The Nome daily nugget., 1911-03-03
raise the apparatus.
4 New Machine.

FN IVY" fW~SHtHes
 An inventor has entered the field. MT. l.. F Gilman, and he has built and patented a most ingenious machine for use both on beaches and in river beds. and is operating one of the river ma chimes on the Similkameen. He expects to use the beach machines next season at Nome.
 The object of this machine is to dry that portion of the beach covered by the machine (below the water line) in order to mine. and after cleaning the surface covered. the machine is reset again and again, being moved by means of carrier composed of eye beams, which is supported by and travel on rollers. The machine is simply a port able cofferdam that can be moved from place to place on the beach
 This machine is combination or the assembling. of three old and tried ideas-the cofferdam, the sheet piling and the caisson. The device is built entirely of steel, oval in shape. and consists of a cofferdam wall of steel, which is water tight. The dam is open at both top and bottom and is if suf- ficeiet depth to prevent water from flowing over its top.
 The wall of the dam is provided with system of sheet steel billings, the billings interlocking or engaging one another and forming an endless chain all the way around the dam. The steel blades of the piling are five feet long. which enables them to be forced that deep. if necessary, through the sand and gravel and lodge them into the clay. The piling rods. which extend five feet above the wall of the dam, and to raise and lower the sheet piling the operating rods are engaged by screw jack, power for which is supplied by the engine.
 Details Of Machine.
 The engine is supported by a plat form inside the cofferdam. from which d line shaft operates the pump hoist ing drums as we'll as the screw jack for the billings all of which auxiliaries are inside the cofferdam. The dam proper is approximately thirty five feet long, sixteen feet wide and covers a little over 300 square feet of surface at each setting. Its weight complete. will be about eight tons.
 Instead of barge to support his machine. which would subject it to the violence of storms. there is provided a carrier. composed of two hollow rollers. which support four standard. which in turn support eye beams. all of course sufficiently strong to carry the weight to be imposed.
 The rollers are four feet in diameter and twenty-four feet in length, and hollow, in order that their buoyancy may support the weight of the carrier Out not the cofferdam) and they may be filled with water if buoyancw is not desired. The eye beams are thirty-seven feet long uwice the width Of the ma chine) and the eye beams support the carriage, which is provided with wheels. From the carriage is the bull wheel. which utilizing power from the engine. raises and lower the coffer- dam.
 How 1t Is Operated.
 After assembling the machine and carrier and placing them at the con- templated point to mine. the cofrerdam Is lowered so as 10 rest only a few inches deep into the sand: a strain on the cable from the hoisting dam being kept on the dam to prevent 1t from further into the sand. Then the power jack Is engaged on the operating rods of the sheet steel billing -four jacks being used) and the piling is forced down through the sand and gravel and into the clay.
 The dam is now complete and it is necessary to remove the water, sand and gravel from within the dam m oieer to clean up the concentration on the clay The sanl purip is startsl, which discharges the water. sand srd gravel frpnI within in. cam into tte al. MN.E E-N-