The Ogden standard. [volume] (Ogden City, Utah) 1902-1910, 1909-05-29
FORTUNE IN SAVING
FLOUR GOLD IN WEST

Salt Lake City, May 2S.-"The man
who -salFes4the question OF saving aonr
gold Will have a fortune greater than
Rockefellers and Morgan's and Harri-
mans combined" said II. c. Norman
of Denver yesterday. LAS every placer
miner knows, In many cases, such as
in the Snake river. Idaho, there Is
plenty of gold but 1t is so fine that
Gold by the action of the sand and
water is ground finer than most people
appreciate.
"I have seen gold so fine that it took
minute by the watch for 1t to settle
through one foot of air in glass jar.
1t will mix with water like wheat -four
and take hours to settle. l once had
small bottle of water and this gold
mixed. 1t looked like brown mud at
the bottom of the water. When L
shook 1t up and dipped pen in the
water and gold mixed l could write
name on a card. The writing looked
as II done with pale brown ink; but
when 1t dried. which it did in a few
minutes. used to draw my knife blade
over it and the apparently weak brown
scrawl turned to FURNISHED gold.
Most people. even old placer min
ers, fancy that gold will always sink
In water. A current of one mile an
hour will take away many dollar
per square yard of -four gold If 1t is
fine enough-say as fine as this | am
speaking of. or course. mercury will
catch it il one can bring the gold In
contact with the plate containing the
mercury, but TO do thet Is almost Inn
possible At least, il SO far has
proved to be commercial failure. To
get the gold out OF cubic yard OF
water in which gold was suspended
one would nave to let the water flow
slowly over the mercury In layer
so thin that it would not flow at all
'1n Cherry creek. which flows
through the city of Denver. right by
| the city hall. is enough gold to pay the
! national debt but we can not get IL
out. This is where the fine gold |
| speak Of came from. We caught ii by
special means that would not pay
! commercials. The gold probably
would cost at least 500 an ounce the
way we took it out and, as every ono
! knows. gold Is worth only one-fifth of
that sum. We used q method by which
VIC forced air up and back against the
i water carrying the gold. and very
! lightly al that. The water was itself
! hardly moving. BY getting mixture
/ of water and air we had medium
lighter than water alone, hence the
heavier particles of this float gold
slowly sank into the feather RIFLES
ready for 1t. This is only an outline
of the method. 1t would take too long
to tell all about it, and l am not
sure that want to.
Seat water contains about 3 cents
in gold to the cubic yard. Once get
a method OF extracting gold from sea
water for cents yard and gold
/ will be as cheap as iron, because the
supply Is unlimited. But so far this is
only scientific dream. Yet the
chances Of getting this flour and float
gold out of the sands are good
"Float and flour gold arc by no
means the same thing, although many
people speak of them as the same.
Float gold can be so thin that IL takes
lao colofs' in a pan to make 1 cent
/ in value.
/ Flour and float gold may in time
| he saved by some process other than
! waShlnS. Heretofore All ehol,S ha'e
been based on the principle that
gold is heavier than sand. hence VIII
! sink in current that Will carry on
the sand But one must remember one
I vital principal In nature that comes
into play. Just as soon as we get be-
low a certain size, and that is tnet
gold may be so small that on the sur
| face a particle OF it opposes TO tho