| Show A deserved tribune to fredrick laist butte I 1 master of and ore concentration by carl J in the fall of 1913 two knights of the road leaving butte in search of a warmer clime followed a resin colored streak of mineral that skirted the railroad tracks finally landing at bartlesville Bart lesville oklahoma after traveling a distance of over fifteen hundred miles the trail followed had the reputation of being the best marked in the world and is accounted for by the fact that wet zinc concentrates produced in butte were shipped in box cars to the smelters shelters sm elters at bartlesville Bart lesville and the box cars leaked at that time there were no western zinc smelters shelters sm elters and machinery had not been developed to take the moisture from the concentrates in spite of the fact that zinc mining and beneficiation were carried on in montana at a profit there was nevertheless a huge economic loss in shipping the product to oklahoma freight rates were high leakage losses great and although the water in montana is considered the finest in the world it cannot compete with the oklahoma variety on a basis of F 0 B butte freight allowed to bartlesville Bart lesville metallurgists and efficiency men scratched the hair from their heads ran empirical tests by the thousands wore out chemistry books and themselves but always ended up on the little resin colored streak that led to bartlesville Bart lesville however there was suddenly injected into the situation a quiet unassuming chemist who had achieved greatly in branches of mechanical ore separation and hydro metallurgy without ostentation this genius solved the problem making the first radical improvement in zinc reduction for a period of over fifty years and coming through it all without loss of health or hair introducing fred laist fred laist was born at cincinnati ohio october 30 0 1878 being the fourth son of otto and anna H laist the senior laist was a chemist and builder of the first glycerine refinery in america moving with his family to build such a refinery at oakland calif when the subject of our sketch ketch was thirteen years old after this work was completed the family moved onto a lemon farm near san diego where fred graduated from sari diego high school in the class of 1897 the school was ten miles from the farm and fred had bad lots of work to do on the latter in spite of 01 this he managed to make the twenty mile trip every day y and keep up with his school and farm work this be fore ore the th days of automobiles or Lind berghs remarkable accomplishment ment his means of transportation was a sec nd hand bicycle purchased from savings if this sketch were ivere not ot devoted to metallurgical accomplishments we alight ht state that young laist would have seriously menaced the th title of some of our six day bicycle speedsters speed if he e had regarded a bicycle as an end rather than a means first work on complex ores was in utah th r during his high school years he found his first love in in the 8 form r of read and di li his others fathers chemistry library which he the alt i to such a degree that he had enough knowledge of hilli hect subject to enable him from the first year to support sanf elf at the university of california as an assistant in m dructor truc tor in the chemical laboratories under professor of oneil i after A ter graduating from the university with a degree inT bachelor of science in 1901 he taught chemistry at the in it s tt utiOn n for a year y and later at the university of utah w as s at the latter institution that he became interested in in metallurgical problems in the attempt to concentrate products from some of the complex ores of utah in 1904 he entered the employ of the anaconda copper mining company at its washoe plant anaconda mont as chemist in the testing department he has been with that company ever since except during the shutdown of the winter 1907 08 when he occupied the chair of metallurgy at the montana state school of mines butte his successive positions were chief chemist department superintendent general manager of washoe and great falls reduction works and the position which he at present holds in 1910 and 1911 he did extensive work on a method of leaching and round tabling the tailings from the concentrator cen and successfully developed a process to extract ten pounds of copper per ton from an accumulated tailings pile of over tons at a cost of seven cents per pound of copper the process also being amenable to current mill tailings accumulating at the rate of from to tons daily the round table plant was built at a cost of nearly and in a short time returned its cost in additional copper savings scraps a Pl antto introduce flotation while the leaching plant was under construction mr laist with characteristic research fondness began to investigate the then new oil flotation process his quick and sound judgment told him that the new flotation process was far more efficient than the process planned displaying the same characteristic as that which was outstanding with andrew carnegie he ordered the roundtable round table plant scrapped and the discontinuance of building the leaching plants the oil flotation process was installed and copper extraction from the ore was raised from below 70 per cent to above 90 per cent his outstanding accomplishment was the development of the process to dissolve zinc from the concentrates in sulphuric acid and precipitate the metal over 99 per cent pure from the liquor by means of electricity his struggle was a hard and long one and the problems from interfering elements seemed endless however the high officials of the anaconda company had sufficient faith in his judgment and ability to back his work with an appropriation of over for this and his other work in nonferrous non ferrous metallurgy he was the first recipient of the james douglas medal given annually by the american institute of mining and metallurgical engineers to honor the memory of the late laia james douglas dean of the mining engineering profession and for formerly merFY head of the great phelps dodge aco co ventures mr laist also received the honorary honorah y degree of doca doctor of science from the colorado school of mines and was made a member of the sigma xi honorary graduate fraternity tern ity under mr waists jurisdiction have also been built the great falls copper refinery and wire wim plants coal dust firing furnaces cottrell flue dust treating plant arsenic and acid plants at anaconda and the mill and smelter at theander the andes plant in chili he constantly is experimenting in recovering new metals such as aluminum antimony etc from ff om the rock treated in the companas comp anys plants concentration of metals in ores his lifework his lifes w work ork has been the concentration of metals i in n ores res and he h e has developed with this the power of prolonged 19 ea and intensive concentration of mind this characteristic being strikingly noticeable to anyone who propounds a pro problem b for his solution being tall and slim of build with prominent forehead he easily could be picked out in public but he is so modest that he usually is found in the back of the crowd and whenever complimented blushingly remarks as he did when accepting the douglas medal 1 I accept this in behalf of my workers coworkers co and myself we are so struck with his modesty that we do not dare to publish this sketch until his departure with mrs laist and son jim for new york where on june leth he boarded the homeric for a two months pleasure and business trip to europe while mr laist gives a great deal of credit to his coworkers we also take the liberty to give credit to mrs laist nee roselba murphy of butte who since marriage in 1909 has been a constant inspiration for her husbands good work and who has established an ideal home at anaconda graced by three children james wallace dorothy and virginia mr laist likes to travel play golf and is an ardent curler he is a republican belongs to many clubs and engineering gi societies and has contributed many technical articles to engineering za publications 1 his chief hobby and recreation is reading and leading an 0 outdoor life at the family summer cabin on georgetown lake near anaconda the wall street journal of january 16 1917 carried the followings the potential assets of anaconda have be been en many times but not too strongly enumerated but there is one great asset which has not been strongly enough exhibited this is the technical brain of the present metallurgical lurg ical staff this is the age of and it is not too much to say that the man who has achieved to the greatest success in today is frederick laist the metallurgical manager of the anaconda company and the present manager of their washoe plant what the journal said in 1917 holds good today |
