The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-07-23
GOLD MADE FROM SEA WATER

FROM the new YORK 1rlDune.
The sending of several ingots from
North Lubee, Me, to the New York as
say office, few days ago, draws pub
lie attention to 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 proportion of one grain
of gold and two of silver to each ton
Of water. And now the Electrolytic
Marine Salts company, of Boston, has
in operation a plant for extracting gold
and silver. 1t is alleged that the ingots
sent to the assay office were the pro-
duct of that establishment. They
weighed 92.2 ounces. A trife over one
third of the metal was gold, and less
than two thirds was silver. The value
of the former was estimated by Uncle
Sans experts at s5996l, and of the
latter at $32.19. 1t is asserted by an off,
cial of the company that extracted this
metal that the operation cost about
s10S.
1t Is well known that many chemical
compounds can be separated into their
constituent elements by electrolysis. A
good illustration is afforded by the
Woolf & Hermite's system of disinfec-
tion by means of electrolyZed sea wat
er. Common table salt is known to the
chemists as Chloride of sodium" If
quantity of salt water can be properly
treated with electricity, this chlorine
and sodium are divorced. The latter
forms new combinations. The former,
with ozone, which is incidentally liber-
ated, kills the germs which 1t is sought
to get rid Of
A variation Of this operation Is un-
| dertaken at the North Lubec establish
| ment Instead of saving the gas and
letting the metal go. as Woolf & Her.
mite do, they let the gas go and seek TO
| retain the metal. Moreover, their pro-
| cess is so conducted as to deal with the
chlorides of gold and silver, and not
with that of sodium And it has sew
eral features which are still kept Sc
| cret.
Arthur B. Ryan, president of the
Electrolytic Marine Salts Company,
said to Tribune reporter last week:
I'VE picked up $50. 900 in Boston and
| vicinity last November, with which a
| working plant was built at North Le-
| bee. This consists, in part, of salt
| water lagoon, with an extent of about
| four acres and depth of nine feet. 1t
| has dam at its entrance The tide
| at this point varies from seventeen to
| twenty feet in height. BY a 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 a
| sluiceway, and treat 1t with chemicals
| and electricity.
I'VE have at this time ia separate
machines, which we have named ac-
| cumulators." Each has an independent
water supply and is capable of handling
| about twenty tons of water per hour.
We are able to use about eight hours
| of each tide, making sixteen hours a
| day that we can run the accumulators
| The number of accumulators that can
be used on any given body of water
simply is the number that, at twenty
tons per hour, will empty it in some
| six hours.
! our estimate Is that sea water con-
tains about one grain of gold and two
grains of silver per ton. We have been
able to find this quantity of gold and
silver in a large number of tests. But
we were in search of a method of ex-
traction that was profitable; and in
this research we devised a method of
rapid precipitation that was available
in the largest quantities of water and
inexpensive in working. So that while
we get only one-tenth Of the quantity
available in any given body of salt
water, we are able to handle such large
quantities of the water that the re-
suits show an enormous profit. The
working of our system is entirely au-
| tomato.
The ingots which we sent to the As
say office We're the output of thirty six
accumulators, working fourteen days.
They treated 11.520 tons of water a day.
or 161, ,2S0 altogether. The cost of run
ming 10 accumulators for seven days
will not exceed $3.50. Our actual figures
are $ll7. But, allowing for expenses that
we cannot compute,we assume $3.50 as a
fair estimate. To run each machine
for fourteen days would cost about SO;
and the operation of the thirty-six
which did this particular work should
have cost sos. Our private tests show
that while each accumulator involves
an expense of $3.50 a week, it yields
a gross return of $l27 per day.
1--WE are now planning to erect near
the first establishment at North Lu-
bee a second one, with a water area
of eighty acres, a depth of ten feet
and capacity for each tide of about
1,2O0,0 900 tons of water"