Search Documents

All indications point to a most interesting and successful meeting in Chicago on Sept. 22-27. Already 140 papers have been submitted to the Committee on Papers and Publications. Of this number 46 deal with pyrometry, 17 with iron and steel, and 24 with coal. The tentative program is as follows: PROGRAM OF CHICAGO MEETING Monday. Morning-Registration. Oil. Afternoon-Technical Sessions. Coal. Milling, Industrial, and Iron Geology. Evening-Smoker. Tuesday.- Morning and Afternoon-Excursion by boat to Gary and trip through United States Steel Co.'s plant. Technical session on Ferrous Metallurgy on the boat, return trip Evening-Technical Session. Wednesday. Morning-Technical Sessions {Ferrous Metallurgy. Mining. Afternoon-Technical Sessions {Ferrous Metallurgy. Non-ferrous Metallurgy... Evening-Banquet, Congress Hotel.

Jan 7, 1919

To assist the taxpayer of the oil and gas industry in correctly and expeditiously preparing his Federal tax returns, the Bureau of Internal Revenue has prepared a "Manual for the Oil and Gas Industry Under the Revenue Act of 1918." Although the endeavor has been made to anticipate all questions that may be asked, it is recognized that such a manual is only general and cannot cover all cases that may exist. The Manual is based largely upon information gathered during the fall of the year 1918 by a corps of geologists, technologists, and engineers. The investigation was undertaken primarily to furnish a basis for arriving at valuations, and depletion and depreciation deductions in connection with oil and gas properties. All fields in the United States were canvassed. Records of production of thousands of properties were collected and tabulated. These were carefully classified and studied by the most competent and experienced men in the country and the average future production curves and tables of valuation data were produced as a result of this study. Be American! Work and Save. Buy W. S. S.

Jan 7, 1919

T. T. READ, Secretary of the Committee on Industrial Organization, presents the following very interesting monthly ad interim report: Reports from London are to the effect that 750 housing schemes for workers, involving the erection of 128,000 new dwellings, have been submitted to the Local Government Board. Birmingham alone needs 14,000 new houses, and the Housing and Town Planning Committee of the City Council considers that 5000 new houses must be built each year for the next 20 years. Nine hundred acres of land has been acquired, on which to build 10 to 12 houses per acre for the next two years. The town of Dudley, which built 300 modern dwellings in 1915-1916, submitted schemes for another 500 houses. There is a shortage of building materials required, specially brick. Financial assistance has been received for reopening brick yards that were closed during the war. W. E. Dickson, vice president of the Midvale Steel & Ordnance Co., is reported in the daily press as stating that his corporation is planning to spend $8,000,000 in improving its plant and assisting its employees in building their own homes. The company will advance 90 per cent. of the cost of the house and extend payments over a period of 12 years. Methods of work employed in building 256 houses at Quincy, Mass., for the workers of the Fore River shipyards are described, by Joseph Meltzer, in the Engineering News Record for May 29, 1919. The approximate cost was about $3500 per house, not including water supply, sewers, streets, and sidewalks. "Comparative Costs of Tenantry and Home-Owning;" "A Plain Talk on Helping Home-builders;" and "More Plain Talk on Home Building" are the titles of three publications of the Information and Education Service of the Department of Labor. These publications should be' of a good deal of service in convincing employees that it is to their interest to own their homes rather than to live in rented houses. The same Service has issued pamphlets discussing the cost of materials.

Jan 7, 1919

The resolution drafted by J. W. Richards, J. V. N. Dorr, and Allen H. Rogers on the death of J. E. Johnson, Jr., and adopted by the Board of Directors, is as follows: "The Boards of Directors of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers wishes to place on record its great personal loss in the sudden death of Mr. J. E. Johnson, Jr., our fellow Director of the activities of the Institute, a member our Executive Committee, Chairman of the Institute's Committee on Admissions, and Vice-chairman of its Iron and Steel Committee. "A mere recital of these positions of trust and responsibility, which he filled with conscientious efficiency and marked ability, shows how greatly the Institute has lost by his death. No one else of the Institute's officers could have been so illy spared. We, his colleagues, take up his tasks with a sense of our inability to discharge them as well as he, and this with a doubled sense of our loss. "Others have written and spoken of the blow which his death has been to the furtherance of the metallurgy of iron and steel. His pre-eminence in this line is one of the facts of which the Institute is justly proud. Here his personality, originality, courageousness in advocating new principles, clearness of writing and forcible presentation of facts, are irreplaceable. His two great treatises on the blast furnace are his literary and scientific memorial.

Jan 7, 1919

P. W. SHIMER, Easton, Pa. (written discussion*).-When lump calcium cyanamid is immersed in the melt of mixed chlorides of the alkalies and alkaline earths in the manner described in the paper, the amount of sodium cyanide formed in the melt, as shown by numerous analyses, is but a small fraction of that formed by the reaction referred to by Mr. Johnson. The case-hardening effects in my process are, however, at least as good as when the common cyanide baths are used. Moreover, when compared with the cyanide baths, the gases evolved in the new process are harmless, consisting of nitrogen, carbon monoxide (which burns to carbon dioxide on the surface of the melt), and occasionally a little carbon dioxide. These gases are not irritating or poisonous, whereas the vapors arising from cyanide baths are both irritating and poisonous. The complex chemical reactions that take place in and on the surface of the melt are being investigated by the writer, who hopes, in due time, to communicate the results of his work.

Jan 7, 1919

There were present eight Directors, the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary of the Institute, and seventeen guests. Messrs. John V. N. Dorr and George D. Barron were appointed members of the Founder Societies Finance Committee on Joint Activities. A request from the New York members of seventeen societies that the Institute send a delegate to Engineering Congress for the purpose of formulating a code for professional conduct was referred to the Engineering Council. There were elected thirty-four members, twenty associates, and thirty-one junior associates. The status of one member was changed from associate to member; and of one junior associate to associate:

Jan 7, 1919

By Stanley Herold

A FEW notes on the occurrence and significance of mud volcanoes in Colombia may be of interest at the present time, owing to the renewed activity in geological exploration of, the coastal regions bordering the Caribbean Sea. The best-known volcanoes are found a few miles from the seacoast. One is situated to the south of Puerto Colombia; the second, to the east: of Cartagena near the village of Turbaco; and the third, near the village of Puerto Escondido south of the Sinu River. Others. are reported in more inaccessible localities. Usually they stand 2 1/2 or 3 ft. (0.762 or 0.914 m.) above the surrounding ground at the crater, though several craters from 10 to 20 ft. (3.04 to 6.09 m.,) apart will often build up an extensive mound at low gradient. The shallow mound may cover 1/2 or 3/4 acre (0.2 to 0.3 ha.) with an elevation of 12 or 15 ft. (3.65 or 4.57 m.) at the center. The craters are formed of hardened blue clay; the inside diameters vary from 14 to 24 in. (35.56 to 60.96 cm.). The rim is continuous, except on one side where there is usually a cut 3 or 4 in. deep, thus allowing an overflow. The craters are filled to the rim-cut- with a thick mixture of blue clay mud and water, which is kept in agitation by escaping gas. Fig. 1 shows the bubble in the act of bursting and Fig. 2 the appearance of the surface of the viscous fluid a second or so later. The frequency of the explosions is determined by the weight of the column of fluid in the neck of the volcano, consequently, such explosions are not synchronous in a group of craters. Ordinarily, there are two or three explosions in about 3' minutes. The supply of gas is small but steady and sufficient pressure must accumulate before the bubble can enter the column of fluid. The water is derived from the surface and enters the sedimentary strata not` far distant from the volcano. During long dry seasons, as the supply of water fails the volcano dries and geyser action ceases.

Jan 7, 1919

The following letter has been received from Prof. Alfred C. Lane, of Tufts College, who is now in charge of the department, of mining in the College of Engineering, American E. F. University, Beaune, France. My DEAR MR. STOUGHTON: I have had a very interesting time here. We were received fast Saturday with great courtesy by the Schneiders at the Creusot plant, and saw many interesting things, from the mammoth guns clown. In one trip I saw a coal mine, an iron mine, an oilshale mine, a gypsum mine, and a most beautiful fluorspar mine. So you see we were not badly located. A mine like Epinac, which has a washery, a briquetting plant, and great central electric plant where coal that might otherwise be waste is converted into electricity and shipped away at 30,000 volts pressure, is of interest mechanically as well as geologically. Many of the French coal seams are very thick here and have especial mining methods. The Department of Mining has been manned by men with whom it was a pleasure and an honor to be associated, as well as with Dean Reber who was in charge of the College of Engineering as a whole. Names like Captain H. C. Ray, former professor at the University of Pittsburgh, on leave in the army, Captain Archbald of the Colliery Engineer at one time, whose work in the Pennsylvania coal mines is well known, Captain Vail of the Engineering and Mining Journal staff and Captain E. C. Dietrich of the Southwest, are familiar to members of the Institute, and Are guarantees of competent instruction.

Jan 7, 1919

This brief resume of events, transpiring in Mexico, culled from the daily New York newspapers, since the last Bulletin went to press, does not indicate any degree of improvement in the situation. MEXICAN MINISTER TO FRANCE RECOGNIZED A dispatch from Paris quotes Alberto J. Pani, Mexican Minister to France, as saying lie lead received notification that lie might present his credentials at the French Foreign Office on May 13. This notice came at the moment the Mexican press was announcing his departure for Spain because of inability to present his credentials. MORE REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES SOUTH AND NORTH Revolutionary outbreaks hulked large in advices from Mexico City at the end of May, says the New York Tribune. General Eznesto Danny, a major, four other officers and forty men, composing a train guard on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Railroad, were killed recently in an attack by rebels under Felix Diaz's command. The troubles in the south, coupled with the fact that Villa's activities in the north have necessitated sending troops to campaign against him, have reacted in the capital seriously, it is reported. Military guards hi Mexico City have been doubled and machine guns have been placed on the roofs of the National Palace and the Cathedral. STRIKE AND MARTIAL LAW IN MEXICO CITY Advices from Mexico City, according to the Evening Sun, said that virtually every school teacher in the city was out on strike and that recurrent rioting was being put clown by armed trucks manned by Federal soldiers. The strike of the school teachers was clue to the fact that they had not been paid for months, but the direct incitement is said to have been the contrast between their impoverished position and that of Carranza's generals, who are described as rolling in wealth, and who flaunted their opulence on the streets of Mexico, riding about in high powered automobiles with women bedecked with diamonds and other jewelry. The city is said to be virtually under martial law with no immediate prospect. of a subsidence of the bitter feeling against the military caste.

Jan 7, 1919

The centenary of Julia Ward Howe, author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," is of particular interest to the members of the Institute because of the very active part that has been taken in the affairs of the Institute by her son, Dr. H. M. Howe. By an order of the Board of Education, the one hundredth anniversary of Mrs. Howe's birth, May 27, was observed in the public schools of New York City with the singing of the fatuous battle hymn. Boston, the city of her adoption, celebrated her centenary by a service in the Church of the Disciples, where Governor Coolidge made an address, and in which John Andrew Post took a prominent part. General Pershing sent a letter, which was read by the Rev. Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, in which he said: "It is a great privilege to bear witness to the widespread effect of ?The Battle Hymn of the Republic? on the morale of the fighting men. It is unique in its religious fervor and enthusiasm and whenever sung it can have but the same effect which it produced when it was first sung in the Civil War."

Jan 7, 1919

R. Dawson Hall, who has long been a member of the editorial staff of Coal Age, has been appointed managing editor. Increase the Promise of the future. Buy W. S. S.

Jan 7, 1919

Oil-well driller with extensive experience in this line of work. Location, Bolivia, South America. Salary depends on experience. R.-789. Mining Engineer, with geological knowledge, who can locate suitable spots for drilling oil wells. Location, Bolivia, South America. Salary depends on man. R-788. Construction Engineer, mechanical or civil engineer with experience in installing oil plants for foreign field. Must be able to install entire equipment including tanks, piping, buildings, etc. Salary depends on experience. R-782. Geologist, competent petrographer for micropetrographic work and training of two assistant students under the direction of the Director of a Geological Institute. Engagement is for six months with option on the part of the Director for an equal period: Location, Mexico. Salary, 450 pesos Mexican gold ($225 per month). R-765. Operating Mechanical Electrical Engineer, with extensive experience in charge of the maintenance, repair, and betterment of all mechanical and electrical equipment on mining operations. Desirable that the man have had this experience in connection with phosphate mining. Applicant must be competent to direct shop repairs on motors and generators, including rewinding, the building and maintenance of transmission lines, etc. Must also have ample machine-shop experience to enable him to direct repairs of light locomotives, steam shovels, brown hoists, caterpillar tractors, and auto trucks. Duties will include the betterment and maintenance of phosphate-rock washers and rotary-work dryers. The applicant must also be competent to conduct efficiency tests on all such equipment and be enabled to interpret data collected. Splendid opportunity for the right type of man. Climate and living conditions excellent. The company will furnish house rent free, including light .and water. Location, Florida. Salary depends on experience. R-854.

Jan 7, 1919

In many lines of engineering, much excellent standardization work had been done before the war but the war emphasized its importance and showed most clearly the need of cooperation to prevent the confusion caused by the promulgation of overlapping standards by independent bodies. The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and American Society for Testing Materials, recognizing the value of what had been done, invited the Government Departments of War, Navy and Commerce to appoint representatives to act with them to continue this work; the body so formed is the American Engineering Standards Committee. It has required time to definitely formulate its objects and to arrange methods for accomplishing them that would be effective without interfering with the many organizations that have been doing such excellent work in this line. The American Engineering Standards Committee has just completed and adopted a revision of its Constitution, which has been sent to the Governing Boards of all the Departments and Societies represented on the Committee with a request for its ratification. The new Constitution changes the name to American Engineering Standards Association as more fittingly indicating the wide scope of the interests involved. The objects of the association are stated as follows: 1. To unify and simplify the methods. of arriving at engineering standards, to secure cooperation between various organizations and to prevent duplication of standardization work. 2. To promulgate rules for the development and adoption of standards, 3. To receive and pass upon recommendations for standards submitted as provided in the Rules of Procedure, but not to initiate, define, or develop the details of any particular standard. 4. To act as a means of intercommunication between organizations and individuals interested in the problems of standardization. 5. To give an international status to approved American engineering standards. 6. To cooperate with similar organizations in other countries and to promote international standardization.

Jan 7, 1919

By P. D. Merica

IN connection with other investigations on the properties and characteristics of chilled iron car wheels, the question as to the best range of annealing temperatures was raised. Chilled-iron wheels are cast with a chill against the tread and the inside of the flange, the remainder being in sand. The composition of the metal is so chosen that under these conditions the tread and inside of the flange will show white iron to a depth of from 5/8 to 7/8 in. (15 to 22 mm.), the remainder of the wheel becoming graphitized or gray. In order to relieve the stresses set up during cooling under such drastic conditions, the wheels are stripped from the mold, while still red hot, piled in a soaking pit, and allowed to cool very slowly from their temperature at stripping. Obviously the most suitable temperature for this annealing is the highest at which no formation of graphite occurs within the white tread and at which the wheels can be stripped from the molds. Inasmuch as no direct determinations have been made of the temperatures at which the' formation, of graphite takes place in white iron of compositions used in car wheels upon annealing, it was considered worth while to determine these temperatures as a means of establishing the maximum temperatures at which the annealing of the wheels may be carried out. In the course of this work, some incidental observations were made which are of interest in connection with the theory of graphitization in white iron. The literature on the subject of the formation of graphite both during cooling at casting and upon annealing is very extensive and can be best studied by reference to a comprehensive discussion of the subject by Hatfield. 1 Perhaps the most important contributions of previous investigation are the following: 1. Whether a given mass of molten iron becomes white, mottled, or gray upon casting, depends on its composition and its rate of cooling through the temperature range of solidification and immediately below.

Jan 7, 1919

The personnel of the Committees of the Institute and its representatives on the various society and national committees will be found in the Year Book.

Jan 7, 1919

During the nineteen months in which our country was actively engaged in the war, the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corpn. expanded the shipbuilding capacity of the United States from an unimportant position among the world's producers of ocean-going tonnage to first place. At the same time it increased the overseas merchant fleet of the United States from a negligible quantity to second place. The shipbuilding program has been greatly reduced since the signing of the armistice. There have been suspended or canceled contracts for 754 ships aggregating 3,797,825 deadweight tons, which would have cost $797,564,276 to complete. The cost of canceling these contracts will be about $202,853,456, and the saving effected by cancelations will approximate $594,710,820.

Jan 7, 1919

By Charles Willis

MANY of the failures in vocational education are due to the fact that the educational methods were not designed to the capabilities, habits, and environments of those to be trained; rather they were based on the policy that education is education and lessons are lessons, whether for youngsters of fifteen or for men of forty. Vocational education among miners involves, first, a study of the men themselves, their habits, and the use of their leisure time; second, a study of the differences between the methods of teaching required for men and for children. Certain fundamental requirements of training methods for miners are reasonably universal and may be applied with success to any ordinary mining community. The rate of labor turnover is another consideration; it would be useless to design a four-year course for men who remain in one place only a few months.

Jan 7, 1919

The following is an incomplete list of members and guests who called at Institute headquarters during the period May 10, 1919, to June 10, 1919. Victor C. Alderson, Golden, Colo. E. Fleming L'Engle, Joplin, Mo. H. Foster Bain, Washington, D. C. W. D. Mainwaring, Philadelphia, Pa. J. J. Beeson, Master Engr. Sr. Gr. W. G. Matteson, Fort Worth, Tex. Gunnar Bergstrom, Stockholm, Sweden. C. E. MacDonald, Toronto, Can. Corry T. Brown, Socorro, N. Met. Francis Nicholson, Charlotte, Va. Geo. W. Brymer, Scranton, Pa. Richard A. Parker, Denver, Colo. W. Burns, Santa Fe, N. Mex. S. B. Patteson, Jr., Allentown, Pa. H. C. Carlisle, The Pas, Manitoba, Can. G. W. Ponton, Ottawa, Canada. J. Carson Adkerson, Va. W. H. Reber, Ensign, Dallas, Tex. C. A. Cheney, Madison, Wis. T. C. Roberts, New York City. J. M. Clark, Toronto, Canada W. A. Rukeyser, Ensign, N. F. Corps. John J. Doyle, St. Louis, Mo. W. H. Staver, New York City. H. S. Emlaw, Grand Haven, Mich. D. B. Sterrett, Washington, D. C. E. Francis, Birmingham, Ala. T. V. Smirnoff, Russia. Rudolf Gahl, Denver, Colo. E. C. Templeton, New York City. Emit Gthmann, Baltimore, Md. H. A. Toblemann, Ajo, Ariz. A. B. Hardie, Philadelphia, Pa. Priestley Toulmin, Birmingham, Ala. Clarence M. Haight, Franklin, N. J. M. R. Walker, Baltimore, Md. N. V. Hansell, New York City. H. A. Wheeler, St. Louis, Mo. C. A. Heberlein, Nacosari, Mexico. D. B. Whitaker, Santiago, Cuba. Pierre Hines, Milwaukee, Wis. A. W. G. Wilson, Ottawa, Can. J. S. Hollings, Brymoba, Wales. Oba Wiser, Hanover, N. Mex C. Vey Holman, Maine. Harry J. Wolf, Denver, Colo. H. H. Howry, Denver, Colo. F. H. Wood, Mt. Vernon, N. Y. W. Spencer Hutchinson, Boston, Mass. J. P. Wood, New York, N. Y. W. B. Kunhardt, Reading, Pa. Lawrence Addicks sailed on May 17 for London; lie expects to be absent from this country for several months. Roy H. Allen has accepted a position in the research engineering department of the National Aniline & Chemical Co., Buffalo, N. Y. H. Foster Bain has gone to Shanghai, China, where he expects to remain for some time. Percy J. Bandy has accepted a position with the Cia. Minera del Mirasol S. A., at Cusihuiriachic, Chihuahua, Mexico. J. H. Batcheller is now with the North Midas Copper Co., St. Helena, Alaska.

Jan 7, 1919

By A. E. Bellis

THERE is a wide difference of opinion among rifle experts in the matter of barrel steel, and the relative importance to the life of the barrel of the steel's composition, heat-treatment, structure, and physical properties. In order to promote discussion, which it is hoped may lead to the discovery of the source of 'some of the traditional beliefs on the subject, the results of some tests are presented here, with data on heat-treating, physical tests, and erosion. The detailed metallographic study of this steel is given in another paper.1 The conclusions from these tests should be capable of wider application than their direct bearing on the barrel-steel problem. The Government specifications for barrel steel for model 1903 rifle (Springfield) call for carbon 0.50 to 0.60 per cent., manganese 1.00 to 1.29 per cent., silicon under 0.25 per cent., sulfur under 0.06 per cent., phosphorus under 0.08. per cent. The minimum physical requirements are: Tensile strength,- 110,000 lb. per sq. in. (7733 kg. per sq. cm.); yield point, 75,000 lb. per sq. in (5472 kg. per sq. cm.); elongation, 20 per cent.; reduction of area, 45 per cent. Material fulfilling these requirement's gives practically no failures when proof-fired, with charge of 70,000 lb. per sq. in. pressure, which is 40 per cent. in excess of the service charge. The turning and drilling operations show up any seams or laps such as accidentally occur even in- the best heats of open-hearth steel, so that' faulty stock is practically all eliminated before proof-firing. These physical requirements are met either by rolling billets at, a proper temperature clown to the form of tapered barrel blanks or by heat-treating bars that have been upset to enlarge the breech section. The transformation temperature of this steel, on heating, is around 1350° F. (732° C.), varying somewhat with the composition and the rate of heating. The actual treatment of the barrel blanks, as carried out by different

Jan 7, 1919

On June 1, the offices of the Engineering Division of the National Research Council were moved from Washington to the sixteenth floor of the Engineering Societies Building, 29 W. 39th St., New York City.

Jan 7, 1919