The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-04-07
GOLD MADE FROM SEA WATER.
The Plant at North Lubec and the
Presidents Account of 1t.
From the New York Tribune.

Presidents Account of 1t.
From the New York Tribune.
The sending of several ingots from North
Lubec, Me. to the New York assay office,
a few days ago. draws public attention to
a scheme for extracting precious metals
from sea water. 1t has long been known
that both gold and silver in the form of
chlorides exist in the ocean in the proper
ton of one grain of gold and two of sill
yer to each ton of water And now The
Electrolytic Marine Salts Company of
Boston has in operation plant for ex-
tracing gold and silver. 1t is alleged that
the ingots sent to the assay office were the
product of that establishment. They
weighed 92.2 ouncese. A tribe over one
third of the metal was gold, and less than
two-thirds was silver, The value of the
former was estima ted by Uncle Sans ex-
perts at $599.6l and of the latter at $S2l9.
1t is asserted by an official of the compa-
ny that extracted this metal that the OPP
GRAFTON cost about $1O8.
1t is well known that many chemical
compounds can be separated into their
constituent elements by eiectrolysis. A
good illustration Is afforded by the Woolf
q Hermite's system of distinction by
means of electrolyzed sea water. Common
table salt Is known to the chemists as
chloride of sodium" If a quantity of
salt water can be properly treated with
electricity, this chlorine and sodium are
divorced. The latter forms new combina-
lions. The former. with ozone, which is
incidentally liberated, kills the germs
which it is sought to get rid of.
A variation of this operation is under
taken at the North Lubec establishment.
Instead of saving the gas and letting the
metal go, as Woolf & Hermite do they let
the gas go and seek to retain the metal.
Moreover. their process is so conducted as
10 deal with the chlorides Of gold and sill
yer, and not with that of sodium. And il
has several features which are still kept
secret
Arthur p. Bryan, president of the Flee
trolytic Marine Salts Company said TO
Tribune reporter last week
I'VE picked up $4,000 in Boston and vi
entity last November, with which a work
ing plant was built at North Lubec. This
consists in part, of a salt water lagoon.
with an extent of about four acres and a
depth of nine feet. Ii has a dam at lis en-
trance. The tide at this point varies from
seventeen to twenty feet i'm hight. BY
system of gates we impound the salt water
at high tide, and when the tide is low we
allow the water to run out through sluice
way, and treat IL with chemicals and cleo
tricity
I'VE have al this time ia separate ma
chimes, which we have named accumula-
tors Each has an Independent water sup
ply and is capable of handling about TWEEN
ty tons of water Der hour We are able
to use about eight hours of each ttde.malS-
ing sixteen hours day that we can run
the accumulators. The number of accumu-
lators that can be used on any given bodv
OF water simply is the number mat. az
twenty tons per hour, will empty IL fn
some six hours
our estimate is that sea water con.
talns about one grain of gold and two
grains of silver per ton. We have beon
able to find this quantity of gold and sill
yer in large number of tests Put we
were in search of a method of extroction
MAJ u,oe nroftable. ana in tbis r'so,..,t