Grass Valley telegraph., 1856-05-13
New Amalgamating proce...

Our attention has been called to an article
in the ".Lendon Mining Journal" for April
8, 1853, detail ling a new process for separa-
ting goldffem quartz by the malgalnating,
process. This process is entitled Baggs
Patent Improvements in Extracting Gold
and Silver from their sQres.n The article al.
luded to says
he.new system introduced by the pat
entee9or effecting an amalgam Of gold. from
quartz or ore, and of afterwards separating
that amalgam from the refuse debris with
which tits associated, consists, In obtaining
an enormously increased surface of contact
between the combining bodies, and in in
troducing fer the.frst. time the principle of
cohesiY attRs elton operating electiy ly.-1
The surface is YssoaTnpd hy ilIIlarsiree ~
lew seconds eoRpers ssleyes in nitratesU msR-s
curry. by9which means the whole uf Ne wires
are instantly covered with an active Coating
OF quicksilver, which will retain it's attract
i've power for gold during upwards of "a
hours, without the necessity of a renewal
and the after process of separation consists
merely in causing the contents of the ANAL
gamating barrels to flow through series of
mercuriaIlzing sieVes, inclined to the horizon,
whereby the fluid amalgam is attracted and
permanently retained, and the waste suffered
| to pass on. 1t will be seen that, in accord
ance with the chemical principle here intro
duced, the Sieves are of necessity subject to
wear, and it becomes of Importance to ascer-
tain the extent of that wear. AS they are
dipped in the nitrate solution but once every
"a hours, and that for only about three Sec
onds each time, they will undergo during
whole month total immersion of only 80
| seconds so that the destructive action ari
sing from this source (and they are subject
to no other) will be seen to be extremely
small. Moreover, it is an easy matter to
prevent any wearing of the sieves whatever
for which purpose they only require every
few days to be subjected to heat for short
time, to drive off the mercury, and then COW
cred with thin coating of copper by the
electrotype process and it is this coating
merely which will afterwards dissolve when
the sieve is immersed in the mercurial solu-
tion. The copper wires may be dispensed
4 with altogether. and some other metal en-
ployed, which is merely coated with copper.
| Some iron sleves are always placed in the
barrels for the purpose of breaking the loose
mercury into globules at different points of
the revolution, and so assisting the process
of combination. When the object to be at
tained is the extraction Of Silrer, then iron
must not be employed, except in the shape of
balls, which will, Of course, be destroyed, as
under the system now pursued and in lieu
of copper sieves, copper balls should be used,
we'll covered with mercury by immersion in
the nitrate. With regard to the time occu-
! pied IN efecting. amalgamatiOn by the pres
ent process. Every 6Ogallons barrel will
hold charge of 500 lbs, weight of powdered
! quartz. The combination is effected in a
quarter of M hour and allowing another
quarter Of an hour for filing and emptying
he barrels, the eatire gold contained in 1000
BIS weight OF quartz can be extracted every
hour. This gives total for the II hours of
between aud tons very large quantity
for vessel of this size to dispose Of in the
time. The matter, we are given to under
stand, has already met the approval of some
very high authorities in practical mining
and We have little doubt that it will shortly
come in extensive use.n