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By James R. Cudworth

OUR colleges and universities have met many difficulties during the past year. From a period of small enrollments and depleted faculties, the educational institutions have passed quickly to a period of the largest enrollments in their history with inadequate facilities and staffs. The results of the shortsighted policy of the Selective Service system which drained the technical schools and universities of many of the students who were potential teachers are now being felt. The movement of faculty members into positions in industry during the war years has resulted in many of them forsaking permanently the educational field for the higher salaried positions they now occupy. Competition is keen between the educational institutions, and between the institutions and industry, for technically trained men. Dean Holbrook's statement in last year's annual review that he thought it would take three or four years to restore our engineering departments to their former level in quality of instructors is even more convincing today. Somehow, the institutions must not only reach their former level in quality of instruction but they must also increase the quantity of their staffs to meet the demands of the ex-service men and the high school graduates for engineering education. The enrollments in the mineral industry fields of mining, metallurgical, geological, petroleum, and ceramic engineering, although greatly increased, are not expanding as much as in the more widely known fields of electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, and civil engineering. In fact, many educators are tremendously worried about the segregation of so many young men in a relatively few fields while the needs of others will remain unanswered.

Jan 1, 1947

By AIME

AS with Phil Kraft, referred to on this page last month, travel has always held a great fascination for Raymond Frank Baker and for that reason he determined to become a geologist. He had heard that geologists travel and that was what he wanted to do. Now as chief geologist for The Texas Co. his early wish has been fulfilled-he spends almost one third of his time journeying' from one oil field to another. Mr. Baker was born in New Haven, Conn., on Jan. 11, 1892, and went through the public schools in New Britain. A stalwart New Englander, he attended Yale and in 1912 received a degree in civil engineering. For a year following this he worked as a civil engineer for the New York Central Railroad, but his early urge to travel widely could not be satisfied here. So in 1913 he re-entered Yale and until 1916 studied mining and economic geology. He had a little taste of field work, which later became so enjoyable to him, in the summer of 1915 when he worked with the U. S. Geological Survey as a geologic aid. In 1916 he made his first contact with The Texas Co. when he entered their Tulsa office as a geologist. This early career was interrupted by service in the

Jan 1, 1947

By Donald H. McLaughlin

MINERAL industry activities have not been seriously hampered by a lack of men with higher training. The balance between opportunities for employment and advancement and available personnel has been a happy one, with enough competition to stimulate effort but not the unfortunate conditions arising from an overabundance. of employment seekers. Nearly all mineral industry educational institutions have been concerned about the falling enrollment in mining and metallurgical courses of study during the past decade. But industry has drawn upon a supply of many types of technically trained men apart from those who prepared their careers specifically in the mineral industry. Some schools have made this possible by uniting geologists, mineralogists, and others with students in mining and engineering. On the other hand, some schools have combined their department of mining engineering with an over-all engineering department and continue to send their graduates into the mineral industry by another route. On the whole, this seems to be a good trend and is likely to result in men better trained for current problems than would have been possible under the older rigid curricula.

Jan 1, 1947

By R. M. Brick

EDUCATIONAL benefits for veterans of World War II have largely removed one of the two former barriers to a college education for everyone, namely financial means and intellectual capacity. This latter limita¬tion has not kept privately endowed institutions from increasing 50 to 100 percent in size of student body, even after applying moderately rigid entrance standards. Growth of some land-grant universities, which cannot well exercise such restrictive judgements, has been even greater. After a weary board of admissions, subject to student, alumni, faculty, and even political pressures, has admitted double the former number of freshmen, the university's worries really begin: to find laboratory, classroom, and instructional facilities. If this were a one- or two-year problem, the answer would be simple: double up, hold night classes, particularly of laboratories, rent space, and have instructors work 24 class or contact hours a week instead of twelve (it takes usually two to three hours of outside work by the instructor for one hour in class). However, most engineering school faculty men are worn out now from four to five years of "accelerated" (frequently downward!) programs and they couldn't continue teaching in a way satisfactory to their own consciences on

Jan 1, 1947

By H. F. Beardmore

PETROLEUM consumption during 1946 broke all previous records and further increases are expected during 1947. U. S. consumption amounted to an average of 5,280,000 bbl a day, of which 4,745,000 bbl was domestic crude oil, with the rest from natural gasoline production and crude oil imports. World consumption during the past year, excluding Russia, is estimated at 7,200,000 bbl daily. Forecasts for 1947 indicate a U. S. consumption of 5,425,000 bbl daily of petroleum products. This is expected to be made up of 4,655,000 bbl of domestic crude oil production, 340,000 bbl of natural gasoline production, 400,000 bbl of crude oil imports, and the rest from stocks. Petroleum's principal use is still as a fuel. The field remains highly competitive, but petroleum has been continuously progressing. Less than fifty years ago, oil supplied only one twentieth as much of the nation's total energy as coal, but today it supplies over half as much.

Jan 1, 1947

By J. S. Marsh, T. B. Winkler

THE past year, the first full one of peacetime production, proved that the process of beating swords into plowshares has increased in complexity in step with civilization. Further, judging by various remarks of our distaff departments, the crystal balls of certain radio and magazine oracles must have been cloudy, because we have been in formed from time to time that coveted items such as automobiles and refrigerators did not appear in great abundance. This seemingly extraneous matter is really not out of place here, however; the steel producer and the fabricator exist in a sort of symbiosis: the making of consumer goods produces scrap which is returned to the steelmaker who makes more steel, and so on and so forth. Thus, no abundance of automobiles, no abundance of scrap from this normal source; and other sources had been picked pretty clean during the war. To be short, so was scrap. Since the economy of the steel industry lean; as heavily upon iron from scrap as upon iron from ore, the statement on transformation of swords to plowshares follows. But this is not the whole story: after all, ingot production was a record for a peace year!

Jan 1, 1947

By AIME

IN the parlance of Hollywood, it was a super-colossal meeting. In the more restrained language of engineers, the Institute's 75th Anniversary Celebration attracted the largest crowd ever; was the longest Annual Meeting ever held, occupying a full week; had more important papers, more important people, more of an international flavor, and more glamour than ever before. And in the minds of those who came to the big city from the wide open spaces, one other record should be mentioned: for those not on an expense account, it was the most expensive affair ever staged by the Institute! To state the attendance down to the last digit for a meeting such as this is impossible. The total names registered on cards, plus those who attended the Annual Banquet but were not otherwise registered, came to 3149. But a few were registered twice, and probably a still larger few did not register at all, but just dropped in for a session or two in which they were interested. It would appear that 3200 would be about as close an estimate of attendance as could be made, and that is some 300 more than came to the biggest Annual Meeting of the past-in 1944. A considerable number of members brought their wives, but most were delegates at large.

Jan 1, 1947

By Hans Lundberg

AFTER the war years, great activity has been shown in geophysical exploration for ore. The appreciation by mining and government geologists of geophysical techniques and results is largely responsible for the popularity of these methods. In Canada, plans are being made to study, by geophysical methods, the structure of a portion of the Pre-Cambrian shield in the hope that such studies will not only give a clearer picture of the geology, but will be of direct aid to the mining companies when selecting areas for detailed prospecting. Although geophysics thus has become more popular, some engineers are still reluctant to employ the methods to their full extent. Allotted funds are often rather low, so that the least expensive

Jan 1, 1947

By AIME

SUPPLEMENTING surveys of the engineering profession regarding salaries and advancement, based upon data from individual engineers, a survey through a questionnaire to employers of engineers has recently been made by a subcommittee of the Engineers Joint Council's Committee on the Economic Status of the Engineer. Its object was to learn directly from employers their attitudes and policies pertaining to the selection, training, placement, advancement, guidance, and professional activities of engineering graduate employes. The questionnaire was sent in May 1946 to 174 employers of engineers, including colleges. Replies were received from 104 employers in nineteen fields of industry, who employ about 2,000,000 persons, about 40,000 of whom are engineers. The following general observations are based on the questionnaires returned. Who Are Hired? Of the co-operators 96 per cent employ cadet engineers directly upon graduation from engineering schools, but only 4 per cent recruit their engineering staffs exclusively from the new graduates. About 43 per cent hire more than half of their new engineer employes after one or more years' experience with other employers. This is evidently a matter of necessity or expediency rather than preference, because more than sixty per cent of those reporting indicate that they prefer to hire the new graduate.

Jan 1, 1947

By E. H. Rose

IN a year of sober reflection and stocktaking after the mineral-squandering spree of World War II, the role that beneficiation of low-grade must henceforth play in American mineral industry has become unmistakable. From the volume of research and development progress in mineral engineering during 1946, mineral dressers evidently have ample resoluteness to meet the challenge. Perhaps ,the most conspicuous trend of the year was the renascence of interest in gravity concentrating methods and more serious effort than ever before to make them effective in finer size ranges down to 200 mesh. This has been forced by the problem in iron ores where the low value of the product will not support a high flotation reagent cost, however good flotation pilot plant results may have been and however well the acute problem of variable feed may be met. The race is on between rabbit flotation and tortoise gravity methods and a surprising amount of betting money is being laid on the tortoise which already is showing previously unsuspected talent for speed. Mostly, however, a wait-and-see attitude prevails during the present preliminary heats. As evidence of the latter, two magnetic plants are now on the boards for magnetic taconites on the eastern Mesabi to establish a reprieve against the time when nonmagnetic taconites must be addressed. Incidentally, these operations will force the blast-furnace issue on preparation of fine material since a minus-100-mesh grind is contemplated.

Jan 1, 1947

By Carl M. Fellman

LABOR disputes caused considerable turbulence in the coal mining industry during 1946. As an outcome of these disputes, a definitely fundamental change in safety procedure was instituted: establishment of safety regultions for coal mines through the agency of agreements between the miners' union and the agency or agencies operating the coal mines. Although a temporary plan at present, the future will determine the. extent to which it may become permanent. Notwithstanding the turmoil in the industry extending through much of the year, the safety record for the first eleven months of 1946 was the best in the history of the industry for that period. The fatality rate for 1946 is lower than in any other year in the history of coal mining in the United States. This follows a pattern inasmuch as new low coal-mine fatality records were also made in 1945, 1944, and 1943. The five-year period 1942 to 1946 inclusive has a coal-mining fatality rate far lower than any other five-year period in the history of the industry. It is significant that this period exactly coincides with the operation of Federal coal mine inspection which got under way early in 1942.

Jan 1, 1947

By Irwin H. Cornell

BRIEFLY stated, the history of the St. Joseph Lead Co. is the story of how a group of men, working for ten years as officers without salaries and stockholders without dividends, developed a small mine in Missouri into what became a large and prosperous corporation. Their courage and faith in the scattered surface deposits of lead coupled with the management's engineering vision and sound financial judgment should prove an inspiration to present-day mining operators and investors. In 1717, John Law's company, known as "The Company of the West," was formed in France and letters patent were granted, for a period of 25 years by Louis XV, for exploration in the Mississippi River Valley. One of the underlying purposes of the expedition, headed by Mr. Renault and Mr. La Motte, a French metallurgist, was development of the lead mines in the area now known as Southeast Missouri.

Jan 1, 1947

By John G. Baragwanath

THE September issue of the Engineering and Mining Journal carried an item regarding the Cercapuquio Mining Co. which was mentioned as a large producer of lead, zinc, and cadmium, situated near Huancayo, Peru. The paragraph caught my eye because I had not heard of the property in thirty years and I recollect all too well the circumstances of its accouchement. In 1916 1 was making my headquarters in the town of Huancayo, then the terminus of the Central Railway of Peru, and was examining mines and prospects in that general area for Cerro de Pasco. In the course of my work I became acquainted with an engaging and energetic "practical" miner named Balarin, a Dalmatian living in Huan¬cayo, and made numerous trips in his excellent company. One day Balarin came to the down-at-heels hostelry where I stopped and told me that a Cholo prospector, a character by the name of Jose, had just reached town and claimed to have made a discovery in a little known locality called Cercapuquio. Lead-silver, Balarin said, and showed me a sample of galena about the size of his fist. "Fine," I remarked. "When do we leave?"

Jan 1, 1947

By John S. Crout

TWENTY-FIVE years ago the training of an engineer was of interest solely to the educator and to the student entering the field. At that time the engineer's position in society was relatively simple. His training emphasized design and operation and he expected to enter industry to handle the engineering problems of raw materials production, mechanical and product design, and the operation of power plants, factories, transportation and communication systems, and similar phases of industrial activity. He was not concerned with or particularly interested in the problems of management, administration, sales, publicity, industrial relations, or of legislation. To a large degree he was content to leave these matters to self-made businessmen, or men trained in law, finance, or commerce. That period in the evolution of the engineer is now history. It is generally conceded that the modern world is dependent upon engineering technology for its day-to-day survival. The continued operation of facilities on which mankind relies is dependent upon the functioning of mines, utilities, chemical plants, and other factories, all of which require the knowledge and the skills of trained engineers. Thus from a purely mechanical point of view, the engineer has become indispensable to

Jan 1, 1947

By Ernest R. Dickie

BRIEFLY, the ore body of the Bagdad Copper Corp., Bagdad, Ariz., is a monzonite porphyry carrying copper values fairly evenly distributed from the surface down through the primary zone. Tabular in shape, the ore body extends over several hundred acres. The oxidized zone averages about 60 ft thick and assays about 0.50 per cent copper. Under this is the chalcocite zone, or the zone of secondary enrichment, which averages about 100 ft in thickness and assays about 1.4 per cent copper. Under this zone lies the primary zone which extends in places to a known depth of about 150 ft and averages in grade about 0.60 per cent copper. Several years ago the block-caving method of extracting the ore from the chalcocite zone was installed. Then it was necessary to draw only about 250 to 300 tons per day, the capacity of the old milling plant. Early in 1943 the new 2500-ton concentrator was put into production. Drawing ore from the developed stopes in sufficient tonnage to furnish the mill at capacity proved unsuccessful in more ways than one. First, drawing the ore at an accelerated rate caused a large amount of dilution, there-by lowering the grade, and also caused funneling through to the surface. The surface material was detrimental to milling metallurgy and development of these stopes was costly per ton of ore extracted. The grade of ore decreased. making it impossible to maintain a mill head of over 0.9 per cent copper. The

Jan 1, 1947

By Harold B. Fell

MANY oil producers are in disagreement with the idea held by some that an increase in the price of crude oil would be unlikely to stimulate much production and that we will be obliged to draw upon foreign sources of petroleum to supplement our domestic production as the years go by. Supporting our con trary opinion are numerous facts and figures. The most recent official estimate of the maximum efficient rate of production from the oil wells of the United States is 5,271,000 bbl per day. The Economics Advisory Committee of the Interstate Oil Compact Commission estimates, assuming certain supplies from imports and from natural gasoline and benzol, that crude oil require-

Jan 1, 1947

By E. W. Davis

THIS nation has been depending upon the Lake Superior iron ranges for most of its iron ore requirements for over half a century. Furthermore, it can continue to draw the major portion of its ore requirements from the same source for another century or more, but to accomplish this, great changes must take place in the present ore mining industry. Preliminary preparations for these changes are now underway and in the next few years decisions of far-reaching importance must be made. But to understand the situation, it is first necessary to know something of the nature and occurrence of the Lake Superior iron formation. So far as is known, the merchantable grades of iron ore remaining in the various Lake Superior ranges are as shown in Table 1, which shows that

Jan 1, 1947

By John D. Sullivan

ALUMINUM and magnesium plants in the United States underwent enormous wartime expansion which made many wonder if ghost plants would result when industry swung back to a peacetime basis. Production capacity of primary aluminum ingots was stepped up from 150,000 tons annually to about 1,150,000 tons; magnesium production increased from 2500 tons in 1936 to nearly 200,000 in 1943, with a production capacity of some 300,000 tons. Not only was primary metal production enlarged but also the capacity of prime fabrications such as castings, forgings, extrusions, and sheets was correspondingly increased. In mid-December it was estimated that production of primary aluminum ingots in the United States in 1946 will be about 410,000 tons while consumption will be about 500,000, close to half of the wartime consumption. The 1946 estimated consumption of secondary aluminum is 200,000 tons. The critical shortage of soda ash is hindering production of primary metal, and the outlook for an early relief of this shortage is dark.

Jan 1, 1947

By A. J. Mcintosh

PRICE changes in competing fuels in the last three decades have reflected the changes in the consuming habits of the people of the United States. Prior to World War 11 the importance of fuel oil and fuel gas increased almost constantly while the relative importance of both bituminous and anthracite coal decreased. During this same prewar period coal prices increased to a much greater extent than oil prices. In fact, in many years, oil prices declined and in most cases are now no higher than they were back in 1925-26. During the war natural economic trends were entirely upset because of the tremendous petroleum requirements of the Army and Navy. Under these conditions many industrial plants were converted to the use of coal and the new installations in home heating and industrial plants of all kinds which might have used oil were practically eliminated. Although petroleum prices were rigidly controlled by OPA coal prices increased several times during the war. An over-all statement as to the rela-

Jan 1, 1947

By Kalervo Rankama

UNTIL a few years ago, geological mapping, the study of ore boulders, and different geophysical methods were the principal means used in the systematic search for mineral deposits covered by a layer of disintegration products or soil. These methods have been developed to a high stage of perfection as far as the geometrical definition of the conductor is considered. Use of geophysical methods in prospecting is based on the fact that an ore body differs from the country rock not only geologically but also in its physical properties. The general drawbacks and complications included in the use of geophysical methods are well known to everyone who has been using them, so need not be entered into here in detail. One of the more important ones is the fact that geophysical methods are unable to furnish information concerning the chemical composition of the ore bodies responsible for the indications. Further, the ores of many metals, such as silver, gold, beryllium, zinc, mercury, tin, lead, vanadium, antimony, chromium. molybdenum, tungsten, manganese, cobalt, nickel, and the platinum metals cannot be directly located by known geophysical methods, owing to lack of physical characteristics suitable for distinguishing them from the country rock. Thus it is quite natural that efforts have been made to develop direct methods for prospecting and locating ore bodies of the elements named. Known as chemical, biogeo-chemical, and geobotanical methods of prospecting, these have been much improved during recent years. A brief review of these methods and of some results obtained with them will be presented in the following, on the basis of available information and my own experience.

Jan 1, 1947