The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-06
EXPERTS. REPORT ON
 ALABAMA GOLD FIELDS
C. W. Mitcham, E. M. and (. E., Visits the Region and For The Advertiser Writes Of
 His Investigations.

i abandoned 1t without doing any cross cut ting.
 The operations continued until the breaking out of the Civil War when his buildings were destroyed. and later his slaves were liberated. and ended his work. It is reprted that he extracted between
 s50000 and $60.0C0. working only at what
 might be called spare times. Ruined by
 the war. like many others, he sold his property and left the South.
 The Ulrich property was neglected from this time till it came into the possession | of Colonel B. L. Dean. who knew Ulrich
 and about the mines. and induced Dr. H. John Cameron to take the property and I work 1t. The first work since Ulrich's,
 was begun by pr. Cameron in October,
 1897.
 The Cameron Property. 1 Crossing Hillabee Creek at the ford
 five and one-half miles northeast of Alex andcr City one enters the Cameron prop
 critics comprising nearly two thousand
 acres, being all of section and parts Of
 sections {, 8 and g, township g, range 2
 and part of sections 2s, 32 and 8. town l ship "A. range 2.
 | Ely Pits, Log Pits and other scattered properties aggregate about 1000 acres l more Hillabee Creek, often called Hil-
 labee River, tributary of Tallapoosa Riv- | eT, IS d large stream HOWfHS BeneTdty | southeast forms the boundary of the | for over two miles. Quartz Creek crosses the property from the northeast and emp l ties into Hiilabee HOO feet east of the | mill. Muscota Brook follows a similar course and empties into the same stream | about 1,e0o feet west of the mill. Both l are available for supplying battery wa- 1 ter Near the mouth of Muscota Brook | ( AL- A- ~kaI atxAH An~ | 4o feet high, which will fmpound lake
 of about eight or ten acres and give
 about twenty miners inches of water at this head. It has been ascertained that
 with comparatively little work Rock Creek can also be turned into this lake | and increase the flow by several times
 this amount. A pipe line or ditch could
 easily be constructed to deliver this wa I ter above the stamps, and a similar ar- | rangement could bring large volume of water from Quartz Creek; but such an expensive dam would not be necessary. There are two water powers on the place. one about 2,000 feet above the mill, ! the other about 5000 feet from the mill.
 both on Hillabee River. The horse power
 was estimated by an engineer employed | for the purpose at 400 and 1,200. respec-
 lively. Either Is sufficient for all pur- poses needed for mining operations .4ere. Stamp Mill.
 The scamp mill equipment comprises a modern 20 stamp mill with crusher, au- | tomatic feeders and concentrators. The
 mill is well located with reference to | mines and economic handling of ore through the mill. It is built on a hill-
 side, just below shafts No. and No. z. and ore Is delivered on the crusher floor \ by tram car from the mines near by and by team from more distant places. The ore is run through Blake crush
 CT located on the top floor. broken to
 suitable size and dropped into bins be-
 heath. From these bins it runs by grav-
 ity into the hoppers of Challenge au- 1 tomatic feeders by which 1t Is fed to the tstamps.
 The stamps weighing $50 pounds each l are arranged in batteries of five. Ten of l the stamps are in a steel frame and each battery ofthve can be run separately. The l other ten stamps are in a wooden frame | and have one solid cam shaft. The ore | is crushed by the stamps to pass through | a twenty mesh screen and is washed out l through the screen by the battery water and run over copper plates coated with mercury. The plates are cleaned up at l plates and forms an afnalgum with the murcury. The plates are cleaned up at | regular intervals. the amalgum being col lected and retorted to separate the gold | from the quick
 Numerous experiments have demon | Btrated that twenty mesh screens are the l best to use on these ores. Finer screens save slightly more of the gold, but with l the coarser screens the capacity of the mill is increased to such an extent that | even with free milling ore. the profits from the operation are greater; and ex- | traction of profits are more to the purpose than @ high percentage of gold extraction. Where concentration Is practiced the loss of gold from using coarse screens is re- duced to practically nothing.
 The tailings from the plates are run | through launders and two Wilfrey tables | or concentrators, one to each ten stamps. | where the sulphides carrying the gold are separated from the barren quartz sand. By suitable machinery these tables are given a longitudinal motion, and by l this banning motion and by virtue of the difference in specific graivty the concen- trates pass slowly off at the end of the
 table while the lighter quartz sand is washed of at the side by @ stream of
 water running across the table The tail inEs run through sluice into the creek, and the concentrates are shoveled into a tram car and taken to the roasting fur
 naces for further treatment. With a 2O-
 mesh screen the mill has a capacity of
 sixty to seventy-five tons, depending on
 the character of the ore.
 The machinery in the mill, though not in operation at present. is in good condi- ton and ready to be started up. The
 owners have steam raised and machinery
 turned once a week to keep it in good
 condition.
 The mill building is a substantial frame
 structure covered with corrugated iron.
 and like all buildings on the place. is
 painted with mineral paint.
 The power house is situated on the west
 side of the mill and contains one eighty,
 horse power return-tubular boiler and one
 sixty-horse power Hardie-Tynes engine.
 Wood is used for fuel and Is worth from
 75 cents to S per cord There Is an
 abundance of wood on the property.
 The reason that water power was not
 used Is because the water power men-
 tioned did not belong to this property at