The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-05
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 it 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
 ssO.00o and $60.00o. 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 1t came into the possession l of Colonel B. L. Dean, who knew Ulrich | and about the mines, and induced Dr. H.
 John Cameron to take the property and
 work it. The first work since Ulrich's.
 was begun by pr. Cameron in October,
 1897.
 | The Cameron Property. Crossing Hillabee Creek at the ford | five and one-half miles northeast of Alex i ander City one enters the Cameron prop I critics comprising nearly two thousand | acres being all of section and parts of
 sections {, and g. township g. range 2 and part of sections 2s, 32 and 33. town | ship 24 range %
 Ely Pits, Log Pits and other scattered properties aggregate about 1000 acres | more. Hillabee Creek, often called Hill | labee River, tributary of Tallapoosa Riv- CT. Is a large stream flowing generally southeast forms the boundary of the Cameron property. on the west and south | for over two miles, Quartz Creek crosses the property from the northeast and emp ties into Hillabee HOO feet east of the
 mill. Muscota Brook follows a similar course and empties into the same stream about 1000 feet west of the mill. Both are available for supplying battery wa ter. Near the mouth of Muscota Brook there is a well constructed timber dam
 40 feet high. which will impound a 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 l easily be constructed to deliver this wa ter above the stamps, and a similar ar | engagement could bring a 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 1000 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 ere. Stamp Mill.
 The sIamp mill equipment comprises 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. 1 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 a Blake crush Ter located on the top floor. broken to
 suitable size and dropped into bins be-
 meath. From these bins it runs by grav-
 ity into the hoppers of Challenge" au- tomatic feeders by which it is fed to the stamps.
 The stamps weighing $50 pounds each
 are arranged in batteries of five. Ten of | the stamps are in a steel frame and each l battery offhve can be run separately. The | 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 | through the screen by the battery water | and run over copper plates coated with mercury. The plates are cleaned up at plates and forms an amalgum 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- | strated that twenty mesh screens are the | best to use on these ores. Finer screens save slightly more of the gold. but with | the coarser screens the capacity of the mill is increased to such an extent that. l 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 l sand. By suitable machinery these tables
 are given a longitudinal motion. and by | 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 off at the side by a stream of
 water running across the table. The tail- | inRs run through a 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 20-
 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- | tion 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.
 l 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 l 75 cents to $1 per cord. There is an
 abundance of wood on the property. l The reason that water power was not used is because the water power men l tioned did not belong to this property at