The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-02-18
MORE AND MORE GOLD.

| over the aggregated amount Of the late
gold bids for American bonds. There
is no question Of the immense increase
in tne yearly supply of gold. Outside
| Of Cripple Greek there have been no
great new strikes anywhere, and Grip
pie Greek cuts no great figure in the
worlds product of the precious metal
1t all comes of improved and cheaper
mining and reducing methods. Mines,
thousands Of them, in the Americas,
in Africa and in Asia which had not
been worked but little for years have
become paying mines and large pro-
ducers, under better mining facilities
and new and less expensive reduction
processes. The bulk Of the worlds
gold for all the past has been taken
from alluvium deposits, from the loose
earth and gravel OF streams and old
river beds, by process called placer
mining. Now the stones bearing gold
are the principal sources Of supply, and
these gold bearing stones are practic-
ally inexhausdble Lode mining las
taken the place Of the older and cheap
er way. The South African mines are
not new. They have only lately be-
come profitable under cheaper labor
and new and more thorough mluing
devices. The pick and shovel, sluice
and rocker have been abandoned. a
Colorado price list shows that smelling
charges in that state average about $40.
Stamp mill charges have dropped from
$50 to SIC per ton. Lumber, which is
very important item Of expense in
underground mining, has fallen from
$50 per thousand feet TO SIS. Giant
powder used TO cost 81 per pound
twenty years ago, but now costs only
IA cents. Coal, which was hard to
get at any price in Colorado in 1870,
is now mined there and sold almost Gs
cheaply as in Pennsylvania. The Col
orado Mining Industry and Review es-
Inmates that in 1886, averaging the
price of all mining supplies, SGT will
buy as much Of them as 500 bought in
1870.
New machinery and high explosives
have done the rest. The compressed
air drill and the use Of heavy charges
of dynamite and itro-glycerine have
reduced the cost Of drifting" as it is
called in our western states--the work
OF piercing and SCATTERING the rock to
or p h., nh & 4 ~
in 1870 to less than 50 now. The net
result is that a mine can be opened up
now In weeks, often in few days
which 1t formerly required months to
put in working order. A third factor
in the matter is the employment of
cyanide in extracting gold from low
grade rock. Vast quantities Of the
South African gold was contained
within rock that was not worth crush |
ing unless all the gold there was in 1t
could be got out TO the last ounce. |
This was not possible till the new pro-
cess Of treating the crushed rock with |
cyanide Of potassium was discovered. |
The chemical, applied to what used to |
be simply refuse rock, takes up the |
last grain of gold there is in lids
solves and absorbs it just as glass Of
water dissolves and absorbs lump of
sugar. The solution formed by soak
ing the previously valueless rock III
cyanide is now filtered through fine |
zinc shavings and the result is to pre-
cipitate gold in paying quantities But |
for cyanide there would have been no |
South African gold boom of the pres
ent proportions and no trouble in the |
TpanSvaal.
1t is worth noting that while South
Africa has developed gold mining on
scale without parallel, she owes it
largely to American brains and ma
chinery, for it is notorious that the |
best engineering talent, as well as the |
wonderful new machinery and mechan-
ical appliances that have developed the
Rand mines, have gone out |
there from the United States.