The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-02
THE USE OF CYANIDE.
The Western Mining World Gives
Pointers on This Subject

Leaving out the mechanical arrange.
ments for doing the work, the cyan.
ide process may be briefly stated as
follows:
After the ore reaches the mill it is
crushed, rolled and stamped If ANAL
gamation is practiced, it takes place
during the stamping. If wet crushing
is employed, three to five gallons OF
water per minute will be required. The
tailings from the stamps are conveyed
directly into the watts by means OF
launders.
The watts may be made of iron, coat
ed with tar or asphalt, or of brick
lined with hydraulic cement; or OF
wood coated with asphalt or lined with
! cement. Each vat should be large
enough to hold one days run from the
stamp mill. These watts at times are
made of enormous size, some being as
large as fifty feet in diameter, capa-
BILE of holding 500 tons of ore and solu-
ton
Wherever possible the plant should
be so arranged as to take advantage
of gravity, as this will obviate the use
of elevating machinery and much
pumping. The teaching tank or the
first vat of the series which holds the
ore and solution, should have capa-
series, which holds only the gold in So
luton.
The tank next in order is the precip-
itating vat, or. as it is termed the
zinc-box, and this should have COM
partments enough to allow the pre-
cipitation of all the gold from the So
luton.
Following the precipitation boxes are
the sumps, which receive the weak
he IF
such size as to hold the solution from
two teachings.
There is still another tank called the
stock-tank which contains a strong
solution of potassium cyanide, and
shere should be yet another to which
the weak liquor from the stump may
be pumped and brought up to the
standard or strong solution by addi-
lions from the stock-tank. The stump
solutions are used over and over again
by making up from the stock-tank
the loss of cyanide which took place
during the former operations, or they
may be used as weak solutions at the
commencement of the operation or as
wash at the finish. In any case by
using the stump liquor the cyanide is
saved.
The cost of cyanide. 9S per cent pure,
is about 80 cents per found in New
York. therefore is costly and worth
economizing. Since the process has in
creased the demand for cyanide Of
potassium il is of Importance to buy
il Of some firm which can be relied
upon, and which tests it occasionally
to ascertain its strength. The ten
dency, as the subject has been prac-
tically worked, is to greatly reduce the
amount of cyanide used; where it was
formally customary to use ~ more
per cent of cyanide in the solution. now
equally good results are obtained from
the same ore by u per cent for the
strong solutions and $40 per cent for
the weak solutions.
OF course the ore and gold to be
dissolved viii have an influence upon
the strength of the solution, also the
silver. but the object of the operator
should be to keep the solution as low
as consistent with the work in hand
bearing in mind that the weaker the
solution the less likely Ii will be to at
tack any base metals present, and the
less loss Will occur from oxidation and
in the zinc precipitation boxes In this
latter instance the great loss takes
place and for that reason Inventors
have endeavored to find some better
method of precipitation Some estab-
lisbments, instead of allowing the So
luton to go through the precipitation
boxes. pump it back onto the ore or
use II upon the ore in another vat thus
making two or more treatments with
the gold in cyanide solution before pre-