The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-01-28

eineer. and MT. Brand followed in rapla succession. The experience of each oA these was apparently about the same as that of the company on whose prop erty they were conducting thelr eN periments All failed to make nor than concentrates for which there was little demand in the market. For sew eral years this mill stood idle. Finally Paul Guillardoni of Birmingham bought the property and leased 1t Tn 1888 to c. F. Wheelock, who inaugur- ated in this field the use of the nota-
 tion process. using a patented ma
 chine of which he had acquired lne local right. MT. Wheelocks work ad- vanced considerably the method or separation, although he was not able to produce finished graphite and sold his products as concentrates
 ALIENS OPERATIONS In 1898, also, A. A. Allen became in- terested in the Clay county graphite deposits and soon discovered that these deposits instead of being con fined to a small tract, as had been be- lieved, really extended through a large area. The Allen Graphite com pany, which he organized, bought about 1900 acres of land of this area, and in 1899 began the erection of small mill in which to try out a new process of refining graphite, based on patent issued to Mr. Allen for new flota- tion machine. This small mill produced several hundred tons of refined graph | ite from other regions. This was the first refined graphite produced in Ala bama. In 1905-6 @ larger mill was built 1 in place of the smaller experimental plant. In 1906 this mill passed into the hands of I. N. Hanson of Macon, Ga
 Later this property was sold to mem
 bers of banking firm of Bethlehem Pa. company was then organized called the Quene1da Graphite company
 under the management of J. Warren May. This company has had prosper
 ous career and has been very large
 producer
 1 In 1905 w A. Bedding of Macon, Ga,
 who had been associated with A. A. ! Allen in the Alabama Graphite com lpany, built small mill in section l6,
 township 20, range 2. Irwin J. Griese-
 mer, for sometime superintendent of | the Allen Graphite company's mill,
 leased the Bedding Graphite company's plant and to him is due the introduc-
 tion of the air blast in the preliminary treatment of the crushed ore. MT. | Griesemer was so successful in his 1 lease that he later organized the Ala
 bama Graphite company. The sale of | this plant to w. B. Ladd in 1915
 marks about the beginning of the re- 1 cent great development in the flake graphite region.
 | The early success of graphite separ- ation in Alabama is due very largely | to the persistent efforts of A. A. Allen i and William M. Munroe At the pres
 ent there are many experimenters.
 Probably no two plants use exactly the same processes throughout.
 l The development at the Flaketown Graphite company's plant in Chiffon
 county of an entirely dry process in
 which process use is made of a modi- | fled form of the Huff electrostatic ma chine is notable. Another much moro
 recent radical departure from the or 1 dinary wet method of separation is the
 oil Notation process now being en- ployed at the plant of the Celon Graphite company in Coosa county.
 Both the dry process and the oil flota- tion process are as yet secret.
 There were six graphite plants pro- lducing throughout the year 1918. At the present time there are six other Imills completed or nearing completion. land at least 14 other companies have either started to build or are contem- plating building graphite plants in the near future.