Mohave County miner., 1916-08-26
MILL
 0N BELMONT ORE

Writing for the Mining and Scien-
 tific Press on the manner in which diff
 faculties were overcome in the treat
 ment of silver ores at Belmont, New,
 Lloyd G. Nelson contributes the fol-
 lowing:
 Last fall we started up a 10O-ton
 Notation plant on the Monitor Belmont
 mines here, at Belmont, in Nye coun-
 ty, Nevada I believe this was the
 first oil fiotation plant in Nevada for
 the treatment of silver ores. The ore
 is crushed through 7O-mesh screens and pumped to a Door thickener. From there it flows to the Notation machine. At present we are using 12 cells of the minerals separation type with sub aeration, followed by pneumatic ma chine somewhat on the Callow order.
 Our extraction and ratio of concen- tration are now quite satisfactory, but we have had one experience that, I be- lieve, you will like to hear, particular ly since we learn that others are hay ing the same difficulty, and that is in the taking care of the concentrate after it is made.
 We installed continuous filter to drain our concentrate. The original in stallation provided for taking the froth over the lip of the mechanical machine without the introduction of air from a blower and then the filter handled the frother nicely, and later when all the frother came from the pneumatic machine the filter had no difficulty, but after we added the sub iteration feature we found it an inn possibility to utilize the filter.
 It had an ample capacity too-all we asked of it-but the makers onlyf claimed that it was intended to take a product that was at least 50 per cent solid and preferably 60 per cent, while ours with sub-aeration was about 10 per cent solid. We put in two cones, hoping to thicken it sufficiently before putting it into the filter, but a considerable portion of the concentrate would stick to the sides of the cones and later would come down with a rush, plugging them up.
 Then it would take considerable time to start them flowing again, and the cones were generally running over the sides and also taking back very rich product to the Door thickener and on through the system again, and we were losing considerable quantity of ! on the floor, so we con ceived the following idea, in despera- ton:
 We built six tanks, each 4x4x16 feet long, in the lower part of the mill. These were built of the lumber we had on hand, two-inch blanks, which we tongued and groved and kept full of water for few days. We built these in two series of three tanks each and we took the froth direct to tank No. and allowed the water and froth to run over the top into tank No. 2 and fro mthat to tank No. 8. !
 We put the small 11z-inch pump, which had been doing service on the ] filter, to pumping the overflow from : .ank No. back into the Door thicken- ! er. We ran on these tanks until No. 3 1 was solid and No. nearly so, No. 8 being only partly full. Then we changed the delivery to tank No. l of he second series and repeated, and 9mptied the first series. We made imall doors in the bottom of the end through which we, shoveled the con .entrate and from there to the drying ,late.
 This concentrate contains 9 to 30 ,er cent moisture, and if we had the elevation we would have taken this ,roduct to the filter before putting it n the drying plate, as it was then in he proper condition. We have dis continued the use of the filter.
 The light froth builds up several eet above the height of these tanks, ut we add boards to hold it in, and n due time it settles back into the ank. We are now having no diff culty in taking care of our product nd the loss in so doing is negligible.
 REMODELING ROOF