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By Tell Ertl

THE Piceance Creek Basin in northwestern Colorado is believed to contain the richest large deposit of oil shale in North America. The major portion, about 1650 sq miles, is bounded by the White River on the north, the Grand Hogback, which runs from Meeker to Rifle, on the east, the Colorado River to the south, and the drainage basin of Salt and Douglas Creeks on the west. The Basin is a plateau 7000 to 9000 ft high, composed of 3000 ft of the Green River series of Eocene age and surrounded by a steep escarpment of 1000 to 3000 ft. From the escarpment the beds dip gently toward the center. Although oil shale is found in all members of the Green River series, the rich thick beds are found chiefly in the Parachute Creek member. This is normally capped by 100 to 200 ft of the Evacuation Creek, the youngest member of the Green River series. Actually the Piceance Creek Basin oil shale is not a shale, nor does it contain oil. It is magnesium marlstone holding solid organic matter capable of being broken down by heat into gases, some of which can be condensed into oil. The marlstone is resilient nonporous rock, difficult to sample by pick or hammer and moil. Many companies and individuals prospected the Colorado oil shale shortly after the first World War,' see Fig. 1, but because of the discovery of large quantities of petroleum in the late 1920's in Cali- fornia, Oklahoma, and East Texas, interest in oil shale development waned and did not revive until World War 11. In 1944 the writer, employed by the Bureau of Mines, prospected the high grade oil shale in numerous places along the southern outcrop of the Piceance Creek Basin. Several channel samples about 100 ft in length were cut, see Fig. 2. An eight-man crew needed a week to cut a satisfactory channel 80 ft long in the cliff face. The Phillips Petroleum Co., the Union Oil Co. of California and others also prospected the oil shale outcrop. In 1945 the Bureau of Mines initiated a core drilling program for the purpose of obtaining accurate samples from the Piceance Creek Basin. The U. S. Geological Survey set up a program for the geological study of the Basin that is still going on." Until the end of 1951 a total of 31 holes was drilled for core with diamond drills, and, in addition, cuttings through the oil shale have been obtained from 4 gas wells drilled by standard rotary oil well rigs. The Bureau of Mines drilled 12 of the holes, the Union Oil Company of California 8, the Standard Oil Company of California 6, the Sun Oil Company 3,

Jan 1, 1953

By Tell Ertl

THE Piceance Creek Basin in northwestern Colorado is believed to contain the richest large deposit of oil shale in North America. The major portion, about 1650 sq miles, is bounded by the White River on the north, the Grand Hogback, which runs from Meeker to Rifle, on the east, the Colorado River to the south, and the drainage basin of Salt and Douglas Creeks on the west. The Basin is a plateau 7000 to 9000 ft high, composed of 3000 ft of the Green River series of Eocene age and surrounded by a steep escarpment of 1000 to 3000 ft. From the escarpment the beds dip gently toward the center. Although oil shale is found in all members of the Green River series, the rich thick beds are found chiefly in the Parachute Creek member. This is normally capped by 100 to 200 ft of the Evacuation Creek, the youngest member of the Green River series. Actually the Piceance Creek Basin oil shale is not a shale, nor does it contain oil. It is magnesium marlstone holding solid organic matter capable of being broken down by heat into gases, some of which can be condensed into oil. The marlstone is resilient nonporous rock, difficult to sample by pick or hammer and moil. Many companies and individuals prospected the Colorado oil shale shortly after the first World War,' see Fig. 1, but because of the discovery of large quantities of petroleum in the late 1920's in Cali- fornia, Oklahoma, and East Texas, interest in oil shale development waned and did not revive until World War 11. In 1944 the writer, employed by the Bureau of Mines, prospected the high grade oil shale in numerous places along the southern outcrop of the Piceance Creek Basin. Several channel samples about 100 ft in length were cut, see Fig. 2. An eight-man crew needed a week to cut a satisfactory channel 80 ft long in the cliff face. The Phillips Petroleum Co., the Union Oil Co. of California and others also prospected the oil shale outcrop. In 1945 the Bureau of Mines initiated a core drilling program for the purpose of obtaining accurate samples from the Piceance Creek Basin. The U. S. Geological Survey set up a program for the geological study of the Basin that is still going on." Until the end of 1951 a total of 31 holes was drilled for core with diamond drills, and, in addition, cuttings through the oil shale have been obtained from 4 gas wells drilled by standard rotary oil well rigs. The Bureau of Mines drilled 12 of the holes, the Union Oil Company of California 8, the Standard Oil Company of California 6, the Sun Oil Company 3,

Jan 1, 1953

By M. M. Slotnick

IT was once aptly said that a sign of approaching senility is ceasing work on a subject and beginning to talk about it. Perhaps that explains why, after many years in which part of my duties has been the training of college men in various branches of petroleum exploration geophysics, I have now begun to talk about it. In making an outline of what I believe ought to be discussed under the general heading of the title, I found it almost impossible to subdivide the ideas into an ordered set of discrete subjects. Rather, the pertinent remarks seemed to interlock almost everywhere. The consequence is that it will be necessary to start with the conclusions and then try to justify them by jumping back and forth. However, based on the types of men with whom I have had to deal, the subject naturally divides itself into two parts. In the first part, I should like to deal with the case of those undergraduates whose natural bent is toward the physical sciences and who may decide to enter the geophysical fold as a career. The other part will deal with those many men, geologists and engineers for the most part, who have drifted into exploration geophysics by one means or another, and whom it is necessary to train for geophysical work while they are occupied in their routine jobs. Here it may be in point to remark that most men in exploration geophysics at present have been developed from precisely the latter group, and that the problem of training here is of great importance even though, in this paper, it will perforce occupy the secondary place. TRAINING OF A GEOPHYSICIST The outstanding reason for the perplexing problem on the training of a geophysicist is that ideas differ on the answer to the question: "What is a geophysicist?" In any of the scientific "specialties," like physics, for example, it is relatively simple to pigeonhole a man as being qualified to call himself a physicist. That appellation applied to an individual does not mean that he has mastered only the branches of intellectual endeavor usually associated under the broad name of "physics." We expect him also to have a more than mere acquaintance with mathematics and chemistry and some understanding of most of the other sciences. But note this important point-we expect our physicist, whom we have chosen as an example, to be intelligently trained so that, if necessary, he can and will know how and where he can get the proper information on a subject in which he is not a specialist; he will know how to absorb that information and turn it to his uses. It seems to me that this is the outstanding characteristic of a man who can truly call himself a scientist: that he is a specialist in one of the broad branches of science and that he has enough training and discipline in the scientific approach so that, when called upon to do so, he can intelligently absorb knowledge from another bordering science (and all sciences not only border upon one another to some extent, but more often, overlap one another), and

Jan 1, 1941

By William B. Plank

IN this paper are presented the results of a complete statistical survey of the enrolment, courses and degrees, and the employment situation of recent graduates in all of the 46 institutions in the United States, including Alaska, and four of the six schools in Canada that grant degrees in mineral technology. The data were collected by the writer by means of a questionnaire in December, 1933, to which all the institutions, except one, replied. Included also are data of a similar study made by the writer in May, 1933, for the S. P. E. E. summer session of mining and metallurgical teachers at the University of Wisconsin and published in the Journal of Engineering Education for December. 1933. Some of the data of a paper of the writer's entitled, "The Trend of Mineral Engineering Student Enrolment in the United States," read at the A. I. M. E. meeting on Feb. 16. 1931, are given for comparison. Acknowledgment is made to all the administrative officers of the institutions who took the time from their busy lives to supply the in- formation asked for. Their fine cooperation has alone made possible these two surveys with a completeness of detail never before attempted

Jan 1, 1934

Attention! Engineers! Geologists! Here is your Opportunity to be of Professional Service The war has interrupted the supply of many minerals, which were normally imported. In view of present transportation conditions, a serious shortage exists in certain materials and will soon develop in others. Some immediate action is imperative. The first thing is to take a careful inventory of American resources. We must know where the ore deposits are, what has hitherto hindered their utilization, what methods must be used, and what equipment will be needed if an emergency demands their rapid development. Many properties must be re-examined from a new point of view, that of present necessity rather than of normal profit. When the shortage is realized, the preliminary steps for relief should have been completed. It is a necessary and patriotic form of mineral insurance. Will you have a part in it? Do not forget that these are war times, and that what may have been valueless a year ago may be a "life-saver" now; an abandoned copper prospect of 1913 might make a successful pyrite mine in 1917. We are fighting an autocratic enemy who knows his resources to the last pound, and uses them with most efficient organization. We have no Kaiser, so each of us must do his share to put our Government in the same situation. The Government needs your facts.

Jan 8, 1917

By R. E. Hummel, J. W. Koger

IT is generally accepted that the martensitic start temperature (Ms) can be determined by resistivity measurements and is that temperature where the resistivity vs temperature curve on cooling first deviates from a straight line.1-4 Both Titchener and ever' and pops5 have used resistivity measurements to follow the martensitic transformation in b1 Cu-Zn and ternary Cu-Zn-based b-phase alloys, respectively. Actually because of the nature of their measurements the temperature of minimum resistivity (M) was used by these authors to determine "Ms" . Also, due to experimental difficulties in detecting M, with resistivity measurements, Pops and Massalski 8 determined M, by optical microscopy. The present communication is concerned with high-precision, low-temperature resistivity measurements which reveal a definite M, temperature which differs from the temperature of minimum resistivity (M). It is also shown that M is merely the result of the geometry of the percent-transformation curve and the temperature coefficient of resistivity of the alloy. In other words, it will be demonstrated that M has no apparent significance (except that it denotes a temperature at which some percent of martensite can be detected in a given alloy). Alloy specimens were made by melting 99.999 pct Cu and 99.9999 pct Zn in sealed and evacuated quartz tubes and homogenizing them at 601PC for 300 hr. After the alloy was cold-rolled into foils suitable for resistivity measurements, it was quenched in ice water from 871PC. The chemical analysis showed a zinc content of 38.8 wt pct. The cooling rate during the martensite transformation was 1°C per min and was controlled with a thermistor. Electrical resistivity measurements were made using a K-3 type potentiometer; the reproducibility of the resistivity values was better than 0.03 pct. Temperatures were measured with a thermocouple to an accuracy of better than 0.2° C. Fig. 1 shows the resistivity vs temperature curves of the martensitic transformation in B1 Cu-Zn for both cooling and heating. The starting point of the martensitic transformation (M,) was taken as that

Jan 1, 1968

By L. D. Ricketts

Discussion of the paper of L. D. RICKETTS, presented at the San Francisco meeting, September, 1915, and printed in Bulletin No. 100, April, 1915, pp. 711 to 737. FREDERICK LAIST, Anaconda, Mont.-I am going to tell you of some of the results we have been getting in Anaconda during the past two or three months in a large plant which was finished in May. We commenced work in Anaconda a year and a half ago on the construction of a leaching plant which was to have a capacity of 2,000 tons per day. The plant was to treat tailings from the concentrator, containing about 12 1b. of copper to the ton. During the past year we changed our plans and decided to use the flotation process on the tailings from the concentrator, which contained no oxidized copper, and apply the leaching process only to tailings which had accumulated in a large dump below the works. This dump contains about 15,000,000 tons of tailings, and since some of the copper in it is oxidized, we felt that the application of the flotation process would result in the loss of too much of the oxidized copper, particularly as time went on. In starting up we had a number of difficulties to overcome, as is usually the case. They were not of a serious character. The results obtained, so far, have been decidedly encouraging. During July the plant treated a total of 50,000 tons of tailings, or an average of 1,610 tons per clay. The extraction was about 83 per cent., which, on material of the grade treated, meant a. tailing assaying under 0.1 per cent. copper. The acid consumption was about 65 lb. per ton, and the fuel percentage in. roasting was about 4 ¼ . We expect to cut the fuel percentage in the next month or two to about 3 per cent., the high percentage during July being clue to starting up and shutting clown furnaces. We find that iron builds up in the solution to a marked degree. This is not a serious platter with us, because we have cheap sulphuric acid and can reject solution whenever it gets too foul. The extraction of silver has been remarkably good in the large plant. It has averaged better than 75 per cent. It seems that so long as we maintain salt in the solution to a percentage of 10 per cent., the extraction is good. We allowed the salt to fall off in order to find how low a percentage we could use. At about 7 per cent. the silver extraction fell to 65 per cent. This was to be expected, because silver chloride is soluble in strong brine, but not in weak brine.

Jan 12, 1915

By John A. Church

When, in 1879,I examined the mines of the Tombstone Mill and Mining Company, at Tombstone, Arizona, I found a bed of tailings containing 12,000 tons, which had a value of 9 to 12 ounces of silver per ton and some gold. The ore had been amalgamated in pans, in which each charge had been ground for four hours, having been pre viously stamped through rough-punched screens, which gave a pro duct varying from 1-100th to 1-20th of an inch, according to the state of wear of the screen. It was certain that a large proportion of the tailings must be in fine slimes, and the question of recovering their value was difficult. Even now the concentration of slimes is . an unwelcome task, and at that day very little was known about it. Nevertheless, after considering the results of a test by repanning the tailings, I advised the company to concentrate and smelt, although they had to face the difficulty of making a smelting-product from slimes containing only 3 per cent. of lead. Limestone was abundant enough, but no iron suitable for flux was to be had for hundreds of miles. One of the company's claims con tained an argeutiferous manganese-ore, which gave but poor results by amalgamation. This was one reason for recommending smelt ing ; for if manganese would play the part of a precipitant, as iron does, the company could smelt by combining two of its silver ores, without other flux than the small amount of lime that might be needed. At that time no smelter had ventured to trust manga nese as a precipitant, though large quantities of this ore containing silver were bought and used by custom-smelters, who looked upon the manganese solely as a basic flux for silica. I believe that no other furnace has been obliged to trust this metal, and that the man ganese practice of Tombstone remains unique among the records of smelting lead-ores in the shaft-furnace. The bright side of the problem was given by the fact that the mines were shallow and that the enterprise would at least begin with oxidized ores. The tailings contained about 85 per cent. of silica,

Jan 1, 1895

Frank Firmstone, Easton, Pa. (communication to the Secretary*) : It may not be amiss to point out that the top-pressure in iron blast-furnaces is largely affected by variations in the temperature of the gas. I find in my note-books, cases in which the pressure was from 9.25 to 9.5 in. of water when the material in the furnace was low (after dinner-hour), which fell to from 8 to 8.5 in., when the furnace was again full, and the gas consequently cooled. The chief cause for this effect is, that, at the higher temperature, there is a decrease in the weight of the gas in the descending-leg of the siphon formed by the down-comer and the chimneys. It does not seem probable that there is any direct relation between top-pressure and quantity of flue-dirt. Top-pressure, at any given moment, measures the " head " necessary to discharge the gas then passing, against the resistances of pipes, valves, etc., in the gas-conduits between the top of the furnace and the mouths of the chimneys, and can be increased at will by closing, more or less, the valves, or dampers, at the stoves and the boilers. The question of relation between top-pressure and flue-dirt can be settled very easily by direct experiment, working alternately with gas-valves open, and partly closed, and noting the top-pressures and the respective quantities of fluedirt collected. The quantities of fine ore blown away, as shown by Mr. Grammer's tables, are astonishing to one who has had no actual experience with Mesabi ore and hard driving. Flue-dirt, in the sense in which he uses the term, was unknown at anthracite furnaces so long as the working was normal; when it did occur, it was always an incident of scaffolding and bad work, and was no doubt caused by an increase in the velocity

Jan 1, 1904

By Louis B. Slichter

Prospecting is certainly the world's biggest and best gambling business. It is a game where the chips cost many thousands and where many millions, even billions, can be won. An attractive feature of this gamble is the fact that the players are free to rig the odds as favorably as possible. Only the limited bounty of nature, the restrictions of the laws of the land, the competition from other players, the limited sagacity of the player himself- only these, and other factors, restrict the possibilities for large winnings. Today probably about half the land surface of the earth remains to be searched for signs of ore visible at the surface. It is fortunate that so much land still remains for exploration by relatively economical methods. Looking to the future, it is a good guess that the costs of finding ore will increase in response to increasing technical difficulties. To continue to achieve profits from prospecting, it will become necessary to analyze the business more skillfully, in a more and more sophisticated manner. Whenever feasible, qualitative concepts must be replaced by their quantitative equivalents, improvements, and extensions.

Jan 6, 1960

By R. Simon

The sources of energy dissipation for concentrated loadings on rock are considered in an attempt to account for the experimentally measured magnitude of the work required to break out a unit volume of rock from the free surface of an essentially semi-infinite medium. It is concluded that most of this work probably represents the elastic strain energy developed by the loading in a much larger volume of rock beneath the loaded region than the volume of the rock fragment broken out to the side of the loaded region. This strain energy is largely dissipated in the form of stress waves generated by the high rate of unloading produced by the propagating cracks. The energies associated with the formation of the new surfaces of the cracks and with the stress waves generated directly by the loading process are computed to be negligibly small. Possibilities for improving the utilization of energy to drill rod. subject to the geometrical limitations imposed by down-hole operation, are discussed. It is pointed out that any such possible improvements would probably have to be differential ones, since each rock configuration of more favorabIe loading geometry that can be created down the hole is accompanied by a complementary configuration of less favorable loading geometry. INTRODUCTION Dislodging each cubic inch of rock from the bottom of the hole by the action of a bit requires the expenditure of an amount of energy that varies from approximately 5,000 in.-lb to approximately 100,000 in.-lb, depending on the hardness of the rock, or, more technically, upon its fragmentation strength.1 In this paper we will discuss (I) why the energy expended in drilling is so large, (2) what happens to this energy upon completion of the drilling process, and (3) what are the possibilities for reducing the magnitude of the energy required to drill rock. DETERMINATION OF ROCK DRILLING ENERGY The volume of rock removed per unit time from the bottom of a hole of diameter D is evidently (7/4)D2R, where R is the rate of penetration of the bit. If P is the rate at which work is done by the bit on the rock at the bottom of the hole, the energy required to break out a unit volume of rock is given by: Ev =(4/p) P/D2R............(i) For rotary drilling, of either the rolling-cone or drag-bit varicty, P = 2pLN, where L is the torque resistance to rotation at the bottom of the hole and N is the rate of rotation of the bit. L is essentially the same as the torque measured at the rotary table only when drilling in shallow holes. The energies expended in rotating the drill string against the frictional resistance of the walls of the hole and and against the viscous drag of the drilling fluid are extraneous to the subject under consideration, although these may be much greater in magnitude than E, when drilling in a deep hole. For percussion drilling, P = fE where f is the percussion frequency and E is the work done on the rock per impact. The latter quantity can be both computed and measured for a percussion drilling machine. 2 (Under satisfactory drilling conditions, defined in terms of ranges of numerical values of certain dimensionless parameters, E is only 30 to 50 per cent less than the impact energy of the striker.2) Alternatively, E, may be measured directly by dropping chisels shaped like bit edges, backed by rigid weights, onto the surfaces of laboratory rock samples of effectively semi-infinite extent. Under these circumstances, essentially all of the impact energy is converted to work done on the rock, and the relationships among volume of rock broken out, chisel shape, impact energy and indexing distances can be obtained.3 The values of the energy required to break out a unit volume of rock under favorable circumstances are substantially in agreement for rotary drilling, percussion drilling and drop testing at atmospheric pressure. The energy per unit volume is a quantity of the order of magnitude of roughly twice the com-pressive strength of the rock as measured by a uniaxial loading test. The phrase "order of magnitude" in this paper means from about 1/3 as much to 3 times as much; i.e., the energy per unit volume may range from roughly the same up to several times

By G. Carman Ridland

Front Range, Colorado: The majority of the rocks comprising the Front Range of Colorado are pre-Cambrian schists, gneisses, and intrusives which have been elevated to form part of the Southern Rocky Mountain physiographic province. The region is noted mainly for its production of gold and silver, but ores of tungsten, fluorspar, uranium, copper, and iron have been worked. Geological literature1-' describes pitchblende and other radioactive minerals occurring at Jamestown, Boulder County; Central City, Gilpin County; and Lawson, Clear Creek County (fig. 1). These three adjoining G. CARMAN RIDLAND, Member AIME, is a Consulting Geological Engineer, New York, N. Y. San Francisco Meeting, February 1949. TP 2738 IL. Discussion of this paper (2 copies) may be sent to Transactions AIME before Feb. 28, 1950. Manuscript received March 30, 1949. counties cover most of the highly mineralized section of the Front Range which extends from Jamestown to Breckenridge. As far as the writer is aware, uranium has been found only in the portion northeast of Lawson. Silver Deposits at Caribou Hill: The historic silver deposits of Caribou Hill, located approximately half way between Jamestown and Central City, and 35 miles in a straight line northwest of Denver, appeared particularly intriguing as an area to prospect for uranium for the following reasons: here exists an isolated group of high-grade silver veins in the center of a mining district containing occurrences of uranium, and, in two of the well-known uranium deposits of the world, those at Great Bear Lake, Canada, and Joachimsthal, Czechoslovakia, uranium is associated with silver in similar fissure veins. An exploration program, conducted in the spring of 1945, directed special attention to Caribou Hill and was rewarded with the discovery of heavy, canary-yellow stained specimens of'pitchblende. The veins are confined to shear zones cutting a north-south, elongated quartz-monzonite stock of Tertiary (?) age lying in the axis of a major anticline of the Idaho Springs biotite schist, the oldest pre-Cambrian formation in the district. The stock is one and three-quarter miles long by more than a mile wide, and Caribou Hill is approximately at its center. The ore zones vary in width from a few inches to 15 ft, and one structure has been traced for a length of over 4000 ft. The ore minerals are galena, sphalerite, ruby silver, native silver, chalcopyrite, pyrite, and pitchblende. They occur most common-

Jan 1, 1951

By G. Carman Ridland

Front Range, Colorado: The majority of the rocks comprising the Front Range of Colorado are pre-Cambrian schists, gneisses, and intrusives which have been elevated to form part of the Southern Rocky Mountain physiographic province. The region is noted mainly for its production of gold and silver, but ores of tungsten, fluorspar, uranium, copper, and iron have been worked. Geological literature1-' describes pitchblende and other radioactive minerals occurring at Jamestown, Boulder County; Central City, Gilpin County; and Lawson, Clear Creek County (fig. 1). These three adjoining G. CARMAN RIDLAND, Member AIME, is a Consulting Geological Engineer, New York, N. Y. San Francisco Meeting, February 1949. TP 2738 IL. Discussion of this paper (2 copies) may be sent to Transactions AIME before Feb. 28, 1950. Manuscript received March 30, 1949. counties cover most of the highly mineralized section of the Front Range which extends from Jamestown to Breckenridge. As far as the writer is aware, uranium has been found only in the portion northeast of Lawson. Silver Deposits at Caribou Hill: The historic silver deposits of Caribou Hill, located approximately half way between Jamestown and Central City, and 35 miles in a straight line northwest of Denver, appeared particularly intriguing as an area to prospect for uranium for the following reasons: here exists an isolated group of high-grade silver veins in the center of a mining district containing occurrences of uranium, and, in two of the well-known uranium deposits of the world, those at Great Bear Lake, Canada, and Joachimsthal, Czechoslovakia, uranium is associated with silver in similar fissure veins. An exploration program, conducted in the spring of 1945, directed special attention to Caribou Hill and was rewarded with the discovery of heavy, canary-yellow stained specimens of'pitchblende. The veins are confined to shear zones cutting a north-south, elongated quartz-monzonite stock of Tertiary (?) age lying in the axis of a major anticline of the Idaho Springs biotite schist, the oldest pre-Cambrian formation in the district. The stock is one and three-quarter miles long by more than a mile wide, and Caribou Hill is approximately at its center. The ore zones vary in width from a few inches to 15 ft, and one structure has been traced for a length of over 4000 ft. The ore minerals are galena, sphalerite, ruby silver, native silver, chalcopyrite, pyrite, and pitchblende. They occur most common-

Jan 1, 1951

By Walter E. Mingramm

The construction of rescue-apparatus on the principle of furnishing the wearer with air from a tank containing it under high pressure was given up by inventors about 20 years ago. Such an apparatus must supply continuously, for not less than two hours, nearly 50 liters of pure air at atmospheric pressure per minute, or a total of 6,000 liters (210 cu. ft.); and a cylinder containing this amount of air, under 2,000 lb. pressure, would weigh 180 lb. or more. Although apparatus has been recently constructed utilizing liquefied air, no experiments have been made to determine the regularity with which the air is generated, nor has its chemical composition been determined. Moreover, the chief objection to such an apparatus is the difficulty and cost of keeping on hand a large quantity of liquefied air. The system of furnishing the wearer of a breathing-apparatus with air which has given the best results, and has found

Jan 1, 1909

By Luther Wagoner

Having given in a former paper1 the results of assays of sea-water, bay-mud, dredgings from San Francisco bay, etc., and believing it might be interesting to extend the work to include some deep-sea dredgings, I procured from the Smithsonian Institution six samples taken by the U. S. steamer Albatross, and marked as follows: Depth in No. station. Locality. Latitude. Longitude. Fathoms. 1. 2103. Off Delaware bay. 38' 47' 20" N., 72o 37' W., 1,091. 2. 2265 to Between Chesapeake 35° 37' N., 74O to 75O W., 49 to 70. 2297. bay and Hatteras. 3. 2420. Off Chesapeake bay. 37' 03' 20" N., 74O 31' 40" W., 104. 4. 2528. East of Georges 41° 47' N., 65o 37' 30" W., 677. bank. 5. 2572. SE. of Georges bank. 40° 29' N., 66O 041 W., 1,769. 6. 2681 South of Nantucket. 39' 43' N., 70' 29' W., 990. The above samples were assayed by the cyanide-method, described in my former paper (p. 807), about 30 g. of sample being used, and the following results were obtained: Value in Milligrams Per Metric Ton. No. Station. Gold. Silver. 1. 2103. 145 1,014 2. 2265 to 2297. 44 304 3. 2420. 15 353 4. 2628. 267 1,963 5. 2572. 125 377 6. 2681. 66 414 No. 4, Station 2528, consisting of red clay and volcanic ash, mas re-assayed ; 35 g. was roasted at a low heat for one hour and weighed 34.05 g. after roasting; the color was changed to a deep brick-red; and when assayed by the cyanide-method

Jan 1, 1908

By F. B. Plummer

PROGRESS during 1940 in oil-production technology has been confined largely to a steady advancement in practices inaugurated in previous years, rather than the introduction of any new startling process or technique. The usual changes, improvements and additions in production equipment have been introduced. An increased attention to, and interest in, research has been noteworthy, resulting in improved efficiency in operation of oil wells. control, utilization of reservoir energies and reduction of production costs.

Jan 1, 1941

By E. C. Pechin

THE Lucy furnace, owned by Messrs. Carnegie, Kloman & Co., and located on the Alleghany River, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, is a splendid modern furnace, 75 feet high, and 20 feet bosh. She had been working well on low grade ores of about 50 per cent., producing daily 68 to 75 tons. There was on stock 500 tons of Republic ore, one of the purest and best of the Lake Superior ores, averaging over 68 per cent. of iron, which had been procured for the purpose of making a trial for Bessemer iron. This was charged by itself, and Mr. Skelding, the founder, reports that he did not succeed in getting a single cast when it came down, before the furnace chilled from the hearth to the top of the boshes, some 25 feet. Every effort was made to save her, without avail, and the disagree-

Jan 1, 1874

By J. M. Hassler

NOWHERE can there be found a more misleading statement than the old one that "Iron can be manufactured cheaper in the South." During the past decade ironmakers and users of iron have heard varied and sundry stories of the wonderful resources of the Birmingham district, including abundant ore and coal fields, cheap labor, a wonderful climate and similar industrial Utopian statements. Birmingham represents the major portion of the iron business in the South, acid as Birmingham fares so goes the iron business of the South. The intent of this paper is to shed some light on the actual conditions surrounding ironmaking in the South, especially in the Birmingham, or North Alabama, district. By a presentation of facts it is desired to point out that the "cheap iron" of the industrial South is a thing of the past, primarily because of increased labor cost and because labor is radically different in performance to what it was years ago. Also, because most of the raw materials needed in ironmaking that would be classed better than inferior are gone.

Jan 1, 1937

By Richard Ageton

SALT bodies in the form of rolls, horses (sometimes called horsebacks), folds, wants and pinches1 have been encountered while driving entries and mining out rooms during the development of the potash mines in New Mexico. Superficially these sporadic salt occurrences appear to be much alike, but closer examination reveals individual characteristics, and after four years of observation it seems possible to divide them into three general groups that may tentatively be called "depositional," "erosional," and "structural." The data collected are not yet sufficient to permit forecasts of their probable location, so that the annoyance of having to mine salt instead of potash could be avoided or lessened. However, the information so far available appears to throw some light on the occurrence of the sylvinite2 bed now being mined, and it is as a progress report that the writer presents the results of his observations. The mines of the United States Potash Co. and the Potash Company of America are about 20 miles northeast of Carlsbad, in Eddy County, N. M. They are on the southwestern flank of the Permian salt basin, which underlies western Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, south-central Nebraska, southeastern Colorado and eastern New Mexico. The cuttings from many oil wells and the cores from the potash tests drilled in this basin indicate that this salt series approached its greatest thick-ness (about 4000 ft.) in the southeastern part of New Mexico and the adjoining portions of Texas, and that the most advanced stages of

Jan 1, 1936

By J. Randel Hill

The 64th Texas Legislature passed the "Texas Surface Mining and Reclamation Act," Chapter 131, Texas Natural Resources Code (subsequently referred to as "the Act"), at a point in time when little surface mining had taken place within the state. Thus, enactment of regulatory control governing mining operations in our state has, for the most part, preceded widespread, intensive mining activity. I should point out that the statute applies only to the extraction of coal, lignite, uranium and uranium ore. A recent opinion rendered by the Attorney General's office has stated that extraction of the named elements, when it occurs incidental to the extraction of other materials, e.g., clay, is not not an activity subject to the Act. An important theme of the Act, frequently overlooked in other environmentally oriented legislation, is recognition of the Act's affect on the mining industry. The Act states that "the extraction of minerals by surface mining operations is a basic and essential activity making an important contribution to the economic well-being of the state and nation" and, in reference to reclamation being accomplished contemporaneously with mining, provides a recognition that "the extraction of minerals by responsible mining operations is an essential and beneficial economic activity." This legislative recognition is, of course balanced against the need for proper mined land reclamation, the rights of surface owners, the need to guard against unreasonable degradation to land and water resources and numerous other actions or events that the Legislature wanted protected. Another rather pervasive general theme that is established in the Act is the concept that the agency is entitled to obtain whatever information, or take whatever action, that appears reasonably necessary to effectuate the purposes of the Act. This concept, coupled with the detailed requirements placed on mining operations in the portions of the Act dealing with Permit Applications, Reclamation Plan and Reclamation Standards, easily insures that surface mining activities can and will be regulated to the extent necessary. Section 131.102(b)(2) is probably the most relevant provision in the Act which deals with the preclusion of mined lands becoming waste lands. This portion of the Act states that the surface mining operator shall: ". . . restore the land affected to the same or a substantially beneficial condition. ." In this language the Legislature had made it abundantly clear that the abandoned or orphaned lands found in some of the Eastern states, will not be tolerated in this State, and provided the Commission with a degree of latitude to determine what condition would be appropriate in each individual mining situation. I bring this area of the Act to your attention because it is the area which has received the most inquiries and concern by operators, i.e. what does "substantially beneficial" constitute? The Commission's staff has spent a considerable amount of time wrestling with the statutory language "substantially beneficial" to determine the legislative intent and provide operators with guidance of what they can expect. In this regard, the most definitive criteria in our opinion lies in the Act's legislative hsitory. The Legislature had before it basically three reclamation standards namely: House Bill 656, considered to provide the most stringent reclamation standard and identical to Senate Bill 66; House Bill 1717 which was supported by industry spokesmen and was considered to contain the least stringent reclamation standard; and Senate Bill 55 which was adopted by the Legislature. During the Bill's initial hearing before the House Environmental Affairs Committee, the House sponsor of the Senate Bill 55, which was the Bill eventually adopted, made the following statement: (I am quoting verbatim from the Committee's transcript although substituting the speaker's reference to the authors names with the Bill's numbers.) "An example of the differing approaches of the four bills can be seen in the area of reclamation standards and this is critical. House Bill 656, talking about restoring the surface of the land, House Bill 656 has this statement: 'At least fully capable of supporting the use to which it was capable of supporting prior to any mining or any higher or better use.' In other words you have to restore it to the level it was prior to the mining. Senate Bill 55: 'Restore the land to the same or substantially beneficial use.' Substantially beneficial use. (Emphasis his) House Bill 1717 says: 'Restore insofar as practical to appropriate beneficial post-mining use.' So that House Bill 1717 said to, 'restore insofar as practical to appropriate beneficial use. I think that's too weak, whereas I think the House Bill 656 that would call you to restore it to at least the use it had prior to the mining may also be too tight the other way. I think the Senate Bill 55 approach is down the middle of the road which says that you do restore it to the 'same or substantially beneficial use,' is a proper way to go there." Therefore, the conclusion that we have drawn from the legislative history of the bill is that the extent of reclamation required by "substantially beneficial" may be something other than the use it was prior to

Jan 1, 1979