The weekly standard., 1869-09-29
MORNING. aSEPTEA1BEIs@29 1863 a@as@e @ e@g % eaq


~ Gold Ores-.Modern Science. :.
AS the following from tho Turf Field and
Form will be Of interest to many Of our
readers Who have mining property, we pub
llish it entire LED. STANDARD. =, '1l I, %
| Prof. Odling lately brought before the
Royal Society Of London, what were styled,
I"the very remarkable results of the srel
searches of Prof Graham upon + the ab.
sorption of gasesn These discoveries have
excited great attention, in scientific circles
throughout Europe, and high honors have
everywhere been awarded to the learned
Professor. The experiments were made up
on various metals and gases. andthe absorb
ing power of metals for the same gas and
for different gases respectively, were found
10 vary very materially, governed blythe tex
ture Of the metal and the temperature.h In
regard to hydrogen, it was found that near,
ly all metals at Q red heat would absorb It
in greater or less degree. Platinum, for
example, four hundred times its own bulk,
and palladium six hundred times; that iron
was readily, permeated, and many curious
facts were eliminated concerning the result
ing phenomena in meteoric stones, lnanufac-
ture Of steel, chilled iron, ETC., but the inn
portance Of the discovery to modern aart,
consisted largely in the fact that the per-
meating powers of hydrogen could be prac-
tically and advantageously employed in dis
integrating and desuiphurizing ores, especi-
ally of the precious metals. And all who
have experienced the exasperating vexation
Of owning mines of gold ore, wherein the
presence Of sulphurets of copper and iron
have rendered the reduction of more than
thirty or forty per cent. of the metal impos-
sible, will be able to estimate the value of
any process which promises to obyiate the
difficulty by any sufficiently economical
method. ''s. '4
In our article on gold some weeks ago we
referred to process discovered by a DR.. w.
E. Hagan, of Troy, N. Y, and patented In
1862, embodying the principle OF Professor
Graham's discoveries in regard to this prop
erty of hydrogen, and from what we learn
Of the experiments of DR.. Hagan and their
results, the honors are most decidedly his.
The Doctor is an educated chemist and pro-
fessional metallurgist, and the discovery
in question was not an accident, but the de-
liberate and toilsome solution of a chemical
problem by scientific methods. Among his
first results was to determine the property
of hydrogen gas to permeate metals and
metalliferous ores at certain degrees of heat,
and he has exhibited to US a specimen of
lion ore weighing twenty pounds penetra-
throughout by hydrogen. Following up his
discoveries and applying the principle to
ores of various kinds, he believed he had at
tanned the long-sought secret of idesulphur-
izing and freeing gold from the matricis in
which natures laboratory had concealed it
from the search of man, and proceeded to
secure his rights by patent Litigation
sprung up and has consumed and frittered
away three or four years, during which time
no large practical test of this process has
been satisfactorily made; yet. nevertheless,
quite sufficient to satisfy many experienced
metallurgists, mining experts and capitalists
that the principle is the true one, and not a
few BELIEVED it can be economically reduced to
practice. Mining is, of all arts, one in which
| Ignorance and little dangerous learning are
prone to bring labor and capitol to grief and
| in New York has become the synonyms
for fraud and humbug, and if one escapes
| the wildcat mining speculator, and drops
his money into a good thing, the chances
are ten to one that his profits and principal
will late or soon beswept away by some new
tangled patent dodge to reduce the precious
ores by some wonderful device, ninety-nine
| in hundred of which have heretofore proved
| worse than useless and as miners as 9
class having burned their fingers, are ir
as wholesome dread of fire as other peo
ple, and frown down any new, untrieo
proposition peremtorily, the new, process
however scientific, must await absolute prac
tical demonstration. We happened to b
among the number of those, who, having
witnessed the chemical results Of heat, oxy
gen and hydrogen on ores, believe that moth
| ing can be furnished cheaper than fire ant
water, and our hope is therefore large. 4
great proportion of the mining disaster
which occur in this country, and especiall..
| in Colorado and North Carolina, SO frequent
| ", in fact. as to inspire wise political econo
mists with reasonable doubts whether th
aggregate labor and capital bestowed upol
the production of gold and silver are no
greater than the aggregate results; AM
many think labor is much more proftabl
bestowed upon agricultural and mechanics
products than in mining, where so many tai
and so few succeed, hypothesis only com
paratiyely and partially true, if at all, sine
mining in this country is in its crud
infancy, and experience will doubtless OF
yiate greater part of the objections, to So
nothing of the all-important fact ths
ninety-nine one-hundredths of the capits
lost in wildcat spcculations. cannot b
charged to mining. At all events, howeye
| TT fbn 1n1, ~,
more than treble the products on less tha
half the capital, so the fastidious calculate
will be compelled to alter his figures an
change his conclusions It is pretty safe
assert that gold and silver is primitivel
found always in sulphurets. Ores differ
various localities in their proportion y
quartz sulphurets, metallic compound, an
pure gold-and in some mines at the sufa'
the chemical changes necessary to ,l:bera
the gold have been wrought by time and Il
elements; but in the lower levels the ST
phurets Of iron and copper in most min
interfere with every known process OF anna
gamation and decrease the yield, althoue
the ores may be richer. In the Hagan pr
cess the ores are placed in q cupola, like
smelling furnace, or more properly lin
| u uIc VI WOUu Ut COoi ID ulouC DCto
until the whole mass of ore becomes red-hs
and steam, previously ,decomposed into ]
elements, oxygen and hydrogen, is admitt'
through the hollow and perforated gra
bars. The process which takes pla
may be described as follows y First,
. portion of the gasses unite in the combr
ton and increase the temperature. The b
| drogen permeates the ore, seizes upon t
sulphur and escapes in the form of sulph
retted hydrogen. A portion of the oxyg
unites with sulphur, forming sulphuric aci
, and converts the copper into soluble 81
. phate. Another portion converts the ir
into an oxyde The arsenic, phosphorus, al
. zinc are sublmed and driven off, Aft
. forty-eight hours the white hot ores &
raked into water, by means of which t
D hard quartz is disintegrated into fine sar
|. the sulphates leeched away, and the &c
: left clean and ready for any process of am
t gamation desired As we have said t
!, theory is chemically correct, and nothing
: cheaper than water and fire. We und
0 stand that DR.. Hagan is about to give
e practical test Of his process in Colorat
g and as we desire the honors of his, discoy
e les, we hope his success will permit them
, remain altogether empty ones. ~ q p
y Mormon Defectlon.J lit y
y Brigham Young, chief Of the Mormc