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By Reno Sales

INTRODUCTION. THE geology of Butte possesses especial interest on account of the magnitude of the ore deposits, their extraordinary richness and persistence in depth. Since its discovery in the early 60's the district .has yielded, in round numbers, 6,000,000,000 lb. of copper, 260,000,000 oz. of silver, 1,250,000 oz. of gold, and a large but not definitely known number of pounds of zinc. This enormous metal production has been derived from an ore tonnage estimated roughly at 65,000,000 tons. At the present day, most of the important mine shafts have reached a depth of. 2,400 ft., while several are more than 3,000 ft., deep. At these-great depths rich bodies of copper ore are being exploited, showing no diminution in metal content as compared with the ores of the higher levels. The present (1913) daily rate of production is approximately 14,000 tons, of which 13,250 tons may be regarded as copper ore, although a small percentage of this is minable only because of the presence of

Jan 8, 1913

By GEO M. FOWLER

AN appraisal of the activities of the mining geologists during 1936 clearly indicates the ever in- creasing utilization of geology in the search for ore. Few men with geo- logic training are idle at present; this is particularly true regarding recent graduates. Many have accepted employment in distant fields, such as the Philippines and South America, and greatly increased mineral production from these places reflects their activities. In North America, regions of intense mineralization formerly important are being restudied in greater de- tail and with better understanding; as a result, new mineral wealth is being found in many such districts. Much is being done by private companies and individuals, and it is to be hoped that mining companies will increasingly make available the purely scientific results of such studies by permitting their geologists to publish. On such generosity to a large extent will future advances in ore finding depend.

Jan 1, 1937

By ELTCENE A. WHITE

WE are all interested in our ou7n lines of endeavor and consider ourselves the center of the universe. The farmer thinks he is the most important man because he feeds us. The doctor knows he is the real center because he keeps us well. The lawyer says that he is indispensable because he keeps the peace. The banker furnishes us a place to keep our money and tells us how to make proper use of it. The miner sags that without metals there would be no civilization. I think that my branch has sufficient interest and exhilaration. of accomplishment to fully occupy any man's mind and attention. Mining and metallurgy are as old as the human race. It did not have much, if any, importance in the stone age as there are not found remains of iron and copper, but in the bronze age, which was co-existent with the stone age, it came to the front. Iron and copper were the most important metals. Copper, as bronze, was known in ancient Egypt, I\~:IS important in Rome and other parts of Europe and in Asia; in South America among the Aztecs and farther North were the Mound Builders and the early inhabitants of Lake Superior. At a very early date the Egyptians conquered the Sinai peninsula for the sake of the copper produced there. The history of copper metallurgy can be compared to that of a flower. The seed is sown in darkness and in the Dark Ages the crude metallurgy of copper began. As the shoot comes up from the seed it may be compared to the age of alchemy; the branches of the plant can be compared to the Middle Ages; the flowering shoots to the 17th century, the budding to the 19th and the blossom to our own time from 1870 on.

Jan 1, 1930

By D. O. Ehrenburg, R. J. Watson

During the earlier period of electrical prospecting, the search for orebodies was by far the most important application of this method of geophysical prospecting. In the past few years, however, increasing attention has been paid to the possibilities of this method in the investigation of subsurface structures. Not only have fault zones been located, but attempts have been made to determine the depth to certain strata and thus contouring on some bed which proves to be a good "electrical marker." Many workers have published the results of field tests showing how their particular interpretations have agreed with the actual field conditions, but very few have stated their method of interpretation. Weaver, Hummel and Stefanesco and Schlumbergerl have given a more theoretical discussion of the resistivity methods. Hummel and Stefan-esco and Schlumberger have published mathematical solutions for the flow of electricity in a medium involving four layers. In this paper the authors present a solution for the flow of electricity in a medium of any number of horizontal strata. By means of this solution, curves showing the relationship between the apparent resistivity and the electrode spacing can be computed for ideal cases. Point-source in an Infinite Homogeneous Medium In resistivity measurements the current is conveyed to the earth by means of two electrodes, which can be mathematically treated as point-sources of equal and opposite strength. A point-source of strength I is defined as a point at which electricity is being generated at the constant rate of I coulombs per second, or I

Jan 1, 1932

By Sir Robert Hadfield

SINCE the writer has been intimately connected with the development of manganese steel for many years, some remarks upon the early work with regard to the rolling and forging of this material might he of interest, and particularly as to the question of rails of special quality and of superior wearing qualities. In a paper on Iron Alloys, with Special Deference to Manganese Steel, read before this Institute at the International Engineering Congress in Chicago in 1893,1 the writer mentioned that, about 20 years ago, his firm in Sheffield produced railroad material, such as tires and axles, of forged and rolled manganese steel, thus showing that this product could be manipulated and worked up into the various required forms. The tires illustrated in the paper referred to above formed a particularly difficult class of work to produce in a special steel, but no special obstacles were met with Although there was no difficulty at that time in making and producing manganese steel in various forms, forged, rolled or pressed; nevertheless, on account of its higher expense, sufficient encouragement

Jan 2, 1914

By Austin E. Dwight

IT has been shown by Oelsen and Wever' that the effect of a solute element on the allotropic transformation in iron is dependent upon the quantity

Jan 1, 1957

By AIME AIME

ANNOUNCEMENT of the annual meeting to be held Feb. 18 to 22 inclusive will be mailed the latter part of the month to all members. Particular attention is called to the fact that application has been made for reduced rail- road fares on the Certificate Plan. When you purchase your railroad ticket be sure to ask for a CERTIFICATE for yourself and members of your family. Last year over 400 members and dependent members of their families attending the meeting secured return railroad tickets at half price by means of this certificate, thereby saving thou- sands of dollars. Those who fail to obtain this certificate when purchasing going tickets will lose money. Unless 250 certificates are validated at headquarters it will be impossible for anyone to secure the reduced rate.

Jan 1, 1929

By Wilbur E. Sanders

AT some period during the operation of metalliferous and other commercially valuable mineral-deposits in connection with their underground mining, when the developments therein have become so extensive that their description is tedious and confusing, some scheme for naming or numbering the various workings and their parts is necessary for convenience of ; reference.. A simple and symmetrical yet expansive system of classification must be devised, one that is capable of being extended to cover all possible exigencies and conditions of future operations within the property. Such a scheme, properly arranged, greatly simplifies communication between the various departments of the mining business, as, for instance, between the administrative and the operating departments of the concern, and is of the greatest assistance to the officers of the mine in enabling them to locate and describe particular points and parts of workings and specific kinds of work. Again, in the proper segregation and differentiation of mine-accounts, when they are carried out with that detail which will furnish ready information concerning the cost of a particular piece of work, or the various items and totals of expense connected with the, development,, operation and repair of each or all of the mine-workings, some such method of designation becomes a necessity. . Moreover, such a plan is admirably adapted to the needs of the mining engineer, who, in connection with his reports upon mining-properties, is sometimes required, in his descriptions of certain blocks of ore, to locate lists of assays of samples taken from many and various places, and to designate workings and parts of workings that are located in different parts of the mine, sometimes at points wide apart.

May 1, 1906

By John Chipman, Wayne L. Worrell

Using recent thermodynamic data for the carbides and oxides of tantalum, columbium, and vanadium, the stable solid phases aboue 1300°K and at 1 atm CO(g) pressure in each M-C-O system have been determined. Pourbaix-Ellingham diagrams have been constructed and are used to estimate the minimum temperatures necessary to obtain these metals by carbothermic reduction under reduced pressures. TANTALUM, columbium, and vanadium react with carbon to form the M,C and MC carbide phases. The M,C carbides have narrow homogeneity ranges, but the MC phases possess considerable ranges of homogeneity.' The free energies of formation of the MC carbides were recently measured, and those of MC and M2Ccarbides have been estimated., (The notations MC and MC denote, respectively, the carbide compositions at the carbon-rich and at the metal-rich boundaries of the homogeneous MC phase.) In this paper, these carbide data are combined with thermodynamic data for the oxides to predict the stable phases in the Ta-C-O, Cb-C-O, and V-C-O systems at specified temperatures and oxygen pressures. M-C-O PHASE DIAGRAMS The solid phases in equilibrium above 1300°K for each M-C-0 system are shown in Figs. 1, 2, and 3. Above 1300°K, the vapor would consist entirely of carbon monoxide; and these phase diagrams were obtained by specifying the vapor pressure of CO(g) to be 1 atm. The temperature at which any two solid phases become unstable is specified along the two-phase equilibrium lines in each diagram. To simplify the diagrams, all solid phases in the Ta-C-O and Cb-C-O systems are represented as stoichiometric compounds. However, the homogeneity ranges of VO and VC are indicated, because they form a complete series of solid solutions.3 It also should be noted that the homogeneity range of

Jan 1, 1964

By N. W. Lord

The process of molten-zone refining is analyzed for long ingots and many zone passages. Formulas are derived which give the resultant impurity distribution in terms of finite series. A comparison with the approximate procedure of Hamming is given. HE physical principles and applications of an extremely physicalprinciple efficient form of metallurgical refinement has been described by Pfann. The purpose of the present paper is to describe a method of analyzing exactly the particular program used which enables the segregation effect to be predicted for any number of molten-zone passages in a long ingot. The method is applied to the particular case of refinement of an ingot whose impurity initially is uniformly distributed throughout its length. A number of molten zones of equal length are passed through the ingot effecting a radical redistribution of impurity. Pfann has indicated an approximate method, due to R. W. Hamming, of calculating the resultant concentration after each successive zone pass for a particular value of the segregation constant defined in his paper. Here a solution will be presented in terms of the number of zone passes and the segregation constant. The expression, though cumbersome, is exact and susceptible to ordinary numerical computation procedures. The results of a similar computation using the procedure of Hamming are presented in a table together with the exact results of the present method. The discrepancy in terms of absolute concentrations is tabulated for the first eight zone-lengths. To establish the notation (which follows that of Pfann1 as closely as possible) and physical basis of the analytical equations, the physical model and principal assumptions may be reviewed. An alloy of two elements, where there is formed a continuous range of solid solutions, usually does not melt as a simple compound. Rather, a temperature is reached where the solid solution is in heterogeneous phase equilibrium with a liquid solution of different composition. The temperature dependence of these equilibrium compositions forms part of the phase diagram. For very small concentrations of a solute B in a solvent A, this usually takes the form of Fig. 1. Sometimes the solidus and liquidus slope upward. This corresponds to a segregation constant (defined below) which is greater than unity. The segregation constant is now defined as k = Cn(x)/CnI(x) [1] where C,,(x) is the impurity concentration in the solid ingot at distance x during the nth passing of a molten zone and Cnl (x) is the impurity concentration of the liquid zone from which the solid at dis- tance x is formed (see Fig. 4 of ref. 1.) C (x) remains the same after passage of the zone. The constant k may be either greater or less than unity in general. Purification in the former case is effected only in a finite ingot and in the portion that is melted last. For k less than unity purification is effected even in an infinite ingot. The method which follows gives, in the former case, the successive increases in impurity concentration and, in the latter case, the successive decreases in concentration. The general case of impurity redistribution will be considered first, and purification will be discussed later on. The analysis rests on the following assumption: The movement of the zone is too rapid to allow appreciable atomic rearrangement in the solid sections and too slow to disturb the uniform impurity distribution in the liquid zone characteristic of equilibrium. Hence, the composition in the solid at the left solidifying interface will be determined by Eq. 1 while the impurity concentration of the liquid zone will be uniform throughout its length. The reasoning which follows closely parallels that of Appendix 11 in Pfann&apos;s paper. It is reviewed here for the case of the nth zone pass in order to make clear the meaning of an operator essential to the present method. Fig. 4 of ref. 1 shows the movement of a molten zone of length 1 in an ingot of total length d. Each Cn(x) can be determined from the condition that the amount of solute added to the zone during an incremental advance, dx, is due to the melting in of a solid portion C(x)dx and the freezing out of kCnl(x), that is d I —r- CnL (x) dx = Cn-1 (x+l)- kCnL (x) dx or, in terms of Cn(x) d k k —— C,(x) +—c.(x) =— Cn-1 (x + l). [2] dx l l This, of course, is derived from the main assumption, the fact that 1 is constant, and that the total impurity content previously present up to x + 1 is constant . A correction has to be made for the region (d — nl) < x < d. This is due to the zone length changing during the passage of the solidifying interface beyond x = d — 1. Since the general solution would be too complicated otherwise, only the region 0 < x < d — nl is considered. The general solution of Eq. 2 is

Jan 1, 1954

By William G. Fricke

MaCROSEGREGATION, as distinct from microseg-regation, is often inverse in nature. That is, the eu-tectic solute elements, which are expected to be con-

Jan 1, 1970

By D. W. Smith

The beta solid solution phases of the systems copper-zinc, copper-aluminum, copper-tin and silver-zinc are structurally analogous.&apos; R. F. Mehl and 0. T. Marzke2 have shown that the a phase upon segregating from the 6 phase in the system copper-zinc takes the form of needles lying parallel to a [Ill] direction or some similar direction, such as [556], of the parent solid solution, and that the a phase upon segregating from the ß phase in the system copper-aluminum also takes the form of needles. By analogy they assume that in this case also the segregate needles lie parallel to the [ill] or [556] direction in the ß lattice. The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether the structures resulting from segregation of the a phases from the respective ß phases of the systems copper-tin and silver-zinc are analogous to those obtained by Mehl and Marzke in the systems copper-zinc and copper-aluminum. Segregation of the a Phase from the ß Phase in the Copper-tin System Preparation of the Alloy.—An alloy containing 74.92 per cent (by weight) of copper and the balance tin was chosen for this investigation. This alloy, as can be seen from a portion of the constitutional diagram, Fig. 1, of the system copper-tin by Hamasumi and Nishigori,3 with the proper heat treatment should segregate the « phase out of the a parent, solid solution phase. The alloy was prepared from high purity cathode copper (analyzing 99.98 per cent Cu) and Straits tin (analyzing 99.94

Jan 1, 1933

By Faustino Roel

AMONG the problems confronting the mining engineer in Mexico in recent years, labor conflicts have come to occupy s prominent place. Each day they have become more serious and frequently have caused- the ruin of companies. It is therefore necessary for the engineer to understand the Federal Labor Law, the rights and obligations of companies and of their workmen, and the reasons for conflicts; to keep in mind the expense which may be caused companies; and to endeavor to avoid difficulties as far as possible. Our labor legislation is primarily to protect the workman and the constant tendency of the tribunals, including the Supreme Court of Justice, is to support the work- man in his demands against employer$, even at times granting him more than he asks, with no limit other than the economic capacity of the company to com-

Jan 1, 1937

By C. R. Wohrman

A MELT of pure electrolytic iron with about 0.4 per cent. sulfur and 7 per cent. manganese was prepared in connection with a study of inclusions in iron. The alloy darkened rapidly when etched with a 10 per cent. alcoholic solution of nitric acid, and microscopic examination revealed the presence of a semimartensitic, semi-Widmanstättian structure (Figs. 1 and 2) closely resembling the structures found by Benedicks in his artificially prepared "meteoric iron." 1 The structures found by Benedicks were readily explained by the presence in his alloy of the two well known iron-nickel solid solutions, taenite and kamacite, and of their eutectoid (?) aggregate, plessite. By analogy, one would infer the existence of similar phases in the iron-manganese alloy just described, such as inference being strengthened by the similarity displayed in many ways by nickel and manganese in their effects on iron. IRON-MANGANESE ALLOTS ARE REGARDED AS HOMOGENEOUS Heterogeneity of iron-manganese alloys has not been recognized heretofore, judging from the data of standard metallographic books and those of original papers. In fact, iron and manganese are quite generally regarded as completely miscible in the solid state. Dr. Rosenhain,2 for example, writes: Alloys of group (a), of which those of gold-silver, iron-manganese, and copper-nickel are examples, when allowed to crystallize sufficiently slowly to attain their condition of final equilibrium, present a microstructure exactly similar to that of a pure metal-the homogeneous character of the molten solution is in that case so completely maintained that the microscope cannot detect the presence of any second constituent.

Jan 1, 1927

By Thomas Chance

ALL gravity methods for the separation of ore from gangue, or of slate and other refuse from coal, are based upon differences in the falling velocities, in some fluid medium such as air or water, of the materials to be separated. As all materials falling in a vacuum have the same velocity, independent of the size, shape, weight or specific gravity of their individual particles, it would be more accurate to describe the operation of these methods as depending upon the. retardation of falling velocities effected by the resistance of a fluid medium, this retardation being greater for small or light particles than for large or heavy particles. This generalization is true also of those appliances utilizing centrifugal force to replace or to supplement the action of gravity. The separation of materials of different specific gravities by means of a fluid having a specific gravity greater than that of the lighter particles and less than that of the heavier particles has not been applied commercially, or on a large scale, to the separation of ores or to the washing of coal, the method being limited to laboratory experimental work or to laboratory determinations for the purpose of checking up the work of jigs, classifiers, and other types of concentrating appliances. A solution of zinc chloride has thus come into general use inn the laboratory to separate coal, bony coal and slate, both to check up the work of coal-washing plants and for the purpose of making tests preliminary to the designing of coal-washing plants. The use of a heavy solution of some chemical in water has often been proposed for making such separations, especially in connection with the washing or preparation of coal. Practically insuperable difficulties, however, have prevented the commercial development of any such process, the difficulties being both physical and financial. The cost of the chemical used to make high-gravity solutions is usually prohibitive, and the freeing of the coal from all traces of the chemical is found to be practically impossible. Such solutions inevitably penetrate the individual lumps and particles of coal, transfusing into the pores and saturating the joint-planes, and very large quantities of wash water

Jan 2, 1918

By Felix A. Vogel

I (New York Meeting, February, 1912.) FLUE-DUST, to most blast-furnace operators, means a troublesome by-product, the formation of which should be curtailed, if not prevented entirely. However, with the increasing use of fine ores, larger furnaces, and high-pressure blast, the production of flue-dust is constantly increasing, and amounts annually in the United States to from 3,000,000 to 3,500,000 tons, An exceedingly high tonnage, of which a large part has been discarded as valueless. As a result of greater economy in the iron industry, the attention of our furnace-men has been directed towards the utilization of this enormous amount of waste material, a problem which had also been given due consideration by metallurgists abroad. Flue-dust is generally a fine material containing considerable coke and iron-ore, with a small admixture of lime and silica, depending upon the burden. The iron-ore is partly reduced, which shows that the dust originates largely in the reducing-zone of the blast-furnace. In the United States this dust usually contains 20 per cent. of coke and more than 40 per cent. of iron. Estimating coke to be worth $3.25 per ton, and iron-ore 7 cents per unit, a ton of flue-dust, unless made available, represents a loss to the furnace-man of $3.50. This accounts for the first efforts to recharge the flue-dust into the furnace, either by moistening it clown with an excess of water, or mixing it with clay to form balls of pulp, or treating it with lime-water. These methods, however, have been practically discarded, as they failed to produce the desired economies. To recover, in the blast-furnace, all the values represented by the material contained in the flue-dust, the following con¬ditions should be complied with

May 1, 1912

By J. E. House, J. L. Drobnick, R. R. Swanson, D. W. Agers

Since the commercial acceptance of the liquid ion exchange process in the mineral processing industry, it has been predicted that eventually the hydrometallurgist would have a wide selection of commercially available chemical reagents to make separations efficiently and economically of virtually all metals in solution under a wide range of conditions. Several years ago, General Mills began a research and development program to determine if it were possible to develop a reagent to extract a specific metallic ion from solution at a cost that would allow large scale commercial application. A giant step toward reaching this objective was announced in late 1963, when development quantities of LIX®-63 reagent, a highly selective reagent for the extraction of copper, were first offered to industry. The properties of this reagent were de- scribed in a previous paper.1

Jan 12, 1965

By F. Lowell Lawrance

JOHN SMITH, citizen of the U.S.A., has become so accustomed to reading that Congress has appropriated billions of dollars to pay war costs. that he no longer is impressed by relatively small figures, such as several hundred thousand or a few million, in connection with Government departments.

Jan 1, 1944

By M. S. Burton, H. H. Kranzlein, G. V. Smith

The influence of up to 2 at. pct of Ni and Pt on the yield strength of mono- and polycrystalline high-purity iron has been evaluated at temperatures from + 25° to -196°C. Current theories of solid -solution strengthening fail to explain the experimental observations. The temperature dependence of yield stress was found to be less in the alloys than that in high-purity iron. The room-temperature yield stress increased with alloy content, but at —78°C the yield strength first decreased with increasing a1loy content. AS a result of many studies, a number of theories have been proposed for solid-solution strengthening. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate these theories, as applied to the solid-solution strengthening observed in Fe-Ni and Fe-Pt alloys. Of various theories of solid-solution strengthening, those of Cottrell,1,2 Fisher,3 Suzuki,4 and Mott and Nabarro5 are most prominent, and have been discussed widely in the literature.&apos;-&apos; Of the recent concepts of solid-solution hardening the work of Fleischer9 is notable. Each of these models has been applied to particular alloy systems with some success, but in general none has proved generally applicable. In many of the previous studies to assess the effects of alloy additions in ferrous systems, lack of adequate control of the purity and grain size of the materials has obscured strengthening effects, so that few comprehensive data relating composition, temperature, and change of lattice parameter have been determined. In the present investigation an attempt was made to obtain data which would be meaningful in evaluating the theories of strengthening. Materials of high purity were used to minimize extraneous impurity effects, and both single crystals and polycrystalline materials were studied to evaluate the effect of grain boundaries. Nickel and platinum were chosen as alloy additions, because both belong to the same chemical group and have the same crystal structure and valence, with markedly different atomic diameters. It appeared that some conclusions regarding atomic size effect on strengthening might be made. MATERIALS AND PROCEDURES Fe-Ni and Fe-Pt alloys containing 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 at. pct alloy additions were prepared from high-purity materials. The iron was supplied by the American Iron and Steel Institute from a stock of 99.98 pct zone-refined iron prepared by Battelle Memorial Institute. The minimum purity of the nickel and platinum used for alloying was 99.98 and 99.999 pct, respectively. Alloys were prepared by levitation melting, cast into cylindrical copper molds, and cooled, all under a partial pressure (0.3 atm) of purified helium. Samples were 0.375 in. in diameter and weighed 20 to 25 g. Chemical analyses of the alloys are given in Table I. A sample of unalloyed iron also was cast as a control specimen.

Jan 1, 1965

By AIME AIME

THE best meeting ever held, was the opinion expressed by a number of those who attended the annual meeting of the Institute in New York, Feb. 18 to 21, and there was an atmosphere of friendliness and good fellowship about it that fully justified the feeling. In numbers it was not quite so large as last year and unless the Engineering Societies should build for themselves a new building it is probable that no meeting can be larger, in respect to numbers, than that held in 1928, which was only made possible by the circumstance that the eighth floor of the building happened to be, temporarily vacant at the time. The number of rooms available for -sessions that were provided when the building was built long ago proved inadequate, and it is only by the expedient of obtaining the temporary use of the board and committee rooms of other societies that it is possible to arrange for the over 40 sessions that must be spread over the four days of the meeting. The-fifth floor, where. a buffet lunch is served each-day, has reached its full capacity and it seems quite evident that any future development of Institute meetings must be along the lines of quality, not size.

Jan 1, 1929