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By C. A. Gibbons

AFTER nine years of extremely de- pressed business, marked mostly A with red ink on the balance sheets of most coal companies and with an increasing internal competitive struggle for diminishing markets, somewhat of a change appeared during 1939. Shipments increased and prices generally firmed, giving the coal industry increasing optimism and encouragement for the future. Specifically, it now appears that bituminous coal production for 1939 will approximate 378,000,000 tons, and anthracite production will approximate 47,500,000 tons, bituminous production being around 14 per cent ahead of 1938 and anthracite production 12 per cent better. The curve on p. 31, showing both bituminous and anthracite production, furnished by the bituminous coal division of the Department of the Interior, shows graphically most of the 1939 monthly production and clearly illustrates the increased production.

Jan 1, 1940

Discussions of the paper of Mr. Gayley read by title at the Lake Superior hieeting, but first presented at the New York meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, October, 1904 (see p. 746). With the exception of Mr. Pourcel's discussion (p. 1038), these papers are here published under a mutual agreement between the Councils of the two Institutes, and will also be found, with others, in the Journal of the Iron and Steel In-slitute for the pear 1904, Mr. E. Windsor Richards, Past-President,' said that in 1799 Mr. Dawson, of Low Moor, read a paper before a scientific society in York pointing out the great diff'erence in the moisture of the air going into the blast-furnace in the hot months of the year and in the winter months. A cold blast-furnace was a very sensitive instrument, and showed this very clearly, for in June, July and August the furnace did not drive so well; it did not make the quality of iron and required more fuel; so that Mr. Gayley was on the right road to effect an enormous improvement in this direction. He considered that Mr. Gayley was on the way to great success, and hoped that the apparatus would not be a very expensive one. He supposed it mas too early for Mr. Gayley to let them know what the saviug was

Jan 1, 1905

Jan 1, 1920

By Carl Lee

CHICAGO in the last week of June fulfilled all its promises to the visiting engineers except one. This holds true with respect to the activities of the Regional Meeting of the A. I. M. E. in particular and of Engineers' Week in general. No one expected to find much of the beautiful in the outward aspects of the Fair-the Century of Progress Exposition, to be more formal; but they expected novelty, color, and startling lighting effects at night, and they were in no sense disappointed. It has been said that the architecture is a portent of the style of the buildings of the future; most who have seen the Fair hope that this forecast will prove inaccurate. As to the exhibits themselves, they are splendid. They are in keeping with the theme of the Exposition-a Century of Progress in science, in engineering, in the industries based upon them. No attempt will be made here even to suggest the exhibits that are most interesting. There are plenty for every one; and any member of the Institute who has the opportunity should by all means visit Chicago before the end of October.

Jan 1, 1933

By PERCY E. BARBOUR

SECONDARY copper1 has &come more or less of a bugbear generally. What is its influence is often the subject of heated argument. The inedapable fact usually quoted is that since in 1929 primary production of copper in the United States was 1,026,348 tons and secondary production was 626,550 tons, there- fore, 0.6 lb. of secondary is produced for every pound of primary, and "How can you get around that?" The matter seems very plain, now that I have reached my conclusions, but they are the result of much laborious study and research. I shall show that' the production of secondary copper is not 0.6 per lb. of primary, in spite of statistical appearances; that the production of secondary is a function of primary production rather than of price; that secondary production has 'only a sub-. ordinate influence on the price of copper and then only in abnormal times; that there is not an accumulating reservoir of secondary from which the country is some- time to be drowned in copper, as is believed by some, or a reservoir from which we are going to draw much needed and more or less inexhaustible stores in the future, as is believed by others; and finally, that the United States always produces more copper than it uses and exports the surplus. These are all controversial points, and for that reason and to anticipate argument I have set forth my reasoning in considerable detail.

Jan 1, 1931

By Arthur F. Taggart

The quality of aggregate materials is. of major importance in governing durability and permanence of concrete structures. The problem of selecting suitable aggregate materials is two-fold. Geological factors include the type and character of the aggregate source, presence of known or suspected reactive constituents, and presence of thermally incompatible materials. Laboratory investigations include petrographic studies, soundness and reactivity tests, and tests of thermal properties. The importance of each factor in the selection of satisfactory aggregate material is considered in detail.

Jan 1, 1950

By J. V. W. REYNDERS

IN THE remarks which I am about to make concern¬ing the safety work of the Bureau of Mines, I want first of all to disengage myself from a disposition, which is frequently in evidence, to give spectacular emphasis to the hazards of mining operations. It is of the' utmost importance to the industrial welfare of our country that the enormous annual requirement of fuel be produced and be made available in our economic activities, with a minimum of distress and hardship. The safety of coal mining is a condition with which. we are all concerned in a fundamental way. And yet we should not rush to accept hastily conceived notions that laxity among employers in respect to safety measures exists to any outstanding degree. In fact in a large number of instances, the precautionary efforts of min¬ing companies, directed to the elimination of accidents are beyond all criticism, albeit the industry suffers in reputation from the carelessness of, its less effi¬cient constituents. The Bureau of Mines has been a leading influence in disseminating the doctrines of safety, in securing the cooperation of the miners themselves, and in stirring up ' the laggards, both among the employers and the employed. It is much to the interest of well-conducted mine operations that the industry, as a whole, observe safety regulations to the utmost.

Jan 1, 1925

By George C. Stone

AS most of you probably know, Australia has had many strikes. The two places that had the worst reputation were the Broken Hill mines and Port Pirie, where the smelter was located. About four or five years ago, the smelter changed hands. The new proprietors - immediately endeavored to get on better terms with the men and made such progress in that respect that, the men came to them and said, "There is no use giving us any more money. You have just raised our pay one- bob a day, but the store-keeper and the boarding-house keeper have raised their prices. The boarding housekeeper raised our board three bob a week and the storekeeper took the rest of it and we are no better off." Learning that what the men needed most was firewood wood the company bought the wood on a tract of ground across Spencer's Gulf and- sent men over to cut it. The wood was brought to the works and given to a man to cut up. He thought he had an easy job and loafed, but when the committee representing the men discovered that his loafing added to the cost of 'the wood, it promptly disciplined him and made -him work as he had never worked before. The next question that arose was the distribution of the wood. The committee got bids from several cartmen whose prices varied from about two to five shillings. It gave the work to the next to the lowest bidder. The fact that if delivering the wood cost more, the user would have to pay for it, was an entirely new idea to the men.

Jan 1, 1920

By Henry Mackay

THE interesting paper recently submitted by Messrs. Tobelmann and Potter' shows that chemical problems have developed which are of great interest in this new and important branch of metallurgy. Those who realize what a process of this kind really involves will agree that it deserves a better name than "leaching process." The word leaching conveys the idea that the copper is simply leached out of the ore with acid and then precipitated on iron; the chemistry of such a process would be of little interest. As, however, during the first year's operation of this plant 24,400,532 lb. (11,067,837 kg.) or about two-thirds of the produce, was electrolytic copper, while 7,992,033 lb., or about one-third, was cement copper, it would seem more appropriate to term the process electrochemical. It further appears, from the particulars given, that efforts have been made to have the entire production in the form of electrolytic copper. -This could be done if the chemistry of the problem were kept in balance, so that it would not be necessary to discard any solutions that carried copper and acid of commercial value. A process, such as that under consideration, in which the copper is precipitated from solution by electrolysis, the solvent being at the same time regenerated, is one that requires special chemical and electrochemical knowledge and experience if all the -copper in solution that has been extracted from the ore is to be successfully and economically produced as electrolytic copper. The object of this paper is to discuss, from the practical and theoretical standpoints, the chemical and electrochemical problems involved in the working of a process of this kind, and' which must be solved to keep it in chemical and electrochemical equilibrium. In such a process, if the chemical balance is maintained, a solution can be used alternately as a

Jan 9, 1919

By L. S. Cates

THE war is now behind us. We in the mining industry feel a just pride in the part that our industry and our men and our products played in defeating the enemy on the fighting fronts around the world. In five years of mobilization and actual combat, our mines and oil wells produced over 3 billion tons of coal, a billion tons of petroleum, 500 million tons of iron ore, 21/4 million tons of lead, 31/2 million tons of zinc, 5 million tons of copper, 14 million tons of bauxite, 17 million tons of sulphur, 68 million tons of salt, and 3 million tons of potash. It was an unparalleled performance. But what of today? Why the present low production and high costs? Among the black clouds in the mining sky none are so black as that presented by the labor situation. We know it is the result of the legislation and the interpretation of that legislation in the past ten or fifteen years. Since the passage of the Norris-LaGuardia Act in 1932, we have had nothing but a succession of laws, regulations, and decisions that have intensified the strength of the unions and made the operators of the mines and the sources of their financing prartirally impotent

Jan 1, 1946

By F. F. ESPIE

Giving the keynote address in the final session of a conference dealing with closely related topics has a disadvantage in that much of what can be said has been said. It also has an advantage, however, because it presents the speaker with the opportunity to integrate and analyse the material presented by the various speakers. I would like to look to the near future in Australia and the United States of America, to the risks, problem areas, and changes of a rapidly evolving post-industrial era-an era we are beginning to experience where industry no longer 'calls the tune'. We miners have been quick to point out and emphasize, that ours is a 'high-risk' industry in the world of business and commerce. Yet, clearly those who have survived, and been successful, have learned to anticipate and cope with risk and change. This ability has been a 'distinguishing feature of the industry's leaders who, in market studies and commodity selection, exploration and development, mine planning, metallurgical pro- cessing, and general administration and operation 1. identify areas-of risk or inevitable change, 2. analyse, test and quantify those factors of risk or change, and 3. design methods, systems, equipment to eliminate, moderate, or control or economically compensate for predicted risks or changes.

Jan 1, 1978

By Norman C. Stines

Russia's mineral potential is a secret that has been effectively kept by the Iron Curtain. There is no conclusive data and because of its extreme importance to the Free World, the subject is greatly discussed. Opinions range from those presented by Paul Tyler in his article "Russia's Mineral Potential," June issue of MINING ENGINEERING to those of Norman C. Stines, presented herewith. Mr. Stines is a consulting mining engineer of Los Gatos, Calif. He was in Russia, China, and Manchuria from 1909 to 1918 as a mining executive. From 1917 to 1919 he served as assistant military attache Intelligence Branch U. S. Army in Petrograd, Russia.

Jan 11, 1951

By Henry Wurtz

Jan 1, 1880

By KENNETH W. GREENAWALT, William Greenawalt

THE patent system, through which an inventor is given exclusive right to his invention for a limited period as a reward for his industry and in reimbursement of his expenditures, originated in England in the famous "Statute of Monopolies," enacted in 1623. The first patent granted in America was to Samuel Winslow, in Massachusetts, in 1641. The basis of the patent system of the United States is a provision in the Constitution giving Congress the power to secure to inventors for a limited time the exclusive use of their discoveries. The first legislative enactment was the law of 1790, which was placed on the statute book after Washington had addressed Congress in its favor. Under this law, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Attorney General constituted the board for the examination of patent applications and the granting of patents. The first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, became the first administrator of the patent sys- tem in this country. He personally examined every application filed during his term of office.

Jan 1, 1930

By Lawrence Addicks

T HIS has been a most momentous year in the annals of the Institute. We have been in the midst of a situation which, were it not for the convulsions of social unrest with which life is surrounded on every side, would have attracted the attention of the world at large. I do not refer to the desperate campaign for new members. That has gone on much as usual except that, this being leap year, the annual proposal to the M. & M. Society has been omitted. Nor do I refer to the desperate situation which we found in other directions, the spread of Bolshevism, the burning of the Engineers' Club, the fact that the selling of copper appears to have become one of the lost arts. No, I speak of the great question which has to be. settled once and for all, as to whether this great Institute should adopt simplified spelling. The whole trouble started in the ranks of the California Hysterical Society. It appears, while most of the San Francisco members can read and write, several of them cannot spell. It also appears that the Secretary, in editing the Transactions, has perhaps made just a little bit too much of a point of employing the correct Stoughton idiom. At any rate, the rebels filed an amendment to the constitution, and the stage was set for civil war, with perhaps more stress on war than on civil.

Jan 1, 1920

By HILAND BATCHELLER

COMMENT on the economic significance of the special alloy steels seems inevitably to reduce itself to an attempt to peer into the future of the industry in which we are interested. We are all familiar with the historical development of iron and with the almost complete replacement of iron by steel. Those who have been connected with the industry since its .early days have had the satisfaction of witnessing the greatest industrial development the world has seen. As the cartoonists of the muck-raking decade liked to picture steel as an ogre armed with a spiked club, his hands reeking with blood and with golden coins dripping from his pocket, fiercely seeking for more widows and orphans to devour, I choose to call on my imagination to create a gigantic but beneficent robot of such marvellous mechanical skill. that it quickly transforms millions of tons of otherwise worthless material into the infinite variety of useful products which are so largely responsible for our present civilization.

Jan 1, 1931

By E. V. Daveler, Frank L. Antisell

CERTAIN physical and chemical properties of copper are so intimately related that a change in variation of the physical properties indicates a certain chemical change. The standard specifications of copper of the American Society for Testing Materials are based upon physical characteristics with one exception, namely, the copper contents. Certain phenomena of the surface indicate the adaptability of the metal for forging or rolling. The writer believes that it is much simpler to produce shapes that are metallurgically correct than those that are mechanically satisfactory. The appearance of the surface of the copper when cooled is considered as to its "pitch," or the general contour of the surface, and the "set," or the decail appearance of the surface of the shape. The set of the copper is, in a very large measure, directly related to the pitch; and so intimately are these characteristics connected that they are often used as synonymous terms by the refiner when he is speaking of well-refined copper. Oxygen is often spoken of as a medicine for copper, it being used to regulate the pitch.

Jan 1, 1920

Andrew Carnegie, America's best-known ironmaster and philanthropist, died at his home at Lenox, Mass., Monday, Aug. 11, after a three days' illness. A pioneer in the steel industry, he introduced into this .country the Bessemer process And formed the plans that have resulted in this country's supremacy in the steel markets of the world. Known throughout the world for his, gifts, he is also known to engineers as the donor of the home of their National Societies and as the founder of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, of Pittsburgh. For many years, also, he was an honorary member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and of the Engineers Club of New York. What he considered the secret, of his success is shown by the epitaph he wrote for himself, "Here lies a man who knew how to enlist in his service better men than himself." He was buried Thursday, Aug. 14, in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarry-town, N. Y., the funeral services being private, in accordance with his wish.

Jan 9, 1919

By R. W. Raymond

(Chattanooga Meeting, October, 1908.) THE immense commercial value of the Gayley dry-blast process has been established beyond controversy. The testimony of practical blast-furnace managers, on both sides of the Atlantic, agrees that it reduces the cost of pig-iron about $1 per ton; but from the same testimony it appears that this direct economy does not by any means cover its commercial advantages-in fact, that under conditions frequently encountered in practice, it presents other benefits of even greater immediate financial importance. To this point I shall recur in a later part of the present paper. The history of the reception given to this invention, especially on the other side of the Atlantic, has repeated an experience familiar to American engineers. First, the reports of our practice were rejected as theoretically impossible, according to generally accepted notions and formulas; then the figures were reluctantly accepted ; and finally the attempt has been made to explain how they could have been obtained. As to the Gayley dry blast, we Americans have been for several years in the last stage of the discussion, and the rest of the professional world is rapidly coming to it. Meanwhile, the remark has been repeatedly made that, whatever Mr. Gayley's process may turn out to be worth, it was not an invention on his part, but simply the energetic and persevering execution of a procedure already proposed by others. This question I wish to discuss first in the present paper. I. WHAT DID MR. GAYLEY INVENT Realizing that this is not the place for detailed argument on an issue of patent law, I shall not undertake to quote and criticise the publications prior to Mr. Gayley's first patents. It may be admitted, without such critical analysis, that the possi-

Jan 1, 1909

By Robert :H. . Lesemann

I recently gave a talk at a seminar on mine development in the Eighties. I had to present CRU' s long-range market outlook for copper, lead, zinc, nickel, molybdenum and silver. In reviewing the recent history of each metal, and our projections, I tried to find some common pattern of behavior that could prove a guide in projecting future market behavior. When you sweep aside your input-output models and econometric equations, what you seem to be left with is this: "When a market goes through a prolonged period of price weakness, you can usually look forward to a period of considerable improvement. " "When a market goes through a prolonged period of price strength, you can always anticipate a prolonged period of price weakness." Stated another way, "The better things are, the worse they will get."

Jan 1, 1982