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By Edward D. Thimons

Several types of inflatable stoppings, developed under Bureau of Mines contract for use as mine air barriers during underground production, have been tested by the Bureau. All of the stoppings tested showed significant internal leakage initially but, in all but one stopping, the leaks were sealed with limited effort The stoppings were tested underground in two western noncoal mines under production conditions. The results from the Colorado molybdenum mine showed the stoppings to be generally unsatisfactory for daily mine usage if they are deployed near blasting areas or in locations where near-perfect air seals are required. They were very susceptible to blast damage and seldom were better than 90 percent efficient as air barriers. However, stoppings tested in the New Mexico uranium mine were located substantially distant from any blasting. Because slight leakage past the stoppings was acceptable, they proved very satisfactory in that application.

Jan 1, 1976

By R. Kramer, A. Habibi

"Diesel Particulate Matter (DPM) measurements were taken at Tronox’s Westvaco Trona mine in Wyoming. Both shift-average and real-time monitoring using Elf pumps and Airtec analyzers, were used. The mine’s underground transportation fleet consists of more than 250 diesel-powered vehicles. A vehicle monitoring log tracked fleet usage during the test; logged data consisted of vehicle type, direction of travel, and time. The log was used in analysis to determine the DPM spread rate, of normally operating equipment, in the different entries with respect to vehicle location. Airflow velocity measurements at the stations were taken during the survey. The survey results also identified vehicles with higher emission rates. An ECOM gas and a MAHA DPM analyzer, both located in the mine’s underground emission shop, were used to obtain various vehicle emission rates. The correlation of the workshop and field measurements was investigated with regard to the machine activity, fuel usage and atmospheric conditions. The results were used to identify and execute a ventilation project to reroute 45% of diesel shop air back to intake entries, by interlocking an automated door and a regulator. The result is reduced DPM downstream. INTRODUCTION DPM has been classified as a potential occupational carcinogen by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) rule governing DPM exposures in metal and nonmetal mines cites total carbon (TC), a summation of elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) obtained by NIOSH Method 5040, as a surrogate for determining DPM exposures (Noll, 2006). MSHA personnel use the 1973 sampling criteria outlined by the American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) for collecting compliance-based respirable and inhalation samples in metal/nonmetal mines. Instrumentation developments are allowing improved real time monitoring of ventilation parameters. DPM is within the aerodynamic particle size range of the samplers used for respirable and inhalable dust measurements. If a sampler used by MSHA to collect inhalable or respirable dust samples in underground metal/nonmetal mines was used to collect DPM, both the DPM and mine ore dust would accumulate on the sample filter (Noll, 2006). To comply with the requirement and lower the DPM exposure, mines are implementing a variety of control technologies such as emission based maintenance programs where adjustments or repairs are performed on the vehicles (McGinn, 2000)."

Jan 1, 2016

By P. Schutte

It is evident from most admired companies, globally, that they drive key priorities such as teamwork, customer focus, fair treatment of employees, initiative and innovation into their organisations. It is clearly proofed in all the research that the role of the human factor, and therefore human behaviour, is pivotal to companies striving to accomplish goals such as competitiveness, customer delight, high quality, growing productivity as well as a safety-committed work force. The challenge of leadership is to change the worker’s poor perception of safety to an excited, empowered, valued employee who is continuously committed to the achievement of high levels of health, safety and conformance – the challenge therefore is to transform from within. Any work force needs a set of behavioural rules which work for it – including safety rules and critical safety behaviours, which are accepted through involvement leadership, encouragement and support.

Jan 1, 2003

By M. Lahtinen

Traditionally, there have been three main methods for iron removal in the hydrometallurgical production of zinc. These methods are atmospheric precipitation of jarosite or goethite and pressurised precipitation of hematite. Jarosite precipitation is without doubt the leading and the most commonly used technology for iron removal. However, jarosite precipitation has some drawbacks, such as a low iron content (and, thus, high residue volume), high moisture content after filtration and often a high zinc content. These features make any environmentally acceptable way of using or disposing of jarosite more expensive, as compared to hematite and goethite. The importance of environmental regulations has grown in the zinc industry during the last decade, which will have an increasing effect on new investments. Hematite has several advantages over jarosite, such as a high iron content, low moisture and low zinc content. An important advantage of hematite is that it is suited for further use in the cement industry. However, until now the need for autoclave equipment has limited the spread and implementation of hematite precipitation in the zinc industry. Outokumpu Technology Oy has recently developed an alternative method for iron removal, which is the atmospheric precipitation of hematite. A patented method for precipitating hematite at atmospheric pressure is presented and compared with conventional methods for iron removal. The process conditions, the quality of the hematite precipitate and the environmental aspects are also discussed.

Jan 1, 2006

By D. Kidd, T. Tucker, L. M. Indergard, S. Davis

"INTRODUCTION The Lisbon Valley Mining Co LLC (LVMC) operates the Lisbon Valley Mine located in SE Utah. The mine includes 3 open pits, 150-acre heap leach pad, and solvent extraction electro winning plant (SX/EW). Approximately 25MM tons of ore has been mined since 2005. The ore is stacked on the leach pad to an average height of 55 feet and occurs as a blend of crushed material (minus 2”) and run-of-mine (minus 24”). The host rocks include Dakota and Burro Canyon Sandstones. Copper occurs finely disseminated in this material at an average grade of 0.46%. Minerology is 63% sulfide, 27% oxide, and 10% insoluble. Total inventory mined through 2016 is approximately 230 MM lbs. METALLURGICAL CONSTRAINTS Copper production is constrained by areas of low permeability ore and geochemical issues, including acid consumption. The intrinsic permeability the ore ranges from 10-2 to 1 Darcy. This permeability does not permit sufficient aeration by natural convection, therefore oxygen transport is largely limited to the mass of oxygen that can remain dissolved in leachates. As a result, greater than 50MM lbs of copper remains in inventory and occurs secondary sulfides, including chalcocite, covellite, and bornite. BIOLEACHING FUNDAMENTALS Due to the higher activation energies of secondary sulfides, notably covellite and bornite, a strong oxidant is needed to remove an electron from the metal-sulfide lattice and release the copper cation into the sulfate solution. This process occurs most efficiently using the strong oxidant ferric iron (Fe3+). Ferrous iron can be oxidized to ferric iron by oxygen via chemical oxidation or biologically; which was measured to occur 500,000 times faster when using microbes versus oxygen.1 The microbes that oxidize ferrous iron (Fe2+) to ferric iron are naturally abundant and will develop biomass when appropriate conditions and nutrients present themselves. Most nutrients are provided by the ore/irrigation (P,N,Mg, Ca & Fe2+) while the others (O2 and CO2) are provided by air. In most cases, oxygen transfer is the rate limiting step during copper sulfide leaching. 1 Lacey & Lawson 1970 FORCED AERATION SYSTEM DESIGN This paper describes LVMC’s efforts to bioleach the remaining inventory by forced aeration. Two basic aeration systems were installed and tested including vertical wells and horizontal piping. Vertical System The vertical system was installed using the mine’s blast hole drilling rig. Wells were constructed using 4” high-density polyethylene (HDPE) connected to 4” polyvinyl chloride (PVC) screens similar to conventional bioventing wells. Ore samples were collected at each well location to characterize the spatial distribution of the remaining inventory along with fines (minus 200 sieve), pH (acid consumption), and iron. A block model of each analyte was developed and mapped in 3D."

Jan 1, 2017

By R. T. Sorensen

Bench-scale and continuous testing were performed to adapt the anionic process for flotation of calcium activated silica to the fine-grained hematitic-goethitic jaspers from the Marquette range, Michigan. These ores typically contain about 35 percent Fe and require grinding to about 80 to 100 percent minus 400 mesh to insure an adequate liberation of gangue from the iron oxides. A method for removal of troublesome slime fractions without excessive iron loss, by first dispersing the quartz and then selectively flocculating the iron oxides, was evolved in the laboratory and successfully accommodated to pilot plant practice. The efficiency of the flotation process was improved with respect to both reagent usage and concentrate grade and recovery by using the selective flocculation-desliming technique as a pretreatment. The benefits of the combined desliming-flotation procedure were most evident in pilot plant processing. The best tests on two ores yielded recoveries of about 84 percent in concentrates containing 65.1 percent Fe and 4.8 percent SiO2 and 66.2 percent Fe and 3.9 percent SiO2, respectively. These results are in comparison to recoveries about 10 percent lower than the above to concentrates containing 63.9 percent Fe and 6.6 percent SiO2 in the one instance, and 63.6 percent Fe and 7.2 percent SiO2 in the other, obtained by flotation without the prior desliming treatment.

Jan 1, 1967

By B. D. Nash

The Bureau of Mines continued its research into the recovery of fluorine by the phosphoric acid acidulation defluorination of phosphate rock concentrates. A small process development unit with a capacity of about 10 kilo-grams of charge per hour was operated, and concentrates from both Idaho and Florida were processed. Over 80 percent of the fluorine was evolved and recovered as a dilute fluosilicic acid solution. Phosphate extraction from the concentrates always exceeded 98 percent. The fluorine was converted to a synthetic fluorspar product (3CaFa?SiOa) suitable for use as a slag conditioner in electric furnace steelmaking operations.

Jan 1, 1977

By Edward J. Murphy

A comparative study has been made by the Bureau of Mines of several analytical methods for determining carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides in toxic gases produced by the detonation of explosives. Laboratory and field methods and detector-tube devices are described. Analytical results are compared, and reliability of the various methods is discussed. INTRODUCTION In all underground mining there is ever-present danger to persons from possible overexposure to carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides created by explosives or blasting agents. These health hazards, recognized for many years, led to the early establishment by the Bureau of Mines of specific requirements regarding fumes generated by explosives authorized for use in underground coal mines in the United States.3

Jan 1, 1961

By Ludmila Vieira da Silva Matos

O presente artigo investigou como a condição de operação das zonas de resfriamento em máquina de lingotamento de placas contribui para o desempenho de lanças air mist. Tal investigação foi realizada no laboratório da Spraying Systems Brasil a partir das premissas de projeto de uma nova máquina de lingotamento e um novo conceito de lança air mist: menor consumo de ar comprimido, amplo turndown e qualidade de cobertura por toda a curva de operação do resfriamento. As curvas de performance foram montadas para diferentes condições de utilização de ar comprimido: de 1,5 a 4,5bar de pressão constante. Cada lança teve das vazões mínimas às máximas de água ensaiadas. A qualidade do perfil do jato produzido foi verificada para cada ponto das curvas obtidas, em mesa de distribuição no laboratório da Spraying Systems. Com as imagens em mãos, foi possível selecionar aquelas condições de vazão de água e pressão de ar comprimido com melhores perfis de jato e cobertura. Como resultado, a fabricante da máquina pode validar e/ou modificar a curva de trabalho de resfriamento da máquina e garantir as melhores condições do perfil do jato e uniformidade de resfriamento.

Oct 1, 2019

By Thomas Novak, Sampurna Arya

Controlling dust generation and keeping it below permissible limits to meet federal dust standards at the working face of a room-and-pillar coal mine is a challenge for a mine operator. With the recent changes in federal dust regulations requiring lower worker exposure, maintaining compliance has become increasingly difficult. The current most effective practice of dust control at a continuous miner face in an underground mine is the use of a flooded-bed scrubber. A study carried out by the U.S National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) indicated that a flooded-bed scrubber could achieve cleaning efficiencies between 58 and 90 percent. But the operation of such a system is maintenance intensive. The flooded-bed scrubber screen becomes clogged with dust particles and requires frequent cleaning to maintain performance. However, the dust control issue is not solely a mining-industry problem. Other industries face similar issues. The University of Kentucky collaborated with Toyota Motor Manufacturing on the development of a novel wet scrubber, called the vortecone scrubber, for capturing over-sprayed paint particles in automotive paint booths. The vortecone scrubber achieved a cleaning efficiency of 99 percent and required minimal maintenance. This study aims to assess the ability of this vortecone scrubber to capture respirable dust in an underground coal mine. The paper presents the results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of this vortecone scrubber. It discusses the effects of air quantity and dust particle size on the performance of the scrubber. 

By J. Dong

"A “green” collector project has been initiated at Vale Base Metals Technology Development to replace xanthate. Bench and miniplant testwork showed comparable metallurgical results between xanthate and DTC (sodium dibutyl dithiocarbamate), a “greener” collector. During the first DTC plant trial, a strong interaction between the process water and DTC negatively impacted the metallurgy. The subsequent investigation showed that the quality of process water including suspended solids and dissolved metal ions had a significant impact on the performance with DTC, while less so with PAX. This paper explains these differences using UV spectrophotometry and batch flotation tests. INTRODUCTIONVale Base Metals is dedicated to sustainable mining and mineral processing. One of the key activities is to find a “greener” collector to replace xanthate (PAX: potassium amyl xanthate), which decomposes during storage and flotation causing CS2 emissions in the work place. As the most promising candidate, DTC (sodium dibutyl dithiocarbamate) was evaluated in the lab and miniplant (Dong & Xu, 2011). Consequently, a plant trial was conducted in the winter of 2010. However, the results were not as good as expected. The subsequent investigation showed that the quality of process water played a significant role in the metallurgical performance with DTC but less so with xanthate.From test work in 1996 and 1997, a series of batch tests were performed at Clarabelle Mill to investigate the winter/summer metallurgical shift with xanthate. As shown in Figure 1, the winter metallurgy was considerably worse than the summer metallurgy (Xu & Wilson, 2000). At 80% pentlandite recovery, the concentrate (Cu+Ni) grade was 21% in the winter and 26% in the summer. At 23% (Cu+Ni) concentrate grade, pentlandite recovery was 85% in the summer and 70% in the winter. In the summer, the process water is much cleaner, with very low concentrations of dissolved metals ions and suspended solids; while in the winter, the water is yellow and cloudy, with much higher suspended solids. Based on these results, it was concluded that the process water in winter has a detrimental impact on metallurgy."

Jan 1, 2012

"Many industrial processes involve materials that are subject to temperature change and thermal stress. Examples range from the casting of large metallic products to the cooling and reliability of small electronic components. Thermally induced stress is a major concern as it can lead to material damage and product failure. Material properties, thermal and mechanical, and process conditions such as the size and location of a feeder in metals casting, or the power dissipation in a computer chip, will govern the magnitude of these stresses. Temperature may also be influenced by fluid flow, for example, the airflow over a computer chip in a laptop will govern the rate of heat extraction, hence the temperature gradients in the chip and the evolving thermal stresses.This paper provides details on the governing equations for heat transfer (temperature) and solid mechanics (stress), their degree of coupling, and the numerical techniques used to solve them. Three examples are discussed to illustrate the use thermomechanical modelling. These also provide an insight into the degree of coupling required between the equations. The first example, involves thermal cycling of electronic components where a prescribed temperature field is applied. As temperature is known, this example only requires the solution of the stress equation. The second example also involves the modelling of an electronic component where the temperature field is also calculated. In both of these examples, the stress calculation is dependent on the temperature field, but the temperature calculation is not dependent of the solution of the stress equation (one-way coupling). The final example provides details on modelling the metals casting process. Both the temperature and stress equations are solved but, unlike the previous two examples, in this case the temperature field is dependent on the results from the stress calculation (two-way coupling)."

Jan 1, 2001

By Jaiza Bernardo de Oliveira, Iasmim Ariane Silva, Pedro Henrique Medeiros Câmara

The process of manufacturing pig iron in the blast furnace industrial units has the consequence of the generation of slag, a waste that can be produced in high quantity and present damages to the environment, when not reused. In the composition of this tailings, it is sometimes possible to find the presence of metals harmful to nature, such as manganese, which has an important and widespread utility in the metal industries, but still, the slag ends up not being used as a potential source of this element. Knowing this, the slags were subjected to crushing and grading steps to separate the aliquots. These were applied in the tests of technological characterization of the material, from MEV, EDS, Soxhlet and analysis of liberation degree by digital microscope, finding data of several analyzes. Having said that, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate, through the characterization of the slag, that this material has in its composition metallic elements, focusing on manganese, that can be reused in order to avoid the generation of environmental liabilities harmful to the environment. The results show a manganese content with a degree of release greater than 80% in bands from 48 #, which were divided by density and thus allow the gravimetric separation of the material in question.

Oct 3, 2019

"The Industrial Comminution Efficiency (ICE) working group, part of the Global Mining Standards and Guidelines Group (GMSG) has engaged a large number of industry professionals representing mining companies, equipment vendors, consultants and metallurgical laboratories with interests and capabilities in the comminution field. These participants have collaborated to develop three guidelines for the assessment of the efficiency of mineral comminution circuits. Two of these guidelines deal specifically with power based modelling techniques to quantify energy efficiency using widely practiced techniques, those developed by Bond (1961), Rowland and McIvor (2009), and Morrell (2009). The third guideline deals with the sampling and surveying of grinding circuits as is required to provide the necessary information, at appropriate quality, to furnish the efficiency analysis promoted by the first two guidelines. This preprint will focus on the Guideline on Methods to Survey and Sample Grinding Circuits, which is currently in the final stages of peer review and finalization by the GMSG. INTRODUCTION It is important to make a clear distinction on the scope of work of the GMSG guideline for sampling grinding circuits. Many mineral processing practitioners are familiar with the sampling and surveying of comminution circuits, in particular grinding circuits, for performance diagnosis and the identification of optimization potential. These surveys often provide information for population balance modelling of individual comminution and classification unit processes, and as a result require a large amount of information to calibrate and validate the unit models. As a result these surveys are labour intensive, somewhat expensive depending on internal capabilities of the mine site or company, and have a long time span from initial planning to final reporting. They also require a high level of expertise to process the survey data, simulate the circuit and make sensible recommendations on follow up actions. As a result of these factors full grinding circuit surveys are not a common occurrence at a large number of facilities, and several years may pass before follow up surveys are conducted. In the ensuing gap between surveys, the efficiency of the grinding circuit must often be taken on faith, and this is considered an unacceptable lapse in an environment of strained natural resources and low commodity prices. To support the rapid and productive energy efficiency analysis being promoted by the ICE working group, a much simplified survey and analysis process is required. The process reflected in the GMSG guideline is indeed more conducive to frequent analysis, at a skill level that is well within the capabilities of the average plant metallurgist. As a result it becomes feasible to conduct mini-surveys of plant performance, which can be used to quickly and precisely diagnose the high level impact of process changes. It can also be manipulated by experienced practitioner to provide sufficient information for modelling of the circuit to estimate the impact of process changes, supporting an initial rate and rank exercise to focus plant optimization efforts."

Jan 1, 2016

By Peter Hayes, Evgueni Jak, Taufiq Hidayat, David Grimsey, Denis Shishin

"An integrated nickel flash smelter is operated with Peirce-Smith converters at the Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter. To improve the partitioning of arsenic between slag waste and matte product, an option to modify the slag–matte chemistry by addition of CaO was analysed. A combination of plant sample analysis, high-temperature laboratory experiments and thermodynamic modeling was carried out to evaluate the process options. The high-temperature experiments involved the re-equilibration of industrial matte-slag samples at 1225 °C and P(SO2) = 0.12 atm, rapid quenching in water, and direct measurement of phase compositions using electron probe X-ray microanalysis (EPMA) and Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LAICPMS). A private thermodynamic database for nickel sulfide smelting and converting was used together with the FactSage thermochemical software package to assist in the analysis of the distribution of elements between slag and matte as a function of CaO addition. The thermodynamic predictions combined with experimental data obtained in this study can be used to characterise the effect of CaO fluxing on the slag–matte thermochemistry during the nickel sulfide converting.INTRODUCTION At the Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter (KNS), nickel sulfide concentrate is processed in an Outotec-type flash furnace to produce nickel matte containing +47 wt% Ni. Separation of nickel matte and waste slag from the flash smelting is enhanced through settling in the electric arc -heated zone attached to the flash furnace. The flash furnace matte is further processed in a Peirce-Smith converter to produce Ni-rich matte containing +66 wt% Ni (Crundwell, Moats, Ramachandran, Robinson, & Davenport, 2011). Iron silicate-based slag is used in the converting process at KNS. Most of the arsenic is contained in the final matte and very little of the arsenic partitions into the slag. Previous work by Font et al (Font, Hino, & Itagaki, 2003) shows that the distribution ratio of arsenic between calcium ferrite slag and nickel-matte (LAsslag/matte) is significantly higher than that between iron silicate slag and nickel-matte, where LAsslag/matte = (wt pct As in slag)/{wt pct As in matte} (1)"

Jan 1, 2017

By K J. F Logan, P W. Leaman, B A. Tucker

"An EXTENDED ABSTRACT is available for download. A full-length paper was not prepared for this presentation. The Nam San copper-gold deposit was discovered in 2011 and is a likely blind extension of the Permian age Phu Kham structurally deformed porphyry/skarn copper-gold deposit.The Nam San mineralisation is hosted within a dominantly sericite altered schist unit located to the north of the current Phu Kham open pit operation and is overthrust by an allochthonous barren cover sequence of limestone, granite and sandstone. Reinterpretation of the Phu Kham geology developed the concept of a possible telescoped porphyry copper-gold system at depth. Initial drilling intersected remobilised copper mineralisation in a basal conglomerate, confirming the concept. A reconnaissance vector array induced polarisation (IP) survey identified a deep chargeability anomaly from which a drilling target was developed from 3D inversion modelling of a detailed follow up dipole-pole-dipole anomaly. Drilling of the chargeability anomaly intersected the blind Nam San copper-gold mineralisation beneath the thrusted cover sequence.The key discovery parameters are the result of an integrated exploration program that included reinterpretation of the local stratigraphy, which developed the concept of a deep blind orebody, IP surveys capable of penetrating through the barren cover and a commitment to a deep directional drilling program to test these concepts and targets. The inferred resource remains open at depth, and further assessment will most likely be through underground development.CITATION:Leaman, P W, Tucker, B A and Logan, K J F, 2015. The discovery of the Nam San copper-gold deposit, Phu Kham, Laos, in Proceedings PACRIM 2015 Congress, pp 515–520 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Mar 18, 2015

By J. Adkins

This document presents a description of the results of a project aimed at producing a broad description of current mining training programs and an evaluation of their effectiveness with respect to reducing mine injuries. Aggregate training and injury data were used to evaluate the overall training effort at 300 mines as well as specific efforts in twelve categories of training course objectives. From such evaluations, recommendations were derived with particular emphasis being placed on identifying program characteristics that tend to be associated with effective training. Recommendations were also formulated with reference to role changes in industry and government interaction with respect to training programs, new or additional training programs, changes in the types of course materials and training methodologies, and recommendations concerning new areas for investigation.

Jan 1, 1976

By John W. Finch

The Secretary of the Interior acting through the Bureau of Mines and the Geological Survey is authorized by the Strategic Materials (Public No. 117 - 76th Cong., Chapter 190 1st Sess.) to make investigation concerning essential minerals of which the quantities or grades obtainable from known domestic sources are inadequate. The Bureau of Mines, in carrying out its part of this program, may investigate deposits of such minerals in whatever manner may be necessary, in order to determine (1) the extent and quality of the are, (2) the most suitable method of mining and beneficiating it, and (3) the cost at which it may be produced. The essential objective in doing these things is to determine where and how supplies of minerals and metals of which domestic production is usually inadequate might be obtained in a national emergency, even though at higher cost than usual.

Jan 1, 1939

By N LaBranche, G Callinan

There has been a reduction in overall workforce in the mining industry during the current downturn; a corresponding reduction in fatalities and high potential incidents (HPIs) has not been observed. The same contributing factors can be seen in the vast majority of these incidents. These include inadequate supervision and lack of adequate risk assessment. How management structures, trains and leads an operation can have a great impact on eliminating these factors and reducing the risk of fatalities and HPIs.Contractors now account for 41 per cent of full-time equivalent employees in the Queensland mining workforce, and are disproportionately represented in the majority of fatalities and HPIs. Having a clear strategy for how contractors are integrated into the workforce is crucial. This talk will include a discussion of the data as collected in the Department of Mines and Natural Resources department database, and offer solutions based on this data.CITATION:LaBranche, N and Callinan, G, 2016. Organisational factors in fatalities and high potential incidents, in Proceedings International Mine Management Conference, pp 201-206 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jun 22, 2016

By F. E. Cash

The Holmes Safety Association , organized and named in honor of the late Dr. Joseph A. Holmes , first director of the United States Bureau of Mines , has for its object the prevention cf accidents , the improvement of health conditions at work, in the home , and in public places , and the promotion of the general welfare of its members . As a means of preventing accidents and advancing health and safety , the Holmes Safety Association disseminates information , gives instructions on subjects related to safety , and promotes first -aid and other forms of protective and accident - prevention training . This organization is intended to work and cooperate in the closest possible way with existing mine or plant safety organizations in conducting educational , social , and recreational activities for the promotion of health , safety , and efficiency .

Jan 1, 1929