Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1907-09-07
Treatment OF COPPER
ORES Of YERINCTON
DISTRICT

The matter of ascertaining the best
method, or process, for the treatment of
the copper ores from the Yerington, Ne
vada, copper district, has been given at
tentlon by E. P. Jennings, the mining
and metallurgical engineer of this city.
He has concluded a series of expert
ments on ore sent from the Nevada
Douglas Copper Company's properties,
and which includes the Ludwig mine
from which high grade ore is now being
shipped to the local smelters.
The ores entering into the experiments
were classified into seven. parts, (a) be-
ing sulphides in garnet gangue and car
rying values above 5 per cent copper,
| 90 the same ore, but running under S
per cent copper, % oxidized ore, assay
ing from to 10 per cent copper, (d) OK
idized ore with lime-iron gangue, assay
ling from to 10 per cent copper. The
ore designated (e), () and co came
from the Ludwig mines, (e) being oxi-
died ore assaying from 10 to 20 per cent
copper, Cd oxidized and sulphides, as
saying from 10 to 20 per cent copper and
| (g) sulphides of iron assaying from l to
4 per cent copper.
| Mr.. jennings report was placed in
the hands of General Manager Walter
c. Orem several days ago and from it it
has been ascertained that classes b and
will require preliminary concentration
before smelling; class b cannot be con-
centrated by ordinary water concentra-
ton, but from experiments made at the
Bluestone mine with similar ore, sys-
tenn of magnetic concentration has been
devised which gives satisfactory results.
Their method consists in giving the
crushed ore light roast to render the
mineral magnetic and treating this roast
ed product on Witherell magnetic oper-
ators. A sample of garnet sulphide ore
from the Douglas has been sent to Den
yer for treatment by the new Elmore
vacuum process. 1t is thought that this
method will prove successful on this
class of ore, but nothing definite can be
said until returns are received from
Denver
Class g--Iron and copper sulphides in
silicious gangue, can be concentrated by
the ordinary methods. The concentrates
obtained by any method can be smelted
in either oil fired reverbatories or bri-
quoted and smelted, together with other
ores in blast furnaces. The relative cost
of oil and coke, the amount of hue dust
formed and Stag and smelling losses will
determine which is the most feasible.
1t can be said here that large amount
of the Nevada Douglas ore will come
under the head of concentrating ore.
Class d---Low grade oxidided ore in
garnet gangue. This constitutes an area
of surface that has been estimated to
amount to !, 800, 900 square feet and is
from 10 to 40 feet in thickness, forming
the overburden covering the sulphide
ores. The best of this can be smelted
with suitable proportion of sulphide
ore.
George L. Walker. the Boston copper
authority and editor, who made an ex-
animation of the CRANKY mine in British
Columbia during his late western trip
and who also later visited the Nevada
Douglas made the statement that the ore
produced from the two mines was very
similar and that the CRANKY people were
able to smelt it an expense of about 81 40
Nevada Douglas ore could be handled as
cheaply. ---Deseret News.