The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-05-17

I ofpiment.
I Did you discover a way of treating
4 this ore?
t Captain De Lamar acquired thes
T interests in 1895, or about that time
| and during that year sent considerable
/ quantities of these ores over to me 70
experiments at the Lawrence plant
J thought there was way out of III,
. difficulty in treating them; very few
| others did. He had sent samples t
/ Europe and elsewhere, and the met.
allurgists had all reported that Their,
was no method applicable to that low
grade refractory ore. l had made
|, some experiments in Colorado, and
thought something could be done A,
the same time | had conducted a ser
les of experiments on the ore Of the
Jim Grow and Monitor mines, which
formed the basis of De Lamars New
ada property. not far from Milford
Early in the year 1896, De Lamar en-
gagged me to go to Mercur and COM
mence more extensive experiments
on my representation to him that /
had obtained some results that We're
promising, and that | believed offered
a solution of his problem.
What men We're there at that time?
George H. Robinson was manager
of the De Lamar mines then; and r,
H, Terhune, of the old Hanauer smell
ter at Salt Lake City, had been en- :
gagged as metallurgist to advise him
about some method of treatment; but
nothing had been done at all took
hold of the research and worked with
Terhune. After a little while, he
dropped out and / was authorized to
build an experimental Plant. In two
or three months, in May or June, 1896,
we had the little plant ready, and
commenced operating on small
scale, few tons week, getting good
results. carried the experiments
through until late in that year and
! SGT definite and satisfactory results,
which i believe We're among the first,
| if not the first, based upon the roast
where in the world. Argall may have
| done it at Florence before; but the
work at Mercur was the basis for the
first big installation of a cyanide
plant that contemplated the roasting
of ores before cyanidation
What We're your difficulties?
We had a problem more serious
than the elimination of the sulphur;
and that was the lime and clay base
Of the ore which formed naturally d
good cement making product; $50 that
after we roasted the oSe and put it
into watts to leach, we found il setting
INTO masses of solid concrete. We
had that to overcome, but we did
overcome ii by carefully wetting, mix
ing and seasoning the ore before
charging it into the teaching tanks
At the end of that year we com
meneed designing IA 5O0-ton plant.
What other innovations do you re-
That experimental plant was, so far
try where powdered zinc was used as
"a precipitant for cyanide solutions on
"a commercial scale. C. W. Merrill
came there with Henry Bratnober and
others in the autumn of 1896 to ex-
anime the mines, and | believe Mer-
rill saw there the use of zinc dust for
precipitation ON a commercial scale
for the first time. | used it in the
way-adding it direct to the solution
and agitating with air. In the mean
time, between the operation of this
experimental plant and the construc-
ton Of the first section of the De La
mar Mercur Mines mill, the De La
mar Nevada Mines had changed their
process from chlorination to cyanide,
and there used on large scale zinc
DUST precipitation before we used it
onsa similar scale at Mercur; but the
application of it on a working scale
was elaborated in the little expert
mental plant at Mercur.
Early in our use of zinc dust, We
as satisfactory results as other kinds.
and by analysis | determined that the
amount of impurities had a marked
effect, and found that the purer dust
didn't work so we'll as that which was
less pure and contained some consid-
cradle percentages of lead; so / cor
rected the defect in the purer dust, so
far as l know for the first time, by
adding q solution of lead acetate to
the precipitation watts. / believe that
sodium cyanide was used in this mill
at Mercur for the first time on
large scale.
In what year was that?
We started to build a 500-ton plant
at Mercur in the summer of 1897,
commencing on the foundations in
June of that year; and in April, 1898,
we ran the first ore through it, hav-
ing built the first all-steel mill in the
west; and having employed in large
way, for the first time, electric cur
rent transmitted at 10000 volts for
milling purposes, using the induction
motor. L. L. Num- built the Tellur-
ide power plant at Provo, and had in
troduced these improvements in
small way in Colorado. but we took