The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1905-09-08
GRAFT IN MINE EQUIPMENT.

| plauts which are either wholly OUT VI
nroportion with the available
of the mine or entirely unsuited to the
treatment of the ore. Not uncommon
llv the owners and directors of mines
and mining companies have little OF
no knowledge of the business of prac-
teal mining, and still less of metal
lurgical plants and their operation.
Such men are likely to build a smelter
on a dry ore mine, or put In a gold
mill to treat lead carbonate ores be-
cause they carry gold. From necessity,
where the directorate of a mining com
pany realizes its lack of technical
knowledge, they naturally turn to the
consulting mining engineer for advice
and assistance in preparing proper
plans and specifications for a suita-
BILE mining and reduction plant. In
this engineer they must have implicit
confidence, or his services would not
be sought, but unfortunately the his
tory of some mining concerns proves
that occasionally this confidence is
misplaced, and that the consulting
engineer employed is either grossly
incompetent or inexperienced, or that
he is a CRATER, and sometimes both.
On the other hand, the engineer may
be competent but easily influenced, and
DESTROYS of securing a retainer, lends
himself to the plans of another, and
recommends what he knows to be un-
suited to the requirements of the case,
or, at least, that which he is not sure
will be entirely satisfactory, trusting
to some future turn of fortunes wheel
for an opportunity to set himself
right; in other words he embraces an
opportunity to experiment at the ex-
pense of his client.
In the manufacture and installation
of mining equipment there is often
large profit, particularly where the
plant is extensive and the competition
is not too keen, and substantial proofs
of the friendship existing between the
manufacturer fortunate enough to Sc
cure a good fat contract and the en-
gineer who advises the purchase may
sometimes pass. This practice, not at
all in other industrial lines,
has resulted in its abuse by some.
Take as an instance a mining COM
pany owning a valuable property, the
ore of which is not free milling, but
which really requires considerable
chemical and m~etallurgical knowledge
on the part of the consulting engineer
who is called in in an advisory capa-
city to determine just what sort of
plant would be best suited to the re-
d%uetion of this ore, assuming the ore
to he a sulphide, with several bases but
e ng also good values in gold and
silver. The engineer advises a stamp
mill and an elaborate lixiviation plant.
The specifications are elaborate and
set forth in detail each part of the ma
chinery and specify certain makes of
mechanical devices which may run up
the cost unnecessarily. The investment
required in this plant would be large,
but the possible commissions coming
to the engineer would help to soothe his
conscience, even though the entire
remodeled at great expense to suit it
to the treatment of the ore.
Such grating cannot but prove in
furious to legitimate mining. To avoid
such results the investors should know
that their engineer is competent to adj
wise them properly, for in all proba-
bility there would be just as much adj
vantage to the engineer in advising a
proper plant in the first place as in
that which ultimately proves to be
useless for the purpose for which it
was intended. Many large plants, it
would seem, are ordered on insufficient
investigation as to their adaptability
to the ore to be treated and to the
surrounding conditions.
In n ~insance the purchasing agent
of an eastern corporation owning mines
in the west made a request for bids
on a plant of certain description. The
engineer for the house assured the
would-be purchaser that the plant pro-
posed was not at all suited to the ore,
but was told bluntly that it need not
concern him in the least; that the
company had decided to build a plant
of that description, and if this house
did not care to furnish it they would
go to those less particular. As the
machinery people were out for bust
ness they took the contract and built
the plant, but as had been said, it was
not adapted TO the ore. and II s+anas