AN IMPROVED MACHINE POR AMALGAMATING MINERALS AND OTHER METALLIFEROUS AND METALLURGICAL PRODUCTS OR SUBSTANCES
Year: 1863

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Reay at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 20th March
1868.
I, WILLIAM REAY, junior, of Thropton Hill, near Rothbury, in the County
of Northumberland, Mining Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention "AN IMPROVED MACHINE POR AMALGAMATING MINERALS AND
OTHER METALLIFEROUS AND METALLURGICAL PRODUCTS OR SUBSTANCES," to be as
follows:-
The accompanying Drawings represent three views of the machine,
Figure 1 being a sectional elevation, Fig. 2 a front elevation, and Fig. 3 a
plan. The same letters refer to like parts.
The material to be acted upon, after having been duly pulverized to the
requisite degree of fineness in stamps or any other description of crushing or
grinding machinery and suspended in water, is passed into the machine
through the hollow shaft or pipe A, when it takes the direction of the arrows
through the mercury. The upper half of the machine, consisting of the con-
centric bells or rings B, B, B", B", b, b, b, b, revolves in the direction of the
arrow C, and this gives all the balls D, D, a rotatory motion on their own
axis, which raises the ore between the balls and the concentric bells or rings
"B", B. The interior lower concentric mercurial basin or reservoir E is
entirely filled with mercury, so that the effective or grinding pressure of each
ball against the top of the bells is equal to the weight of the mercury dis-
placed by it minus its own weight. After the material has been intimately.

page_text: mixed and kneaded with the mercury by the balls D, D, it passes out of the
machine under the concentric rings or bells marked b, b, b, b, and over the
edges F, F, of the concentric basins (which are only partially filled with
mercury) in the direction of the arrows, and runs over the lip G, after which
it either passes into other amalgamators of a similar construction or over con-
centrating apparatus for re-treatment, according to the nature of the ores or
substances operated upon. When possible, the amalgamator is placed at a
sufficient depth below the stamps or other grinding machinery for the column
of auriferous sand bearing water in the tube A, to overcome by its weight the
pressure of mercury in the concentric mercurial basins or reservoirs; but
where local difficulties will not admit of this, I make use of a very simple force
pump to force it through the mercury.
On the inner surface of some of the
revolving concentric bells or rings (in the treatment of some ores) I place
inclined leaves or screw blades, as shown at H, H, H, H, arranged in such a
manner that they will assist in forcing the materials under the mercury, at the
same time giving additional frictional action and amalgamating surface below
the
mercury. For some ores I should prefer to fix copper plates, or plates
of other metal or alloy whose surfaces are capable of being amalgamated,
on the edges of the concentric bells or rings, and on the leaves or screw
threads thereto affixed, also on the edges of the concentric mercurial basins or
reservoirs, and I increase or diminish according to circumstances the number
of concentric bells or rings with or without balls under them. The number and
size of the balls would vary with the different classes of ore to be treated, and in
some cases I would prefer to have them made of copper, or some suitable alloy
of copper capable of being amalgamated. I should sometimes prefer to have
them cast hollow, in order to augment their upward pressure and so increase
their frictional action.
The principal and most prominent advantages in my machine consist in the
fact of the balls or spheres floating in the mercury, thereby avoiding loss of
power by relieving the working machinery of part of its own weight, and
acting directly upon the ore which must be floating upon the surface of the mer-
cury; also the auriferous water is compelled to pass in a very thin film through
several columns of mercury, thereby forcibly bringing the gold or other metal
into intimate frictional contact with the mercury. Another advantage consists
in that the concentric bells can be lifted with facility to such a convenient
height as to afford easy access to the interior of the mercurial basins or reser-
voirs, independently of the stop cocks fixed underneath the reservoirs for
drawing off their contents, and while affording a considerable amount of
frictional power leaves all the mercury in bulk.

page_text: I claim the use of the concentric bells for the extraction of the fine globular
mercury from the residues direct or indirect of other systems of amalgamation,
and also the right of either forcing the ore through the mercury from the
centre of the bells to their circumference, or from their circumference towards
the centre, where a discharge pipe may be fixed, according as I find it
necessary to discharge the ore at a high or low velocity.