Bisbee daily review., 1904-04-29


 vals for four years. by which time the copper is practically extracted. The piles shrunk in size by about one luarter of their weight, but when broken down for shipment to the chemical works of Europe and this country, the remaining three-fourths consists of Jumps of iron pyrites re- raining their original shape and i structure, but of somewhat higher per rentage of sulphur than before lixivia- tion..
 "I shall not discuss the interesting l reactions that occur in the heaps dur ing the four years of lixivation, nor the still more interesting bearing of the whole process on the problem of the solution of metals in and from the oarth's crusts and their re6isposition as secondary ores. What I want to bring out is that there are saved 10 the world about 1000, 900 tons of sul- phur of which We get our share for | the manufacture of the worlds most indispensable chemical compound, sul- | phuric acid-sulphur which hereto fore simply polluted the atmosphere. "A two yards about 20 900 900 tons of bad
 v roasted pyrites in heaps, collected during some thirty years, still slowly l undergoing oxidization and yielding T little copper. but from which 7,000.- | 100 tons of sulphur should have been recovered, whose value. at ten cents | ner unit, would not have been less than | s70 0.000,000 had the great metallur- gists been keenly alive to what was actually occurring elsewhere even on their own Iberian peninsula.
 i Necessity of Broad Vision.
 Gentlemen, there is no greater mis- take than to work with too intense concentration and with your vision too firmly focused on your own enterprise. Technical travel displaces many an H. fusion and prejudice; and during your travels you will learn generally more than you would from books, for while few practical men will actually refuse to communicate their experience when i asked, especially if you also recipro- cate by communicating yours. still fewer are eager to take the trouble to publish their observations and their practice, even when their employers 1 allow them.
 i A Plea for Publicity.
 'Unfortunately there are few em- ployers who think that they can gain somelhing by imposing secrecy on their officials. You will generally find they are willing enough to pump you dry; but they forget that the law of give and take is of universal force.
 "The waste of sulphur is not ccnfin ed to Spain. It is seldom that we have to look to Swansea in Wales for the introduction of an improvement, but when the copper smelters there were driven by stringent laws against pol
 luting the atmosphere, to recover the sulphur escaping from their copper
 furnaces, the Vivians admitted thai
 what they reluctantly adopted was worth to them s3o0, 600 a year.
 "A significant example of the recov
 cry of all the valuable constituent,
 Of an ore is afforded by the present
 treatment of that complex mineral
 Franklenite, by the New Jersey Zins
 company. The mineral consists O
 iron zinc and manganese.
 Waste Turned Into Gain.
 Every attempt to extract it's gin, by the Belgian method was futile, a
 the iron melted the re;orts, but whel the Wetherell process of magnetic sep
 aration was applied a very pure gin, e-Willemite-was recovered an,
 the iron and manganese could then b, converted into Spiegeleisen.
 Thus by the cooperation of a mod
 ern method-electrical separation-t meet a demand for Spiegeleisen, use in the manufacture of Bessmer steel, mineral substantially valueless fe,
 years ago, and described by Birken ibein as late as 1899 as generally in f cluded among the iron ores of Ne, Jersey, has been rendered the reverse , As an iron ore. it was of little or n Value because associated with so muc ? zinc. AS a zinc ore it was worthless l. because of its iron contents; and te f per cent of manganese added nothin !, to it's attractiveness. Each of thes . metals was simply deleterious vast 2 product to the others. Now each add
 value to its associate.
 An Inspiration of Hope. Such instances as these inspire tn 3 hope that the self-interest of capita | directed by the teaching of the men bers of our profession, spurred to a, 3 ton by a laudable ambition on ou I part, will soon remove from the techn
 cal industries the stigma of wittingl ! continuing to practice needless waste 'But there remains much to be don, 1. even along lines already followed an 3 methoos prscticed- Take, for exampl, the waste of coal in mining it and tn r appalling waste of by products in col ' ing if
 Something has been done, but, oh - how little. For many a year after ou 0 limited stock of anthracite in Penn sylvania was first mined and markete Q the proportion saved was only 30 pt q cent of the quality of the vein bein
 mired The balance was either lei t as pillars underground, which wer