The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1914-08-25
F[OTATION PRO
CESS Open TO ALL


broader aspects, said James NJ Hyde
yesterday at the Hotel Utah, in dis
cussing the decision handed down in
his favor recently by the United
States circuit court of appeals of San
Francisco, says the Salt Lake Tri-
bune. The case had been brought
against Mr.. Hyde by the Minerals
Separation, limited, and the Minerals
Separation American Syndicate, linn
tied, companies, on claims that he
had infringed ON their patent rights.
Mr.. Hyde had installed a floatation
process for the Butte Superior Cop
per company, limited, which process
was in successful operation at the
time of the suit.
In discussing the process Mr.. Hyde
said:
Discovered by School Teacher.
The floatation process, in practical
| ly all of its broader aspects, was dis
covered by Miss Carrie J. Everson,
Colorado school teacher, and was
patented by her. That was in 1885.
She had a brother in Denver who
was an assayer and one day while
engaged in washing sample sacks
that he was about to throw away she
accidentally made the discovery. She,
oe course, was endowed with the usu-
al keen observation of the western
school teacher, and while in washing
the sample sacks in a wash tub she
noticed that the sulphide minerals
rose to the top of the tub in the suds
and floated there. She must have
been very fair chemist, for in de-
termining what caused the metal
particles to float she came to the
conclusion that it was the oil with
which the sample sacks had been
soiled. Haynes had made this same
discovery a number of years before,
but Miss Everson carried her work
of investigation further. She found
that acid added in small quantities to
the pulp increased the selective action
of oil and also that oiled mineral
Fcould be separated from the agitator
and allowing the sulphides to float to
the surface while the gangue escaped
at the bottom of the vessel.
As Hoover says, would have you
note that this flotation process which
/ firmly believe is destined to revo-
lutionize the milling industry, was
discovered by feminine trait of
character. No male assayer would
think of such a thing as washing
a greasy sample sack. If he cant
clean them by shaking the dust out
of them he generally throws them
into the furnace and buys a new
batch
Process Applied Commercially.
The real commercial application of
the process was due to the fact that
millions of tons of zinc middlings,
running as high as twenty per cent
but untreatable by the water con-
centrating methods because the ma
terial contained so much garnet of
practically the same specific gravity
as the zinc blende, were accumulated
at the lead mills in the Broken Hill
country of Australia. The accumula
tion of such material stood as chal-
lenge to the metallurgical world. The
first successful commercial process
for the treatment of this material was
invented and applied by Potter at the
Broken Hill mills. His process con-
sisted in adding the middlings to hot
solution containing about five per
cent of sulphuric acid. Carbon diox-
ide gas was involved by the action Of
the acid on the ore and this gas en-
veloped the metallic particles causing
them to foat to the top and make a
good grade of concentrates.
Almost every small boy has creased
needle and mystified his friends
by causing it to float on the water.
The trick, if / remember it correctly,
was in placing the needle on the
water gently enough. If the boy had
had some means of causing an en-
velope of air to encase the needle he
could have done the same thing. 1t
was but natural step in the Pot
ter process to apply the principles
which Miss Everson had evolved for
the treatment of this class of ore and
those who made the obvious applica-
tion of her process in order to get a
revolutionary in nature tooA out pat
ents about which since has centered
the litigation against myself and the
Butte Superior company and which
has since been disposed of.
The fight that the Butte Superior
Copper company and have carried
on for the past three years has re-
suited in an unusually clear and fin
al decision which throws the broader
aspects of the flotation process open
to the public and confirms us in all
of our contentious that the public
had right to use the process. I
might say, however, that there are a
number of improvement patents
which may or may not have certain
degree of validity because of the very
broad disclosures in the Everson
patents and earlier ones. It is hard
ly conceivable that any of the later
patents based upon peculiar reagents
can have any possible validity.
In her original patent Miss Ever
sor specified to use in the process she
was disclosing oils, fats and de-
derivaties thereof, acids and acid
alkaline salts and neutral salts and
she enumerated among the things she
had tried practically all of the oils
and acids used since. However, there
are so many factors interacting to-