The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-19

up in the night to jot down some idea
for an experiment to be used the mex
day.
"One day, when we were all heartsick
and almost ready to quit, went rum
maging through Smiths desk for some
thing and stumbled on 2 circular of the
Macarthur Forrest process of treating
gold ores with cyanide of potassium in
weak solution. Instantly, with my
knowledge of chemistry, I thought it
would do for our ores. | made a labora-
tory test and succeeded fairly well.
That settled it. We loaded car of ore
and started it for Denver, where cy-
anide mill had been built for expert
ments. When L got there the only man
who knew how to work the process
was out of town. I had gone to Den
yer myself and was SO anxious to know
whether we were rich or 'busted'-for
that was what it meant to us-that L
got permission to put the ore through
myself. You can imagine my feelings
when the gold bullion was turned over
to me. That proved beyond question
the success of the experiment.
FIRST MINE TO USE CYANIDE.
"Of course, there were obstacles still,
but they were comparatively easy to
overcome. No mine had ever used the
cyanide solution in this country, al
though it had been used on tailings in
South Africa. We did not know what
percentage of cyanide was best for our
ore, and we did not know what sized
ore could be treated best. The wooden
tanks recommended to us would not
hold the solution without it's leaking
through. After we changed our mill
to the cyanide process we had to shut
it down for sixteen whole days, which
T cT1anf in tho mills accau Off1oa irwin
to discover where the gold was lost.
The MacArthur-Forrest circular and
agents advised pulverizing the ore to
the fineness of dust before the solution
was applied. We found we could not
treat it in dust form without its cost
ing all our ore was worth. | tried it on
various sizes of rock.
"One day / was at work on a lot of
samples; being called out of the office
l left the tunnels / was using over a
crucible, so the solution would drain
through the ore into the crucible. When
[ came back l was aStoniShed to see
that some of the solution had gone
clear through the crucible. It occurred
to me instantly that if the solution
would go through clay in the shape of
crucible it would go through small
pieces Of ore such as we had A test
showed that it was the case; apparent
y ZIG oOlullOll lOllOWSu LIE CTGNlCSS
of the rock in which the gold values
were deposited, and we found we could
save SIS of the $22 a ton which the as
says showed were present in the ore
After that discovery it was plain sail
ing. The ore averaged about S14 a ton,
total value, and the total cost of min
ing and extracting was only about $3.50
ton. The success of the cyanide pro-
cess was demonstrated. We put in iron
tanks to replace the wooden ones, made
a few tests which showed the proper
proportion of cyanide to be about one
fourth of L per cent. and the rest of
the story is in the history of the stock
and its dividends"
THE CYANIDE PROCESS DEsCRIB-
ED.
The method of handling ore by the
cyanide OF potassium solution is very
simple. Assay tests are made of the
ore to determine just the strength of
solution adapted to a particular grade
of ore. The ore is dumped from the
mine into bins at the top of the mill.
built on the hillside. From these top