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By Henry S. Mackay

The interesting paper recently submitted by Messrs. Tobelmann and Potter1 shows that chemical problems have developed which are of great interest in this new and important branch of metallurgy. Those who realize what a process of this kind really involves will agree that it deserves a better name than '(leaching process." The word leaching conveys the idea that the copper is simply leached out of the ore with acid and then precipitated on iron; the chemistry of such a process would be of little interest. As, however, during the first year's operation of this plant 24,400,532 lb. (11,067,837 kg.) or about two-thirds of the produce, was electrolytic copper, while 7,992,033 lb., or about one-third, was cement copper, it would seem more appropriate to term the process electrochemical. It further appears, from the particulars given, that efforts have been made to have the entire production in the form of electrolytic copper. This could be done if the chemistry of the problem were kept in balance, so that it would not be necessary to discard any solutions that carried copper and acid of commercial value. A process, such as that under consideration, in which the copper is precipitated from solution by electrolysis, the solvent being at the same time regenerated, is one that requires special chemical and electrochemical knowledge and experience if all the copper in solution that has been extracted from the ore is to be successfully and economically produced as electrolytic copper. The object of this paper is to discuss, from the practical and theoretical standpoints, the chemical and electrochemical problems involved in the working of a process of this kind, and which must be solved to keep it in chemical and electrochemical equilibrium. In such a process, if the chemical balance is maintained, a solution can be used alternately as a solvent for the copper in the ore and as an electrolyte of high efficiency for the precipitation of the copper. To maintain the chemical equilibrium and so attain this result, the process must be so controlled that the solu-

Jan 1, 1921

By V. R. Garfias

Although the work on which this paper is based was carried on by the writer as Special Commissioner of the Petroleum Department of the Mexican Government, the opinions expressed are only his personal views for which the Mexican Government can in no way be held responsible. Notwithstanding that the appointment covers all phases of the so-called petroleum question, as the one question of immediate importance was that relating to taxation, it was decided to devote all the time to this phase of the work. The present report has been divided into two closely related parts, the first dealing with the production and marine transportation of Mcxican petroleum, and the second, with the Mexican taxation on petroleum and its products. The writer wishes to acknowledge the loyal cooperation rendered by Mr. M. C. Ehlen, who had charge of the statistical work, and by Miss S. Stern and Messrs. E. P. Heiles and J. E. Morrissey. The aim throughout the work has been to pave the way for a thorough understanding between the Mexican Government and the oil operators and to present a true and clear statement of facts relating to the questions at issue. Mexican Oil Fields Development The salient features in the development of the Mexican oil fields may be summarized as follows: 1901. First commercially productive well in Ebano field. 1902. Tehuantepee field came in; Diaz Government granted concession to Pearson & Son on practically all Federal lands along the Gulf of Mexico. 1907. First producing well in the Furbero field. 1908. Dos Bocas well caught fire, advertising tremendous productivity of Southern oil fields of Mexico.

Jan 1, 1921

By R. E. H. Pomeroy

Early in 1917, it became evident, owing to existing and pending market conditions, that a substitute for crude petroleum must be found for firing the smelter furnaces. After a review of the plants then existing, it was deemed advisable to depart from their practice and to adopt the following described system of distributing pulverized coal to the furnaces. The principal advantages of the proposed system, which influenced this decision, were: (I) Equal safety; no pulverized coal is stored at the furnaces; (2) greater ease of operation, furnace fires being controlled by regulating valves in burner branches, as in gas firing; (3) better organization; all machinery, including pulverized coal feed, is under one roof, and the organization is separate from the furnace department; (4) greater cleanliness; all machinery is under vacuum; (5) greater flexibility of application, the coal and air mixture can be piped where needcd. The design of the plant is the result of the combined efforts of the local engineering staff and of the machinery manufacturers. Many new features were embodied in this design to insure greater safety, cleanliness, and efficiency of handling. After 14 months of continuous operation, the plant has proved entirely satisfactory. The building is of structural steel, covered with corrugated steel, with many windows and is painted light gray inside and out. The building floor is of concrete with ample drains to the sewer, and the building is equipped with fire and service water piping. Fig. 1 shows the east side of the building and the incline conveyor from the raw-coal bins. The plant is operated entirely by electric power. All alternating current is 550 volts, 3-phase, 60 cycles. The pulverized-coal feeding niotors and control mechanism are operated by 220-volt direct current supplied by motor-generator sets in the building. Autamatic push-

Jan 1, 1921

By T. G. Madgwick, A. Beeby Thompson

FoR more than 2500 years, natural gas issues in the Surakhany district of the Apsheron peninsula were the object of pilgrimages by fire worshippere and Hindoos from Burma and India. Even as late as 1890, Hindoo priests conducted ceremonies in a temple at Surakhany, which probably replaced a more ancient one; but later, the visits of the pilgrims were prohibited in order to check the spread of Asiatic diseases in that region. For centuries, limited supplies of oil have been abstracted from shallow excavations in the Caspian oil belt and dispatched into the interior of Asia and elsewhere for medicinal and industrial purposes. Statistics show a yield of 37,400 bbl. in 1863, but only since 1869 has there been serious development; in that year the yield was 203,000 bbl. At that time, hand digging was supplanted by drilling, and the enormous wells that resulted from tapping sources hitherto beyond the reach of operators completely demoralized the industry for a time, owing to inadequate outlets for the products. The early activities in this area were greatly hindered by annoying taxation, monopolies, imperial land grants, etc., but when these were revoked or adjusted, in 1877, the industry sprang into prominence and, between 1898 and 1901, the Baku fields produced practically one-half of the world's supply of oil. Within a few miles of Baku lie the two richest oil fields in the world; viz., the Balakhany-Saboontchy-Romany and the Bibi-Eibat, the latter constituting almost a suburb of the city. For many years the gasoline obtained in the refineries of the Baku area was burned in pits, being considered an undesirable product, and until 1870 the residue also was destroyed, its value as a fuel not being recognized. Kerosene was the main product sought by the refiners. It was shipped across the Caspian Sea and up the Volga to the industrial centers of Russia. Only on the completion of the Baku-Batoum railway did the Baku oil fields secure important commercial communication with the outside world through the medium of the Black Sea. The first tank steamer was successfully launched on the Caspian in 1879, by Messrs. Nobels, for transporting oil in bulk instead of in barrels. In 1905, an 8-in. pipe line to Batoum was completed; this was capable of transporting to seaboard 8,000,000 bbl. of kerosene per annum.

Jan 1, 1921

Jan 1, 1921

By E. G. Woodruff

The earlier struggles in petroleum geology were directed to solving the Qrigin and method of accumulation of petroleum. We are now fairly well agreed on those subjects. Most of us think that the great mass of petroleum commercially produced comes from plants or animals, or possibly from both. We are confident that the oil was not produced where it is now found but has accumulated in reservoirs of various kinds. The types of reservoirs are certainly variable but they just .as certainly follow definite geologic laws. Some of these types of reservoirs can be determined from surface study; others cannot. We know, too, that these types of reservoirs (largely structures such as anticlines, domes, and terraces) are much more widespread than the oil pools. In other words, there are many places where good sands and good structures exist but where oil is not found. It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to attempt to analyze, from a regional standpoint, some of the conditions that control the presence or absence of oil pools and to group them in a regional way, hence the term "Petroliferous Provinces." The paper lays no claim to presenting new facts but attempts to group and classify the information that so many have expressed again and again. The essential factors for an oil field are petroleum, a reservoir material, and conditions under which the petroleum can enter the reservoir but cannot escape except through the drill holes. The paper will first discuss the source of petroleum as it occurs in definite regions, then the regional arrangement of reservoir strata, and finally the areal arrangement of structures. To have petroleum, there must be a source. Since living matter is considered the source of the petroleum, geological conditions must have been such that living organisms were abundant. Arid regions on the earth's surface have not given rise to living things in sufficient abundance to produce oil; similarly, too cold regions and saline inland lakes. The converse of this is that warm moist conditions must prevail to produce an abundance of vegetable matter. Before an area can be

Jan 1, 1921

By D. R. Semmes

The possible oil territory of Alabama can be readily divided into two regions, the Paleozoic area of the north, and the Coastal Plain province of Cretaceous and younger formations lying to the south. This latter area has received much attention in the last few years and has been described by a number of writers.' Although the possibilities of the Cretaceous series have been much emphasized by recent writers, the fact remains that the two, or possibly three, localities where oil or gas have been found in anything like paying quantities are confined to the area of Carboniferous rocks. Moreover, almost all of the oil seeps and a good percentage of the gas seeps are confined to this area.2 Topographically, as well as structurally, the Paleozoic area can be divided into three rather well defined provinces: (1) The broad, open Coosa Valley lying adjacent to the crystalline oldland, with comparatively little relief, except for occasional longitudinal ridges and rather intense folding; (2) the plateau region of horizontal or gently warped Pennsylvanian strata broken by occasional anticlinal valleys aligned northeast and southwest, outliers of the Coosa Valley proper, in which the older Paleozoic formations are exposed—a region of much relief (200

Jan 1, 1921

By A. F. Melcher

The present paper is a progress report on an investigation of the physical factors of oil and gas and especially of their sands,' such as pore space, size of pores or permeability, retentivity, viscosity of the oil, temperature, pressure, thickness and area of the pay sand, water relations, and capillarity. The purpose is to determine as many of these physical factors as possible, and to ascertain the relations existing, directly or indirectly, between these physical factors and the production of oil and gas. As yet only pore space2 and size of grains of pay sands have been investigated, although an apparatus has been designed to determine the permeability of a sand to oil, water, or gas under definite drops of pressure between the entrance face and exit face of the sample. Messrs. E. W. Shaw, R. Van A. Mills, D. Dale Condit, G. B. Richardson, G. C. Matson, and C. H. Wegemann collected the samples upon which the physical determinations were made. Acknowledgment is made to my colleagues of the United States Geological Survey for many suggestions and criticisms; to Mr. Mills for the production data given of the oil wells from which some of the samples were collected; to Mr. A. W. McCoy of the Empire Gas and Fuel Co., Bartlesville, Okla., for many ideas. Determining Pore Space of Oil and Gas Sands In selecting a method for the determination of pore space, two objects were kept in mind: First, the method must not only be sufficiently

Jan 1, 1921

By C. F. Mabery

So far as the elementary composition of petroleum is known, it may be briefly stated. Petroleum consists principally of a few series of hydrocarbons, with admixtures of sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen derivatives in comparatively minute proportions, which may be regarded as impurities to be removed in the preparation of commercial products. But as each series is represented by many homologs, in the aggregate, crude petroleum is an extremely complex mixture of hydrocarbons and their derivatives. In part, these hydrocarbons individually conform in structure to the system of synthetic hydrocarbons whose structure is well defined and represented by the typical series CnH2n, + 2, C.H2n, the series CnH2n,-2, CnH2,-a, the members of which have not been sufficiently studied to establish their structure, and the series CnHz,e composed of the aromatic group, benzene and its homologs. Hydrocarbons of greater density contained in the portions of petroleum that cannot be distilled without decomposition doubtless have less hydrogen than is represented by these formulas. Since to every hydrocarbon there is a definite temperature, even in vacuum, at which its constituent carbon and hydrogen atoms fall apart, and since for the heavier bodies this temperature is not much above 360" C. in vacuum, it is evident that some other method than distillation must be devised for their separation if anything further is to be learned concerning their individual constitution. Classification of Petroleums There is such a wide variation in the composition of petroleum from Merent fields, it would seem possible to make a classification on this basis were it not that no single variety is entirely free from hydrocarbons contained in others. Such a classification has been suggested of the exceptionally pure Pennsylvania petroleum, the sulfur oil from Trenton limestone and other sources, the California oil with its large amount of nitrogen (quinoline) derivatives, and the Russian oil, composed chiefly of the naphthene hydrocarbons.' A commercial distinction is made

Jan 1, 1921

By Stuart St. Clair

In view of the great interest shown in the oil possibilities of Kentucky, one is impressed with the paucity of reliable literature on the oil fields of the state. A few brief reports by the Federal and State Geological Surveys are about the only reliable data available. When the estimated production figures, for 1918, are published by the U. S. Geological Survey, they will show a revival of the oil industry in the Blue Grass State during the past half decade. There will also be an increase in the production for 1919 and 1920, at least. Although as an oil-producing state Kentucky is small, compared with some of the other oil states, the present production and the area of undrilled proved territory is large enough to classify it as one of the important oil states of the Union. This paper will be confined to the Irvine District and the immediately adjoining areas which have been prospected with varying success. The Corniferous limestone or Irvine sand is the oil-producing formation in the area discussed. In my divisional nomenclature, the Irvine District includes the Irvine field, which extends from the town of Irvine eastward toward Campton; the Big Sinking area, which joins and lies to the south of the eastern part of the Irvine field; the Beattyville area, which lies to the north and northeast of the town of that name and joins the Big Sinking area; and the Ross Creek pool, which lies to the southwest of the big production and across the Kentucky River. Except for the Ross Creek pool, the main producing area is bounded on the east by the L. & E. R. R. and on the west and south by the Irvine Branch of the L. & N. R. R. Winchester and Lexington form the gateways and Torrent on the east, Irvine on the west, and Beattyville on the south are the principle entrances to the main fields. Evelyn, on the L. & N. R. R., south of Irvine, is the point of entrance to the Ross Creek area. Geology The geology of the Irvine District is very simple. The rock formations with which the oil man should acquaint himself lie between the lower measures of the Pennsylvanian sandstones and shales and the Devonian or Corniferous limestone, or Irvine formation. Only a very brief description of these formations will be given, as they have been described fully by E. W. Shaw.'

Jan 1, 1921

By Charles H. Fulton

Experimental work on the process was begun on a laboratory scale at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1914, and transferred to East St. Louis, Ill. in 1916, where a commercial sized furnace was in technical operation until January, 1918. The essential steps of the process are as follows: Oxidized zinc ore or roasted zinc concentrate is mixed with crushed coke and coal-tar pitch and formed into briquets 9.25 in. (23.5 cm.) in diameter and 21 in. (53 cm.) long in a manner similar to that used in the manufacture of graphite or carbon electrodes, except that much less care and time are required. The composition varies with the nature of the ore; in one case, the composition was 100 parts ore, 70 parts coke, and 18 to 20 parts pitch. These briquets maintain their form and volume during and after the distillation of the zinc. This object is gained by using coke as the matrix and coal-tar pitch as the binder; this pitch becomes coke on heating and unites the ore particle and the original coke particle into a continuous mass. The briquet is an electrical conductor but only to such a degree that it can be used as a resistor. The size of the ore, as in the present practice of zinc metallurgy, ranges from fine material, such as flotation concentrate, to coarse table and fine jig concentrate. The process is not restricted to any particular kind of ore, but is applicable to pure high-grade ores, ores high in iron, and complex zinc-lead ores, since the residue from the distillation IS held immovably in place within the briquet. In the case of complex zinc-lead ores, the distillation is conducted with a carefully regulated temperature so that a high percentage of lead is retained in the distilled briquet, which may then be smelted for its lead content. In present zinc smelting practice, the reduction fuel is from 40 to 50 per cent. of the weight of the ore. In the briquet, it is from 60 to 85 per cent. of the ore; but unless the ore is exceptionally high in residue, the distilled briquet may be used over again as coke, or as a high ash coke for fuel purposes in power production. Baked briquets are hard and tough and may be handled roughly

Jan 1, 1921

By F. L. Wolf, G. E. Alderson

The reclaiming of nietallics from slag and sweepings is of vital interest to every brass-foundry man, but the first cost and interest on the investment often make it prohibitive for the small foundry to enjoy the benefits of a complete concentrating unit. However, the cost of such an installation and the cost of operation are often exaggerated to such an extent that foundries dispose of their copper-bearing refuse at a great loss. This paper gives the actual costs and the returns obtained in the reclaiming plant used at the Ohio Brass Co. This plant is divided into two sections—the preliminary treatment and concentrating departments. In the former occur the screening, crushing, and hand-picking operations whereby rnost of the non-valuable and heavy metallic constituents are removed. The concentrating equipment consists of an elevator, bins, jigs, ball-mill, arid table. Preliminary Treatment The preliminary treatment varies, depending on whether the material is slag, foundry-floor sweepings, or brass casting-floor sweepings. Material of the first class is produced from the operation of six Steele-Harvey and six Schwartz furnaces; the second class represents sweepings from an average of thirty-five. molding floors per day: and the last is collected around the sprue cutters and knockout bench. Treatment of Slag The slag, analyzing 30 to 40 per cent. copper, is passed over a 3-mesh yard screen (Tyler standard mesh) stretched on an inclined rectangular frame supported by adjustable legs and equipped with a hopper which directs the undersize into a barrow. The fine product, running about 20 per cent. copper and representing 20 to 25 per cent. of the total slag, goes direct to a storage bin for concentrator frrd. The oversize is charged into a No. 2 Hill cinder crusher, which takes 175 to 200 11,. to a charge and crushes two charges per hour through 'a No. 4 riddle. It

Jan 1, 1921

Jan 1, 1921

By AIME AIME

IN ACCORDANCE with the provisions of the Rules of Procedure of the American Engineering Standards Committee, the American Society for Testing, Mate-. on Feb. 15, 1921, submitted for approval by the A. E. S. Committee certain Standard Specifications for Copper, all of which were adopted or in process prior to Jan. 1, 1920, and sent with the standards the following histories of development and statements of use. FOR SOFT OR ANNEALED COPPER WIRE (B3-15) These specifications were originaly adopted by. the American Society for Testing Materials in 1912. They were prepared by a committee of the Society designated as Committee B-1 on Copper Wire. The committee consisted of eleven members; representatives of five manufacturers of -copper wire, of four manufacturers of electrical apparatus, and of two firms of consulting and contracting engineers. The members of the committee were designated by the officials of the companies to act as their representatives in the committee.

Jan 1, 1921

By AIME AIME

THE 123d meeting of the Institute was held in New York Feb. 14 to 17, 1921. The total registration was 1199, as compared with 1138 at the New York meeting in 1920. The weather was a strange and welcome contrast to that of last year, when New York was buried under six feet of snow as the result of the fiercest blizzard in its history. This year there was no snow, and the weather was said to be much more like an Arizona winter than New York. A complete program of the Technical Sessions is on p. 9. The discussions of the papers presented will be published in pamphlet form as soon as possible and will be noted in MINING AND METALLURGY in the usual way.

Jan 1, 1921

By Walter Renton Ingalls

IN SEVERAL papers and addresses during the past two years, I have dwelled upon some of the economic consequences of the war. The fundamental thought that I have sought to convey is that the world became immensely poorer by the war, not only in material wealth and population, but also in the psychology and morale of the people. I do not see how there can be any intelligent dissent from that statement. All the ideas of post-war prosperity were manifestly fallacious, manifestly fallacious from the outset. If there had been any truth in them it would have followed logically that a great war, with all its destruction of wealth, health and life would be a good thing. Therefore, let us have a great war every ten years or so. Such an idea would be both monstrous and absurd. Assuming then the acceptance of my premise, I have tried to show that the losses by the war could be made good in a short time, i.e., in a relatively short time, only by doing things a great deal better than formerly, and that the accomplishment of such a result called for greater transparency in industry, for industrial cooperation, for thinking in terms of industries as a whole, and for the greater exercise of engineering functions. All of this introduced, of course, the position and psychology of labor. I say frankly that I do not look for labor to contribute any constructive thought to the upbuilding. I neither expect it nor hope for it. This is a pity, for it could do so much for its own economic advancement if it would. However, it never has done so, but rather has benefited only from the exercise of the talents of the few, and the main hope now is to bring it into a passive state, dispelling the resistive fallacies that developed during the war. Let us briefly examine the nature of these.

Jan 1, 1921

By AIME AIME

T HE appointment of Herbert Hoover to the portfolio of Commerce in the President's Cabinet is to engineers the fulfillment of a long deferred hope to have an engineer in high political office and is a matter of congratulation to us for three reasons; because he is a mining engineer who represents the highest type of idealistic engineering effort; because he is a past president of the Institute; and because he has probably a broader grasp of world problems than any other living engineer. Frank A. Vanderlip in the preface to his book "What Happened to Europe" tells of the many interviews he had with the most prominent men in Europe which were made possible for him by his eminence as a banker and by the courtesy of the American ambassadors. He cites by name such well known figures as Austin Chamberlain, Sir Auckland Geddes, Monsieur Delacroix, Monsieur Briand, Mr. Padkrewski, Mr. Venizelos, Colonel House, General Pershing, Mr. Baruch, and many others and says :

Jan 1, 1921

By SAMUEL GOMPERS

THE name engineer makes a very strong appeal to one who appreciates the mechanism underlying the fabric of our civilization. Engineers are scouts of civilization. We send them ahead into the lone 'places-the wilderness, the jungles, the great watery expanses, to build the highways necessary for civilized man. The engineers must deal with Nature, with that mysterious dynamic thing we call "force," with materials. It is their function to direct the human activity necessary to coordinate these forces and material in order to make them serve the needs and aspirations of men. Because of my high conception of the engineering profession I was glad to accept the invitation to address The American Society of Mechanical Engineers to voice my understanding of the possibilities of your work as engineers of industry, and to suggest what seems to me the responsibility of the-engineer to the whole modern industrial system.

Jan 1, 1921

By ELIHU THOMSON

IN 1877, Professor Thomson delivered at the Franklin Institute, [Philadelphia, five lectures on electricity. The object of the lectures and the demonstrations, which were numerous and many of them original even to the employment of special apparatus constructed by the lecturer, was to show clearly that electricity, of whatever name, was the same., differing only in tension (as it was termed) and in the current flowing, or quantity (the old term), in steadiness or in wave-like character. In those days, the textbooks divided the subject into statical and dynamic electricity, with sub-divisions such as frictional electricity, voltaic electricity, magneto electricity, electromagnetism, thermo electricity, and animal electricity. The well-known Ruhmkorff coil,' or spark coil as it is now called (as when used for the ignition of automobiles), was employed to step, up a battery current to a high-tension discharge which would charge condensers, such as Leyden jars.

Jan 1, 1921

By HOMER L. WILLIAMS

WHILE some of the mining companies have been pumping a small amount of water for some time, it is only in recent years that large quantities of water have been encountered in the Tonopah district. The water appears to be in different zones or belts so that the draining of one property does not necessarily affect the one adjoining. Consequently, each company has its own pumping plant and its own conditions. The companies panes handling the largest amount of water are the Tonopah Extension Mining Co., Halifax Tonopah Mining Co., West Tonopah Consolidated Mining Co., and Great Western Consolidated Mining Co. The Halifax shaft is on the eastern end of the district and the other three properties on the western. The ore-bearing formation occurs at greater depth on -the eastern and western ends, hence the water problem in these properties.

Jan 1, 1921