Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1878-08-01
DOWN IN A SILVER MIME.
The Process Of Separating Silver
from the Ore Described.

From a paper on the gen ;isand his
tory of a silver dollar, by William II.
Rideing, in Appletons' Journal, we
make the following extract:
The beginning of our history takf }
US into mysterious region, where
spring, summer, autu:nn, and winter,
are the same, where night is perpetual,
and the inhabitants toll in gray and
sunle dusk. This wonderland is
more than six times ~ many feet be-
low the surface as the Goddess of Lib.
erty on the dome of the Capitol, ut
Washington, is above it; it is threaded
by narrow labyrin.hs scarcely wide
enough for mans passage, and honey
combed by dismal caverns; the heat is
more than tropical, and the air is sui
phurOus. Never venture to explore it,
timid reader; but be content to learn
what you may of it in the city which
thriyes in the light of day 1900 feet
above its deep and sinuOus ways.
Palpitating from exhaustion, we once
stood in its heart with consciousness
that we were aliens to earth, and a
vague dread that we were about to
make some soul. sacrificing compact
with his imperial highness In red.
Lanterns hickereh in the distsnce and
disappeared, and gn0mes, stripped to
the waist and still sweating from their
toll, emerged like phantoms from the
solid rock that imprisoned US, and
seemed to melt in the unreal PEI.
spective-seemed, for much was SEEM
ing here to our visions that were used
to the transparent honesty of the
surface-and the gnOmes were, in fact
not gr0tesque offsprings Of the super
natural, but human laborers, with ex,
pansive chests and leathery hands.
Our voices and every other sound SEEM
ed to run off upon heavy, rumbling
wheels through the dim corridors; u
mist seemed to fill the caverns; the
enormous shadows seemed to come and
60 without giving an account for
themselves in substance; but, in all the
bewilderment of the fantasy, the awful
reality of our inclOsure never escaped
US. The roof OF our prisonwas a noun
tain 1000 feet high, and the floor rest
ed upon the incalculable Inassiveness
OF rock, which is strong enough to re-
strain the fierce heart-burnings of the
globe. Both the floor and the roof
were silver to an uncertain thickness
silver OF the kind seen in the fragment
brought from the Ophir, with the same
scintillant specks and streaks of dark
blue in it. This, in brief, is the genesis
of t. new dollars. 7si s. -. nt.
AS the ore is extracted, 1t Is carried
In small iron cars to the surface, and
wheeled to the reduction-mills, wheGe
it is delivered through q chute prOvid-
ed with q sieve. The pieces that pass
Observation-Disclosures of theseive, which
are three inches square, go directly in
to the receiving bin below, while the
coarser pieces are diverted into the
rOck-crusher and broken before they
are restored to their smaller fellows.
From the bin the ore is fed to the
STAMPS" by which it Is pulverized in
immense iron boxes and turned, by
the addition of water, into aseething,
milky-lOoking liquid. The next stage
Is reached in the amalgamating room,
where 1t Is deposited in the shape of a
fine, glittering sand, and put into pans
which are heated BY steam. When It
hours and half, some salt, sulphste of
copper, and quicksilver are mixed
with the pulp which, the ore has be-
come; and at the end of five hours the
ore and the quicksilver are drawn off
into settling pans. The silver separates
from the ore Ia the amalgamating-
pans, being changed from q chloride
and sulphuret to o metallic form by the
action of the salt and sulphate OF cop
per; and 1t then unites with the quick.
silver, which clings to it with the
tenacity Of o very poor relation. The