The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1896-12-04
THE PELATAN cLERIcI ELECTRIC
PROCESS.
An Official Test satisfactory.

erected by the owners OF the patents OF
the Pelatan-C Clerici electric process of
treating ores from the DeLamar mines
has been reported to the Company in
Lon ion, and approved, and the plant
turned over to the manager and is now
in operation under his control When
the first plant here was constructed
the NUGeEr gave description of the
plant and OF tAe method of treating
the ores. That plant was a success so
far as the saving of high percentage
of values was concerned, but mechan-
ically a failure, because the machinery
employed would not do the work re-
quired. The owners of the patents,
who had contracted to put up a fifty
ton plant which would do the work,
nothing daunted by it's failure, imme-
diately began its reconstruction upon
a much less complicated plan, and with
ten-ton plant, which can be increased
indefinitely by simply adding more
tanks, or vats, have thoroughly demon
strateI their ability so trent success
fully and proftably ores Of much
wer grade than can be proftably
worked by the old pan amalgamating
process, now in common use at the
mills in this country.
For the benefit Of its readers, the
NUeGEr will again describe the process
as we'll as the reconstructed plant:
The theory Of the treatment is the
solution of the bullion in the pulp by
the use of eyaniie and then recovering
the values by electricity, much after
the manner in which ordinary electro
plating is done. It has been found
that the familiar cyanide process in
which the values are recovered by
leeching through zinc shavings, could
not be employed OF talcy ores of this
and many other camps, because the So
luton could not be drawn from the
Shiny pulp The electric process ex-
tracts the value from the solution
while still mixed with the pulp. The
plaBt now constructed here consists OF
two circular wooden tanks, or vats,
with copper bottoms, each with four
armed sweep, or stirrer, rotating horiz-
ontally, few inches from the bottom
The lower side of the sweep arms is at
tached to plates of boiler iron, in which
are wooden pins to keep the pulp and
solution thoroughly inmotion Through
these iron plates an electric current is |
carried from a dynamo, the plates serv-
ing as the anode OF the electric
bath. Ia the bottom of the tank
a heavy layer Of quicksilver is placed
VIII Oh is connected with the negative
pole of the current and serves
as the cathode of the battery, in which
the bullion carried IN the solution is
deposited A charge of two and one
half tons of pulp is put in the tank and
treated with the cyanide, and is kept |
in constant motion for eleven hours,
with the current of electricity constant
ly passing through it, taking up the
bullion in the solution and depositing |
it in the quicksilver cathode in the
bottom of the tank 1t is found that
eleven hours is sufficient time to prac-
tically dissolve all the values in the
pulp and to extract and deposit them
in the quicksilver cathode. 1t is only
the work of few minutes to draw off
the exhausted pulp and recharge the
tank, repeating the operation every
twelve hours, or treating five tons per
day in each tank, the bullion remain
ing in the quick being left there until
the weekly or monthly cleanup. The
ore is crushed in a Huntington mill
and the pulp deposited in reservoir
tanks where it is constantly agitated,
in order to keep it in condition to be
drawn into the treatment tanks as re-
quired.
The official tests made consisted Of
first, one hundred tons of the same
grade of ore now being treated in the
big mill, and, second, of eighty five tons
of ore of lower grade.
In the first test the percentage saved
as shown by careful assays of pulp and
tailings was 81; but the bullion recov-
cred was 3 per cent less, the discrep-
ancy being accounted for by the
amount remaining upon the new cop
per plates. The test of the low grade
ore showed practically a saving Of SO
per cent. These are considerably high
er percentages than are made on these
ores on the excellently equipped big
pan amalgamation process mill. The
loss of quicksilver in the hundred ton
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