The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1912-02-20
new INDUSTRY TO OPEN.
Process Found to Save the Flour Gold
OF the Snake River.

An industry that will open up new
fields of enterprise is to be launched
this spring in the Snake river valley
Hitherto placer mining has been but
bare wage proposition at best, be-
cause there was no known process
whereby all or even small percent
age OF the values could be procured
from the black sand, which is as heavy
as most OF the free gold. All up and
down the Snake river, especially in
the canyon in this vicinity, old machin-
cry, tunnels and ruins of stone cabins
tell the story of fifty years of placer
mining and failures. How, however,
this industry is to be revolutionized
and given great impetus because of a
new process just recently invented
This new process will save more out
of ton of black sand than any smell
tering process is able to do. 1t will
even amalgamate platinum. After the
free golG is taken out from ton of
black sand it is possible, by this me-
thod, to obtain values ranging from
$50 to 800, whereas not even all the
free gold was saved. The government
claims that miners can save only "a
per cent of the assayed values but af-
ter extracting SO per cent of free gold
from sample, one-half of this sample
was sent to the Emith Emery COM
pany, who are recognized expert as
sayers, to be put through a regular
smelling process. The other half was
put through the new process and it
was found that the latter extracted
over go per cent more values than the
smelter test
The Calidaho Extraction company of
San Francisco, has recently secured
exclusive patent right to Idaho and
parts of Oregon for this new invention
the electro-chemical extraction pro-
cess for extracting gold and platinum
and other ores from black sand depos-
it's in the Snake river valley. This
company is heavily capitalized con-
Germ in California During the past
summer they sent several representa-
tives to this part of the country to
look over the situation, secure sam
pies of black dirt, etc. Later G. w.
Wheeler of San Francisco, president
and general manager of the company,
spent several weeks in a thorough in
vestigation of mining conditions and
opportunities in the canyon near Twin
Falls.
Wherever steady enough output
of mineral sand can be found an ex-
traction plant will be established by
this company. They except to place a
number of these plants in Idaho and
Oregon and while here last summer
Mr.. Wheeler stated that the first plant
would be placed on the Twin Falls
tract, probably at Twin Falls These
plants will have a capacity of from 10
to 20 tons of black sand per day. the
concern here to handle about 10 tons
at the outset.
At present there are probably not
more than dozen mines being worked
along the river within a radius of f1f-
teen miles of Twin Falls, but with the
establishing of plant that will handle
the black sand there will be great ac-
tivity In the canyon on this tract. With
good hydraulic work, which is COM
paratively easy because Of the many
springs and falls which flow over into
the canyon. a ton of black sand can
readily be taken out per day on many
of the claims.
But little Is known at present of the
plans of the company. as no explana-
tions were made public during the
time they were here conducting their
tests and investigations However,
with the return of Mr. Wheeler in the
course Of month the entire PROPOSE
tion will undoubtedly be made public.
The Mikado-Lyric theatre, by
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