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` LAWRENCE ADDICKS, New York, N. Y.-We have really two competitive processes for the production of electrolytic zinc. In the process used at Great Falls, the ore is roasted and the calcines leached, leaving a residue which has to be smelted; in the other method, the ore is burned, the zinc and lead fumed off, and the condensed fumes are leached. I do not think that we can yet come to any decision as to which is the better way to attack the problem. Of course if we roast first and then leach, various substances remain in the calcines which may consume sulphuric acid; whereas if we do the burning first, we obtain simply the zinc and lead oxides, with considerable sulphate, in the fume, and there is no shortage of acid. It also depends partly on the complexity of the ore. The one that Mr. Hall is treating and the ore they are treating at Great Falls are not quite alike, but I think they are sufficiently similar to make a comparison of the two methods, working in competition, on different parts of the country, very interesting. C. E. SCHWARTZ, Miami, Okla.-Mr. Hall states that the Joplin conditions are not suitable for the manufacture of electrolytic zinc. When we speak of Joplin ore in general, we consider, of course, a 60-per cent: concentrate with comparatively low iron, but if a low-grade concentrate could be made from tailings and so-called chats, then the problem would be quite different. A Joplin ore is comparatively simple to treat electrolytically, and I believe the electrolytic process would open a field for the treatment of such ores as would not be ordinarily smeltable; that is,

Jan 1, 1918

By L. O. Howard

L. D. RICKETTS, New York, N. Y.-The advance which has been made in Smelting has been in the line of cheaper cost of handling, due to larger units and decrease in losses. At the International smelter, Mr. McGregor designed everything to handle the ore under cover. But we do find an unaccounted for loss of 0.7 per cent. of our copper, which is serious. Mr. Wallace has made a suggestion that I think metallurgists ought to know of and think about. He made it years ago-and that is that one of the chief losses is undoubtedly in the charging and discharging of the calcine cars. His idea is that possibly the dryers and heaters might be put immediately over the reverberatories So that they could discharge in conveyors. They could feed on both sides, and thereby the dust raised by discharging in the cars from the hoppers could be overcome. E. P. MATHEWSON, Anaconda, Mont.-I might Say a few words on the plants we have visited So far. I was particularly struck with the cleanliness of the plants, which is next to Godliness. I noticed also that the skull-cracker arrangement they have for handling their converter slag is very good. And they have paid considerable attention to ventilation, and are taking steps to take care of the health of the men. "Safety first" has been well looked after in all the plants we have visited so far. The steel structures are right up to date, and the buildings are of the most modern type, and everything is conveniently arranged. I think the designers of the plants in the Southwest are to be congratulated on what they have done.

Jan 12, 1916

By D. Naden

Sulphuric acid leaching is the most common method of recovering uranium from its ores and in the following discussion various alternative low cost routes are investigated for recovering uranium from milled ore acid leach liquors. Historically uranium has been recovered from dilute impure leach liquors by packed bed ion exchange (IX), solvent extraction (SX) or a combination of both. All three process routes as commonly practised require complete separation of leached solids and liquids, as well as extensive solids washing in order to reduce soluble uranium losses to a minimum. Separation and washing are costly and often require equipment covering large areas of land. The size and capital cost of the post leach solids washing operation is controlled by the ease of washing the slimes fraction of the ore and the key to the problem of cost reduction, as many others have realised, lies in the ability to separate the slimes fraction of the ore from the more easily washed sands, to wash the sands in low cost equipment and to recover uranium from the slimes stream. Sands and slimes are usually defined in this context as the material larger than, and smaller than, 325 mesh (44 microns). The proposed flowsheets which minimise solid-liquid separation and washing have usually incorporated ion exchange (Refs 1,2,3), and resin in pulp is in fact practised in several mills in the USA (Ref 1). The resins used in these flowsheets and [cranium] recovery throughout the world have been strong base resins which load rapidly and are moderately selective for the uranyl sulphate complex anion over the range of pH which is conveniently achieved in an acid leach operation. Strong base resins are, however, not as selective as weak base resins and weak base liquid reagents owing to the adsorption of competing anions, some of which find their way into the product while others act as resins poisons. Ion exchange using strong base resins must therefore be followed by a more selective weak base SX purification step if pure yellow cake is required.

Jan 1, 1976

By C. E. Lesher

Low-temPeRatUre carbonization needs no introduction to the literature on coal. This paper will attempt no review of that literature; it tells the story of the commercial development of one of the processes for carbonizing coal at so-called low temperatures, dealing with the technology and economics of the process rather than with the design of equipment. The process used is that covered by the patents of C. B. Wisner, with improvements and changes made by the Pittsburgh Coal Carbonization Co. The important and novel feature of the process is the phenomenon of making the product in ball form (Fig. 1). Melting coal dust into smokeless solid fuel in an apparatus as simple as a revolving cylinder of ordinary mild steel has been proved to be practical. Furthermore, it has been found that the process has a wide application, for by applying a knowledge of why and how this balling action is accomplished, the apparatus can be designed and adapted to treat any coal that has a certain minimum agglutinating property. The operating plant is 20 miles west of Pittsburgh, adjacent to the Champion preparation plant of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. The coal used is cleaned minus ?-in. or finer sizes. The products are low-tem-perature coke, tar and tar products. Present capacity is 7000 tons per month of low-temperature coke and 140,000 gal. of tar. There is no surplus gas for sale, and none of the light oils are stripped from the gas. The coke is marketed in two sizes, 1 to 2 in. and 1 to 6 in., through retail coal dealers for domestic consumption in hand-fired furnaces, and for fireplace fuel. The smaller size is bagged by dealers. Crude tar and many distillates and road tars are sold. Acknowledgments During the 10 years in which the work that is summarized in this paper has been under way, many have contributed time and effort, faithful service and fruitful thinking. Whatever success has attended

Jan 1, 1940

By Erwin H. Leeman, Raymond R. Rice, Gerald L. Hassler

In the past few years a great deal of preeise information has been obtained about the relation of natural gas to oil production1. The improvement of our understanding has been of great value, both in prolonging the life of wells and in providing a much needed technical background for the legal problem of proration. But there are two principal aspects of the problem of production. It is necessary to consider not only the energy available, in the form of compressed and dissolved gas and in the pressure of driving water, but also the tenacity with which the sandstone holds the oil. The amount of oil that each sand condition will produce under given conditions of gas content should be determined. Hitherto the effect of the sand has been judged by a study of the flow of each well coupled with a procedure for extrapolating the production curve; hut, as is well known to evaluation engineers, such production curves are subject to changes that are not well understood, and often are affected by outside disturbances. On the whole, the concept of "potential production" is vague principally because the influence of the sand in production is not known beyond the simple ideas of porosity and permeability. The permeability is a quantity that has only inference value where mixtures of gas and oil or of gas, oil and water are present. Excellent studies of the production of oil from reservoirs packed with unconsolidatcd sand are available2, but these studies treat largely of small-scale analogzes to a producing field, and the conclusions to be derived from them arc necessarily of a qualitative character because it is not known in what way these miniature oil fields resemble large ones.

Jan 1, 1936

By F Brenguier, R A. Lynch, G Olivier

The seismic velocities of intact rock are dependent on the applied stress. Unfortunately, the low susceptibility of seismic velocity to stress changes mean that changes in seismic velocity have to be measured extremely accurately to infer stress changes from them. Previously, it was thought that measurements of this accuracy could only be made with active sources or repeating earthquakes. In this paper, we show that the noise generated by mining activity can be used to construct virtual seismic signals with which we can measure changes in seismic velocity accurately enough to see the short- and long-term effects of a production blast on the surrounding medium. The time-dependent velocity variations achieved with this method show that the blast caused weakening of the rock mass for the rock within a radius of 200 m of the blast. The weakening is healed by confining stresses over a period of five days, after which permanent changes in the seismic velocity can be seen. The size and spatial distribution of the seismic velocity changes were compared to modelled changes in static volumetric stress, which supported the notion that seismic velocity changes can be used to measure the redistribution of stress after a blast. The results of this study indicate that this method can be a powerful tool to evaluate the evolution of stress in a mine at a relatively low cost as the data that it uses would normally be discarded.CITATION:Olivier, G, Lynch, R A and Brenguier, F, 2016. Measuring the redistribution of stresses resulting from new excavations with ambient seismic noise correlations, in Proceedings Seventh International Conference and Exhibition on Mass Mining (MassMin 2016), pp 873–878 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

May 9, 2016

By D Whitworth

The Golden Pig mine has embarked on a diamond drill program design philosophy that increases flexibility of the program by greatly increased drill pattern densities. The use of standard broad pattern diamond drilling at the Golden Pig mine has previously lead to operational inefficiencies and impacted significantly on the costs of the mine. The diamond drill program philosophy and its interaction with mine planning is explained. The case study of the E lode mining as used to internally justify the increased drill densities is detailed.

Jan 1, 2002

By C. E. Lesher

Low-temPeRatUre carbonization needs no introduction to the literature on coal. This paper will attempt no review of that literature; it tells the story of the commercial development of one of the processes for carbonizing coal at so-called low temperatures, dealing with the technology and economics of the process rather than with the design of equipment. The process used is that covered by the patents of C. B. Wisner, with improvements and changes made by the Pittsburgh Coal Carbonization Co. The important and novel feature of the process is the phenomenon of making the product in ball form (Fig. 1). Melting coal dust into smokeless solid fuel in an apparatus as simple as a revolving cylinder of ordinary mild steel has been proved to be practical. Furthermore, it has been found that the process has a wide application, for by applying a knowledge of why and how this balling action is accomplished, the apparatus can be designed and adapted to treat any coal that has a certain minimum agglutinating property. The operating plant is 20 miles west of Pittsburgh, adjacent to the Champion preparation plant of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. The coal used is cleaned minus ?-in. or finer sizes. The products are low-tem-perature coke, tar and tar products. Present capacity is 7000 tons per month of low-temperature coke and 140,000 gal. of tar. There is no surplus gas for sale, and none of the light oils are stripped from the gas. The coke is marketed in two sizes, 1 to 2 in. and 1 to 6 in., through retail coal dealers for domestic consumption in hand-fired furnaces, and for fireplace fuel. The smaller size is bagged by dealers. Crude tar and many distillates and road tars are sold. Acknowledgments During the 10 years in which the work that is summarized in this paper has been under way, many have contributed time and effort, faithful service and fruitful thinking. Whatever success has attended

Jan 1, 1940

By K. Thuro, S. Schneider, H. Kasling, P. Ellecosta

"One of the most important methods for material testing is the characterization of the hardness, which is defined as the resistance of a material to the penetration of another one. The methods according to Brinell, Vickers, Rockwell and Knoop are today the most common and standardized tests for metal. As they are developed for predominantly ductile materials like steel, they can’t easily be applied to rocks which react much more brittle under indentation. But just as steel, rock is composed of different minerals and has a specific microstructure. Its mechanical parameters are connected with the particular grains, their cohesion and interlocking, just like steel.The abrasivity of rocks and the accompanied wear of drilling tools today are mainly determined by simple and fast laboratory tests such as the Cerchar abrasivity test or the rubber wheel test. Such laboratory tests are good tribological tests, but there are limits. The Cerchar abrasivity test for example has weaknesses in extreme cases, that mean soft or very hard rock types. This leads to an underestimation of abrasivity, e.g. in poorly lithified sandstones or very hard, fine grained and extremely abrasive rocks. As mentioned, hardness characterizes, depending on the type of deformation, predominantly plastic (metal) or elastic properties (rubber). Rocks are in the range between these two extremes. Since the rock drilling process can be seen as a kind of penetration process on macroscopic and microscopic scales, we picked up the idea to characterize the interaction of rock materials and TBM-disc-cutters with hardness tests. In addition, this supports for a better understanding of the wear process on disc cutters. We used the hardnessdisparity concept after Cardu & Giraudi (2012) because wear can be understood as the interaction between the wear part and the material which causes the wear (tribological system). Several rock-forming minerals and some fine to coarse-grained monomineralic and polymineralic rocks were tested. In contrast to Cardu & Giraudi, we used in the first step of investigations the method after Vickers with loads up to 294.2 N (HV 30), depending on the estimated hardness to get bigger indentations and therefore as well information about the cohesion and interlocking of the minerals/grains. We also tested several associated disc cutters. First results show that with higher loads (HV 5 - 30) and at least 15 indentations, we get a structural hardness in fine-grained rock samples, which allows a good characterization of the elasticity and brittleness. Nevertheless, for the coarse-grained rock samples we need up to 40 indentations for a good characterization. Using this method, a prediction of disc cutter wear is feasible taking into account the hardness of the disc cutter steel. In this paper, we would like to present this approved method in material sciences to derive an additional parameter for the characterization of rock abrasivity and wear."

Jan 1, 2015

By Lala Zhao, Yuemin Zhao, Guangyuan Xie, Chusheng Liu, Chenlong Duan

"Screening is an important means of size classification used on granular or particulate materials. The vibrating modes of screen separator have a great effect on the screening process. Elliptical vibration mode is a complex motion mode which gets the common characteristics of both linear and circular vibration modes. However, the fundamental motion and screen penetration of the particles on the elliptically vibrating screen deck are still poorly understood. A numerical study of the motion of particulates flow along an elliptically vibrating screen deck is presented by means of a three dimensional Discrete Element Method (3D-DEM). The motion characteristic of the particle flow is analyzed at a particle scale. The effects of vibration amplitude, throwing index, vibration direction angle and screen deck inclination angle on the screening process are discussed. The results show that the particles average velocity increases linearly with the increase of vibration amplitude, throwing index and screen deck inclination angle, but decreases linearly with the increase of vibration direction angle. The screening efficiency is highest when the vibration amplitude, throwing index, vibration direction angle and screen deck inclination angle are 4.5 mm, 3.3, 40° and 6°, respectively. This work is helpful for developing a deep understanding of particle motion on the elliptically vibrating screen and for optimizing screen separator designs."

Jan 1, 2014

By R. Norman Orava

The strain-mte behavior of. the tensile yielding and flow characteristics of arc-cast polycrystal-line molyhdenum of pidrity > 99.97 pct was investigated in the range 10-6 to 10-1 sec-1 at 243o, 293o, and 373oK for two grain sizes, 0.027 and 9.098 mm. For 0.998 mm, the strain-mte dependence of the lower yield stress can be described by a straight line of the jowl a, = a + 0 log e over the whole range of strain rates examined. However, for 0.027 mm, the data fit several consecutive linear relationships of the above form. The previous association of these different linear regions with different rate -controlling mechanisms is questionable for molyhdenzdm. The senlilog strain-rate dependence of the yield stress is consistent with Hahn's model for yielding when the stress dependence of the mobile dislocation density, pr, is taken into account. Since p', from rate -cycling experirnents, is found to be relatively insensitive to stress for single crystaIs, the obserzied log-log dependence of their yield stresses is also in agreement with the model. A correction for the stress dependence of p' changes the activation oolurrze for yielding from a zero to a more realislic inverse function of stress where the Peierls mechanism is believed to be rate-controlling. The gmin-size dependence of the lower yield stress is not a monotonic junction of strain rate. RECENT experimental evidence' has revealed that the strain-rate dependence of the tensile lower yield stress, a,, of commercially pure ni- obium and tantalum tested at room temperature can be described by several consecutive semilog relations of the form: sv =a + ß log € [1] where i is the applied strain rate and a and 0 are constant Over only relatively small ranges of strain rate. Three linear regions were found for niobium and four for tantalum. Each linear region was interpreted as being associated with a different rate-controlling mechanism on the basis of the current

Jan 1, 1964

By Franklin H. Allison

The influence of cobalt and nickel on the properties of steel might be readily expected to be very similar. The two elements occupy close and somewhat unusual positions in the periodic table, their chemical behavior and compounds are so completely analogous and their various physical properties, including the ferro-magnetic characteristic, show such 3 remarkable correspondence, that there is no doubt of a strong resemblance existing between these two metals. However, the variety of properties that are obtained from steel is due largely to the fact that the element iron possesses allotropic forms. Alloying elements that affect these allot ropic forms, or alter the nature of the allotropic changes, exert a profound influence on the resulting steel. In the case of nickel and cobalt, although these elements are very similar chemically and physically, it is found that they differ distinctly in their individual effects on the critical points of iron. Both nickel and cobalt form a series of homogeneous solid solutions with iron at temperatures above 1500" F. The difference in their behavior does not occur until changes begin to take place in the solid state below this temperature. An inspection of the respective thermal equilibrium diagrams at the lower temperatures makes the opposite effects of nickel and cobalt clearly evident. Effect of Nickel and Cobalt in Binary Alloys with Iron The binary diagram of iron-nickel has been investigated by a number of workers. The lower temperature portion in Fig. 1 is reconstructed from the data of D. and H, Hanson.1 The diagram of iron-cobalt, shown in Fig. 2, is taken from the work of Ruer and Kaneko.2 Masumoto3 has recently discovered a lower critical point in cobalt and this has been added to the diagram. In both diagrams the space lattice structures as determined by Andrews4 have been included. It is interesting to note

Jan 1, 1927

By Carl Davis

A description is given of grinding practice on the Rand and of experiments made to improve that practice. The paper includes a description of the experimental plants and methods and the results obtained. THE first tube-mill on the Rand was put into operation in May, 1904, at the Glen Deep Mine. From that time onwards, tube-mills were added to various plants, although little was known regarding the capacity of a given tube-mill when working on banket ore. Within a few years, however, the so-called standard size (length of shell 22 ft. 0 in. diameter 5 ft. 6 in.) was generally used until the last year or two. Practically the only exceptions were about 30 tube-mills having a length of 16 ft. and a diameter of 6 ft., and a few open-end mills of the roller-supported type. Most of the information obtained during the last 15 years has been obtained with mills of the standard dimensions. The adoption of the tube-mill as an accessory to the stamp mill was rapid; and where 3 tube-mills were working on the Rand at the end of 1904, 244 were in use seven years later.1 By 1910, good practice provided 1 tube-mill for 20 stamps of 2000-lb. falling weight. The horsepower of the motors driving the tube-mills had increased from. 80 to 100 and then to 125 at this date. Broadly speaking, current practice at that date aimed at a final product of which 60 per cent. was suitable for sand treatment and 40 per cent. for slime. The sand grading was +60 mesh, 6 per cent.; +90 mesh, 25 per cent.; -90 mesh, 69 per cent.; and the slime grading -200 mesh, 2 per cent.; -200 mesh, 98 per cent.

Jan 12, 1924

By R. F. W. Pease, R. A. Ploc

A scanning electron microscope with a resolving power better then 100Å has been developed for the direct examination of surfaces. This instrument was used to study iron undergoing oxidation at 500°C. It was found that the electron current in the scanning electron microscope was low enough (about 10-atrzp) to have no observable effect on the growth of the oxide. "Armco " iron, when oxidized, exhibited an oxide film whose thickness and whiskey population varied with pain orientation; but purer iron, when oxidized, exhibited no such pain dependence and whisker occurrence appeared to be caused by impurities. UNTIL recently most surfaces of opaque specimens could either be studied with a light microscope or, if higher resolution was required, by viewing a replica of the surface in a transmission electron microscope. Direct electron microscopy of a surface has, in general, proved difficult owing to excessive foreshortening and the poor image quality obtained. The scanning electron microscope, however, offers an alternative method of directly viewing a surface without these disadvantages. At low magnification it offers a much larger depth of focus than the light microscope, and at high magnifications it offers much higher resolution (about 100Å). PRINCIPLE OF THE SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE A schematic diagram is shown in Fig. 1. The electron optical system consists of a gun followed by a series of lenses which focus the electron beam onto the surface of the specimen. The beam is scanned in a rectangular raster across the specimen surface and, by amplifying the secondary electron current from the 'pecimen, a picture of the specimen surface is built UP sequentially on the face of the display cathode-ray tube. The magnification of such a system is given by the ratio of the scan amplitude on the display cathode-ray tube to

Jan 1, 1965

By Renee Grogan

"An environmental impact assessment (EIA) of a deep sea mining project typically describes the environmental baseline, impacts of the project to the environmental values, and proposed management techniques. Comprehensive EIAs also consider the impact of the mining project on existing industries, including deep sea fishing. However, few projects to date have included other industries in the EIA process in more than a cursory manner, due to the confidentiality of the process, conflicting priorities, and bureaucratic limitation. However, if the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (particularly Goal 17: Collaboration) are to be achieved, a new way of thinking will be necessary for deep sea mining projects, starting with collaboration at the very beginning of the project life cycle.STRUCTURE OF PRESENTATIONThis presentation will be in the format of an oral (20 minute presentation).The presentation will cover the process of inter-industry collaboration throughout the life cycle of a deep sea mining project, drawing on historical and existing examples, including that of the Chatham Rock Phosphate Project in New Zealand."

Jan 1, 2017

By Erwin H. Leeman, Raymond R. Rice, Gerald L. Hassler

In the past few years a great deal of preeise information has been obtained about the relation of natural gas to oil production1. The improvement of our understanding has been of great value, both in prolonging the life of wells and in providing a much needed technical background for the legal problem of proration. But there are two principal aspects of the problem of production. It is necessary to consider not only the energy available, in the form of compressed and dissolved gas and in the pressure of driving water, but also the tenacity with which the sandstone holds the oil. The amount of oil that each sand condition will produce under given conditions of gas content should be determined. Hitherto the effect of the sand has been judged by a study of the flow of each well coupled with a procedure for extrapolating the production curve; hut, as is well known to evaluation engineers, such production curves are subject to changes that are not well understood, and often are affected by outside disturbances. On the whole, the concept of "potential production" is vague principally because the influence of the sand in production is not known beyond the simple ideas of porosity and permeability. The permeability is a quantity that has only inference value where mixtures of gas and oil or of gas, oil and water are present. Excellent studies of the production of oil from reservoirs packed with unconsolidatcd sand are available2, but these studies treat largely of small-scale analogzes to a producing field, and the conclusions to be derived from them arc necessarily of a qualitative character because it is not known in what way these miniature oil fields resemble large ones.

Jan 1, 1936

By Eugene A. Stephenson

Critical analyses of the work expended in producing oil by the utilization of gas energy have appeared in the publications of Shaw,' Pierce and LewisI2 and Herold,3 authors who have ably discussed the factors which must be taken into consideration in comparing energy consumed per barrel in various wells which are flowed by means of gas-lift. However, two distinct phases of oil production are concerned with the ratio of gas energy consumed to oil produced. One of these phases is the gas-lift, which utilizes the differential gas pressures for the purpose of flowing oil, whether these pressures be natural reservoir pressures or be induced by artificial compression of gas or air. The other phase has to do with prorating oil production in pools which are operated either as units, or are subject to such restrictions as those imposed at Oklahoma City by the Corporation Commission, or by similar controlling groups in other fields. An abundance of literature is available relative to the problems of flowing wells by gas-lift, but the first suggestion that the energy of the gas within the oil and gas pool might serve as a basis for proration, appeared in the timely article by Mc Williams.4 Much of the dissatisfaction with proration in certain fields arises because some operators feel that besides the hazard to the wells which accompanies the test, the method of allocating production on the basis of the " potential" gage is inequitable and gives some operators a distinct advantage over others.5 The most severe penalty may be exacted from the most progressive operators or those who attempt to produce their oil with a minimum quantity of reservoir gas. If no difficulties ever developed in drilling, shutting off water, or in well completion, it might

Jan 1, 1931

By P. H. Brace

THE study of the relations between gases and metals is one of perennial interest to all who are connected with the production of high-grade metallurgical products. The data reported here are the outcome of work of which the object is to determine the effects of dissolved gases upon the properties of metals and to gain a more detailed knowledge of the reactions between gases and molten metals, particularly iron, under definitely controlled conditions. We have attempted to reduce our margin of error by dealing with relatively large quantities of metal, from 4 to 13 lb. (2 to 6 kg.), and keeping the ratio of refractories to metal as small as practicable. The ingots produced are large enough to provide adequate material for making determinations of magnetic and other physical properties. In choosing the bell-jar type of furnace we were influenced by the results of considerable experimentation along the same general line which indicated that, for the scale or which we were to work, it was important to have the furnace structure independent of the vacuum enclosure. The use of a bell-jar surrounding the entire furnace accomplishes this and also gives great freedom of observation during operation and ready accessibility for the replacements which are necessary after each run. Our choice of analytical method was made in the light of the results secured by H. M. Ryder, who used a method similar in principle for the analysis of very small quantities of gas extracted from strips of metal heated electrically in high vacuum. We have presented some selected preliminary experimental data as being illustrative of the quantity and nature of the gases which occur in iron of different origins, but do not urge any hypothesis at this time.

Jan 1, 1928

By E. P: Mathewson

Discussion of the paper of E. P: Mathewson, presented at the Butte Meeting, August, 1913, and printed in Bulletin No. 78, June, 1913, pp. 1033 to 1037. PROF. JOSEPH W. RICHARDS, South Bethlehem, Pa. :-Speaking to the question of the development of the basic lining, and speaking from a somewhat considerable study of the history of the process, ,I think Mr. Mathewson's conclusion (in the last paragraph. of his paper) is perfectly justified and is very fairly stated. Messrs. Smith and Pierce worked at developing their process for many years ; copper men had been trying their level best to get away from the silica lining of the converters and had uniformly failed. On one page of Mr. Mathewson's paper we read that at the old works of the Anaconda Company, at Anaconda, the experiments " were abandoned on the score of cost and lack of advantages." On the next page, after describing the work of Messrs. Smith and Pierce, we have the statement that the Anaconda Company lined a shell with mangnesite brick and the ?results were excellent." I think Mr. Mathewson's statement that to Smith and Pierce belongs the credit of developing a long-discredited idea, is correct. C. D,. DEMOND, Anaconda, Mont. :-It seems to me that the matter of the lining is important; my impression is that they used tar in their basic lining and that did not seem to be at all successful at Anaconda, but silicate of soda was very successful. MR. RICHARDS :-I did not know that they- had abandoned the use of tar. MR. DEMOND :-I said I thought that was the practice. At Anaconda that was not at all satisfactory in the basic linings. Silicate of soda was very satisfactory and is so.

Jan 11, 1913

By P. H. Brace

THE study of the relations between gases and metals is one of perennial interest to all who are connected with the production of high-grade metallurgical products. The data reported here are the outcome of work of which the object is to determine the effects of dissolved gases upon the properties of metals and to gain a more detailed knowledge of the reactions between gases and molten metals, particularly; iron, under definitely controlled conditions. We have attempted to reduce our margin of error by dealing with relatively large quantities of metal, from 4 to 13 lb. (2 to 6 kg.), and keeping the ratio of refractories to metal as small as practicable. The ingots produced are large enough to provide adequate material for making determinations of magnetic and other physical properties. In choosing the bell-jar type of furnace we were influenced by the results of considerable experimentation along the same general line which indicated that, for the scale or which we were to work, it was important to have the furnace structure independent of the vacuum enclosure. The use of a bell-jar surrounding the entire furnace accomplishes this and also gives great freedom of observation during operation and ready accessibility for the replacements which are necessary after each run. Our choice of analytical method was made in the light of the results secured by H. M. Ryder, who used a method similar in principle for the analysis of very small quantities of gas extracted from strips of metal heated electrically in high vacuum. We have presented some selected preliminary experimental data as being illustrative of the quantity and nature of the gases which occur in iron of different origins, but do not urge any hypothesis at this time.

Jan 1, 1928