The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-03-07
Low GRADE MANGANESE
MAY Be CONCENTRATED
INTERESTING AND SUCCESSFUL
EXPERIMENTS IN oPHIR
MILL AT BUTTE.

Through experiments being con-
Quoted at the Ophir mill of the Butte
Detroit company, 1t has been demon
strated for the first time in mining
/ history that pink manganese ore or
rhodocrosite can be put through the
cencentrator and by mere mechanical
manipulation made commercial sue
cess, says the Anaconda Standard.
There being no record of pink man
ganese ever before having been con-
centrated, the entire process is being
worked out by Carl Trauerman, the
company metallurgist and engineer,
! Frank Corr, chemist, and w. J. HE
! Der, foreman of the mill The tests are
| being watched with considerable in
terest by mining men.
Milling of black manganese custom
ore returned but mediocre profit ow-
ing to the mill not being assured of a
ocular tonnage. With the demand
/ for rhodocrosite it was shown by for
mer samplings at the Ophir that there
We're large bodies of low grade ore in
the mine but 1t had not been demon
strated whether it was carbonate or
silicate. With the unwatering of the
mine, great quantities of carbonate
manganese were uncovered together
with quartz and granite. Some of this,
| it was found, would pay to ship direct,
but the larger part would not warrant
the expense of shipping.
The Chief Problem.
Assays had shown that the latter
ran from 20 to 80 per cent manganese.
Here Mr. Trauerman ran up against
his chief problem. Concentration of
pink manganese had never before been
attempted, due to the slight difference
in specific gravity between the mineral
and gangue matter. The prospect
looked so good to the metallurgist that
he thought it advisable to attempt
concentration in an effort to obtain a
shipping product. Having ascertained
from the company purchasing the ore
that it would accept concentrates, the
eXperimenters went ahead.
Trauerman and Corr tested some of
the material on a small equipment at
the school of mines and found that the
separation could be made and ship
ping product obtained,
LAS a result of the operation" Mr.
Trauerman said, there was presented
the problem of mere mechanical ma
nipulation to make the process COM
mercially successful"
on Monday and Tuesday the COM
mercial tests We're carried out at the
Ophir mill and it was found that ac-
tual milling showed better results
than had been attained at the school
of mines tests. Several mechanical
changes were made in the mill as
result of the continuous two days
tests carried out by Trauerman, Corr
and Heiber. At present they are run
ming three shifts at the mill and treat
ing between rs and 100 tons of ore a
day, concentrating at the ratio of
about ~ to /.
Three Products.
The material is sized into three
products and fed to six jigs, the jigs
making a clean-cu concentrate and a
hutch iron middling. The tailings
from the jig are reground and joined
to the hutch middlings, this entire pro-
duct being fed to Whitley tables. The
primary Whitley tables makes an iron
concentrate, manganese concentrate,
a manganese middling and failing.
The manganese middling is cleaned on
q second set of Whitley tables
AT present the mill Is working on a
feed which will assay 23 per cent man
ganese and 40 per cent silica and maxi
ing a product assaying SO per cent
manganese and 10 per cent silica. Iron
concentrates from the tables plus the
iron skimmings from the Jig screen
make a product which will be shipped
to the Washoe smelter as a gold -sil-
ver-iron concentrate. This material
pays nearly the entire milling cost
Actual Extraction.
According to the men conducting
the experiments, it is little too early
to say what the actual extraction is,
but it is roughly estimated to be
around So per cent of the manganese
in the ore. 1t has been found that
during concentration, the material acts
somewhat similar to the zinc -sulphide
Of the Butte field, BY further mechan-
ical manipulation 1t is believed that
higher percentage of extraction and
greater tonnage can be obtained from
the present equipment in the Ophir
mill. This Is the problem that Mr..
Trauerman and his associates have to
work out.
From present figures it is costing |
about 81 per ton to mill this material |
and a greater part of the cost will be
paid for by the iron concentrate which |
is merely by-product of the main
milling scheme.
D;rad;Ilv