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By Harold N. Underhill

Larger equipment, more attention to maintenance, new types of bits, radio communication, and advances in jet piercing highlight an active year.

Jan 3, 1951

PROGRESS IN DRILLING tungsten-carbide bits, lighter pneumatic drills, bonus plans, and alloy steels are discussed at northwestern gathering.

Jan 3, 1951

The Mexican Government is building a mill at Churunibave in Sonora to handle lead, zinc, and copper ores. This development was sparked by increased mining activity in Mexico and Arizona caused by the Korean war. Pickands Mather, acting for a group of iron ore producers, is negotiating an agreement with Steep Rock Iron Mines, Ltd. to explore and perhaps lease iron ore property covering more than 1000 acres in the Steep Rock Lake area in Western Ontario. Plans call for the early commencement of an exploratory program. Other members of the group by Pickands Mather are Bethlehem Steel, Youngstown Sheet & Tube, the Steel Co. of Canada, and Interlake Iron Corp.

Jan 3, 1951

* A demonstration pipeline for transporting coal will be constructed by Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Co, at the Georgetown strip-mining operation near Cadiz, Ohio, The 12-in., 17,000-ft line, special crushing and preparation equipment, and pumps especially designed for the operation will cost about $550,000. A slurry of fine coal and water will be fed into the line and moved through it under pressure. * Sulphur resources in the U.S. are being rapidly exhausted with no new major deposits being found, This common mineral may become one of the most strategic items during the next five years. Recovery of sulphur from pyrites is being considered in case of an emergency. Already the British have adopted stringent measures to conserve sulphur supplies.

Jan 3, 1951

By E. F. Young

The Porter Tunnel will open up 10 million tons of coal for Philadelphia & Reading which can be taken without hoists or pumps.

Jan 3, 1951

New Products Equipment

Jan 3, 1951

By G. H. Kennedy

CYCLONE thickeners are "hydraulic centrifuges" designed either to produce a maximum practical separation between the water and solids of a feed slurry or to classify the slurry solids according to particle settling rate. The possibilities of utilizing the thickener to "close" plant water circuits have been investigated.

Jan 3, 1951

By Harold B. Ewoldt, Robert R. Reynolds

THE Upper Mississippi Valley zinc-lead district covers an area of some 2000 sq ml located in the southwestern corner of Wisconsin, the north-western corner of Illinois and a portion of eastern Iowa around the city of Dubuque. Commercial deposits of lead and zinc have been mined in Iowa but the major discoveries during the past eight years have been made in Jo Daviess County, Ill, and LaFayette County, Wis. Activities in the state of Illinois are centered about the city of Galena, while those in Wisconsin are located a few miles south and west of the town of Shullsburg.

Jan 3, 1951

By John D. Morgan

THE tense international situation prevailing in the postwar period, and the outbreak of actual hostilities in Korea, directs attention to the status of United States reserves of strategic and critical materials for war. Geologists and mining and metallurgical engineers are particularly interested in this problem, since, with a few important exceptions, almost all of the materials on the official list of strategic and critical materials for stockpiling (see top of page) are metals and minerals.

Jan 3, 1951

By J. W. Snavely

THE high tension belt conveyor is introducing a new and tremendously expanded era of low cost bulk material handling. High tension belt conveyors are generally those installations involving very long centers, high lifts, or drops, in which the belts are stressed up to their maximum tension values, and further, where the belt construction provides tension capacity far beyond what is possible with conventional belt constructions. With these high tension installations, the magnitude of the forces involved demands careful refinement of accepted design practice in order to achieve optimum balance of all factors.

Jan 3, 1951

By R. Adair, W. R. Hudspeth, W. T. McDaniel

A NEW method for concentrating the flake mica either from present washing plant tailings or from new feed has been developed. In this paper, flake mica refers to that which occurs in weathered granites, alaskites, pegmatites, and schists in a form too fine to be considered sheet mica. It ranges in size from 1 in. or more down to 200-mesh or finer and occurs with kaolin, quartz, and partially kaolinized feldspar. Scrap mica, a term often used indiscriminately to describe everything other than sheet mica, will be used to denote the waste product from sheet mica mines and fabricating plants. Both flake and scrap mica are used in the mica grinding plants to produce wet-ground or dry-ground mica, although some flake mica recovered from clay mining operations is fine enough to be marketed without grinding.

Jan 3, 1951

By F. W. Bloecher

D ETERMINATION of the surface area of finely divided minerals is of interest to mineral engineers engaged in flotation, comminution, and dewatering studies. In the industrial minerals field, many materials are classified as to fineness according to their specific surface (surface area per unit weight). A method of surface area determination has been tested and used in the Richards Mineral Engineering Laboratories at M.I.T. It involves low temperature krypton adsorption measurements using the technique described by Beebe.1

Jan 3, 1951

Jan 3, 1951

Are Stockpile Requirements Exaggerated? THE federal stockpile of strategic and critical materials was created for an emergency. The emergency has occurred but no withdrawals are being made from the stockpile. On the contrary, the-rate of stockpiling is being increased. A serious dislocation between supply and demand for metals exists and purchases for the stockpile are a significant contributing factor in this situation.

Jan 3, 1951

By John Charles

The Engineering Method. By John Charles Lou11sbul.y Fish. Stanford University Press. 1950. 186 P. $3.-This book is about the "professional habit often referred to . . . . as 'the scientific method' . . ." It formulates for students the system of logic and reasoning that is the mark of the practicing engineer. The three chapters are, "The Method of Engineering", "Application of the Engineering Method" and "Uncertainties in Engineering." They cover logic and reasoning, terms, nontechnical problems, practical conditions controlling the engineering method, inescapable uncertainties and the method of coping with them. The author is emeritus professor of civil engineering at Stanford. The material presented here formed chapters 9, 10, and 11 of The Engineering Profession, by Hoover and Fish, second edition 1950. Elements of Ore Dressing. By Arthur F. Taggart. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1950. $10.- A modern and practical introduction to the subject by the noted author of the Handbook of Mineral Dressing. The philosophy that a mill and all its parts comprise a single treatment process is a continuing theme in the book. Professor Taggart covers hand picking, screening, filtration, and electrical concentration. After introducing sedimentation, he takes up acceleration in free-settling, hindered-settling, sink-float, jigging, film and trough concentrators and shaking concentrators. A discussion of organic chemicals in flotation is followed by a detailed treatment of flotation. Final chapters deal with primary crushing, secondary crushing, grinding, transport, and controls and flowsheets.

Jan 3, 1951

Following the declaration of a national emergency by the President on Dec. 16, 1950 the Office of Defense Mobilization was established with Charles Wilson as director. It has been obvious since the entry of Red China into the Korean War that the previous defense setup was not adequate for accelerated mobilization.

Jan 2, 1951

By Sherwin F. Kelly

Airborne techniques enter hard rock exploration field. . . the gap between pure geophysics and engineering seen as closing rapidly.

Jan 2, 1951

By Russell G. Wayland

SINCE the installation at Kropfmuehl, Bavaria, of a modern flotation concentrator in 1938, the flake and fine graphite from the Passau area can now be delivered in about any normal specified carbon content of any size range up to a flake averaging about 0.7 mm. The graphite finds a wide German and export market for crucible manufacture, pencil leads, dry cells and other uses.

Jan 2, 1951

By Richard M. Foose

The year 1950 has been a fascinating and unusual one as far as industrial minerals are concerned because of the sudden development of a critical international situation in late June. The first half of the year was marked by thriving peacetime conditions.

Jan 2, 1951

Jan 2, 1951