Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-12-09
NEW POLICY IS
OUTGROWT Of
EUROPEAN WAR
13 Experimental Stations
Are Maintained IN
Metallurgical Districts.
Petroleum Investigations
Increase Production
From Latent Oil Lands.

Washington, Dec. S.-An innovation in
federal government bureau methods, in
volYing practical cooperative assistance
to the mining, metallurgical and certain
other industries of the country i'll solving
many of the intricate and complex prob
lens in manufacture, is outlined in the
annual report of DIR. +. G. Cottrel, di-
rector of the bureau of mines, just made
public.
This new policy is described as a di-
rect outgrowth of the world war. 1t is
declared that not only has the bureau of
mines adopted this advanced cooperation
with the actual needs If the industries,
but that the leading nations of the world
are following suit, determined not to be
left behind in the coming race for suprem-
acy in the industrial trade of the world.
Great Britain, it is said, is especially
alive to this movement.
i3 Experiment Stations.
For this new work the bureau of mines
has 13 well organized experiment stations
located in the different mining and met
aIlurgical fields Of the country, all fitted,
Director Cottrell says, with the neces-
sary chemical and laboratory apparatus
as to enable it to take up the industries
peculiar to its districts where the sta
tions are located the most pressing prob
lens that have baffled them, especially
those involving the treatment of low
grade ores, many of them heretofore use
less, and turn them into commercial pro-
cesses Of value to the nation.
So successful have these methods Of
solving commercial problems been, ac-
cording to the bureau of mines, that at
present the bureau has agreements tor
experimental work with nineteen indus
trial concerns, twelve different univer-
sites. and with state agencies IN eleven
states.
Petroleum Industry.
The cooperative agreements with the
bureau embrace many different activities.
For instance, there is an experiment sta
ton at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, devoted
entirely to the work of the petroleum III
dustry Already in one of the oil fields
Of Oklahoma the Investigations of the en-
gineers are said to have gone far enough
to indicate that the production of this
field may be materially increased be
cause certain of the productive sands had
not been recognized by the operators.
Seeking to find additional sources Of
motor fuel for the rapidly increasing
number of automobiles, the bureau has
entered into cooperative agreements
with the states of Utah and Colorado to
develop the oil shale industry. At
Boulder, Colo, an experimental oil shale
retort has been installed and tests have
been begun on shales of that district.
At Salt Lake City, Utah, similar in
vestigations are being made. Co-opera-
tive oil shale work is also being con-
Quoted with the Southern Pacific company
at Elko, Nevada.
General Investigations of the waste
of gasoline through evaporation alone viii
result, the bureau says, in the saving OF
sufficient gasoline to run 100000 ad-
ditional automobiles each year.
At the Golden, Colo. station of the
bureau, since removed to Reno, Nevada
in cooperation with a company engaged
in the manufacture Of gas mantles the
bureau has developed that a substance
known as meso-thorium can be used Is
a substitute for radium in the manu-
facture Of luminous pants, thus saving
the radium for it's more important ,hera-
peutic uses, as in eases Of cancer.
One Of the problems Of farreaching
Importance to the metallurgical com
panies and to the nation is the develop
ment Of commercial processes whereby
the many complex and low-grade ores Of
The west may be turned i2to profitable
enterprise The station Of the bureau
at Salt Lake City is engaged III such
cooperative work with a number of large
metallurgcal concerns and with the met
allurgical research department Of the
Utah School of Mines.