The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-02-03
tRy Adam Aulbach, Murray. Idahol


sion of operations for two days, out
OF respect for the owner of the prop
erty, who died last Wednesday morn
ing, the Golden Chest force resumed
work Friday, with an addition of ten
men, all the new men coming from
wallace Some Of these were put to
work getting the air compressor In
commission In order to open up new
ground and expedite the extraction of
the rich scheellte ore, The question
of power Is some drawback, as the
weather conditions are very unfavor-
able for outdoor employment the snow
being from three to four feet deep In
the gulch and the temperature from
zero to or 10 degrees below, and for
several days strong east wind has
mill has fine steam power but this
needs water, and this Is difficult to
pick up just now. An examination of
the big pipe line has been made, and
1t is reported that this has been leas-
ed and that an attempt will be made
to get water through it, This would
furnish ample power with a slight
moderation of the weather to run both
the compressor and some units of the
mill, If 1t is deemed advisable to also
put the latter in commission. With
the present high prices for the schee-
lite mineral almost any effort is jus
titled to extract 1t and get 1t to mar
ket.
Remarkable Advance in Price.
The remarkable and sudden advance
in the price Of tungsten ore has in
vested 1t with an interest that has
probably never before centered In a
single mineral, yet this was in a meas
ure forecasted by the United States
geological survey publications for the
past five years, through information it
received from the laboratory of the
General Electric company at Schenec-
tady, ~ Y, which has since been re-
inforced by the great demand for mu-
nitions from Great Britain and France.
However, up to a very recent date the
steel works of the United States had
paid little attention to the remarkable
metal yielded by the tungsten family
Notwithstanding the fact that the
Krupp works of Germany had used it
for years to harden, tougher and
strengthen steel and in the making of
the huge guns. AS early as 1918 the
geological survey published the in
creasing value of the mineral, being
paper prepared by Frank L. Hess, and
alluded to 1t in this way:
Uses Of Tungsten.
THE great use of tungsten is as an
10y of high speed steel-that is,
steel used for making tools used in
lathes running at high
specific which tungsten imparts the
of holding it's temper at high
err temperatures than will carbonize
steels In such steels from 10 to 20 per
cent of tungsten is used Saw blades
are made which contain one to two per
cent tungsten. The use of tungsten in |
magnet steels has consumed large
but this use seems to be |
declining somewhat. The now we'll
known ductile tungsten is used for in
lamps. Undoubtedly the
bulk of the research in the manufact-
nre and use Of ductile metallic tung-
stem has been carried out by the high
~ efficient corps of scientists under
he direction of DIR, w. r. Whitney In
The General Electric companys won
ierful research laboratories Dr. C. G.
Fink, Of the company's stan, gives the
probable or possible uses of worked
as follows:
"The ductile metal is practically in
'oluble in all of the common acids; its
netting point is higher than that of
my other metal; it's tensile strength
exceeds that of iron and nickel; it is
1t can be drawn to
mailer sizes than any other metal;
nd Its specific gravity is 20 per cent
igher than that of lead 1t was nat
raj that a metal with such striking
roperties as these should soon find
pplication other than that for mean
escent lamps.
Wrought tungsten has been substi-
lted with success for platinum and
latinum -iridium as contact points in y
park coils, voltage regulators, tele-
raph relays, etc. The service far ex-
eeds that for platinum and platinum
idium contacts due to the greater .
ardness, higher heat conductivity and .
'wer vapor pressure of tungsten as u
with platinum.
Electric laboratory furnaces with ~
lngsten registers are of two types. III
one tungsten wire is wound on an y
minimum tube in an alright box
18th a hydrogen atmosphere. In the
cond a tungsten metal tube takes
e place of the helical carbon regis c.
In an Arsem vacuum furnace.
Tungsten gauze is used successfully
separating solids from acid liquors ca
the laboratory. This gauze could pa
I'll be used on a commercial scale; ul;
r example, for the removal of sluge to
pm copper refining baths, and for is
ntrifugal apparatus in general whom 81,