presented thereby, and the effect of various constituents of the ore will be taken up in detail. An analysis of :in unweighted composite of the ore treated during 1927 follows: I'Lr Cent. Per Cent. Per Cent. Cu............... 1.58 S................. 2.10 Mo............ 0.01 SiO? ............. 66.10 HNO3 ........0.03 As............ 0.005 Fe.......... 1.41 C1 .............. 0.05 Sb............. 0.005 CnO ..... 0.20 Na................ 0.80 Ba............ 0.01 A1203 .......... 17.70 KI.............. 4.80 H20............ 0.70 mgO.............. 0.68 Mn............... 0.07 0 in sulfates. . . . 3.94 Total..... 100.19 The most important constituents of the ore, as indicated by experience to date, are: (1) The total copper content; (2) the acid-insoluble copper; (3) the acid-making copper mineral, mainly the chalcanthite; (4) the chlorine; (5) the nitrates; (6) the soluble iron; (7) the soluble molybdenum. The total copper content needs no discussion. In Table 1, the values are weighted averages calculated from individual charge analyses. The acid-insoluble copper directly affects the extraction, as the present leach recovers practically no acid-insoluble copper. In Table 1 the values are unweighted averages of the analyses of monthly composite samples. The acid-making copper mineral affects the amount of copper that can be dissolved from the ore without neutralizing acid in the solution. The

Jan 1, 1930

By C. E. Agnew

THE Eastern district, composed of New Jersey and eastern Pennsyl-vania, with its native ores, was the cradle of the iron industry of the United States. The district attained and held the leadership in produc-tion of pig iron for over 100 years, from pre-Revolutionary days to approximately 1875. The first shipment of Lake hematite ore was made in 1853. It was a small shipment, transported by a sailing vessel and a canal barge, but it was the beginning of the end of the supremacy of the Eastern district, although at that time the ore was supposed to be too rich to be successfully smelted with the block coal then in use at western furnaces. The iron made from the first shipment of Lake ore was worked into nails by the Sharon Iron Co., at Sharon, Pa. The writer's great-grandfather, David Agnew, and his brother, John P., Agnew, owners and-operators of the Sharpsville furnace, Sharpsville, Pa., worked the shipment through a furnace. Because of this, the writer feels some satisfaction in having been one of a group that solved the problem of making profitable an operation using Eastern district ores exclusively. With the development of Lake mines, and the production and use of coke, the Middle West district gradually assumed the position of leader-ship in production; because, even though the ores were transported 1000 miles by water and rail, its cost figure on pig iron was better than that of the eastern producer whose furnace was next to his mine. Such a cost figure was possible because the ore was naturally rich in iron and reduced easily. It was possible to carry a heavy burden on the furnace, which resulted in large tonnage and low coke per ton of iron. This paper is in no sense a technical one. The purpose is to show that with the proper physical preparation of the Eastern magnetites they will reduce as easily as the Lake hematites, and because of the high iron concentration give the Eastern producer just as much advantage as formally he was at a disadvantage in comparison with the Middle West producer.

Jan 1, 1938

ZAY JEFFRIES (communication to the Secretary*).-Having seen Mr. Ruder's micrographs of electrolytic iron, I am of the opinion that the tentative explanation offered verbally is correct. Mr. Ruder has informed me that both of the samples were cooled in the furnace. The structures as shown in Figs. Band C resulted from the last cooling through the temperature range near 900° C. Assuming that the rate of cooling through this range was the same in both cases, the differences in struc-ture of the gamma iron in the two samples must have ]:)]-ought about, in some way, the variations in grain size and grain shape shown in Mr. Ruder's micrographs. Even though there is practically no temperature gradient in muffle-furnace treatment during the "soaking" period, during both heating and cooling, there is a temperature gradient. Fig. B should normally have been fine-grained prior to the last cooling, due to the comparatively low maximum temperature to which it was heated (1,000° C.). On cooling through the allotropic change point at 900°, these small gamma grains, iii conjunction with the temperature gradient, should form an ideal condition for germination. Germinant grains should form near the surface of the sample (the-colder portions) and the small gamma grains would be progressively absorbed as they changed into non-gamma iron. The elongated grains in Fig. B, converging toward the axis of the piece of iron, indicate that germinant grains first formed near tine surface and advanced their boundaries toward the interior of the sample. The gamma grains in Fig. C, however, should have been large, prior to the last cooling, due to time high temperature treatment (1,250 to 1,300° C.). In other words, to use one of Prof. Howe's expressions, the crystalline organization should be very complete and the change from gamma to non-gamma iron on cooling would take place reluctantly. This resistance to change from gamma to non-gamma iron would probably be greater in the interior of the large grains than at their boundaries. Non-gamma iron centers or nuclei would probably form at a great many places, at the grain boundaries, thus masking the influence, to a large

Jan 6, 1917

By Donald Gilbert

PRIOR to July, 1919, the sampler at each mine of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. in Butte did his work in his own way and was responsible to the mine foreman only. At that time, the sampling at all the company's Butte mines was placed in charge of a member of the geological department and stand-ardized methods of doing the work, were adopted. These standards were incorporated in a set of instruc-tions accompanied by blueprints representing typical conditions. The main features of the instructions were as follows: All samples to be cut at breast height and horizontally, regardless of dip of vein, and the horizontal width reported. A single sample to include not more than a 5-ft. width of the breast and to weigh not less than 4 lb. for this width. Where the vein is made up of two or more streaks of different hardness or mineral content, each streak is to be sampled sepa-rately and the average value of the combined width figured. If two streaks of ore are separated by a streak of waste, which is not sampled, in obtaining the average value of the breast the waste must be figured in with a zero assay. Drifts to be sampled in the breast after each round. Raises to be sampled for each floor raised. Each end to be sampled separately and the average width and value of the two ends to be used as the average of the floor. All veins cross-cut to be sampled along the side of the cross-cut, at breast height and horizontally. Where the vein strikes at an acute angle to the line of the cross-cut, the width of sample must be corrected to show the horizontal width at right angles to the line of strike of the vein. Rill stopes must be sampled across the full mining width. In square-set stopes, each set must be sampled separately along the line of the caps. Waste portions of the vein which are mined for filling must not be included in the sample.

Jan 2, 1922

By R. S. Reed, D. L. Ward

This paper is the result of a study, in 1919, to determine how much surplus power could be produced through the proper utilization of the entire gas flow from the two furnace stacks at the Federal Furnace Plant, South Chicago, 111. Obviously, the problem was to measure the flow of gas through the main beyond the point where the amount necessary for stove operation mas rermoved. In all probability, blast-furnace gas is the most difficult gas to measure, because of the high moisture and dust content, and the widely fluctuating flow from the furnaces. This wide fluctuation of flow forbids the acceptance of any one group of flow road-ings as indicative of normal operating conditions. A study of the conditions showed that a recording device on gas flow was necessary. As the gas at the point of measurement had passed through met washers, and accordingly was saturated with water and contained considerable dust carried past the scrubbers in the form of sludge, no form of Pitot tube could be used, for this sludge would quickly plug the dynamic. and static holes, spoiling the gage readings. An even more serious objection to the use of Pitot tubes was the impossibility of accurately measuring the cross-sectional area of the gas main on the plane of Pitot-tube installation. Given an absolutely clean gas and a perfectly circular pipe, it would be safe to assume, through measurements of the pipe diameter, that the gas main was of a certain cross-sectional area. But the continual depositing of sludge and the fact that the main mas fabricated from riveted sheets led us to discard the idea of using Pitot tubes for. this service. The Venturi tube mas then considered, and had there been a sufficiently long straight run of gas main to accommodate a tube of the required size (72 by 28 in.) such an installation would very likely have been made. A plate with a sharp-edged orifice was eventually accepted as it possesses all the characteristics of a Venturi tube, requires less space, and

Jan 1, 1922

By John Henry Harden

With imperfect instruments it is impossible to make accurate surveys; the results are inaccurate maps, with their attendant consequences. The design of the writer is to describe an improved form of tripod head, and certain defects in an English transit and a miners' dial, with the method taken to remedy the defects of the transit. When the present transit superseded the surveyor's compass, there was one special objection brought against it, and with some show of reason ; namely, that the tripod of the compass with its ball and socket motion, allowed a quicker levelling-up (and, consequently, more work) than mas possible with the transit. To this objection it was replied, that the ball and socket would not allow the instrument to be levelled with the same degree of precision that could be attained with the levelling screws, and that if time was sacrificed greater accuracy was attained. Nevertheless, it is a wellknown fact that in this country, and especially in England, the compass or miners' dial holds its ground solely from its rapid adjustment. Ever since the introduction of the transit, efforts have been made to give to this instrument the same facility of levelling possessed by the compass or dial, and the same means have been tried, i. e., a ball and socket motion, since a modification of this in some form was the only method that would answer. The upper part of a transit is, however, much heavier than the corresponding parts of a compass, and, therefore, requires more binding power, which cannot be obtained with an ordinary ball and socket joint. It has been a study with instrument-makers to combine the facility of these two tripods —the quickness of the ball and socket with the steadiness and accuracy of the screws; but in all attempts in this direction the ball and socket of the compass has been literally followed, the entire stability of the instrument depending upon the friction of the ball in its socket. There is great need for a tripod that can be more easily manipulated than the present form, for it rarely happens that an engineer has a level surface on which to set his instrument, and very often

Jan 1, 1879

By Orson Cutler Shepard

The term "electrocapillary amalgamation" is used in this paper to designate amalgamation processes that depend upon electrocapillary phenomenon; i.e., the action of an electric current upon the surface tension of mercury at the contact with aqueous solutions. Electro-capillary amalgamation is selected as a name for these processes because the electrocapillary phenomenon has been found to be the effective agent in the use of sodium amalgam, as well as in the various processes using an electric current from a source outside of the amalgam. Amalgamation processes that depend upon supplying an electric current to the amalgam from an outside source, such as batteries and generators, have previously been called electrical amalgamation processes. There has been a tremendous amount of experimental work done on amalgamation processes involving the use of an electric current, as shown by the large number of patents issued on these processes: the earliest in 1885 and the latest in 1934l. Regardless of all the experimental work, the fundamental principles causing the operation of electrocapillary amalgamation processes have not been described. The explanation usually given is that an electric current keeps the amalgam bright and clean. Patent No. 328532 states: It is well known that when amalgam plates are used for collecting gold and silver from their ores the surfaces of these plates are liable to become tarnished or sickened by certain substances contained in the ores or in the current of water which is employed to carry the ore over the plates, and that in this condition they are unfitted for amalgamating the particles of gold and silver. To prevent this and to keep the surfaces of the amalgamation plates always bright and in a better condition for catching and amalgamating the particles of gold and silver I employ electricity in the following manner: . . . A similar explanation is given 49 years later, in patent No. 1953364: The sodium (Na) ions lose their charge at the cathode becoming sodium atoms, which do not react with the electrolyte, but follow the grounded electrical current through the mercury body producing in their passage sodium amalgam and liberate themselves in the amalgamation compartment when brought in contact with the fed

Jan 1, 1939

By Dean Edwin Dallin

A computer system was developed by Texasgulf's Corporate Data Center (at Raleigh, North Carolina) to evaluate the economics of proposed new projects and to determine the incremental expansion effects of existing projects. The Corporate Treasurer, Controller, and Senior Staff Members of the corporate office guided the project with advice from the Chairman's office. After consideration of commercially available programs, the decision was made to develop an in-house investment system. The main specification was that the program must do the accounting calculations on the computer exactly as done by hand in the corporate office. No average "approximations" or values were allowed. Also, the capability to change the calculation procedures quickly was a must. The experience gained in developing a program to evaluate Gulf Coast off-shore oil lease-bids was used to develop an investment system. Several ideas were taken from A Programming Language (APL) concepts. An investment functional language was developed, and computer programs were written to process the functional language. One feature is a print-out of the model in English. The English print- out assists the debugging and documentation of a model. The major expansion at the Kidd Creek mine was the test case for the new system. After the results were approved and accepted for the base case, many sensitivity runs were made. Numerous additional models were developed to reflect the investment opportunities at other sites. An existing edit program was used to build the models and to systematically organize all the data for different projects. Remote input-output capabilities were added to the system, allowing data to be prepared and submitted at one Texasgulf site with the results printed at another location within minutes. The project has been well accepted by Texasgulf's senior management. Growth of the system is now in the areas of (1) merging individual projects into the corporate financial statements, (2) use of classical forecasting to project future costs, and (3) coupling the investment program to mine planning and general ledger systems. Also, the system is now being installed on an interactive computer system to provide faster turn-around time and more flexibility.

Jan 1, 1977

By Orson Cutler Shepard

The term "electrocapillary amalgamation" is used in this paper to designate amalgamation processes that depend upon electrocapillary phenomenon; i.e., the action of an electric current upon the surface tension of mercury at the contact with aqueous solutions. Electro-capillary amalgamation is selected as a name for these processes because the electrocapillary phenomenon has been found to be the effective agent in the use of sodium amalgam, as well as in the various processes using an electric current from a source outside of the amalgam. Amalgamation processes that depend upon supplying an electric current to the amalgam from an outside source, such as batteries and generators, have previously been called electrical amalgamation processes. There has been a tremendous amount of experimental work done on amalgamation processes involving the use of an electric current, as shown by the large number of patents issued on these processes: the earliest in 1885 and the latest in 1934l. Regardless of all the experimental work, the fundamental principles causing the operation of electrocapillary amalgamation processes have not been described. The explanation usually given is that an electric current keeps the amalgam bright and clean. Patent No. 328532 states: It is well known that when amalgam plates are used for collecting gold and silver from their ores the surfaces of these plates are liable to become tarnished or sickened by certain substances contained in the ores or in the current of water which is employed to carry the ore over the plates, and that in this condition they are unfitted for amalgamating the particles of gold and silver. To prevent this and to keep the surfaces of the amalgamation plates always bright and in a better condition for catching and amalgamating the particles of gold and silver I employ electricity in the following manner: . . . A similar explanation is given 49 years later, in patent No. 1953364: The sodium (Na) ions lose their charge at the cathode becoming sodium atoms, which do not react with the electrolyte, but follow the grounded electrical current through the mercury body producing in their passage sodium amalgam and liberate themselves in the amalgamation compartment when brought in contact with the fed

Jan 1, 1939

By Richard Moldenke

So FAR as the quality of the product is concerned, the history of the production of pig iron for foundry purposes is one of constant retrogression. The steps in this deterioration began with cold-blast charcoal pig iron, then anthracite iron, coke iron; then gradually warm to hot-blast coke iron, with the charcoal furnaces also heating their blast to get greater tonnages, and finally the present day hot-blast coke irons with scrap additions to the ordinary burden that, according to one European report, have gone as high as 135 per cent. Parallel with this quality retrogression is the enormous increase in furnace tonnages from about 15 tons daily to over 1000 tons per day in exceptional instances of modern practice. The key to this situation is economic pressure. The effect is a growing differentiation between furnace production for gray iron and malleable foundries and for the production of commercial steel. As the foundry is often compelled to draw upon the pig irons made for steel purposes, for economic reasons, whereas the steel industry does not draw upon foundry pig irons proper, the situation is resolving itself into one of grave consequence for the life of the gray-iron castings industry, and hence the intensive present-day feeling in foundry circles for rigid specifications to govern the quality of pig irons sold for foundry use. In the discussion of a paper on the use of scrap in the blast furnace held recently in the Institute, a very pertinent remark was made by one of the participating furnacemen, who confessed that "the things found wrong by the foundryman with his iron were beyond his depth." It may be added that those things are also beyond the depth of most foundrymen who, however, know from their results that they are getting poorer castings today with many pig irons than they did with those same brands in former years. Under the former fracture buying, the foundryman at least could select the strongest metal, as judged by the sledge, from various brands of similar fracture and pig section, and his results proved the soundness of his conclusions. With the advent of iron analysis, and in spite of the growing uniformity of the metal through greater tonnage

Jan 2, 1927

By T. D. Thomas

In this paper, major attention is given to misfires in mines where electric multiple shot-firing is the system used. Misfires are sometimes caused by one action or condition and at other times by a combination of two or more. They may be divided into two classes: (1) those caused by workers in the mines, (2) mechanical or manufacturer's causes. The second cause will be discussed first. Misfires Caused by Faulty Detonators The important part of an electric blasting cap, to the user where multiple shot-firing is done, as in the steep-pitch, thiek-vein, anthracite mines, is the bridge wire. In single shot-firing this factor is not apparent, but in mines where multiple firing is done any variation in the resistance of the bridge wire, where full or even rated battery capacity is required, will most likely cause a misfire. The reason for this is obvious. If the resistance in the bridge wires is not the same, some of the detonators will fire because of their greater comparative resistance. Variance in resistance of bridge wires is caused by a slight difference in the diameter of the bridge wire, also by a difference in the composition of the bridge wires. Again, where the bridge wires have become rusted, there will be a variance in resistance. About the year 1922, one of the large coal companies was greatly alarmed by the number of serious and fatal accidents caused by misfires. The general manager issued an order that these accidents must be greatly reduced, and if possible, entirely prevented. The officials at the mines had to determine the various causes of misfires and have them corrected. The rock contractors who use large quantities of 60 to 80 per cent. explosives and do all firing electrically were thoroughly instructed as to the proper methods of doing their work, and closer supervision was given to their work. The manufacturer's representatives stressed the importance of the use of galvanometers; accordingly these were purchased and used. Larger firing lines were installed under the supervision of a demonstrator of the company manufacturing the caps and explosives. However, misfires again occurred and it was evident that the source of the trouble was not wholly

Jan 1, 1930