Volume Eight Number Three SCHOOL OF MINES AND METALLURGY UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI BULLETIN JUNE 1916 THE BUSINESS OF MINING Entered as second-class matter January 7, 1909, at the postoffioe at Rolla, Missouri, under the act of July 18, 1894. Issued Quarterly. SCHOOL OF MINES AND METALLURGY UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI THE BUSINESS OF MINING An Address Bij W. R. INGALLS, Editor of "The Engineering and Mining JonrnaV Delivered at the Forty-fifth Commencement of the SCHOOL OF MINES AND METALLURGY, Friday, May 26, 1916. ROLLA, MISSOURI 1916 Press of the Missouri Printing and Publishing Company, Mexico. Mo. BULLETIN of the School of Mines and Metallurgy UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI VOL. VIII, JUNE 1916 NO. 3 THE BUSINESS OF MINING. W. R. INGALLS Annual Commencement Address, May 26, 107 (J. In expressing my pleasure in being with you today, I recall the story of a little boy who went to Sunday School for the first time. His mother gave him a nickel to put in the collection box. When he returned, he had a sack of candy. ''Where did you get the candy?" asked his mother. ''Prom the stand around the corner." "But what did you buy it with?" "With the nickel you gave me." "But that w^as for Sunday School." "Well," replied the boy, "1 didn't need it. The min- ister met me at the door and got me in free." I have long been desii*ous of visiting Rolla. I never expected to do so in this i)rominent and agreeable capacity. But I met Dr. IMcRae and he has got me in free and I am going to have the sack of candy in the pleasant memory of my visit with you. When l)i'. IMcRae asked me to be in Rolla on this dis- tinguished day to address the class about to graduate, he 4 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES offered me no suggestion regarding what he thought I ought to talk about. He left it wholly to me. Now this may not have been altogether wise. I like to travel roads that are well posted, and I like to keep my eyes open for sign boards and avoid wandering off into bypaths that may lead me into trouble. Left to my own devices here I may be like a bull in a china shop and I may break some of your favor- ite traditions, but I hope not. Nevertheless, I fear that I may be regarded as unorthodox in some respects. I have called the subject of my address to you, ''The Business of Mining." Here is my first exhibition of heresy. Some may think that in addressing a class of embryo min- ing engineers, I ought to talk about the "profession of min- ing." But no, that does not sound just right. I should say rather the profession of "mining engineers." We min- ing engineers are strongly given to talking about our pro- fession, about its dignity, about its ethics and so forth. Now, during recent years I have been wondering more and more whether we are not rather highfalutin' in talking about ourselves as professional men, and if we are not really simply business men and are shutting our eyes to the fact. Of course, this idea does not apply to the mining and metallurgical engineer alone. It pertains to the civil engi- neer in general, using the term "civil engineer" in contra- distinction to military engineer, which was its original meaning, long before it became substantially restricted to the railway builders, bridge builders and their kindred. As between the civil engineer, in this broad sense, and the physician, surgeon,, lawyer and clergyman, there is surely a difference. The medical, legal and theological men all have to comply with certain regulations, either prescribed or sanctioned by the state. If they misbehave, they are liable to lose their right to practice. There is neither such a requirement, nor such a penalty in the case of the engi- neer. He practices of his own free will and he may misbe- have grievously without losing the right to practice, although he may lose the esteem of his fellowmen. Further- more, the medical, legal and theological men have a certain star dins: in the eyes of the law. If they are the holders of professional confidences, they are supposed not only to pre- serve them, but also they may not be required on the wit- ness stand to disclose them. The engineer also is under this moral obligation, but he possesses no such legal inviolabil- MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES O ity. In this respect the journalist probabl}' has more of a legally recognized characteristic than the engineer. Well, what is a professional man? What is a profes- sion? Let us refer to Webster's dictionary. ^'PROFESSION. That of which one professes knowl- edge ; the occupation, if not purely commercial, mechanical, agricultural, or the like, to which one devotes one's self; a calling in which one professes to have acquired some special knowledge used by way either of instructing, guiding, or advising others or of serving them in some art ; calling ; vo- cation ; employment ; as,, the profession of chemist. The three professions, or learned professions, is a name often used for the professions of theology, law and medicine." This is a definition that illuminates rather than defines. The engineer when engaged in a mechanical operation, and that is the largest part of his work, is inferentially ex- cluded, but when he employs the special knowledge that he professes to have acquired either for instructing, guiding, or advising others, he may be considered a professional man. I might also do some quibbling Avith respect to the doctors and lawyers, some of whom are charged distinctly with practices of commercialism, and are criticized for not conforming to the principles of altruism that are supposed to govern professional practitioners. Well, let us engineers brush away all pretences. Let us admit that in the main we are engaged in mechanical occupations, the {)rime purpose of which is to produce. The engineer constructs things and operates them when constructed. He is engaged in a busi- ness and needs no code of ethics beyond thos<' that prevail in all kinds of commercial life as a guich^ of correct con- duct. The young man who leaves school niid cntei's into life with any other idea than this is likely to do himself harm. How often have Ave seen graduates of mining schools lingering unsuccessfully in a vocation for Avhich they were unfitted, sustained by a |)i'ide in Avhat th(\v call their pro- fession, reluctant to confess that they had made a mistake in going into something for which they Avere not ada])ted. I recall a young man of this soi't Avho Avas gi'aduated fi'om a distinguished mining school and prom]itly called himself a mining enginiMM*. He Avas not an engineei' then, nor at any subsequent time, — he had not the kind of a mind that 6 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES an engineer must have — but he stuck on, flitting from one petty job to another. I urged him to switch to something else, but my suggestions were not favorably viewed. On one occasion,, however, he got so far as to inquire of me what I should advise him to take up. ''Well, Brown," I said, "you will probably be shock- ed. I feel certain that you were not cut out for an engi- neer. But I have a notion that you would be a first-rate salesman in some business associated with engineering." Of course he went right up in the air. The possessor of an engineering sheepskin to be a salesman ! Perish the thought ! He left me to take the superintendency of a picayune mine, having a good title, but a dubious stipend. In a few months he was out of a job again and trying to collect arrears of pay for his last one. Then for several years I saw nothing of him. I surmise that he just managed to exist on fitful occupations. But mind you, he was dur- ing all this time a mining engineer and a professional man. One day he was ushered into my office and greeted me effusively. He was arrayed with elegance and exhibited many evidences of prosperity. He informed me early in our conversation that he had quit eno^ineering and had become a salesman ; that he had lately closed a half-million dollar contract and was going to be the general sales agent of his company. He was not even sheepish in his confession; also he had forgotten my own advice to him. I knew another young man who threw up a good but subordinate position for which he was well fitted to go into the field as advisory engineer. I urged him not to do it, pointing out that he was unfitted for it, and also that the unattached engineer is likely to experience six lean years to every fat one ; but unfortunately, he had a fat one, right in sight. After a while the lean ones came and things be- gan to be harder and harder. He used to send me desper- ate appeals for help and advice. Finally he wrote me that he was auite unable to earn a living by his profession ; that he was just managing to get alons: by selling soap; what should I advise him to do? I replied that if he had found he could not get a living by what he called his profession, but could get it by selling soap, the logic of the situation seemed to me to point to his continuing to sell soap. How- ever, in the course of time, he fell into a more congenial but MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES 7 modest niche in engineering and then was well content to stay there. My purpose in relating these anecdotes has been to point out to you young men that you should not be led astray by pride in a supposed profession, which really is not a profession so much as it is a business avocation ; and secondly that you should not hesitate to abandon your now chosen work if you find later that you are unfitted for it and made a mistake in choosing it. We all make mistakes and shall continue to do so as long as we are human. The most that any of us can hope for is not to make the same mistake twice, but, alas! we do even that. It is no confes- sion of incapacity for a young man to say five years after graduation that he made a mistake in studying mining ; that he would better have been a farmer or a merchant. Jt would, however, be distinctly a confession of incapacity to stick to something to which you know yourself to be un- fitted, or something that is uncongenial to you. Now, I am not the materialist that perhaps my words have indicated. On the contrary I am an idealist. All my life I have been doing those things that I liked to do and have not thought enough about what they paid. We have several kinds of engineers. There is first of all the great body of men who operate our mines and metallurgical works. They are the subalterns, captains and colonels of our army. Fewer in number are those who advise about the development of mines, build metallurgical works, devise new metallurgical processes. They are the stafi:' officers. Many of them are great scientists, whose work is often in- adequately reciuited. Finally there are the engineers in whom the business instinct is highly developed — men like Jackling, Hoover, Hammond, Bradley — who are our gener- als. I admire the engineers of each of these classes. Each in his own way, humble or high, is doing necessary work and contributing to the wealth that the mining industry be- stows upon the world. However, in mining", as in everything else, the scarcity is in good officers, and the higher you go, the greater is the scarcity. Eveiy nuui in the I'anks, oxevy one of you, like Nai)oleon's soldiers, carriers a mnrshal's baton in his knap- sack, meaning that the road of i)romotion is perfectly open. Whether you will travel that road rapidly or not depends upon yourself alone. Now, please note that among our en- 8 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES gineering generals the predominant characteristic is their business instinct. Their engineering training has been rele- gated to the background. There have been and are many generals who have had no engineering training, or have acquired it incidentally, without going to school for it. Such a one was Marcus Daly, a very great general, and among the many stories of him I recall one that illustrates my idea,. It is reported of him that he used to say: "I listen to the reports of my engineers and then I lock myself in my room lest they influence my judgment." This did not mean that he depreciated either his engi- neers or their advice, but simj^ly that he had to consider other phases of the question than those of purely engineer- ing character. And similarly, John D. Ryan, another great general, lately said to me : ''If the Anaconda company should do all the good things its engineers recommend, it would never pay a divi- dend. They are good engineers, and most of the projects they urge are good, but if we carried out all of them our capital would be perpetually tied up." Here we have one of the great functions of the busi- ness general, namely to control expenditures within the limits of what can be afforded, having in mind first of all the interests of the stockholders, the owners of the business. I am disposed to think that it is exactly this sense of perspective that the technically trained engineer must seek, especially to obtain, if he hopes to rise high in rank and material success. We have all noticed cases where the en- gineer upon assuming the duties incident to general man- agement, considered many of his new duties as less import- ant, and more or less subordinate to those of engineering, and would still dwell upon the engineering functions of the business instead of developing the possibilities in his new and broader field of effort,. The technically trained man too often overlooks the fact that a knowledge of the mark- ets where the materials and supplies necessary to produc- tion may be secured; their purchase, transportation and storage ; the employment and application of labor, supplies and power; the supervision, compensation and organization of labor, and the proper balancing of the activities of each MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES 9 department in itself and its relations to the other depart- ments; the adjusting of the business as a whole to the activities of the outside world ; the proper recording and analyzing of the operations of the business ; the knowledge of the markets in which the production must be sold, to- gether with the selling of the production; the raising of working capital, disbursements and investment of earnings ; are all functions of the business of mining that are separate and distinct from that of engineering and are coordinate in importance. And finally, there is ever to be borne in mind the great key of the secret of success in business adminis- tration, namely the getting of other people to do things for you, whether they be people that are working for you, peo- ple with whom you come in contact as buyers and sellers, or people who can in any way assist you in getting things done. The man who possesses this art is often described as a "good mixer." Uncouth and imperfect as that term may be,, it expresses nevertheless something of the quality that is important. In the development and equipment stage of mining and metallurgy, good engineering is all important. With a badly developed mind and a poorly designed metallurgical plant, the best of administrators is bound to have a hard time. It was formerly the custom, in the days when our industry had not attained the organization of the present era, that the mining and metallurgical engineer was a jack of all trades. The same man might develop and ecjuip the mine, design and build the smelting plant, and operate both of them. That day is long past. Not only do we now specialize between mining and metallurgical engineers, but also do we specialize among builders and operators. One kind of metallurgical engineer designs and builds the plant and turns it over to the other kind to operate. In the two branches of work, a different kind of talent is necessary. But of course the oi)(^rating men are the great majority of the technically trained engineers engaged in the mining industry. Among them there is no question that we need a greater increase in business efficiency, a greater direction of attention to mining as a business, rather than as an art and science. The great need among our great mining and metalluT'gical corporations, which have wonderful technical depai'tments and magnificcMit mechanicMl e(|uipment, is not so much for more technical and mechanical etficiency, as it 10 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES is for more business efficiency, more intelligent purchasing, better organization, better recognition of the principles of economics. The genius who possesses those qualities shines the same in whatever he undertakes. The mining industry does not merely obtain its generals sometimes from other fields. Often it gives its own men to other work. Consider Hoover, a mining engineer relatively young in years, who has become one of the great figures of the world. We of the mining industry knew Hoover as a great administrator long before the world at large had heard of him. During the last two years we have seen him,, who had been con- ducting brilliantly mining operations in all parts of the world, exercise the same talents in feeding and clothing a nation. The story of how the Belgian Commission, under Hoo- ver, supported a people requiring $65,000,000 per annum in food supplies with but $10,000,000 in foreign contributions, is one of the romances of business. The British press has consistently asserted that it is not the generosity of Ameri- cans for which Belgium should be most grateful, but for the commission's organizing genius, which is to say Hoo- ver's genius. The problem was huge. It was necessary to utilize the credit of a population deprived of all metallic and almost all paper currency; to do a systematic banking business across enemy lines. Hoover's commission had so to organize its charity that the destitute in Belgium should be aided by their own countrymen. Its direct efficiency is attested by the fact that by careful purchases, the charter- ing of ships, and the substitution of volunteer effort for middlemen it kept the price of bread in Belgium below that in London and yet made $6,000,000 profit on its sales during the first year. This was business. I have dwelled upon some of the matters that you have not learned about in your course in this excellent school. Nobody learns about them in any school. I aim to impress upon you that in leaving your alma mater, where you have pone through some hard training under the guidance of able teachers, you have nevertheless been doing nothing but preparatory work. You must realize that your educa- tion and training have but just begun and if you are to de- velop in your chosen work, you must keep on studying as you have been doing, but if anything,, harder. You are no longer going to come up for examinations at the end of se- MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES 11 mesters, at which you are striving for marks, but you are going to be examined just the same, by the men who are employing you and their examinations will be the real thing. They will test what you know and that will mean dollars and cents, reputation and even livelihood to you. How then are you to fit yourself for these coming ex- aminations? I can not suggest to you any simple vade mecum, no pony, crib or dope-book ; not even any plain line of conduct, practice or study. As well as I can generalize, the broad precept is self-cultivation. Pay attention to everything that you are doing, whether it be work or play. Perhaps the best rule I can give you is : Observe and think. I venture to say that it is precisely that rule that your teachers in this college have been trying to impress upon you. Without any doubt, they have aimed especially to train you to think about the problems in mining and metal- lurgy that you are going to run into. Probably they have also trained you somewhat in observation, but alas, the training of most of us in observation is defective. We have not the excuse of the blind man afflicted by nature. We possess the sense of vision; but we go around with our eyes open and see not. Sometimes we do not even seen enough to take care of our persons, and allow ourselves to be run down by automobiles. One of the most exasperating things in our business is the difficulty of getting young men who will see. In the mine, in the mill, in the smeltery, they will overlook the clues to the riddles, simply for not having, been trained ade(juately to observe and report. Listen to the story of how Thomas F. Walsh laid the foundation for his great fortune. This was told by ^Ir, Walsh in an address to the graduating class of the Colorado School of Mines upon an occasion similar to this,, and was reprinted in the Engineering and Mining Journal under the sub-caption of "Use Your Own Eyes and Judg- ment." That is merely a diffeient way of putting what I have already said to you, namely, ''Observe and Think." Along in the '8()s, millions of dollars were expended in the development of* silvei'-lead veins and the erection of mills in the Imogene basin, nine miles fi'om Ouray, in the San Juan region of Colorado. The mines i)roveil disap- pointing. In the course of time the mills and machinery were dismantled and sold. In 1896 when Mr. Walsh visited 12 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES the region, it had been condemned as a failure and exhibited all the aspects of a "busted community." The country was abandoned, save by one Andy Rich- ardson, the original prospector. One day Mr. Walsh went with Richardson to examine a claim near the summit of the range. The trail ran along the slope, and high up the side of a steep mountain. About three-fourths of the way up Mr. Walsh noticed a slide of reddish pyritiferous porphyry, which attracted his attention as having indications of gold in or near it, and he took some samples .of it. He asked Andy if gold had ever been found in the basin. Andy replied : "No, Mr. Walsh, there is no gold in Imogene, except a little associated with silver or lead." Mr. Walsh said : "Andy, I believe there is gold in Imogene, and I am going to find it." His samples of porphyry proved to assay $2 per ton in gold, and that confirmed his suspicion. Among the mining claims owned by Mr. Walsh at that time was one situated at about the same altitude about 300 feet east from where he sampled the porphyry. He had never seen the workings of this claim, for a snow-slide that never melted covered the tunnel to a great depth. The idea occurred to him that a gold-bearing vein passed through or near the porphyry dike. Therefore he directed Andy to drive a tunnel through the snow and have samples for him on his return. Upon his return, Andy gave him two or three sacks of samples saying: "These are what you asked me to get." Something within Mr. Walsh, as he described it,, said to him : "Go and take your own samples. Remember, Andy has been in the basin for 18 years and has never found gold." Arriving at the mouth of the tunnel, Mr. Walsh found a dump of very showy ore containing zinc, lead and pyrites. Going inside and examining the vein, he found an 18-in. streak of the same kind of ore that was on the dump. Be- tween it and the hanging wall there was about 3 feet of MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES 13 modest-looking quartz. It had none of the shiny mineral in it, and looked so barren that the average miner would consider it no good; but as Mr. Walsh examined it closely he saw little specks and threadlike circles of glistening black mineral all through it, which experience told him was gold in a telluride form. While he was sampling this gray- ish-looking quartz, Andy grew uneasy. Thinking that he did not see the metalliferous streak, he called Mr. Walsh's attention to it, saying that it was the pay streak. Mr. Walsh replied : "Never mind, Andy; I always assay everything in the vein." His samples from the common-looking rock ran as high as $3,000 per ton. Looking over the situation, he found that the men who had done the work, although they were no or- dinary prospectors, had saved the showy low-grade stuff and had thrown the modest but rich ore over the dump, from which Mr. Walsh afterward shipped it. This mine — the famous Camp Bird mine — produced millions. It was a strange coincidence that the bonanza part of the vein was immediately beneath the spot where ]\Ir. Walsh picked up the piece of x^orphyry on the trail. Cases of this kind in the history of mining in the United States may be cited in great numbers. This is why there arose in the minds of the administrators of mines during the last decade or two the advantage of having a corps of trained observers in the underground workings, men hav- ing nothing to do with execution of tiie mining work, which opened an entirely new field of eni])h)ynient to the young college graduate. The Aiuu'onda company was the first to develoi) this system, as it has nuuiy others of great indus- trial importance. IMi'. 1). W. l^runton, who was then con- sulting engineer for the Anaconda company, remarked in a technical paper in 1906: ''In my judgment, every company operating large mines would find it advantageous to employ, as a separate official, a competent mining geologist, whose duty it should be to follow continuously all workijigs and surveys, and note with i)recision those indications Avhich hard-worked su- perintendents, foi-emen and sui'veyors, however intelligent, might ('asily overlook or fail to record. The proper man for this most important work is a man who has nothing else 14 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES to do, and will do this one thing with industry, enthusiasm and technical knowledge." Just the same thing may be said of mining operation. The efficiency engineer, with his time studies, is above everything else an observer. Of metallurgy, too, the same story may be told. What are our great steps in advance during the last 50 years? In copper, the principle of pyritic smelting, coal-dust firing of reverberatory furnaces, basic converting and electrolytic refining. In lead, first of all, the knowledge of compounding proper slags, then the fil- tration of smoke, and finally the blast roasting of sulphide ores. In gold and silver, cyanide lixiviation. In mechani- cal concentration, the flotation process. In no one of these cases was the progress the result of a lucky discovery. No one drew a grand prize in the lottery of success. Each one was the result of technical evolution. The germ of the idea dated back a half a century in some of the cases. Scores of investigators had played with it, some of them coming within sight of success. In most cases the thing needful was staring them in the face, but was overlooked through the human failing to oberve accurately. When finally it was found everybody was amazed by the simplicity of it. It is only in the metallurgy of zinc that there have been no major improvements that I think of, yet that does not disprove my point. The art of zinc smelting was trans- planted from China to England. From England it was taken to Carinthia, Silesia and Belgium. America got it from Europe. Both in Europe and America it remains today es- sentially as it was in China centuries ago and is there still. Our improvements have been in details, chiefly mechanical, the principle remaining the same. Yet it has been by ob- servation that we have improved the art in its multiplicity of details and created a practice that China will some day copy from us, just as we first got it from China. But it is not enough merely to observe. Observation is of no use without thought. Observation must also be accu- rate. Inaccurate observation and absence of thought may result in such erroneous deductions as happened from a freak of Jim Gillis of Jackass Hill in the gold diggings of (yalifornia. Jim was Mark Twain's "Truthful James." In the early days the stage road passed Jim's house, or cabin I should say. The old miners used to make sour dough MISSOIRI SCHOOL OF MINES 15 bread, and Jim had some in a pan trying to make it rise, but it would not. So he said, "I'll make you rise, durn you." So he put the pan out under the oak that branched over the stage road, and put a stick of giant powder under it, and as a result the dough rose and hung all over the limbs of the tree. Just then the stage came along loaded with Eastern women and "tenderfeet," looking for curiosi- ties in the gold diggings. A lady asked Jim what kind of a tree it was. Jim, with a sober face, replied, "Madam, that is a bread tree." "Really, is that bread we see?" "Oh yes," said Jim, ''you can take the dough in your hands and work it into bread." Whereupon she took some of it and believed, and told everywhere about Jim Gillis' bread tree of Jackass Hill. Such imperfect observation and such errors in deduc- tion have led to some very serious mistakes both in mining and metallurgy. Accurate observation and sound thinking have led to brilliant successes. The trouble with most of us is that we neither see nor think. IMillions of men before Newton observed apples to drop, but so far as we know, nobody before him gave thought to what caused them to drop. I have no doubt that hundreds of mill-men 30 years ago, or more, observed greasy froths of mineral floating on their mill water and thought nothing about it, except to pronounce it a nuisance. T liapjiened to be connected with the introduction of the cyanide process in the United States 20 odd years ago. We tested in our laboratory all kinds of minerals and knew accurately respecting the solubility of silver minerals. In a refinery that we operated we produced silver bars from black precipitate coming fi'om some place in Nevada where some one was cyaniding old mill tailings. Yet none of us thought of the general ap|)licability of the cyanide process to silver ores. That iini)ortant industrial development came years later, although it was screaming for our attention. But our ears were plugged and our minds were saturated with ideas of gold. Now it is for correct observation and sound thinking that your college training has been preparing you. I think there is a certain mistaken tendency among engineers of middle age to depreciate the importance of technical train- ing. You are probably convei'sant with a questionnaire re- cently addressed by Pi'of. IMann of the Carnegie Foundation to 1,500 engineers, asking what to their minds are the basic 16 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES qualities for engineers. The collated replies showed that 41 points out of 100 should be assigned to character,, 17 1-2 to judgment, 14 1-2 to efficiency, 14 to understanding of men and only 13 to technical ability. Dean Marston, of Iowa State College, applied these figures to six acquaint- ances with whose personal characteristics he was familiar, and found that the banker, the grocer and the merchant rated higher as engineers than did three successful practi- tioners of engineering. There is manifestly here a misconception. The engi- neers of mature years have seen technically trained men re- maining in the back-ground, while non-technically trained men, by virtue of their character, judgment, efficiency and understanding of men, step in and take a large number of the important administrative positions. Take railroading, for example. It is rather a rarity to find a railway presi- dent who has risen through the engineering corps. And in mining and metallurgy we find a large proportion of our chiefs taken from some other line or some other industry. That 1,300 out of 1,500 engineers — i. e. 87 per cent — con- sider some one of the elements that go to make up character the fundamental necessity for engineering success does not mean that the average of these 1,500 engineers would rate the elements of character as making up 87 per cent of the necessary qualifications of an engineer. Not one of those engineers would think of taking a graduate of a business college as a technical assistant. Such a one would not even be able to understand the language. No, the meaning is rather, I think, that on top of technical training the ele- ments of character are of supreme importance and that in course of time they outweigh everything else and are those things that make for success in any business man. The technical training is a ground work, and only a ground work. If we find fault with the product of our technical schools it is for their assumption, real or fancied, that tech- nical training is the whole thing, that they are creating professional men, not merely business men. Thus I come back to my theme — the business of min- ing. Mining is a business. It should be so regarded. You should consider yourselves as business men. You are not going to be any better or any worse than other business men. You are not going to have any professional dignity to uphold that the honest stockbroker or the conscientious MISSOI RI SCHOOL OF MINES 17 manufacturer of woolen goods has not got to have in mind. Both of them may be just as honorable men in business as are miners and smelters. There is no greater fallacy than when it is told of the miner that he, like the farmer, is one of the producers of clean wealth for the reason that coming out of the ground it does not come out of anybody else, with the implication that other kinds of wealth are more or less tainted. The value of minerals in the ground inherent- ly is nil. One hundred million tons of gold ore in Antarc- tic lands might not be worth any more than sand in Flori- da. By the expenditure of work in overcoming the obstacles of nature, it might become worth a great deal. All wealth is the result of human labor, generally assisted by capital, which is the result of previous Inbor. Tlie Avealth accumu- lated by the Standard Oi) Co. by economies in manufactur- ing and marketing is just as clean as the wealth tliat the miner produces out of the ground. The banker, the broker and the merchant is just as necessary and just as honorable a man of business as is the producer, and men of business who talk in terms of profit are just as honorable as professional men who talk about fees and engineers who pride themselves upon not being concerned with commercial considerations. The mistake that is most often made in business is to suppose that we grow rich by taking riclies from other men, or that nations prosper by depriving other nations of their prosperity. That would be true if liches consisted only of money, and if there were just so much money and no more in the world. I^ut that is not so. Nations gi"ow rich, that is to say, get comfort, ease and luxury, only when other nations are growing rich too. only because other nations are growing rich. And so it is with individuals. Consider, therefore, that in going out into the world from this school you are going into business — the business of mining, which is a very interesting business. Consider that you are going into business to create wealth, for if you do not create wealth you will have a hard time of it and might as well not try it. At first you will probably have to make money for an emi)loyer and a portion of what you make for him will come back to you as wages or salary. The cycle may not be obvious. It may be delayed. But the principle exists and always will. You will see many things done in ways that by book they ought not to be. You will 18 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES observe many examples of crude mining, of muscular met- alurgy — less now than a quarter of a century ago. But if muscular metallurgy makes money and refined metallurgy does not, obviously muscular metallurgy is the thing to do, for otherv/ise there would be no bank account and on pay- day there would be gloom. Keep that principle in mind, but observe always and think whether by doing the right thing an improved metallurgy would not make more money. Look at things always from the standpoint of the business man and not from that of the pedant and doctrinaire. Rub against your fellowmen. Build up your character. Don't be afraid to take chances and accept responsibilities. And when the battle is over, let your friends be proud to read an epitaph like this : Here lies one who took his chances In the busy world of men; Battled luck and circumstances, Fought and fell, and fought again ; Won sometimes — but did no crowing, Lost sometimes — but didn't wail; Took his beating — kept on going,, Never let his courage fail. MISSOliRI SCHOOL OF MINES 19 THESES SUBMITTED IN 1916 A study of the Stoping Efficiency and Ore Transporation of the Arizona Copper Company at Morenci, Arizona - Robert Stanley Burg Land Drainage in Central Iowa - - Ernest L. Chamberlain Oils and Flotation, Charles Yancy Clayton and Clarence Eugene Peterson An Investigation in Treating a Gold Ore from Custer, South Dakota, Theodore Saunders Dunn Report on the Lucky Bill Mine, Grant County, New Mexico, Walter Gammktfr Pneumatic Ore Concentration, Robert Winters Johnson and Walter William WErssBA'.H Leaching Flue Dust, - - Edwin Alexander Kayser The Effect of Temperature Upon the Crystal Size and Physical Properties of Iron and Steel, - - - E. J. McNely The Development of a Copper-Silver Ore Body Colwell Arba Pierce Notes on Mine Operations of the American Zinc Company of Tennessee, Homer Kent Sherry A Report on La Cotabambas Auraria Mining Company, Hector J. BozA Underground Mining Methods of Utah Copper Company, Thomas S. Carnahan Leaching Experiments on an Arizona Copper Ore, GuNNARD Edmund Johnson Development of the Flotation Process for Concentrating Copper and Iron Sulphide Ores, - - - H. T. Marshall The Cost of Producing Electricity at the Hamilton, Missouri, Light and Power Plant . . _ Bernard Williams Adams Tars from Cannel Coal, J. C. Ingram, O. Ta Lumaghi and F. Grotts A Wet Process for the Recovery of Mercury, - Robert G. Sickly Construction and Maintenance of Kansas City Boulevard Pavements, R. R. Benedict Economic Design of Concrete Steel Highway Bridges, T. P. McCague Method and Costs of Rock Excavation Inlet Swamp Drainage District, Lee County, Illinois, _ _ . Arch W. Naylor An Investigation in Portland Cement - Byron L. Ashdown Mining Metliods at Cahmiet and Arizona Mining Company, J. I^. Head Comparison of Operating Expenses and Capital Expenditures of Tw(^ Different Types of Boiler Rooms Covering Extensions Expected Dur- ing The Next Twenty Years - - - - G. H. Boyer Some Chemical Problems in Geology - Reginald Scott Dean Flotation of a West Joplin Slime. - J. S. Hoffman and J. J. Dowd Comparative Tests of Hammer Drill Bits - - H. H. Vogel Preliminary Report on The Property of The Ruby Copper Company, C. A. Pierce An Investigation in Portland Cement Concrete, - Don H. Morgan The Determination of the Method For Milling a New Mexico Ore, A. X. Illinski Design of a Plant For Concentiating Phosphate Rock, N. L. Ohnsorg Problems in P'lotation, _ . _ w. H. McCartney, Jr. Milling Experiments on a Western Ore, H. E. Koch and E. B. Weiberg Flotation of Zinc Carbonates and Silicates, G. Erskine and Y. Klepel A Study of a Certain Filled Sink Ore Deposit, - A. Z. Dunham Design of a Concrete Steel Bridge over Dry Fork, - E. V. Damotte 20 MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES PUBLICATIONS OF THE MISSOURI SCHOOL OF MINES BULLETIN-GENERAL SERIES. Vol. 1, No. 1, Dec, 1908. The human side of a mining engineer's life. Edmund B. Kirby. (Commencement address, June 10th, 1908.) Vol. 1, No. 2, 38th Annual Catalogue, 1909-1910. Vol. 1, No. 3, June, 1909. Education for utility and culture. Calvin M. Woodward. (Tau Beta Pi address.) Vol. 1, No. 4, Sept., 1909. The history and the development of the Cyanide Process. Horace Tharp Mann. Vol. 2, No. 1, Dec, 1909. The Jackling Field. School of Mines and Metallurgy. Vol. 2, No. 2, 39th Annual Catalogue, 1910-1911. (Out of print.) Vol. 2, No. 3, June, 1910. Some of the essentials of success. Charles Sumner How^e. (Commencement address, June 1st, 1910.) Vol. 2, No. 4, Sept., 1910. Friction in small air pipes. E. G. Harris, Albert Park, H. K. Peterson. (Continued by Technical Series. Vol. 1, No. 1 and 4.) Vol. 3, No. 1, Dec, 1910. Some relations between the composition of mineral and its physical properties. G. H. Cox, E. P. Murray. Vol. 3, No. 2, March 1st, 1911. 40th Annual Catalogue, 1911-1912. Vol. 3, No. 3, June, 1911. Providing for future generations. E. R. Buckley. (Tau Beta Pi address. May 24th, 1911.) Vol. 3, No. 4, Sept., 1911. Fall announcement of courses. (Out of print.) Vol. 4, No. 1, Dec, 1911. Fortieth anniversary of the School of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Missouri. Parker Hall Me- morial address. Laying of cornerstone of Parker Hall, Rolla, Missouri, October 24th, 1911. Vol. 4, No. 2, March, 1912. 41st Annual Catalogue, 1912-1913. Vol. 4, No. 3, June, 1912. Mining and civilization. J. R. Finlay. (Commencement address. May 31st, 1912.) Vol. 4, No. 4, Sept., 1912. Fall announcement of courses, o. p. Vol. 5, No. 1, Student Life. Vol. 5, No. 2, March, 1913. 42nd Annual Catalogue, 1912-1913. Vol. 5, No. 3, Never puljlished. Vol. 5, No. 4, Never published. Vol. 6, No. 1, Never published. Vol. 6, No. 2, March, 1914. 43rd Annual Catalogue, 1913-1914. Vol. 6, No. 3, Never published. Vol. 6, No. 4, Never published. Vol. 7, No. 1, Never published. Vol. 7, No. 2, March, 1915. 44th Annual Catalogue, 1914-1915. Vol. 7, No. 3, June, 1915. Description of special courses in oil and gas and allied subjects. Vol. 7, No. 4, September, 1915. Register of Graduates, 1874-1915. Vol. 8, No. 1, Jan., 1916. Bibliography on Concentrating Ores by Flotation. Jesse Cunningham Vol. 8, No. 2, March. 1916. 45th Annual Catalogue, 1915-1916. Vol. 8, No. 3, June, 1916. The Business of Mining. W. R. Ingalls. (Commencement adddress. May 26, 1916.) Vol. 1, No. 1, November, 1911. Friction in air pipes. Technical Series. E. G. Harris, (Continuation of General Series, Vol. 2, No. 4) Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1912. Metallurgy and ore dressing labara- tories of the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy. D. Copeland, H. T. Mann, H. A. Roesler. (Out of print.) Vol. 1, No. 3, May, 1912. Some apparatus and methods for demon- strating rock drilling and the loading of drill holes in tunneling. L. E. Young. Vol. 1, No. 4, August, 1912. Friction in air pipes. E. G. Harris. (Continuation of Vol. 1, No. 1, November, 1911.) Vol. 2, No. 1, August, 1915. Comparative Tests of Piston Drill Bits. C. R. Forbes and L. M. (ZJummings. Vol. 2, No. 2, November, 1915. Orifice Measurements of Air in Large Quantities. Elmo G. Plarris. Vol. 2, No. 3, February, 1916. Cupellation Losses in Assaying. Hor- ace T. Mann and Charles T. Clayton. Vol. 2, No. 4, May, 1916. Geological criteria for determining the structural position of beds. G. H. Cox and C. L. Dake. (In press.) 3 0112 105733072