The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-11-04
WORKED THE TAfLINGs.
Utah Men Make Good Thing in
WyomtEG.

A writer from the Sweetwater coun-
try has a story in an eastern paper
relative to working the tailings of
the mines there by the same process
as that used in the Mercur district.
The narrative is a very complete one
and is as follows:
During the past summer the fact
has been demonstrated that the ores
of the Sweetwater mines are as Well
adapted to teaching processes as the
far famed Mercur mine of Utah. Some
time during the latter part of summer
before last the tailings from the ore
of the Mary Ellen, at the mill above
Atlantic on Rock creek, were pur-
chased for the sum of $500 by a Mr..
Mears for friend of his In Utah who
intended to concentrate them. Some
of the tailings which had already been
sent to Utah were tried and it was
found that while the concentrates as
sayed only $50 per ton in gold, those
that went over the concentration as
sayed $26 per ton. This failure lead
to experiments with them by the pro-
cess used at Mercur by gentleman
by the name of Schmidt who had long
been employed at teaching on the Mer-
cur ore, by what is known as the
Cyanide or McArthur-Forest process.
But Mr.. Schmidt claims to have dis
covered, after making a, number of
experiments on the tailings, that the
cyanide solution alone would not work
them and that he had spent six
months in experimenting before he
accidentally found an auxiliary chemi-
cal, which combined with the cyanide
would give results equal if not better
than those obtained on the Mercur
ore. A majority of the people here do
not believe that any new discovery
has been made; while those who are
best acquainted with Mr.. Schmidt
give full credence to his representa-
tons. But, be the foregoing as it
several thousands of dollars out of
the tailings more than they cost in
hundreds. AS soon as the weather
would permit last spring he and his
two brothers were on the ground with
three tanks of a capacity of five tons
each, and with these alone during a
period of less than four months they
could not have recovered less than
$1,000 in gold from a pile of tailings
that cost them only $780, The writer
has seen the refner's reports on four
of their shipments and while all of
them ranged around $1,000 one of them
went over this sum. In addition to
this when they left they took with
them between 200 and 800 pounds of
product" that would yield gold at
the refinery at the rate of about $780,
900 per ton.
During their stay here the Schmidt
brothers made experiments on the
tailings from a number of mines and
found in every instance that where
ore containing pay by the straight
amalgamation process enough still re-
manned in the tailings to pay big for
handling by their process AS the
cost in chemicals per ton for treating
crushed ore by the process now un-
der consideration amounts to only
about 30 cents, it can easily be seen
what an Immense margin of profit
there is in it. The facts brought out
during the period referred ito have
raised the hopes and increased the
values of claimants of gold claims and
their claims by several hundred per-
centum, as well as exciting an inter-
est among outsiders that will be far
reaching in results. As the Schmidt
brothers only had a limited time right
of location for their tanks at the Rock
creek mill and had NO shelter for
them, they have stacked them UP in
Atlantic and left for Utah. But as
they have secured other tailings here
they will return in the spring and re-
sumo operations as soon as the
weather will hermit