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By Robert B. Sosman

ONE of the most neglected fields for physicochemical education as well as for research is that of high-temperature phenomena. Few universities or technical schools give instruction in the physical chemistry of substances at high temperatures. On the contrary such instruction is almost entirely confined to the region between the freezing and boiling points of water. This field should be extended to a much wider range of temperatures, both low and high. Such an extension is logical, sound, feasible, and practical.

Jan 1, 1943

By J. S. Marsh

TUESDAY, Feb. 16, was no day for strolling along the cold sidewalks of New York, and a large number of metallurgists sat down with pleasure to the warming task of wiping a few soldered joints. Presented by a joint-wiper of the modern school, G. M. Bouton, of the well-known team of Schumacher, Bouton, and Phipps, the initial paper brought into focus the theme of conservation of strategic metals and described the technique of making the fillet-type joint now employed by the Bell System. Using an over-all average of only 40 per cent of the solder formerly used by the conventional method. this important development bids fair to stick when the war is over. D. L. Martin and E. R. Parker then described the embrittling effect of hydrogen on silver previously heated in oxygen and the less serious but troublesome result obtained under the converse conditions. An interesting example of grain growth restriction created additional material for the lively discussion that ensued among those who have encountered one or another of these phenomena in silver and copper.

Jan 1, 1943

By Arthur F. Taggart

MR. CHAIRMAN: Congratulations! Your four-ring milling show this year was a dandy. It cleared our minds, for a few hours at least, of what Hitler, Hirohito, the New Deal, and the tribe in the Treasury are trying to do to strangle American enterprise. We mustn't forget this, but it's a relief to get our thoughts away from it occasionally. GRINDING-There was a further contribution to the excellent work that the Allis-Chalmers laboratory staff has been doing for the grinding fraternity in compiling-and publishing-a carefully quantitative list of comparative resistances of ores and other materials to comminution (T.P. 1579, Bond-Maxson). A diagnostic accuracy of ± 10 per cent was claimed for estimates based on these figures. Are they really that good? How about some of you men in the field writing M&M about it?

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

A FALL meeting that should have repercussions both in the "Transactions" and MINING AND METALLURGY was that of the Industrial Minerals Division (Nonmetallics) at Wilmington, Oct. 21-23; headquarters, Du Pont Hotel. The sixteen technical papers and two addresses were substantial and interesting. Moreover, in every instance but one, the author made the presentation, and the one exception must have been next of kin because the ensuing discussion indicated his command of the subject. The meeting schedule clicked at every turn, thanks to Dr. Gillson, chairman of the local committee, and even the four field trips adhered to the time table. The program pre-empted morning, noon, afternoon and night two general luncheons, two dinners, and an evening technical session reminding one of the Annual Meeting. Only the registration was disappointing - about 80.

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

IN an address before the New York Section. A.I.M.E., Oct. 20, Alex L. ter Braake, speaking on the tin industry of the Netherlands East Indies, interjected a few remarks, at the chairman's request. on the mineral stock-piling project now before Congress in a bill sponsored by Senator Scrugham. The full text of Mr. ter Braake's paper was published in the Nov. 6 issue of the American Metal Market. Following mention of the buffer stock scheme as applied in the tin industry, Mr. ter Braake continued:

Jan 1, 1943

By C. A. WARNER

IN all the meetings of the Petroleum Division, emphasis was placed on the essential importance, in the successful furtherance of our war effort, of efficiently producing, transporting, refining, and utilizing maximum quantities of crude oil and natural gas with the minimum expenditure of critical material. With representatives present from all branches of the petroleum industry, from all parts of the United States, the sessions were opened Tuesday morning with Commander Harry P. Stolz. U.S.N.R., Chairman of the Division, and A L. Haider as associate chairmen. From that time until the symposium on petroleum economics was closed Thursday afternoon papers of exceptional interest and importance were presented and discussed in a most frank and open manner.

Jan 1, 1943

By Clyde E. Williams

IN planning a postwar program for manufactured products, it is essential that the bases for the plans be wisely chosen. First we must make certain assumptions as to the war's ending. Let us assume: (1) complete victory by the United Nations, (2) peace terms that will ensure the direction of the economy of all nations of the world toward peaceful pursuits, and (3) an early ending of the war, that is, before the nations of the world, excluding the enemy, are near the point of physical and spiritual exhaustion. Thus, our manufacturing plants and transportation facilities will still be in good shape. The plants and transportation facilities, as well as the cities of a large part of Europe, however, will be badly crippled. The rich mineral and other raw material resources of the world, little of which was under control. of the Axis powers before the war or will be after the war, will not be used up. Control of these raw materials, or at least an important part of them, will remain in the hands of the strong peaceful nations.

Jan 1, 1943

By John W. Buch

IN my review a year ago I pointed out that a small coal-mining companies as well as large had decided that the so called ?central shop? was a benefit. These central shops replaced in a large measure the commercial shops operated by those who have no direct connection with production of cod. Central shops in this time of salvage and major repairs have proved their worth. In addition, many of the larger companies had in their central shops equipment available for the production of many thousands of parts for our vast war machine and, as subcontractors, are doing this type of work. This is a real contribution to the war endeavor. Lack of new supplies has resulted in exhaustion of those stocks formerly stored or hidden in underground shanties. This means that the small stock of repair parts likely LO be available to any mine

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

OUT of the fabulous iron ranges of Michigan?s Upper Peninsula since Pearl Harbor have come go to the steel mills to become tanks, guns, ships, and other weapons for a United Nations' victory. But the contributions to the war effort, as far as Michigan's iron country is concerned, do not stop there. The same men who mine iron ore deep inside the earth also are "mining" on top of the ground, gleaning a harvest of scrap iron and steel that is writing a big chapter in the War Production Board's salvage program. At virtually every mine over an area of a hundred square miles, everyone from the top mine official and straw boss to the man in the dippings is scrap conscious. They know the importance of the ore they mine but they are equally familiar with the importance of iron and steel scrap in war production. The successful job they are doing in salvage is a tribute to the entire Upper Michigan mining industry and to the man who marshaled them into action-John M. Bush, chief of the land department for the Cleveland- Cliffs Iron Co. at Negaunee, and for ten years an A.I.M.E. member. Also, this job should be an inspiration to 611 mining. metallurgical, and petroleum communities as to the latent possibilities of organized scrap recovery.

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

ON the afternoon of Feb. 20 of this year a new volcano was born in the center of the State of Michoacan, Mexico, about 100 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. Creation of this new mountain - forming crater began on an almost flat cultivated field at the south margin of a small basin about a mile in diameter and having an altitude of approximately 6800 ft. above sea level. This basin is connected to a gently inclined plain that forms the Parangaricutiro valley, the chief town of this municipality, bearing the same name as the valley, being situated three miles from the site of the new crater. The village of Paracutin, from which the new volcano received its name, is about one mile to the northwest of the crater. From the City of Mexico to the volcano is a distance of 330 miles. The paved highway running from Mexico City to Guadalajara, by way of Toluca and Morelia, is left at Carapan; from here another paved branch highway goes to Uruapan. The town of Paracutin is reached by a narrow dirt road 18 miles from Uruapan and connects with a road leading to Parangaricutiro where horses may be hired for a 40-minute trip to a place where visitors can enjoy a magnificent view of the volcano. It is possible to get within half a mile of the point of eruption in this manner.

Jan 1, 1943

By C. E. MacQuigg

BY and large the education of the engineer has been conservative and the reasons for this are obvious. Quite properly it has been a tradition of engineering education that facts and not fancies must be adhered to. Without a doubt, those men who formed the mold of our engineering philosophy as much as it is possible for such molds to be established-rightly held the highest standards of intellectual honesty. Fortunately, it was unthinkable to them to temporize with untried theories and naturally the men whom they trained as engineering educators carry this philosophy in turn to their students, thus handing down the tradition of stability.

Jan 1, 1943

By Leo Ranney

ANY years ago a prospector came to a Nevada town and built himself a shack. Day after day he searched the hills for gold -but he found none. He closed his shack and hurried north, where a strike had been made. Next he tried to trap the flour gold that floats down the Snake River. He panned the black sands along the Oregon coast. He ranged over the mountains and up the gulches of far-off Alaska. At last, broken in health, six years ago he came back to his old home in Nevada. There his shack still stood-nobody wanted it. One day he started a garden in the rocky soil that he owned. His spade turned up a chunk of quartz, and in that quartz were stringers of gold. He had found a rich gold vein, running right under his own house. You gas producers who have hurried to Oklahoma, Louisiana, East Texas, South Texas, West Texas, even to California to drill wildcat holes a mile or two miles deep-why not, like the old gold prospector, have a look in your own back yard? Some of your coal seams contain 20,000,000 cu. ft. of natural gas per acre.

Jan 1, 1943

By Walter Miller

NOW, after a year's continued impact of war, the task of the petroleum-refining industry stands out clearly and looms up in larger aspect. This time it is not, as it was so largely in the first World War, simply a matter of increased quantity- more and more of the same petroleum products that had substantially been standard for years. In this era the emphasis is largely on newer and improved materials which had been produced, if at all, in comparatively insignificant quantities, and for which manufacturing equipment was not available on a large scale. At the beginning of 1942 four great product needs (besides a number of lesser one-) confronted the industry: 100-octane aviation gasoline, toluene for T.N.T. production, high-quality lubricating oils for aviation and Army equipment service, and petroleum chemicals for synthetic rubber manufacture.

Jan 1, 1943

By C. H. Mathewson

UNFORTUNATE evasions of metals specifications recently brought to public attention through news items and editorials have caused executives of at least two great corporations to set up defensive procedures and to re¬affirm the patriotic purpose and conscientious effort of their plants in this battle of production. Whatever the exact conditions affecting these cases, in which the public interest has been safe-guarded by vigorous action, my reaction to such offenses in general is a feeling that they arise from the pressure and limitations that afflict our overextended war effort and that inevitably there will be more of them, doubtless more and more expertly conceived and less and less subject to detection as simple faked, or substituted analyses or tests. To the ladies, who doubtless are already beginning to ac¬quire a sense of painful resignation to a dry technical talk, may I say that the cookbook is full of specifications which customarily are varied within rather wide limits but it is generally recognized that the proof of the pudding is in the eating without regard to its exact composition or some scientific evaluation of its texture.

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

ON May 5, the Washington, D. C., Section, A.I.M.E., devoted its meeting to the many-sided and perplexing question of mineral stock-piling for peace. Opening the symposium, Harry J. Wolf, of the War Production Board, outlined the problem under six heads: (1) Technical. Mechanical, chemical, or metallurgical importance of specified materials, emergencies that might arise, relative scarcity, and critical value of stock piles during emergencies. (2) Economic. Cost to Government, influence of Government stocks on commercial relationships and markets, effect of availability of items as a con¬structive influence on industry, Administration policies now and during postwar period. (3) Legislative. Need for immediate legislative action, need for legislation on postwar conditions as well as on current requirements, a constructive basic policy to prevent political manipulation. (4) Military. Consideration of re¬quirements and supplies bearing on national safety and needed for manufacture of equipment, and adequate reserves of scarce materials for research or experimentation by military agencies. (5) International. Interests of the United Nations in contradistinction to those of the United States; effects of nonisolation policy on nature, location, and administration of stock piles. (6) Negative stock-piling. Question of United Nations' legislation to prevent stock-piling by Axis nations after the war and who shall purchase stock-pile materials and during what periods.

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

WAR undoubtedly accelerates metallurgical progress, although its most obvious effect is a tremendous waste of materials. The necessity for restrictions in normal uses of metals results in a search for substitutes or for enhanced properties that will make a limited supply last longer. An insatiable demand for more metal to be produced more quickly favors trial of new processes, new metallurgical tools, and new methods of fabrication. Greatest advance is made, of course, in practical physical and process metallurgy. Theoretical or fundamental research necessarily must take a secondary position, and is so regarded in this review. It is not that developments in theoretical physical metallurgy are lacking entirely, but, following the same trend noted in other countries as they entered war activities, attention in the U.S.A. has been shifted strongly to those developments having an immediate practical application.

Jan 1, 1943

By Walter Crafts

KEYNOTE of the technical sessions of the Iron and Steel Division at the Annual Meeting was struck by Leo F. Reinartz in his Howe Memorial Lecture on "The Development of Research and Quality Control in a Modern Steel Mill." In describing recent developments in steel-producing practices at the American Rolling Mill Co. the co-ordination of practical observation and directed research with operations was stressed and was shown to have resulted in economical production of steels of uniformly high quality. Empirical methods based on inaccurate and incomplete experience resulted in the production of commercial products of variable quality and were recognized as inadequate; a research program was therefore initiated that has been justified by its fruits. To name a few outstanding achievements such as Armco iron, steel for electrical sheets, wide continuous strip of superior surface and quality, and non-aging steel is not sufficient to summarize the results of this increasing effort toward better steel products. In addition to the development of new products the faithful observation of operating procedures, the co-ordination of the resulting information, and the standardization of processes have made the steel of today much more uniform and thus more economical and useful to the nation.

Jan 1, 1943

By Donald L. Colwell

THIS is a metallurgical war. More than ever before, the mechanized forces and the air-borne warfare are deciding campaigns. Both of these are primarily dependent upon metals. There are two ways of increasing the effective supply of these metals when the demand is greater than the total over-all supply. The American custom, when a shortage of anything develops, is to get more. In the case of some nonferrous metals this has been done. For example, our potential peak output of magnesium will be almost one hundred times the prewar production. Output of aluminun has also been tremendously increased, and production of other metals is being stimulated by every possible means. Our enemies, however, have another successful method of increasing the effective supply of a material, and that is, to eliminate entirely all nonessential uses, and also to use, in essential applications, alternate materials wherever possible. Sometimes, ersatz material is inferior to the original, and consequently does not do the job as well. Often, however, it has been found superior, and many substitute items are now being used both by industry and by the military which will continue even when the original material again becomes available.

Jan 1, 1943

By Robert M. Weidenhammer

For years before the war, Coal had the reputation of being a sick industry. Currently it is operating at peak production and succeeding pretty well in keeping out of the red. But, says Mr. Weidenhammer, it will have a relapse as soon as the war ends unless (1) working capital can be built up; (2) it gets the support of the people and Congress; and (3) a truly long-range national fuel policy is formulated.

Jan 1, 1943

By AIME AIME

THOUGH the Annual Meeting of the Institute-officially numbered 158 on the records was delayed a bit at the start by low steam pressure on the locomotives bringing members to New York, the crowd that finally arrived more than lived up to expectations, and the technical program had few difficulties because of absent authors or lack of competent discussers. The transportation difficulties were occasioned by the fact that Monday, Feb. 15, was the third coldest day in the 72 year history of the New York Weather Bureau, the official temperature being 8 below zero. The New York Central's premier train, the 20th Century, due at 9:30 a.m., arrived about 6:30 p.m., and the Commodore, another crack train from Chicago, was about equally late.

Jan 1, 1943