The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-01-18
OPERATION OF SHELTER
DESCRIBED BY INVENTOR
Continued from PAGE !

small particle Of matter viii fuse mucu
more readily than a large mass. a handful
of snow if exposed to heat will melt more
rapidly than the same weight of ice tIne
concentrates are obtained from massive
ore through process Of grinding ana SUD
seQuent washing. such a product - IDEAL
for rapid smelling because Of its fineness
It becomes evident that to try and bring
it back to its original state of hardness
and size. even though this could be sue
cessfUliy accomplished, is a step back
ward. providing 1t could be smeited q q.
A blast furnace is certainly not AGA 81
to smeit fine ores or products o. tiis
description. and if smelted in Teveroera-
ton furnace a preliminary roasting opera
ton is necessary to remove a portion or
its sulphur. an operation which also yields
considerable flUe dust
Clearly then. to smet such A product
Cheaply IT becomes necessary to break
away from the well established methods
and change the furnace as well as manip-
ulation of the charge so as to be able to
take advantage of the fineness of the ore
without danger Of losing too much in tue
dust. a second and most important con-
sideration is the fuel consumed. Many of
the more common minerals contain sui
phur. Under proper conditions this viii
ignite and burn. giving off heat. just as
coal or wood will do on burning In or
dinary blast furnace smelling good por-
ton of the sulphur is volatlized and es-
capes from the top OF the stack; in rever-
beratory smelling much of the sulphur IS
removed before the ore is introduced into
the furnace. As stated above. sulphur is
a fuel, and to obtain the maximum heat
effect therefrom its combustion should
take place in the furnace. where the heat
is required.
Principle of Fink Furnace.
In the ordinary blast furnace smelling
as conducted before the advent Of the
sO-called smelling process, it was Gus
tomary to roast the ores in order to re-
move the excess Of sulphur. which opera
ton was necessary to produce a matte OF
sufficient richness for further refining.
The fuel value of the sulphur given off
in roasting the ore was absolutely lost
In the pyritic process which has of late
years assumed deserved prominence the
ores are fed into the blast furnace in
their crude state enabling the utilization
Of considerably more sulphur as fuel than
in the old method of smelling. the matte
produced, however, being much lower in
grade than when the ore was previously
roasted.
This low grade matte is again put
through the furnace and the operation ma
nipulated in such a manner as to burn
off considerably more sulphur, finally pro-
ducing a product Of the required grade
of richness. The tuyere zone of the fur
nace-where the air blast is introduced
is where the smelling takes place. and
is the only portion Of the furnace where
any sulphur is utilized as fuel Above
this zone the sulphur is only voiatilized aud
escapes from the top of the furnace. The
ore upon reaching the zone of fusion al
the tuyeres, melts Immediately and rap
idly runs out Of the furnace so that it is
impossible to enrich the matte without re-
peating the operation one OF more times.
It occurred to me that il it were posi-
bic to retain the molten matte in the
tuyere zone for any desired time it would
he possible to obtain product of any
desired concentration. To accomplish this
/
furnace differing considerably from those
now in common use and to meet this end
the Fink furnace has been designed.
In reverberstory practice the coal is