Search Documents

By Frank Nicholson

Copper ore was first noticed in Ste. Genevieve County in 1563. The diswvery mas made by a German farmer named Simon Grass, who had occasion to make a road from his farm down the hill into the neighboring valley, and while so engaged noticed pieces of a green-colored mineral, some of which he collected. Not knowing the character of the ore he had found, and supposing it to be valua ble for its brilliant green color only, he carried a piece with him into the town of Ste. Genevieve and showed it around the various bar rooms as a curiosity. No special attention was paid to the matter until nine years later, when Mr. 0. D. Harris sent a specimen of the ore to Dr. Theodore Fay, of St. Louis, for analysis. This analysis, which was the first ever made of Ste. Genevieve copper ore, showed the specimen to contain : Copper,. .........17.75 per cent. Zinc,..........3.21 " Iron........... 24.50 " Sulphur ..........1.09 " Organic matter, silica, carbon, and oxygen,. .. 53.45 " 100.00 " From this analysis it is evident that the sample was taken from near the surface, and was probably recognized by its green color. The almost entire absence of sulphur proves it to be an oxidized form. There is on file, at the office of the Ste. Genevieve Copper Works, a paper* giving three arsays of the ore made in 1875 by Henry B.

Jan 1, 1882

By F. C. Blake

The apparatus which I shall describe in this paper has been in ase for some time at the laboratory of the Pennsylvania Lead Company's works, and has been found to give good results, and to be simple and convenient. Steam Bath.—This steam bath is shown by Figs. 1, 2,3 and 4. It is made of sheet copper, about one-twelfth of an inch thick, the joints being brazed, and is used for heating the bottles in which the silver samples are dissolved,-previous to the fineness determina-

Jan 1, 1882

By W. H. Adams

I doubt if many of our engineers know of the existence of coalfields extending over hundreds of miles of territory bordering on and lying contiguous to the Rio Grande River in Mexico. Essential as these facts are to those contemplating the starting of industrial works along our frontier, 1 have not been able to learn that any surveys or examinations have been made of these deposits, arid I trust the preliminary and unofficial investigations lately made by myself may be found of interest, especially to those of our members whose experience has been with poor fuel, or in districts remote from railway facilities. While it is true that Northern Mexico is generally bare of charcoal-making timber, yet no greater mistake can be made than to condemn the light, quick-growing woods found in profusion, and which cannot be excelled in flame or heat-pruducing qualities for boilers, reverberatory furnaces, or hearths. No country could be surer of a full supply of wood if wise legislation in regard to irrigation and preservation of young timber were adopted and enforced, but the beneficiation of the low-grade ores of Mexico demands a more dense fuel for furnace work, and, fortunately for metallurgists, who will hereafter make this frontier a base of operations, there have been disclosed, near the surface, seemingly inexhaustible beds of semi-anthracite and bituminous coals. No extensive openings have as yet been made, and my own workings at the Cedral mines are all that can yet be said to prove the quantity and quality of the coal, other openings furnishing only corroborative evidence. Our location (one hundred and ten miles west of the Rio Grande River) is on the western line of the depository basin, as it has existed since the period of activity along the volcanic line. The region farther inland I have not examined, but the elevations, as a rule, are much greater, though from the nature of the formation, they are not necessarily barren ground. Beginning at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains (location of the Cedral mines), we find very interesting breaks in the foot-hills, disclosing the stratified rocks from the volcanic centres to the valleys.

Jan 1, 1882

By Julian Kennedy

When it was decided to erect these furnaces the company also decided to use the Cowper type of stoves. It was, however, desirable to improve upon the plan of the stoves then in operation, to avoid, if possible, some defects which had shown themselves in them. The stoves now in use at Furnaces " A," " B," and " C " are of the well-known type of Cowper stove, having a circular combustionchamber placed at one side of the stove, and a regencrator with crescent-shaped section, resting at the bottom oil cast-iron glatings, which are supported in turn by cast-iron girders, the products of combustion passing up the chamber, down through the flues of the regenerator, and thence to the chimney. The objection to this shape of stove, that the gases would not pass down the parts of regenerator lying beside and behind the combustion-chamber—the horns of the crescent, as it were,—did not apply to the newer form of stoves, with combustion-chamber having a straight wall next to the regenerator; but. there were other defects, the principal ones bring the small size of the openings through the regenerator and the material used for supporting it. The small passages (4" X 4") soon choked up, and when a part of them became entirely closed, not only was the effective heating surface greatly diminished, but as the remaining opening were not sufficient to absorb the heat

Jan 1, 1882

Gentlemen of the American Institute of Mining Engineers.—As you well know an application is about to be made to Congress, by the American Society of Civil Engineers, for the appointment of a cornmission composed of persons skilled in the production and use of iron, steel, and other structural materials, whose duty it shall be to test the strength, elasticity, and other quatities of such materials ; not simply the substances used as such, but the members of large structures composed of such materials, of the forms and sizes in which they are actually used. As I understand, the papers that will be read here to-night will have for their object to show the necessity for such tests, and therefore the necessity for the commission asked for. As the representative of the Society of Civil Engineers, I have to thank you, gentlemen of the Mining Engineers, for the great zeal with which yon have taken up this subject, and seconded the efforts of the Civil Engineers; or, perhaps I ought rather to say, initiated the efforts to get a suitable commission appointed to obtain most vitally important information which it is admitted on all hands we do not now possess. In drawing up the memorial to Congress, in connection with some of the ablest and best informed of our Society, and in all the discossions on the subject, I have been struck with the emphasis with which the confession is made, that so little is known of the strength of the larger-sized members constantly used in building structures of the magnitude which the present requirements of the country now demand. I presume the remarks made to-night will bring this out very prominently. This is no disgrace, for with the means here-

Jan 1, 1882

By C. P. Sandberg

Having been occupied in inspecting and testing iron and steel these twenty years in England, and previous to that having served on the Board of Iron Masters in Sweden, I have naturally been very much interested in the subject of the use of steel for structures. I regret that I can offer but comparatively small experience on that had, having had principally to do with steel for railway plant and rails, but granting these to be a kind of "structure," and also that steel for rails has similar duties to perform in many respects, and is generally manufactured in the same way and at the same works as steel for stuctures, properly speaking, I may be entitled to offer an opinion on the use of steel in construction. In a paper recently presented to the Institution of Civil Engineers in London, Mr. Ewing Matheson has recommended that the Board of Trade rules should be amended so as to allow of a maximum straining of 8 tolls per square inch instead of 6 1/2 tons. But it is equally necessary to fix the amount of ductility or elongation of the metal for such a strain as 8 tons. Strength and ductility should always be spoken of together. Mr. Matheson says that steel can be manipulated in the factory in the same way and with the same tools as are used for iron. This can only be granted for mild steel; for hard steel would be spoilt by the rough mechanical treatment which iron can stand, such as punch ing, for instance; and the remedy for regaining the strength lost by punching hard steel, viz., annealing, cannot always be applied. Noth ing proves this fact better than the punching of steel rails of consid erable hardness, which caused fractures at an early period of steelunaking, and which resulted in the stipulation for drilling instead of punching the bolt-holes, which had been formerly applied to iron rails without any damage. In fact commissions to establish standard tests are now working on the Continent, principally in Germany, where

Jan 1, 1882

By Charles Macdonald

It may seem to be almost unnecessary to occupy the time of the Institute in further consideration of a question which has been so comprehensively treated in papers already on file in our own Transactions and in those of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Unfortunately, however, the results of these concerted efforts have not been materially to increase our stock of Knowledge in the direction sought for; and as the necessity for this information is becoming.more and more apparent as the demand for structural materials increases, it is believed that by continuing the agitation by means of discussions in this and kindred societies, whose members are vitally interested in obtaining reliable data as to the properties of the materials they are called upon to work with, public opinion may be educated up to the importance of exerting such an influence upon the law-makers of the country as will result in the formation of a competent board, with adequate means at its disposal, to carry out this great work in a manner alike acceptable to the makers and users of the materials in question. It may be proper in the first place to glance briefly at what has been attempted thus hr, then to indicate some of the more important lines of needed investigation, and finally to consider reasons why government aid may with propriety be sought for in carrying on the work. At a convention of the Society of Civil Engineers held at Chicago June 5th, 1872, it was, on motion of General William Sooy Smith, resolved, that, " Whereas, American engineers are now mainly dependent upon formula for the calculation of strength of the different form of iron and steel, not based on experiments upon American materials and manufacture; and " Whereas, There differ greatly in many of their ch~racteristics front thoae of foreign production, both in their nature and forma: therefore,

Jan 1, 1882

By Dr. Egleston

While I thoroughly appreciate the United States testing-machine at the Watertown Arsenal, and regard it as the most accurate testing-machine that has yet been built, I wish that I could say that it is complete in all respects. I not only fully appreciate it, but I have given up advising thesending of material to be tested anywhere else. It is five or six times more expensive to use this machine than any of the others, but the results which are obtained from it are, I think, perfectly reliable, and of such a character that the tests are all comparable with each other. It has proved, beyond a doubt, that the system of testing specimens of' diminished area, and then calculating that the metal examined will be as many times stronger as its area is greater, is an absolutely vicious one. I am quite prepared to say, that, either from their limited size or faulty construction, most of

Jan 1, 1882

By General Meigs

I do not know that I can do any more than to express my entire concurrence in the views which have. been already expressed by Mr. Macdonald. It appears to me that he has we over the wholz subject. I might add in regard to appealing to the Govern-

Jan 1, 1882

By Captain Lyle

I was very much interested in Mr. Macdonald's paper, and I can say that there is nothing in it to which I cannot heartily subscribe. In speaking of the want of knowledge that has existed, and still exists, among engineers in regard to structural materials, their strength, etc., my own experience has taught me to doubt the reliability of the ordinary testing machines.

Jan 1, 1882

By G. W. Maynard

In this paper I desire to embody the results of some personal observations of the working of the Siemens direct process as I witnessed it for a part of three days at the works of the Siemens-Anderson Company, in Pittsburgh. This preliminary investigation was to have been followed up by one extending over a considerable period of time, and would have embraced analytical and physical tests. Circumstances over which I had no control, resulting in the temporay suspension of work, have postponed the presentation of a complete paper. If the opportunity is afforded me, I purpose doing this at a future meeting of the Institute. To those interested in the development of the process, reference is made to the papers of Dr. Siemens in the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute for the years 1873 and 1877, and to the paper of our late lamented brother, Holley, in the 8th volume of the Transactions of our owu Institute. Dr. Siemens, in the introduction to his paper "On the Manufacture of Iron and Steel by Direct Process," read before the Iron and Steel Institute in september, 1877, says: " In mixing comparatively rich iron ore in powder with about 25 per cent. of its weight of pounded coal, and in exposing this mixture for some hours to the heat of a common stove or of a smith's fire, metallic iron is formed, which, on being heated to the welding-point on the same smith's hearth, may be forged into a horseshoe of excellent quality. The admixture with the ore of some fluxiug materials, such as lime or clay, will, in most cases, be of advantage to rid the iron of adherent slog." This is the keynote of the Siemens direct process. Dr. Siemens says further: " If we regard the production of wrought iron from an abstract point of view, we perceive that we have to accomplish two things, viz., the deoxidation of the ore, arid the fusion of the earthy matter mixed with it; and if we calculate the amount of carbon necessary to accomplish this end, weshall rind that in using, say, hematite ore, consisting of peroxide of iron with from 10 to 15 per cent. of silica, we shall require barely 40 per cent. of carbonsceous matter per ton of iron contained in the ore to effect its reduction, and also the fusion of the slag."

Jan 1, 1882

By W. P. Ward

I desire ho put on record a fact in relation to the effect of man ganese on pig iron which I have never seen in print, and which may, perhaps, not have been observed by anyone except myself. In 1875, while experimenting on the production of ferroman ganese in a blast furnace, I had burdened the furnace with a charge which I calculated would produce a 15-per cent. spiegel. The fur nace was very hot, having been running for a couple of days on a very light burden, and making a burnt iron, preparatory to the experiment I proposed to make to produce a high grade of spiegel. I calculated that the charge would begin to work in the fur nace in about twelve hoars after it was put on. After the -lapse of that time I commenced to watch the furnace carefully, but found little or no change in the appearance of the metal, although there was a very decided change in the cinder, showing that the man ganese ore had come in work. The iron was quite gray and very tough. The character of the cinder was good for a spiegel cinder, and 1 could not imagine where the manganese was going to, as it (lid not appear to be in either metal or cinder in anything like the quan tity indicated by the charge. The next morning things were still in the same condition. The furnace was very hot, the cinder good, and the iron very gray. I was then sorely puzzled. I had never heard of a gray iron with over 4 or 6 per cent. of manganese, and had no notion that an iron with more manganese could be gray and tough. With great difficulty a piece for chemical test was broken from a pig. Not less than a hundred blows from a heavy sledge were required to break it off, I took the specimen to the shop and directed that some borings from it should be brought to the laboratory, as soon as possible, whither I myself at once repaired to put things in readi ness for a rapid manganese determination. In about half an hour the machinist came in with the iron specimen in one hand and about a dozen blunted and broken steel drills in the other, saying that it mas impossible to drill the iron. There were several little depressions in the iron, which was malleable enough to be indented by the point of the drill, but not a chip had been cut from it. The metal was never subjected to further physical tests. A chip broken from

Jan 1, 1882

By B. W. Frazier

Jan 1, 1882

By W. C. Kerr

ThE distribution of gold is obviously much wider than is Commanly supposed. Resides the usual matrices, vehicles, or associates, such as quartz, pyrite, chalcopyrite, etc., I find it occurring in quite a range of common rocks. For example, at the Rhodes mine, in Gaston County, a body of 9 to 12 feet of decoroposed, light-gray gneiss was worked together with the strings of quartz, and yielded from six to ten dollars to the ton. A mine in Moore County yields its gold mainly from a feldspathic schist. In the famous King's Mountain mine, in Gaston County, the gold is obtained not only from the seams of quartz in a blue, hydromicaceous schist, but a 60-foot ledge of grayish-blue, fine-grained, schistose limestone is quarried out bodily and sent to the stamps. It is gold-bearing throughout. In Montgomery County the singular concretionary, conglomeritic, quartzite schist, which contains Emmons's palceotrochis, is gold-bearing over wide tracts of country. This fact was noticed by Dr. Emmons. But a still more striking and significant fact is, that a large part of the gold of Montgomery, Davidson, and Randolph counties,

Jan 1, 1882

By H. M. Howe

On commencing the construction of the Orford Company's copper smelting works, at Bergen Point, N. J., I endeavored to convince our President, Mr. W. E. C. Eustis, by actual tests, that at the pressure of from 15 to 18 ounces per square inch, employed by us in smelting, less power was consumed in delivering a unit of blast by a Baker blower than by a fan blower. I attempted to prove this in the following manner: Across the mouth of a No. 5) Baker blower I firmly fastened a board with two round holes, 6 inches in diameter, cut in it. The board was fastened so tightly that no air could escape except through the holes. I then drove the blower at several differerent speeds, observing the pressure at which the air excaped through the two openings for each different speed of the blower, and also indicating the engine, whose only work at that time was to drive the blower. From this I calculated the quantity of power required to deliver, with a Baker blower, sufficient air to keep the pressure at a given point, while it escaped freely through the two six-inch apertures into the open air; or, in other words, to deliver air at a given pressure through these two openings. From the total power so consumed it was, of course, necessary to deduct the power which was required to drive the engine itself. This was ascertained by removing from the engine the belt which drove the blower, and then noting the quantity of power consumed in simply turning the engine over without any

Jan 1, 1882

By Edward Nichols

These deposits, which are found in James County, Tennessee, differ both in their mode of occurrence and in their chemical constitution from any other ores belonging to the same geological horizon which are known to the writer. Taylor's Ridge, or White Oak Mountain, is a long monoclinal ridge, which starts from a point near the Tennessee River in Meigs County, and, following a southwwt .course, extends unbrokenly into Cherokee County, Alabama, where it finally disappears. It is made up of strata of the Upper Silurian rocks, which dip to the southeast. To the eastward of this ridge, which is generally several hundred feet high, are a series of low foothills or knobs, composed of Clinton shales carrying seams of fossiliferous hematites. In the neighborhoud of the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad, where it crosses the ridges, considerable ore has been milred from these seams during the pst ten years. Most of the workings have been superficial, and the ores mined, with one exception,,carry a silicious and nod-calcareous gangue, and contain from fifty to sixty per ceut. of iron.

Jan 1, 1882

By H. E. Wrigley

The boundaries of the oil region in Pennsylvania and New York, as determined by the drill, embrace a much larger extent of territory than is generally supposed, being nearly 200 miles in length from north to south, with an average width of 25 miles, covering an area, within somewhat irregular lines, of about 4250 square miles. After twenty years of development we find these lines practically the same as those laid down by McClure in his geological map of the United States, published in 1817, and denominated and colored by him as the "line of salt," which was found in quantity long before petroleum. The eastern line of the entire oil region lies in a northeast and southwest direction, parallel to and some distance west of the Allegheny Mountains; the south line is substantially one drawn between the western boundary of Butler County and the town of Kittanning in Armstrong County; the west line passes just outside of Butler County, cutting off a small corner of Mercer, west of the towns of Franklin, Titusville, and Warren, into New York State, where it rounds off the end of this long strip in the counties of Allegheny and Cattarangus, and joins the eastern line, near Olean, New York, north of the city of Bradford. (See map.) The eastern line, starting from Kittanning, passes through the northeast corner of Clarion County, the southeast corner of Warren, cutting Forest County through the centre, and reaching the beforementioned extreme northeastern developments near Olean. These lines have been taken broadly to include all territory that could ever possibly come into the question as oil-producing. These lines having been proved by the drill may be considered

Jan 1, 1882

By C. H. Hitchcock

A brief resiclence in Virginia hasenabled me to examine some of its crystalline strata, and a few hints, concerning their correspondence with similar rocks elsewhere, may be of service to those who are studying them. In comparing the crystalline rocks of Virginin and New England, we may first recall the similarity of their geographical position. They constitute a continuous belt, being traceable through the Highlands of New York and yew Jersey, Southeastern Pennsylvania, in the counties of Bucks, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Delaware, and Chester, and Marylund. Thus the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire seen] to be topographically continuous with the Blue Ridge and Midland districts of Virginia. This tract of country has been termed the Atlantic area in distinction from the Appalachian territory, whose eastern limit is the great, Lower Silurian limestone valley extending from the St. Lawrence and Champlain valleys to Alabama. The Appalachian formations were studied by the brothers Rogers, forty years since, and found to refit, unconformably upon the western flank of the Blue Ridge, the oldest of the series adjoining the gneisses, followed westerly by the other Palseozoic members in a regular ascending order, to which numercial designations were applied—Number 1 being the Cambrian, Number 2 the Lower Silurian Iimeqtones, etc?. In Vermont the same conclusion Was presented in the State reports: the Green Mountains were said to possess the anticlinal structure, and to underlie the quartzites and limestones. Inasmuch as this Atlantic area is' topgraphically continuous from the Middle to the Northern States, and is unconformably overlaid upon the west side by the same succession of strata, the presumption ii very strong that the history of bath sections has been the same, and that the entire area is of Eozoic age. Cross sections, in both districts, illustrate the existence of gigantic overturns, causing the strata of 'the Appalachian region to dip to wards the Atlantic gneisses. To the beginner it would appearthat tile Silurian group must dip beneath the crystallines, and hence many of the geologists in the beginning of the study of the stratigraphy of this easters border of the continent believed that

Jan 1, 1882

By W. P. Blake

The mining district and the town of Tombstone are situated in Cochise County, Arizona Territory, at the northwest end of the Mule Pass range of mountains, in longitude 110°, and latitude about 31 40' N,, upon the right bank of the San Pedro River, from which the town is distant 9 miles east.. It is also 24 miles south of Benson station on the Southern Pacific Railroad of Arizona, and about 40 miles north of the Mexican line. Its altitude above the sen is 4600 feet. The Dragoon Mountains rise across a valley to the northeast, and the Huachuca Range similarly upon the southwest. The country is open, without timber, and the surface, where the mines are opened, is in general gently rolling, and accessible to wagons by. natural roads. The first locations were made in the pear 1878 by the Scheffelin brothers and Richard Gird, the latter being well known among the pioneers of Arizona as a surveyor and miner, who contributed largely to our knowledge of the geography of the Territory in early days,

Jan 1, 1882

By Richard P. Rothwell

IN the pear 1881, I visited San Domingo, in the interest of French capitalists, to examine and report upon certain "concessions" of gold-bearing gravel and quartz veins, on the Isabella and Jaina rivers and their tributaries. This district is periodically reported to he extraordinarily rich, and there is oast around it the glamour of the mysterious shipments of gold, credited, in romance and in more or less romantic history, to Columbus and the Spaniards of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Since considerable sums of money and several valuable lives have been lost in the unsuccessful search for its profitable mines, it seems desirable to place on record Borne of the information collected concerning the value of these famous gold fields, with the hope of facilitating the work of those who may hereafter be called on to investigate these claims, and of preventing the unnecessary waste of capital. It is needless to add that the capitalists for whom my investigations were made abandoned the enterprise they had in view,although no doubt similar schemes will be brought forward many times in the future, as they have been in the past, under the fervent advocacy of too sanguine enthusiasts. Since the time of the Spanish occupation of the Island of San Domingo, in 1497, when Columbus Found the natives wearing ornaments of gold, more or less of the precious metal has been obtained annually by washing the gold-bearing sands of several of its streams. It is said that during the Spanish domination, when the native Indians were held in the most abject servitude, a certain amount of gold was required of each one as the rault of his labor. Uuder this

Jan 1, 1882