Desert Magazine from June 1944 PDF Document - Surrey ...

tight and corrosion resistant—and that's
tighter than a funeral drum, I guess."
And then Frazer asked me, after I had
peered into every tunnel, furnace and laboratory
for eight hours, if I knew what was
going on at BMI. "No," I said, "what do
you make?" After the loudest guffaw ever
heard in southern Nevada the geniaJ
Frazer said, "Tell him again, Bill. He's
seen so much today we've got him dizzy."
"Well, I helped string up the first
power line here," Bill Burke replied, "but
I vaguely understand it all myself. After
we get the materials in from Gabbs, the
magnesite concentrates, calcined magnesia,
coal and peat are mixed in a dry state
and then mixed in a solution of magnesium
chloride. After kneading the wet mix
and drying in kilns the material is made
into pellets. Then anhydrous magnesium
chloride is made as a fused melt by treating
the pellets with chlorine gas in electric
furnaces. Crude magnesium metal results
from electrolysis of the molten magnesium
chloride. From this we get slabs
for rolling into sheets and plates for air-
. craft, automotive and other transportation
equipment. Then we get a standard ingot
for making powder billets and magnesium
and aluminum alloys. The billets are
powdered for use in tracer bullets and
flares. We also make alloy ingots for aircraft
engine and frame parts and for incendiary
bomb casings. It's a big step from
the first magnesium used in the flash when
Crucible, loaded with two tons of white hot magnesium alloy, has been lifted from
gas furnace by overhead conveyor in one of the three BMI refinery units. It is being
lowered to cooler before being sent to ingot-pouring machine (See No. 12).
grandma had her tintype taken—but it's
not so complicated, is it?"
"Simpler than the solar system," I replied.
"We get a lot of things besides magnesium,
too," continued Bill. "See those big
tank cars? They're super-thermos bottles.
In shipping department, finished ingots are strapped with steel and packed into
cardboard cartons for shipping.
We load them with liquid chlorine and
they are lined so that the contents never
vary more than ten degrees while in transit
regardless of the outside temperature.
That goes back to Pittsburgh to make
glass. Then we get sodium hydroxide as
another by-product of the electrolysis of
the brine. This is used by many other defense
industries. We use mountains of salt
from the deserts roundabout to make the
brine and we couldn't get far with our ore
if we didn't have all this water, salt and
electricity we get near the plant."
Then I asked Frazer what postwar
would mean to BMI. "It will mean many
things," he said, "but this is no 'war baby.'
Magnesium will be in terrific demand for
postwar recovery and industries."
Even so, the possibility of a shutdown is
a real nightmare to every BMI employee.
But the Anaconda Copper company, greatest
name in metals, operates BMI and they
have an easily understood urge to do to
aluminum what aluminum did to copper.
Whatever happens two things are practically
assured—the metal business will be
revolutionized and the desert will be industrialized.
They brought the cotton mills
to the cotton fields and the romance of the
deep South faded. Now they bring the
furnaces and foundries to the ore deposits
of the deserts, but we hope that at least
the peace of the desert will not be too disturbed.
JUNE, 1944 13