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


of the cement-lke material producet
by roasting was to spray the ore witt
!, water while Ii underwent stirring ant
cooling, and thus allow it to agglom.
crate and set in small granules. which
were sufficiently porous for goot
teaching. We further overcame the
setting" by mixing with the roasted
ores certain percentage of oxldized
ores that did not need roasting and
icnly required comparatively coarse
crushing. so we finally got a product
that would leach satisfactorily and
could be removed from the watts with
out difficulty.
What furnaces did YOU use then?
We remodeled the Brown furnaces
and got them to working fairly well,
employing for the first time, 10 far as
I | know, the top of the furnace for a
/ cooling hearth. We sprayed water on
that and got a satisfactory product.
We then designed furnace of our
own which was called the lacking
furnace. 1t was designed not because
! / had any ambition to invent a new
apparatus to bear my name, but to
meet n necessity. In the meantime
we had put in some Holthoff -Wethey
furnaces We started with four fur
naces only of the Brown type, later
adding two of the Holthoff- Wethey
! type, and then three OF the so-called
Jackling type.
! Who was manager OF the Golden
| Gate mine at that time?
In the meantime George H. Robin
son had resigned, and II. A. Cohen
became general manager, ana he in
ent. Duncan MacViche was super
intendent of the underground opera
tons and was superintendent of the
surface operations.
We employed there, / think for the
first time, a large capacity induction
motor electric hoist. This hoist was
controlled by friction clutches and
reversing gears between the motor
Won't YOU say something about the
first use of sodium cyanide?
| found We had so many acid salts,
which we We're pleased to call cyan
icides' at that time, that the con-
sumption of cyanide was very high.
Potassium cyanide pretty nearly all
came from across the water, and was
expensive In order to overcome these
cyanicides we bought soda ash as
neutraliZer, and used that In making
up stock solutions before adding cy-
anide. The first observation that
suggested the use of sodium cyanide
was due to our having received lot
OF potassium cyanide that was very
impure, and the question was raised
as to whether or not that was as val
liable as the purer potassium cyanide.
| reasoned that If l had solution of
alkaline cyanides with a very large
quantity of calkstic soda present, |
didn't know whether | had potassium
or sodium cyanide and, as q matter
of fact, sodium having lower equiv
alent, that If we used more of the So
dunn cyanide, we would have more of
the active agent cyanogen present per
unit of chemical. Thus it developed
that sodium cyanide was just as good
for us, and we gradually changed
from the use of potassium cyanide,
which was expensive, to sodium cy-
ande, which was much cheaper.
So you began to do good work?
We got that plant into very sue
cessful operation, and up to its full
tonnage about the end of the year
1898, and began Senlarging it, and
those engagements were in part COM
pleted, and in part under way, when
resigned in December, 1899.
Who succeeded you?
When | left Mercur / turned the
operation of the plant over to f. G..
Janney, who became superintendent Of
the mill. Janney heretofore had
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