Our mineral reserves

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 867029366

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93011

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Smith, George Otis http://d-nb.info/gnd/117634530

Title:: Our mineral reserves

Place of publication:: Washington, DC

Publisher:: Gov. Print. Off.

Year of publication:: 1914

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (48 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

MINERAL PRODUCTS. 33 worked since 1845. The barite deposits of Bedford, Campbell, and Pittsylvania counties, in the south-central part of the State, cen tered about Evington and Toshes, are in highly altered crystalline rocks formed from old sedimentary and igneous rocks. Barite has been found associated with similar rocks in six other counties in the Piedmont region, but has not been mined to any considerable extent. In southwestern Virginia, in Tazewell, Wythe, Bussell, and Smyth counties, barite occurs in the Cambrian and Ordovisian limestones or their residual clay. Deposits of barytes are known in Mariposa County, in California ; in Clark, Elko, Mineral, and Nye counties, in Nevada; in Blaine County, in Idaho ; and in Alaska. Most of the deposits in the West ern States are undeveloped, as there has apparently been a scanty market for this material ill that region, and railroad freight rates have not permitted western barite to compete with either foreign or domestic barite in the principal centers of use in the East. In 1913 E. F. Burchard, of the United States Geological Survey, discovered a considerable deposit of barite associated with quartzite schists on Castle Island, in the Duncan Canal, 40 miles northwest of Wrangell, in Southeastern Alaska. Witherite, or barium carbonate (BaCO ;i ), is used in the manufac ture of glass and porcelain, and in the preparation of oxygen, barium salts, boiler compounds, vermin poisons, and green fire. It is a dense, soft white powder, which is poisonous. So far as is known to the United States Geological Survey, there are no deposits of witherite of commercial size in the United States. Commercial deposits have been mined in England, Silesia, Hungary, Styria, and Russia. Barium carbonate can be prepared by igniting a mixture of 10 parts of powdered barite, 2 parts of charcoal, and 5 parts of potassium carbonate. Potassium sulphide and barium carbonate result from the reaction, and may be separated by water, as barium carbonate is very sparingly soluble in water. Another method of preparing barium carbonate is by heating 100 parts of powdered barium sulphate with 250 parts of sodium carbonate and 200 parts of water in autoclaves at 5 atmospheres pressure. phosphate rock. Of the mineral fertilizers phosphate is the one of which the United States has large reserves. The fields and gardens of Europe largely depend on this supply, nearly one-half of our production going to trails-Atlantic ports. The great bulk of the phosphate rock exported is obtained in Florida and, of course, includes chiefly the better grades. Though phosphate rock is an important item of export, interrup tion of the foreign sales can not be regarded as a national calamity. 59170°—Bull. 599—14 3

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