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In 1948, it became clear that the ventilation system of The Zinc Corporation Limited and New Broken Hill Consolidated Limited mines, would be inadequate for future operations. The,paper describes in detail the process of designing an entirely new ventilation system for a large underground mining operation. The system was based on a single new upcast airway to be located on the boundary of the two properties, which were to be ventilated in parallel as two separate ventilating districts.From calculations of resistance, and assessments of future air requirements, the duties of a new exhaust fan to be located on the collar of the upcast airway were specified as 700,000 cubic feet per minute at 2·6 in. w.g. total pressure for initial operation in 1953 increasing to a maximum of 900,000 c.f.m. at 3·6 in. w:g. total pressure ten years later. The economic size of the new airway was calculated from a consideration of the first thirty years operation of the system, and it was decided to provide a 20 ft. diameter concrete-lined shaft.The new system went into operation five years after the initial planning, and the effect of the difference between actual and predicted rates and distribution or production are discussed. The final result was entirely satisfactory.INTRODUCTIONThe first proposal for an investigation of The Zinc Corporation Limited-New Broken Hill Consolidated Limited ventilation system with a view to putting it on a proper technical basis was made in 1938. A new Main Shaft was then being sunk, and it was decided to postpone the enquiry until this had been completed to No. 14 Level, when operations would be temporarily suspended and the shaft commence to operate as a major airway. The investigation was completed early in 1940, when Z.C. Ltd. upcast fan was...

Jan 1, 1956

By R. E. Hershey

1. Reserves were estimated for three coal beds: Lantana, Sewanee, and Richland. 2. Known measured and indicated reserves for all beds, based on a minimum thickness of 14 inches and on 1,800 tons per acre-foot of coal in place, are estimated at 34 million short tons as of Januray 1, 1954. Of this total, 15 million short tons represents coal 28 inches and more thick. Areas in the beds were omitted from the estimate because available data relative to the bed characteristics were insufficient to permit making an estimate conforming with the definitions of measured and indicated coal adopted for this study. Should future drilling or development prove reserves in these areas, such reserves should be added to the total estimated reserves determined by this investigation.

Jan 1, 1956

By F. R. Brotzen, A. R. Troiano, E. L. Harmon

Precipitation processes leading to drastic property changes are a frequent occurrence in titanium alloys containing large amounts of the retained high temperature P phase. In order to establish the kinetics and nature of these precipitation processes, a series of Ti-V alloys was studied. Time-temperature-transformation diqgrams were obtained for 12.5 and 15 pct V-Ti alloys. These diagrams consisted of two intersecting C-shaped curves: one in the high temperature region for the euilibrium transformation P +u+P, and another at lower temperatures depicting the formation of the meta-stable transition phase, o. Presence of the transition phase retarded the precipitation of the equilibrium a phase. Deformation of retained P resulted in the formation of the o phase. Reversion and retrogression phenomena of the transition phase were observed. A negative temperature coefficient of resistance was found in quenched alloys containing from 15 to 20 pct V. CERTAIN titanium-base alloys can be heat treated to produce appreciable changes in properties. For example, remarkably high hardness values may be obtained by aging or isothermal quenching treatments. Most of the information available to date on the hardening of titanium-base alloys has been systematized recently in an article by L. D. Jaffe.' It was pointed out by that author that the hardening was the result of the decomposition of the retained j3 phase to the equilibrium constituents, a and p, and that this decomposition had many of the characteristics of an age-hardening reaction. Recent work by Frost et al.' 3 has contributed much to the fundamental understanding of the hardening mechanism in titanium-base systems. These authors established the presence of a transition phase in the transformation from j3 to a + j3, which they designated o. The transition phase, in their opinion, was at least partially responsible for the hardening and embrittling effects which accompanied low temperature aging. The present investigation of the mechanism and kinetics of the hardening reaction was carried out for the Ti-V system. Ti-V alloys were ideally suited for a study of the decomposition of j3, since age hardening was known to occur readily in this system." Moreover, no intermetallic compounds occur in this system, Fig. 1, thus simplifying the interpretation of the results. Material and Procedure Alloys containing 12.5 and 15 pct V were prepared by Battelle Memorial Institute from iodide titanium furnished by Watertown Arsenal and vanadium of 99.8 pct purity. Ingots of 8 Ib each were prepared by arc melting in an inert atmosphere with a tungsten electrode and water-cooled copper crucible. Each of the ingots was melted once, forged at 1600°, and rolled at 1400°F. Following this, the ingots were remelted, forged, and then rolled to % in. sq bars, which were subsequently grit blasted, pickled, and wire brushed. Another set of alloys containing nominally 17.5 and 20 pct V was produced by the Research Div., New York University. These alloys were arc melted in an inert atmosphere in lots of 20 g each. Heat-Treating Procedure: Whenever feasible, specimens were heat treated in high vacuum resistance furnaces at pressures below 5x10." mm of Hg. Aging and isothermal quenching treatments were generally carried out in salt baths. Specimens were not attacked by the salt, provided the tempera-

Jan 1, 1956

By J. S. Marsh

OPPORTUNITY to pay tribute to the memory of Professor Henry Marion Howe is a strenuous assignment as well as an honor. Upon recalling Howe lecturers and lectures of the past 25 years, glancing over the list of those earlier, and rereading Howe's books, I arrive at several conclusions: 1—Many lecturers either worked under or knew Professor Howe. 2—It is virtually impossible to pick a subject on which Professor Howe did not touch. 3—There is precedent for a technical paper based upon pursuit of a single subject. 4—There have been listening lectures and reading lectures. There is solid comfort only in 2: the subject field is wide open. I did not know, nor even ever saw, Professor Howe, so can supply no fitting reminiscence. As a college student I was dimly aware that he counted among the giants. Fuller appreciation of his stature came with reading his books and papers, growing acquaintance with some of his associates, and the intrinsic dignity of the climax of the Annual Meeting, beginning at four o'clock of a Thursday afternoon in the auditorium of the Engineering Societies Building in New York. As for producing the technical paper sort of thing, it is my lot to have reached an age and assignment such that to do so would be to filch information from those who did the work and whose story is theirs to tell; for this I have no enthusiasm. As for the final conclusion, Professor Howe was one of the chosen few so highly expert at expository writing that he could produce a lecture or paper that reads as though it would also have listened well. One of his tricks was the free use of words not ordinarily part of the technical vocabulary, provided that such words were likely to communicate most precisely what he had in mind. How wonderful it would be for all who must read reports by the ton if ability at exposition could be taught with the effectiveness open, say to, differential calculus! Perhaps Professor Howe should be required college reading even if for no other reason than to prove that technical writing need be neither dull nor diffuse. My assignment is clearly still strenuous. Another point to consider is the fact that metallurgy is now so tremendously diversified that hope of finding a topic of universal appeal is negligible, even if one were competent enough to be permitted free choice. That which follows is, therefore, a compromise composed of necessity and of the obligation to attempt to avoid boring to slumber those of you who are not especially interested in the general subject chosen. The Iron and Steel Div. is now essentially a process metallurgy division, heavily concerned with the smelting of iron and the making of steel. The American Iron and Steel Inst. figure for present steel capacity of this country is 125,828,310 net tons; how this is divided among processes is indicated by the production totals for 1953, shown in Table I. The glamor girls and boys make the front page and so it is with steelmaking processes. If there is an Antarctic Daily Bugle, it undoubtedly has carried stories of revolutionary development, such as oxygen processes and vacuum melting, and stories of the incomparably rosy destiny of electric arc melting. All such certainly have their place and their future; meanwhile, it is the sturdy and old reliable open hearth that accounts for the bulk of production reported back on the financial page, and it is the old reliable that is most likely to continue to account for the bulk for some perfectly sound raw material, technologic, and economic reasons. This, plus the fact that next year marks a centennial (for it was in 1856 that Frederick and William Siemens conceived the regenerative open hearth), is reason enough to talk about open hearth furnaces, but is not the real one. The real reason is that in some years of association with open hearths, I have accumulated—in addition to a genuine liking and respect for them—certain odds and ends of fact and fancy that this lecture provides a unique chance

Jan 1, 1956

By Scott W. Hazen

This report describes exploration for lead-zinc ores at the Madonna mine between 1945 and 1953 by the Utze Lode Co., the Bureau of Mines, and the company with Government financial aid under the Defense Production Act of 1950. The Madonna mine yielded silver, lead, and zinc with a net smelter value of over $5,000.000. from 1882 to 1924. The mine was inactive from 1924 to 1942 when the Utze Lode Co. acquired the property. Possibilities for finding ore in the mine, especially at depth, were considered favorable. The Utze Lode Co. began rehabilitating the Madonna mine in 1945. An exploration program, which consisted of winze sinking and drifting, failed to produce commercial are.

Jan 1, 1956

By R. P. Steijn

IT has been observed by a number of investigators that under certain conditions metals freeze into an aggregate of small hexagonal strands, parallel to one another and with their axes approximately in the direction of growth.'" This structure has been termed "cellular structure" and is explained in various ways by different workers, notably by Rutter and Chalmers." These investigators attribute the phenomenon to the presence of minute quantities of solute atoms which induce constitutional supercooling. However, if this is true, observations of the cellular structure in extremely pure substances, like frozen distilled water' and germanium of less than 0.0001 atomic pct metallic solute,' are difficult to comprehend. The purpose of this communication is to describe several observations made of the prismatic structure in zinc of 99.99 pct purity. Zinc single and bicrystals grown in a constant gradient electrical resistance furnace exhibit the cellular structure after etching in 15 pct HC1. (See Figs. 1 and 2.) It is noticed that the hexagonal substructure sometimes continues unbroken across the bicrystalline grain boundary.

Jan 1, 1956

By H. I. Aaronson, C. Wells

THIS is a preliminary report on a detailed metal- lographic investigation of the bainite reaction in a plain carbon hypoeutectoid steel. In view of the current interest in the bainite reaction and of the controversies which still exist about even the basic phenomenology of this mode of transformation, it was considered desirable to present a summary of the more important results obtained to date prior to the completion of this investigation. The steel used contained 0.29 pct C, 0.76 pct Mn, 0.25 pct Si, 0.005 pct P, and 0.007 pct S. The alloy was homogenized for 48 hr at 1250°C. Individual specimens were then austenitized for 30 min at 1300°C and isothermally transformed for various times at temperatures above and within the bainite region, ranging from 775" through 500°C at intervals of 25°C. These specimens were carefully examined on a research metallograph; a few specimens of especial interest were also studied electron microscopically.' Bainite may be defined as the aggregate structure resulting from the precipitation of carbides from supersaturated ferrite which formed by nucleation and diffusion-limited growth. Two groups of experimental observations made during the present study provide support for this mechanism of the bainite reaction: 1—at 625°C, partial conversion of pro-eutectoid ferrite to bainite began after more than 99 pct of the austenite had decomposed and 2—the precipitation of bainitic carbides occurred only within the ferrite phase. The proeutectoid ferrite and the bainite reactions in the steel studied were found to be morphologically continuous. Following the classification scheme of Mehl and Dube,2 three principal morphologies of proeutectoid ferrite were identified in the temperature region (625" to 550°C) in which the two reactions blend—grain boundary allotriomorphs," * Grain boundary allotriomorphs are crystals which nucleate at and grow preferentially along matrix grain boundaries. Widmanstaetten side plates, and intragranular plates. Carbide precipitation converted these morphologies into their bainitic equivalents with increasing isothermal reaction time. Conversion took place more rapidly as the reaction temperature was reduced. The replacement of supersaturated ferrite by bainite, however, did not occur uniformly even within individual austenite grains and was noticeably incomplete at higher transformation temperatures, e.g., 625° to 575°C. The ferritic and bainitic forms of a given morphology thus were frequently found to coexist, often inextricably intermixed, in a given specimen. At 625" and 600°C, the conversion of ferrite to bainite was clearly seen to have occurred entirely by the nucleation of carbides at ferrite/ferrite boundaries, as shown in Fig. 1. The nature of the loci at which carbides formed at lower temperatures was often difficult to ascertain with a light microscope, although the alignment in rows of many of the carbides, illustrated in Fig. 2, suggested that nucleation had again occurred at grain boundaries or subboundaries within the ferrite. Application of the electron microscope confirmed this deduction for bainitic structures formed at these temperatures, as shown in Fig. 3. The dense black appearance of bainite formed at very low reaction temperatures in higher carbon steels3 indicates, however, that isolated lattice defects within ferrite crystals prob-

Jan 1, 1956

By J. B. Darby, P. A. Beck

IN a previous publication,' the 1200°C isothermal section of the Cr-Mo-CO system was surveyed. It was found that starting from the binary (Cr,Co)a, the u phase extends deep into the ternary system in the form of a narrow band, which, when extrapo-

Jan 1, 1956

By K. S. Milliken

NORMAN W. Lord&apos; has shown that the resultant impurity distribution after n zone passes is given by in the ingot section OSa<N—n, where a is the displacement in zone lengths, N is the ingot length in zone lengths, C,, is the initial uniform impurity concentration, k is the segregation constant = Ceoll C,,,,,,,, at equilibrium, and The foregoing expression is formidable in respect to computational labor. However, the triple sum can be reduced as follows is better if computing for only a single value of n. For k<l, it can be shown that this last equation is equivalent to The infinite series is useful only when k is small enough to force rapid convergence. In such cases, the absence of subtraction from unity has the definite advantage of preserving accuracy. Acknowledgments It is a pleasure to acknowledge stimulating correspondence with Dr. Howard Reiss of Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc. This note is published by permis-sion of the Deputy Minister, Dept. of Mines and Technical Surveys, Ottawa, Ont., Canada.

Jan 1, 1956

By A. H. Geisler, J. H. Keeler

Preferred orientations in unalloyed zirconium were determined by the Geiger-counter spectrometer X-ray diffraction technique. With increasing P-annealing temperature the following textures were obtained: l—a retained a-annealing texture, 2—additional orientations predictable from the a-p (Burgers) relationship, and 3—a texture derived from a cube texture in the p phase. Earlier work on cold-worked and a-annealed zirconium was reappraised to show a quantitative dependence of rotations on temperature and to identify spurious areas of some of the pole figures. IN a previous paper,&apos; the preferred orientations of high purity zirconium sheet were described for cold-rolled and annealed samples. Annealing temperatures up to 900°C, which is slightly above the allotropic transformation temperature, were explored. Of interest was the observation that the orientation of the hexagonal-close-packed material after annealing in the temperature range of the stable body-centered-cubic phase was similar to that of the material which had been annealed in the a temperature region, although a change in texture would be expected because of the many new orientations based on an orientation relationship between the two forms of zirconium. The reversion to an original orientation after an allotropic transformation cycle is not unusual. It has been found for titanium,"* for thallium," and for cobaltB among the hexagonal metals. Burgers found in his original work7 that, when zirconium was cooled through the allotropic transformation and then reheated, the body-centered-cubic phase reverted to the original orientation. Additional experimental work has been carried out to further explore the textures of zirconium after annealing in the temperature range above the allotropic transformation. In addition, a reappraisal was made of the earlier results for zirconium&apos; in light of recent work on titanium4 which has shown that the texture type depends quantitatively on the temperature of annealing and that spurious areas may be encountered in the pole figures of hexagonal metals determined by the X-ray spectrogoniometer technique of analysis. Experimental Procedure Crystal-bar zirconium prepared by the iodide process was the material used in this investigation. The major impurity was hafnium which was less than 0.3 pct. The composition obtained by spectro-graphic analysis is given in Table I. Cold-rolled specimens were prepared from crystal bar by a series of reductions of approximately 0.010 in. until the sheet reached a thickness of 0.010 in., after which it was cold rolled to 0.001 in. thickness between sheets of alloy steel. The total cold reduction amounted to about 99.8 pct. Specimens were annealed for % hr at 1000" to 1100" to 1200°C or 1 hr at 1400°C in an evacuated Vycor or quartz tube. The transmission pole figures were obtained by

Jan 1, 1956

Executive Committee, Board of Directors C E Reistle, Jr, Chairman, H DeWitt Smith, Vice-Chairman, T B Counselman, Grover Holt, A W Thornton Finance Committee, Board of Directors Andrew Fletcher, Chairman, R B Caples, C R Dodson Investments Erle V Daveler, &apos;57, Chairman, Henry Krumb, &apos;59, John E Warren, &apos;57, G F Moulton, ex officio as Treasurer, Andrew Fletcher, ex officio as Chairman, Fi¬nance Committee Endowment W W Mein, Jr, Chairman, N G Alford, E V Daveler, W J Coulter, J V N Dorr, R B Gilmore, J B Haffner, 0 H Johnson, Henry Krumb, D H McLaughlin, J R McMillan, J B Morrow, L F Reinartz, Wilfred Sykes, C E Weed Honorary Memberships Andrew Fletcher, Chairman, L F Reinartz and H DeWitt Smith, ex officio as Past Presidents, C E Reistle, Jr , ex officio as President, M L Rai¬der, &apos;60, Henry Krumb, &apos;58, D H McLaughlin, &apos;57, P D Merica, &apos;59

Jan 1, 1956

By Rollyn P. Jacobson

THE town of Pacific, in Jefferson County, Mo., is 127 miles west of St. Louis. Since the area lies entirely on the flood plain of a cutoff meander of the Meramac River, it was considered a likely environment for accumulation of commercial quantities of sand and gravel. Excellent transportation facilities are afforded by two major railways to St. Louis, and ample water supply for washing and separation is assured by the proximity of the river. As a large washing and separation plant was planned, the property was evaluated in detail to justify the high initial expenditure. An intensive testing program using both geophysical and drilling methods was designed and carried out. The prospect was surveyed topographically and a 200-ft grid staked on which electrical resistivity depth profiles were observed at 130 points. The Wenner 4-electrode configuration and earth resistivity apparatus" were used. In all but a few cases, the electrode spacing, A, was increased in increments of 11/2 ft to a spread of 30 ft and in increments of 3 ft thereafter. Initial drilling was done with a rig designated as the California Earth Boring Machine, which uses a bucket-shaped bit and produces a hole 3 ft in diam. Because of excessive water conditions and lack of consolidation in the gravel there was considerable loss of hole with this type of equipment. A standard churn drill was employed, therefore, to penetrate to bedrock. Eighteen bucket-drill holes and eight churn-drill holes were drilled at widely scattered locations on the grill. The depth to bedrock and the configuration will not be discussed, as this parameter is not the primary concern. Thickness of overburden overlying the gravel beds or lenses became the important economic criterion of the prospect.** The wide variety and gradational character of the geologic conditions prevailing in this area are illustrated by sample sections on Fig. 2. Depth profiles at stations E-3 and J-7 are very similar in shape and numerical range, but as shown by drilling, they are measures of very different geologic sequences. At 5-7 the gravel is overlain by 15 ft of overburden, but at E-3 bedrock is overlain by about 5 ft of soil and mantle. Stations L-8 and H-18 are representative of areas where gravel lies within 10 ft of surface. In most profiles of this type it was very difficult to locate the resistivity breaks denoting the overburden-gravel interface. In a number of cases, as shown by stations M-4 and H-18, the anomaly produced by the water table or the moisture line often obscured the anomaly due to gravel or was mistaken for it. In any case, the precise determination of depth to gravel was prevented by the gradual transition from sand to sandy gravel to gravel. In spite of these difficulties, errors involved in the interpretation were not greatly out of order. However, results indicated that the prospect was very nearly marginal from an economic point of view, and to justify expenditures for plant facilities a more precise evaluation was undertaken. The most favorable sections of the property were tested with hand augers. The original grid was followed. In all, 46 hand auger holes were drilled to gravel or refusal and the results made available to the writer for further analysis and interpretation. When data for this survey was studied, it immediately became apparent that a very definite correlation existed between the numerical value of the apparent resistivity at some constant depth and the thickness of the overburden. Such a correlation is seldom regarded in interpretation in more than a very qualitative way, except in the various theoretical methods developed by Hummel, Tagg (Ref. 1, pp. 136-139), Roman (Ref. 2, pp. 6-12), Rosenzweig (Ref. 3, pp. 408-417), and Wilcox (Ref. 4, pp. 36-46). Various statistical procedures were used to place this relationship on a quantitative basis. The large amount of drilling information available made such an approach feasible. The thickness of overburden was plotted against the apparent resistivity at a constant depth less than the depth of bedrock for the 65 stations where drilling information was available. A curve of best fit was drawn through these points and the equation of the curve determined. For this relationship the curve was found to be of the form p = b D where p is the apparent resistivity, D the thickness of overburden, and b a constant. The equation is of the power type and plots as a straight line on log-log paper. The statistical validity of this equation was analyzed by computation of a parameter called Pearson&apos;s correlation coefficient for several different depths of measurements, see Ref. 5, pp. 196-241. In all but those measurements taken at relatively shallow depths, the correlation as given by this general equation was found to have a high order of validity on the basis of statistical theory.

Jan 1, 1956

By D. W. Frommer

Laboratory mineral-dressing investigations were conducted on talc-bearing samples from Arkansas and Texas under the Bureau of Mines program of examinations and surveys, which is concerned, in part, with the improvement of conservation and utilization of domestic mineral resources. Two of the soapstones in question were successfully upgraded by flotation, utilizing stage additions of a frother and an amine to promote their talc content. The process could enable the producers to meet more rigid specifications of higher priced talc commodities. INTRODUCTION Talc is an industrial mineral with distinctive properties, such as softness, smoothness, large surface area in relation to mass, chemical inertness, and good retention as a filler, that make it particularly valuable to a number of industries. Sales to 6 industries -ceramics, paint, insecticide, rubber, roofing, and paper -consumed 84 percent of the domestic production of talc, pyrophyllite, and ground soapstone in 1952. Mine production in that year totaled 600,908 tons. Sales of crude and ground material were 593,147 tons valued at $11,347,317.2/

Jan 1, 1956

By Mohamed Mortada

A practical analytical method is developed in this paper which provides the practicing reservoir engineer with a handy method for analyzing oilfield interference problems. The procedure employed entails the principle of superposition of individual eflects. A set of charts has been developed and can be used to evaluate the individual effects. The charts represent non-steady state pressure distribution in an extensive aquifer due to a constant rate of production from an oilfield which can be approximated by circular geometry; they are constructed from solutions to the diffusivity equation considering a circular sink as distinguished from a point sink. The solutions are obtained partially from mathenlatical considerations and partially from analog and digital computations. By virtue of the method of images, the charts can be used also to treat the case of production near a fault. In addition, provisions are made for treating oil fields, which are produced by partial water-drive. Treating an actual field case is deferred to a subyequent writing; however, illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the method of application. The pressure distribution in linear and limited radial aquifers is currently under study. INTRODUCTION With the increasing difficulty of discovering new oil reserves, attention is necessarily focused on the efficient development and production of existing reservoirs. Efficient production depends on the availability of reliable means for predicting the pressure-production behavior of oil fields. The prediction is usually performed by analytical methods or computers. Analytical methods are often limited to systems which can be approximated by simple geometry. However, analytical methods have the distinct advantage of being readily performed without special equipment. Analog and digital computers lend themselves to a variety of problems, but are not always locally available and consequently their use is limited. One particular situation in which analytical techniques are needed involves studies of multiple, water-drive oil fields sharing a common aquifer. Such oil fields are in hydrodynamic communication. Therefore, production from any of the oil fields is accompanied by a pressure decline which is transmitted through the aquifer to the other oil fields and manifested as pressure interference. The rate of propagation of the pressure decline is such that the pressure may be significantly reduced many miles away from a producing pool. An example of pressure interference is found in the Woodbine formation in East Texas. There. a dozen or more pools, including several of major size, draw on the Woodbine formation for water drive. The pressure in the water-bearing portion of the formation has been significantly reduced over an area of several thousand square miles. This reduction of pressure has been such that when the Hawkins pool was discovered in 1940, the pressure in it had already been reduced 280 psi below the initial value in the aquifer. This resulted from prior production from other Woodbine sand pools, including, in particular, the East Texas field some 20 miles to the east of Hawkins.&apos; The above example indicates that the interference effect can be significant and should be taken into con-

Jan 1, 1956

By J. Chipman, H. A. Wriedt

DURING the past twenty years, a considerable background of knowledge has been built up on the chemical behavior of oxygen in liquid iron. Little is known regarding oxygen in liquid nickel or the effect of nickel as an alloying element on the behavior of oxygen in liquid steel. The solubility of oxygen in liquid iron was determined by Fetters and Chipman&apos; and, more precisely, by Taylor and Chipman.&apos; The Ni-NiO eutectic was placed by Merica and Waltenberg"&apos; * at 1438°C and 0.24 pct 0, and this point has been confirmed by others." O It was reported by von Bohlen und Halbach and LeitgebelT that nickel and its oxide are miscible in all proportions at 1600°C, but this report is discredited by observations of others. The melting point of NiO according to von Wartenberg and ReuschV s 1990°C. Approximate values of oxygen solubility at several temperatures were reported by Hensel and Sc0tt.O The data of Krupowski and Balickil0 are inconsistent with those of Hensel and Scott and indicate a solubility less than half that found in the present study. For oxygen solubility in Fe-Ni alloys under pure iron oxide-nickel oxide slags, only the scattered data of von Bohlen und Halbach and LeitgebelT are avail- able. The careful work of Bardenheuer and Brauns" involved silica-saturated slags. The equilibrium between Fe-Ni alloys and iron oxide-nickel oxide slags was studied by zur Strassenu and by Jander and Senf,u but no oxygen analyses were reported. Oxygen in Pure Nickel Apparatus and Nlethod: Samples were taken with a "Taylor sampler" from a bath of molten electrolytic nickel held under an air atmosphere in a magnesia-lined 30 lb induction furnace. Saturation of the melt with oxygen was effected partly by the addition of chemically pure black nickel oxide and partly by the air atmosphere. Samples were taken only when there was a clearly visible oxide phase present. To avoid contamination of this oxide phase, the silica-sheathed Pt—Pt-10 pct Rh thermocouples, by means of which temperatures were measured, were immersed in the melt for the minimum time consistent with accurate reading. Samples and temperature readings were taken only after the furnace had been

Jan 1, 1956

By H. A. Steane

THIS BRIEF PAPER presents the information available on the use of Dorrclon?is in the middling re-grind unit at the lead-zinc mill of Canadian Exploration Limited. The plant throughput is 1,650 tons per twenty-four hours. The flotation feed is ground to 60 per ?Cent passing through 200 mesh. It contains some composite 11articles of sphalerite in calcite, and these reported either in the final zinc concentrate, thus lowering the grade, or in the tailing, with loss of zinc. The re-grind unit was set up in the zinc flotation circuit to liberate the sphalerite from these middling particles, to raise the grade of concentrate and improve recovery. Grinding through 325 mesh should give substantial liberation of locked sphalerite. The middling regrind unit consists of two Dorrdones and one ballmill arranged as shown in the -accompanying flow-sheet. The Hardinge ball-mill, size 7 ft. x 36 in., was free for this use as a result of recent plant expansion. The two Dorrclones were purchased, and the necessary pumps and pipe lines were installed to complete the regrind unit. The unit has been developed over a period of two years by several steps and various flow schemes until reaching tl1e present flow scheme. These steps are not elaborated here, because the changes were made to determine the best product to work on for flotation metallurgy, and not because of the Domrolone classifying ability.

Jan 1, 1956

By J. E. Rehder

IN A DISCUSSION of use of any material of ?construction in the mining industry, two points of view must &apos;be kept in mind - that of the producer or manufacturer of mining and metallurgical equipment, and that of the maintenance and operating staff of the mining plant. In the first case, the choice of material of construction is up to the manufacturer and the user of the equipment has little direct say in the matter. However, if materials are badly chosen and the equipment does not function properly, wears out rapidly, or costs too much, repeat orders ?will likely go to a different manufacturer, so that, in the end, the consumer or mine operator does have the final voice. In the case of materials for maintenance work and plant operations, however, .the mill personnel have direct control over purchases and it is then that a well-balanced knowledge of materials, their properties, and their costs, can be directly useful. With all materials of construction, the final criterion is unit cost versus service performance, so that the lowest possible total operational cost will be obtained. Sometimes this means using the cheapest material available, sometimes the most expensive, but in any case careful analysis of service performance, replacement cost, and material cost is essential to determining the material that produces lowest total cost.

Jan 1, 1956

By G. G. Hatch

FOLLOWING World War II there was an urgent need for the development of domestic sources of ilmenite to take care of the expanding needs of the titanium dioxide pigment industry. In addition, there was the interest by the pigment manufucturers and others in titanium metal. Prior to the war the pigment industry in the United States had obtained its major tonnage of ilmenite, analyzing 55- ?60 per cent Ti02, from India. However, as a result of the shipping situation which developed during the war, the pigment manufacturers had to consider the use of lower grades of ilmenite located on this continent .and several companies undertook extensive exploration programmes to locate and develop such orebodies. Probably the most significant deposit that was found as a result of these ?programmes was the orebody .at Allard Lake, Quebec, owned by the Quebec Iron and Titanium Corporation. This ?Company was formed in 1948 by the Kennecott Copper Corporation and the New Jersey Zinc Company to mine this ilmenite ore and treat it in electric furnaces to produce titanium dioxide slag for the pigment industry and iron for the steel industry.

Jan 1, 1956

By Irving Hartmann

As part of the continuing effort by the Bureau of Mines to promote mine safety, research work is being conducted at the Experimental coal mine, Bruceton, Pa., on the prevention of coal-mine explosions and on other mine-safety problems. The principal subjects studied during the past 2 years are briefly described in this paper. Although at present these problems are relevant particularly to the mine layout and to high-speed mining practices in numerous American coal mines, it is hoped that the findings will prove interesting and useful also to our European research colleagues. Some of the investigations treated here will be presented in greater detail in forthcoming Bureau of Mines reports. 1. UNDERGROUND STORAGE OF COAL CUTTINGS The seams in mist American bituminous-coal mines are undercut, shear-cut, or top-cut before blasting. The cuttings arc generally loaded out with the balance of the coal. However, in some mines it is not economical to load and remove cuttings from the mine. This applies especially if the cut section of the seam is of appreciably lower grade than the rest of the coal, or if the cut is made partly into an adjacent stratum that is high in incombustible content. In such mines the cuttings are sometimes stored in random heaps in rooms or other areas, along the ribs of mine entries, or in layers on the floor of rooms or entries.

Jan 1, 1956

By A. Muan

Liquidus data are presented for mixtures in the ternary system FeO-Fe2O3-SiO2 in equilibrium with a gas phase with O2 pressures ranging from 10-10.9 to 1 atm. Data obtained are combined with previously published data to construct lines of equal 02 pressures and lines of equal CO2/H2 mixing ratios along the liquidus surface. Courses of crystallization of selected mixtures under conditions of constant total composition, constant O2 pressures, and constant CO2/H2 mixing ratios are discussed. PHASE equilibrium studies of silicate systems where iron is one component are complicated by the fact that iron readily occurs in three different states of oxidation: Fe3+, Fe2+, and Fe0. Success or failure in work with iron silicate systems is to a large extent dependent on control of the oxidation state of iron and all investigations therefore must be carried out under carefully controlled atmospheric conditions. Silicate systems containing only strongly electropositive metals (like Na+, Ca2+, Mg", etc.) can, for simplicity, be treated as condensed systems, that is, the gas phase can be neglected and the phase relationships discussed in terms of the phase rule written in the well known simplified form P + F = C + 1. In the case of iron silicate systems, however, the composition of the condensed phases varies with the gas composition, and a complete picture of phase relationships can be obtained only by varying the gas composition over a wide range. In order to understand the phase relationships in the more complicated multicomponent silicate systems with iron oxide as one of the constituents, a knowledge of the ternary system FeO-Fe2O3-SiO2 is essential, since it constitutes a bounding portion of all such systems. It was with this in mind that the present study was undertaken. Previous Work A considerable amount of work has been done on various aspects of the chemistry and metallurgy of systems containing silica and iron oxides. The two bounding binary systems FeO-Fe2O3 and FeO-SiO2" The first attempt to obtain information on phase relationships of iron oxide-SiO, mixtures at different 0, pressures was made by Greig.&apos; Darken" determined the melting points of iron oxide on solid silica under various atmospheric conditions. Darken did not determine experimentally the composition of the melts at liquidus temperatures but discussed very ably the principles involved in applying the phase rule to the system. In a recent study Schuhmann, Powell, and Michal8 determined experimentally the liquidus surface of a portion of the ternary system and combined the new information with data in the literature to construct a phase diagram. Their method was briefly as follows: Homogeneous mixtures with various contents of SiO2, FeO, and Fe2O3 were made up by melting together stock mixtures in various proportions. Samples of the homogeneous mixtures, the compositions of which were determined by chemical analysis, were then heated in platinum crucibles in an inert atmosphere until equilibrium among the condensed phases was achieved. The samples were quenched to room temperature and the phases present determined by microscopic examination. Assuming that no change in composition takes place during the equilibration run in inert atmosphere, the liquidus surface can be determined, but no information is obtained regarding the partial pressures of 0, of the gas phase in equilibrium with the condensed phases. The author&apos;s method, to be described in the next section, permitted the location of points at the liquidus surface as well as a calculation of the corresponding partial pressures of O2. Experimental Method General Procedure: The standard quenching technique was adapted for a study under controlled variable atmospheric conditions. Premelted mixtures of silica and iron oxides in platinum envelopes were held at constant temperature under chosen atmospheric conditions until equilibrium was reached among solid, liquid, and gas phases. The sample was then quenched to room temperature, the phases present identified, and, for the most significant runs, the composition was determined by chemical analysis. The corresponding partial pressure of 0, was calculated from known equilibrium constants of the gas reactions occuring in the furnace atmosphere. Materials: Starting materials were oxides of commercially highest available purity; cp silicic acid was dehydrated by heating to 1350°C for 6 hr and cp Fe2O3 was dried at 400° C for the same length of time. Samples of 10 g were made up by mixing

Jan 1, 1956