3
short-sightedness. This forced his transfer to the under-
ground mine as a surveyor. One morning Bond slipped
from a gangplank and fell sixty feet, feet-first, into soft
mud, but was knocked unconscious by the falling plank.
He was rescued, semi-conscious, by rope, and transported
to surface, shaken but barely injured. Refusing to go back
to assaying, he was given the highly undesirable job of
cleaning in the refinery, locked in for security reasons and
exposed to heat, chemicals, cyanide fumes and the like.
The Honduran revolution broke out in 1923 following
a disputed election. Fighting took place all over the coun-
try, including around the mine. Company payments to
both sides apparently kept them unmolested. With trans-
port shut down, they hid enormous values of accumulated
bullion. The manager granted Bond’s request to cut short
his contract by several months. He and four others were
shipped off on pack mules, with a guide, on a circuitous
route through the mountainous jungle, back to rebel occu-
pied Sabana Grande. A few days later he was carried by
transport truck to the port of Amapala. Several more days
passed before given passage on a cargo steamer which could
accommodate a few passengers. He arrived three weeks
later, less his baggage, in San Francisco.
Bond returned to the Colorado School of Mines as
Instructor (“Fellow”) in Chemistry in late 1924, a position
he held until 1929. Walter Landon Maxson served there
as an Associate Professor of Metallurgy, and would later
recruit Bond to join him at Allis-Chalmers. Bond spent the
summer of 1925 as a Designer (draftsman) for Tennessee
Copper Company. He married Margaret Jean Lowe in
1925, and completed his M.Sc. in 1926. During the sum-
mer of 1926 he worked on studies of reverberatory furnaces
for United Verde Copper Company in Arizona. The sum-
mer of 1927 he spent as assayer and mill man at a cyanide
gold mill near Breckenridge, Colorado, owned by Steiner
Bros. of Denver.
Bond spent the summer of 1928 teaching and left the
School of Mines in the spring of 1929 to return as a drafts-
man to Tennessee Copper Company.
From 1926–29/30 he wrote two articles on chemistry
of metallurgical processes, a teaching booklet on introduc-
tory chemistry, and a number of others on topics of general
interest. Note that “Viscosity of Mill Solutions” addressed
the effects of temperature, dissolved salts, etc., on cyanide
solution viscosity and reactivity, and was not about mill
slurries.
The recession led to a short stay at Tennessee Copper,
a company takeover to another short stay with a chemi-
cal (cyanide) production process design firm in Niagara
Falls, N.Y., and his return to the Denver Mint. He turned
down a Fellowship in Chemistry leading to a Ph.D. from
the University of Minnesota because of the need to pro-
vide financially for his family. His former Professor, Walter
Maxson, now with the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing
Company, then recruited Bond to head their Laboratory of
Mineral Dressing near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He started
at Allis-Chalmers in June, 1930, rejoining a former fellow
CSM student, Frank Cadena, who was also employed there.
Part 2. Allis-Chalmers, 1930–64
Bond’s initial job at Allis-Chalmers was to carry out assays
and design gold recovery processes from clients’ samples.
Allis-Chalmers designed and constructed complete process-
ing facilities at the time. Cadena and Bond, led by the sales
engineer, Maxson, also helped with the development of a
ball mill closed circuit grindability test that Allis-Chalmers
used to size mills (more on this later). By 1932, Cadena
was laid off, and Bond worked only half time. With little
new business coming, in 1933 he was assigned to the con-
struction of the uranium plant at Port Radium, on Great
Bear Lake, Northwest Territories. Here he learned to speak
Canadian. The plant had a crusher, rod mill, two ball mills
and a flotation circuit, all line-shaft belt driven by a diesel
motor. The plant was started up in January, 1934, and Bond
left in April. He returned to Milwaukee with growing inter-
est in rock breaking science. In hopes of gaining a better
understanding of rock breakage, he enrolled in night classes
in physical chemistry at Marquette University. But in 1935
he was sent to assist in the construction of the Compania
Figure 2. Fred C. Bond, instructor at CSM, 1927
(courtesy of Bruce F. Bond)
short-sightedness. This forced his transfer to the under-
ground mine as a surveyor. One morning Bond slipped
from a gangplank and fell sixty feet, feet-first, into soft
mud, but was knocked unconscious by the falling plank.
He was rescued, semi-conscious, by rope, and transported
to surface, shaken but barely injured. Refusing to go back
to assaying, he was given the highly undesirable job of
cleaning in the refinery, locked in for security reasons and
exposed to heat, chemicals, cyanide fumes and the like.
The Honduran revolution broke out in 1923 following
a disputed election. Fighting took place all over the coun-
try, including around the mine. Company payments to
both sides apparently kept them unmolested. With trans-
port shut down, they hid enormous values of accumulated
bullion. The manager granted Bond’s request to cut short
his contract by several months. He and four others were
shipped off on pack mules, with a guide, on a circuitous
route through the mountainous jungle, back to rebel occu-
pied Sabana Grande. A few days later he was carried by
transport truck to the port of Amapala. Several more days
passed before given passage on a cargo steamer which could
accommodate a few passengers. He arrived three weeks
later, less his baggage, in San Francisco.
Bond returned to the Colorado School of Mines as
Instructor (“Fellow”) in Chemistry in late 1924, a position
he held until 1929. Walter Landon Maxson served there
as an Associate Professor of Metallurgy, and would later
recruit Bond to join him at Allis-Chalmers. Bond spent the
summer of 1925 as a Designer (draftsman) for Tennessee
Copper Company. He married Margaret Jean Lowe in
1925, and completed his M.Sc. in 1926. During the sum-
mer of 1926 he worked on studies of reverberatory furnaces
for United Verde Copper Company in Arizona. The sum-
mer of 1927 he spent as assayer and mill man at a cyanide
gold mill near Breckenridge, Colorado, owned by Steiner
Bros. of Denver.
Bond spent the summer of 1928 teaching and left the
School of Mines in the spring of 1929 to return as a drafts-
man to Tennessee Copper Company.
From 1926–29/30 he wrote two articles on chemistry
of metallurgical processes, a teaching booklet on introduc-
tory chemistry, and a number of others on topics of general
interest. Note that “Viscosity of Mill Solutions” addressed
the effects of temperature, dissolved salts, etc., on cyanide
solution viscosity and reactivity, and was not about mill
slurries.
The recession led to a short stay at Tennessee Copper,
a company takeover to another short stay with a chemi-
cal (cyanide) production process design firm in Niagara
Falls, N.Y., and his return to the Denver Mint. He turned
down a Fellowship in Chemistry leading to a Ph.D. from
the University of Minnesota because of the need to pro-
vide financially for his family. His former Professor, Walter
Maxson, now with the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing
Company, then recruited Bond to head their Laboratory of
Mineral Dressing near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He started
at Allis-Chalmers in June, 1930, rejoining a former fellow
CSM student, Frank Cadena, who was also employed there.
Part 2. Allis-Chalmers, 1930–64
Bond’s initial job at Allis-Chalmers was to carry out assays
and design gold recovery processes from clients’ samples.
Allis-Chalmers designed and constructed complete process-
ing facilities at the time. Cadena and Bond, led by the sales
engineer, Maxson, also helped with the development of a
ball mill closed circuit grindability test that Allis-Chalmers
used to size mills (more on this later). By 1932, Cadena
was laid off, and Bond worked only half time. With little
new business coming, in 1933 he was assigned to the con-
struction of the uranium plant at Port Radium, on Great
Bear Lake, Northwest Territories. Here he learned to speak
Canadian. The plant had a crusher, rod mill, two ball mills
and a flotation circuit, all line-shaft belt driven by a diesel
motor. The plant was started up in January, 1934, and Bond
left in April. He returned to Milwaukee with growing inter-
est in rock breaking science. In hopes of gaining a better
understanding of rock breakage, he enrolled in night classes
in physical chemistry at Marquette University. But in 1935
he was sent to assist in the construction of the Compania
Figure 2. Fred C. Bond, instructor at CSM, 1927
(courtesy of Bruce F. Bond)