The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-01-20
GOLD AS COMMON
AS COPPER NOW IS
Denver Times)

Denver Times)
! There are men who believe. and fear
! lessiy predict, that gold win be de-
I mOnetized within twenty years be
/ cause IT VIII have become as common
/ as copper. There are al least two men
/ in Denver who advance this theory and
l who bring startling facts TO bear on
| the unEeliever. Their theory is Perfect.
I their demonstrations are all that could
| De asked from an experimental point
/ OF view. All they lack is q completed
halil OF the same percentage OF success
/ Whlcn has crowned their experimental
/ runs, and they win be on the high road
/ to compelling the nations to hunt for
/ a substitute for gold as . money metal.
/ These men are Joseph n. Baxter an
attorney, with Offices in the Peoples
/ bank building, and Hermann J. Van
/ Dleren, an aSSayer and metallurgist.
/ The two OWE and operate "a stamp mill
ana small reduction works on Nine
/ teenth street and the Platte river. In
1 their experiments they SaVe discovered
a peculiar process of treating refrac-
/ tory ores, which, they claim, will eX-
/ tract all the gold from the ore at a cost
/ of 80 cents to SO a ton.
/ Their process consists of Coaching
not unlike the process now in use in
/ cyanide plants all over the world. The
I ore is first crushed to 100 mesh. but is
/ not roasted, thus saving time fuel,
machinery and labor. It is dumped
into tank of the solution, the nature
/ OF which is secret. Whereas cyanide
D takes several days to extract the gold
the new solution does the work in six
hours thus giving a plant of the same
/ size six or more times the capacity of
a cyanide plant. The beauty of the
new solution is the high percentage Of
gold it extracts.
After the teaching is over the gold is
precipitated in pure form by the addi-
/ ton of another solution. which is, of
course as profound 4 secret as the
other compound.
So impressed have men of money
! been with the experimental workings
! of the new invention that a syndicate
with backing of 50, 00O 000 is now fig
uT1ng on purchasing the process. The
inventors are so confident of the sue
/ cess of their mill that they have fixed
| lheir price at 5000. 900 and are not chas-
ing after purchasers at that figure.
Colorado Is full of gold, in more than
! homeopathic quantities, from the Dor
ders of Kansas to the Utah line, but
the inventors and the syndicate have
chosen peculiar places in which to set
! their invention to work They viii op-
crate on a bed of Kansas shale, in
which every ordinary SSSayer declares
that there is no gold. There is in Kan
sas a bed Of slaty shaIe $50 miles long,
so to $50 feet deep. and nobody knows
just how wide, perhaps a mile. As
savers in this country boot "a the idea
of finding gold in 1t, just as the experts
! hOoted at the idea of Cripple Creek
phonolite carrying gold. But the in
ventOrS say they get gold out of it,
and they are not troubling about
whether it is the proper kind of rock
or not. They also tell OF a Holland eX-
pert who has exam ned their Shale and
assured them that il is identical with
the shale which the Dutch have been
milling and getting rich from Tor years
and wears
Here is what Mr.. Baxter says when
he predicts that by this process he can
for. ne demonetiZation of gold;
Here are the possibilities: This
shale is $50 miles long and from $50
/ feet to $50 feet deep ard extends as far
/ as YOU can see on the surface. A proc
} ess for handling the shale has recently
/ been discovered. which viii treat the
ore, including the cost of mining. for
| less than So per ton and gives results
/ of from SO to over 81 net profit Say
we will call the profit but 81 per ton
net and the average depth of shale 400
| feet, and one mile wide; one ton of
/ this ore measures twelve cubic feet,
and there are thiTty-three and Cne-
I third tons in 400 feet of depth, and in
one square mile you would yet 929. 2S0,
/ 600 tons. and the net profit at 81 per
/ ton will be 1928, 2S0. 900, and If you multi
ply this by $50 for the I'VE miles by
/ $50 miles you get $685.. $50, 600 coo profit
n H.
I ger you, you can figure out the amount
I you would realize If the profit was
! from So to 81 per ton. VIII yOu still be
{ for gold when this product from the
plains of Kansas IS marketed You
may say it viii take 5000 years to re-
cover this amount. but mills could be
put up every fifty feet, If necessary,
and gold as a standard would be in
danger"
1t is this Kansas bed OF shale that
the syndicate will operate upon II their
deal for the purchase of the process
goes through. If the inventors keep
their patent to themselves they. have
in mind a different field for explc.ta-
ton, within the borders of Colorado
/ They will have no competition, for 1t
is a character of rock which none of
the mining experts care to handle. It
is nothing less than great sandstone
ledge, eighteen miles long, two to three
miles wide standing seVenty-hve to 200
feet above the surface of the ground,
and to unknown depths below Their
process gives them a net profit of 81
a ton on the sandstone. which means u
clear profit of 00.000,000 on the ore in
sight alone. without counting what may
lie underground.
Leaving out of the question the in
vention in which he is Interested. Mr..
Baxter believes that there is yet an
other process discovered which viii
compel the decentralization of gold. 1t
is the work of d st. Louis experimental.
who has perfected a process of treat
ing that same Kansas shale on which
Baxter and Van Dieren are figuring.
This man has two hollow cylinders one
smaller than the other and set within.
though with porous bottom. through
which the chemicals pass freely. He
fills the smaller cylinder with crushed
ore pours a solution on it, sets IL with
in the larger cylinder and fills the
larger with another solution. Then he
connects the two fluids with a copper
wire. as If they were cells of q gal
vanic battery, and waits. After six
hours he takes out the porous bottom
of the inner cylinder and scrapes from
the bottom a pancake. of matter. con-
taining the gold. silver, zine and what
ever other metal the ore has contained.