Bisbee daily review., 1915-05-02
METALLURGY AND ITS PROGRESS
 EXPLAINED
Dr. James Douglas, Before New York Section of Ann erican Mining Engineers, Gives Interesting Talk
By James Douolas

DI James DCuglaS
 As life avances, one is inclined 10 look backward instead of forward. and the vista over which my memory car ries me has been filled with such shifting panorama of changes in met allurey that the whole practice of the art seems to have been re-created.
 The first cupola furnace that l saw in operation was at one of the group of mines at Capelton, Quebec. from which the Nicholas company stiu draws some of its sulphur supply. Au that time it was operated by a Hart ford Connecticut company. under General Adams. When its small brick furnaces made a campaign of a week and smelted 10 tons per day, the feat redounded to the credit of the opera tor
 The introduction of the water-iack- eted cupola dates forward to the next decade I was using one in Pennsylya- mia, making copper matte, to the hor- TOT of a noted mctallurgist, who could not conceive it possible that you could bring fused sulphides into con tact with steel without rapid corro- sion. In our ignorance we were doing what seemed to be an impossibility, and it is just that recklessness and disregard for precedent which has characterized so much of the work of American metallurgists, and carried us forward at headlong speed
 Once the water-jacket was accepted as the type of the coppercupola, it's almost unlimited expansion in length, but not in width, was a matter of con. venience rather than of skill In Butte the cupolas have been enlarged by ad- ding furnace to furnace
 The first reyerberatories which saw in operation were those in HilPs Black Hawk establishment, where the concentrate from the Gilpin county gold mills were run down into matte for separation in England Smelling was done with wood as fuel, and the capacity of the furnace was about 10 tons per diem. shortly after this, Hill formed an alliance with Richard Pearce, who was running what was called the Swansea Works at the bend of the river approaching George town.
 MT Pearce had been engaged in the separation of precious metals from copper products in Wales and applied his skill to the local separation of the Black Hawk matte Soon the opera. tions were shifted 10 the larger works at Argo. near Denver, where for any years theZiervogel was praCiiaed with much success And to Fearce is due the credit ol taking the lead and grad uauy expanding the size and capacity Of the teyerberatory for at Argo and 1 at the coupanys branch works at Butte this type of furnace grew rap idly in size 10 35 by 16 fr- and 8 capacity of 90 tons
 Big as these were, they were pyg- mics compared with the huge reyer- bcratories of the present day, heated ! by oil or coal, smelling as much as i 66O tons of charge per day and lul- filling what the old metallurgists dreamed of as a possibility, but failed always of securing as a reality the recovery Of the waste heat in the form of power
 The fate, however, ot the Argo works, despite the science and eXperi- ence which Pearce brou-ht to bear upon bis operations, was virtually
 sealed when the combined forces Of the pneumatic method and electrolytic separation came almost simultaneous converter brings the matte to metal ] ly to the aid of the metalhugists. The in a space of time measured by min-
 utes. Electricity at one operation re- fines the copper and separates the precious metals, simplifying the pro- cess and saving time and money. The Argo works had therefore 10 go out ot
 blast, and the metallU-sists retire be-
 fore the engineer and Jne electrician.
 The changes have not been confined
 to smelling. but have been conspicu7
 ous in the conceutra.ing departmeuu
 Isolated motors have in great measI lure abolished the countershalts; and l grnd.mills of many different makes have competed for acceptance i'm rapid
 succession. The National riffle haa
 even displaced the iig in some mills'
 and now Notation is claiming to supi
 plant all other methods Whatever invention may for the time beiHg
 claim supremacy the experience oi
 past compels one to admit that the
 (Continued on page two)