IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COPPER AND IN SEPARATING OTHER METALS THEREFROM
Year: 1869

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Balleny Elkington, of Newhall Street,
Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COPPER AND IN SEPARATING OTHER
METALS THEREFROM."
Sealed the 22nd December 1869, and dated the 27th October 1869.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Balleny Elkington
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 27th October 1869.
I, JAMES BALLENY ELKINGTON, of Newhall Street, Birmingham, in
the County of Warwick, do hereby declare the nature of the said Inven-
tion for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COPPER AND IN SEPARATING
OTHER METALS THEREPROM," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in the manufacture of
copper and in separating other metals therefrom.
For this purpose I smelt the copper ore so far as to obtain an
impure metal therefrom, which I then cast into plates, and by means of

page_text: electricity I dissolve these plates and deposit the pure copper on to other
plates. The other metals with which the copper was combined fall for
the most part to the bottom of the vessel in which I operate. This
process in its general outline as above stated is not new, for it has
before been patented and used by me, see Patent dated Nov. 3rd, 1865,
No. 2838.
My present Invention consists in improvements in the method of
conducting this process. I prefer to employ copper ores which contain
sufficient silver materially to injure the copper if smelted in the ordinary
way, and which consequently would usually be submitted to a process
for extracting the silver before they are smelted. In such ores
frequently the quantity of silver is not such as to pay for the cost of
extraction, but the process has nevertheless been necessary when copper
of high quality is required to prevent injury to the copper. These ores
are particularly suitable for my use, as the silver they contain, which
does not raise their price in the market, is recovered by me without any
additional cost. Ores containing a larger quantity of silver, say from
eight ounces to the ton and upwards, and which are now always
submitted to a process for extracting the silver before they are smelted,
can also be advantageously worked by my process, as can also ores
containing little or no silver, but in this latter case the advantage of my
process over the ordinary process is mainly in the better quality of
copper which I obtain. I smelt the ore in the usual way so as to
obtain all its metallic contents (except such as may be volatile) in the
form of regulus, from which stage by preference, but it is not essential,
I carry the metal on to the state of pimple or blister copper. This
impure metal I cast into plates, say, 24 inches long, 8 inches wide, and
1 inch thick. One end of the plate is provided at the centre with a
stout T-shape head of wrought copper; it is placed in the mould in
which the plate is cast. Cast-iron moulds are used; the metal is tapped
out of the furnace on to a sand floor, and is led by channels into the
moulds. The plates thus cast are ready to go to the dissolving house,
which is laid with a wooden floor inclined from end to end half an inch
to the foot. The boards are grooved on their edges, and small strips or
tongues of wood are inserted into the grooves so that there may be no
open joints, and the surface is thoroughly saturated and coated with
pitch to make it water-tight. The surface of the floor is divided into a
number of troughs running from end to end of the building by ledges

page_text: of wood fixed down upon it; these are also saturated with pitch. Each
trough is of a width to receive three stoneware jars side by side. The
jars are cylindrical, 34 inches high and 18 inches wide. There are
pathways between the troughs for the workmen who attend to the
process. Each trough is filled from end to end with jars; there may be,
say, about 100 jars in each trough, and 12 troughs in the width of the
building. The jars should be of fire-clay ware so that they may not
be injured by the solution which they receive; each has a hole in the
bottom closed by a wooden plug, also a hole in the side 4 inches from
the bottom, and another hole diametrically opposite to the first and
4 inches from the top. The jars are set up level on the inclined floor
with wooden wedges saturated with pitch. The jars are connected
together from the upper to the lower end of the room, each jar having
a pipe passing out from it at the hole near the top, and entering the next
jar below at the hole near the bottom. The connections with the jars
are made with vulcanized india-rubber, and intermediate of the con-
nections the pipes may be of lead and about inch internal diameter.
The solution which I employ is water charged with as much sulphate
of copper as it will dissolve. The sulphate of copper of commerce may
be used, or for economy I sometimes use a solution obtained by boiling
the deposit found in the culvert or long flue by which the smoke from
the copper furnaces is led to the high chimney; this will furnish a
solution of sulphate of copper sufficiently pure for the purpose.
The solution is stored in a tank at the upper end of the dissolving
room; it is admitted into the uppermost jars, and runs from jar to jar
until those at the lower end of the building are filled. Clips are put
upon the india-rubber connections to stop the flow through the tubes.
when the jars are full, and so to maintain the solution at the proper
level in the upper jars.
When the process is in operation two clips are taken off, say, once in
twenty-four hours, so as to cause the solution to flow through all the
jars and transfer the solution from the bottom of one jar to the top of
the next, so as thoroughly to mix it, as in working it tends to become
weak at the top of the jar. This means of readily equalizing the
density of the solution is of great practical importance. At the lower-
end of the room is a tank to receive the solution; when it is thus
allowed to run through it is pumped back into the upper reservoir.
The same receives the contents of the jars when they are emptied on

page_text: to the floor beneath by the removal of the bottom plug, as herein-after
described. In the gangways between the floor troughs a truck runs to
carry the cast copper plates to the jars in which they are to be dissolved.
Six metal plates are suspended in each jar; they are hung in couples
from the horizontal copper bars having forks upon them to receive
the form heads of the plates. These bars rest at their ends on other
bars of wood laid on the jars so as each to extend the cross a row of three
jars, and the same bars also support over each jar two other metal cross
bars to support plates to receive the deposit of copper from the solution.
There are two receiving plates in a jar, two suspended from each bar;
they are interposed between the cast plates. Conducting strips of sheet
copper are laid upon the wooden bars so as to couple the cast plates of
one jar to the receiving plates of the next jar, and so throughout the
series of, say, 100 jars. Each metal cross bar is made to bear on a con-
necting strip at one end, and at the other on a wooden block saturated
with pitch. The jars are each provided with a false bottom of wood
to prevent breakage of the jar in case a plate should fall. The receiving
plates may be of wrought copper, but I prefer to employ in the first
instance gutta percha coated with bronze powder; as soon as a deposition
of copper is obtained the gutta percha is stript off, and the copper left to
receive a further deposit. A series of, say, 100 jars being thus coupled
up into a circuit, I connect to the terminals of the series one or more
electro-magnetic machines. I prefer to employ the machines manu-
factured by Mess". H. Wilde & Co., of Manchester. The machines
called by the makers three-and-a-half-inch machines are those which I
use, and I drive them at 2,500 revolutions per minute. With three such
machines working into a series of 100 jars a deposition of 4 or 5 lbs. of
copper in each jar may be obtained in 24 hours without injury to the
solution. When the cast plates become so far dissolved as to be unfit
for further use they are removed; their remains are washed in the lower
solution tank to remove the deposit from their surfaces, and they are
melted and recast. The wrought T heads may be used an indefinite
number of times, as I protect them from solution by coating their stems
The receiving plates are allowed to grow until they attain a
convenient weight; they may either be melted and cast into cakes and
afterwards rolled in the usual way of working copper, or the plates as
they come from the vats may be sent into the market. The solution
may be worked for a very long time, evaporation being supplied by
the addition of water acidulated slightly with sulphuric acid ultimately
with wax.

page_text: will become so charged with sulphate of iron as to make it inconvenient
to work it further. If, however, the metal be advanced to the pimple
or blister stage before casting the plates it will take but little iron into
the solution. The silver or other metals (excepting the iron) with
which the copper of the cast plates was contaminated sinks to the bottom
of the jars, and is there allowed to accumulate until it reaches the lower
side hole; when this happens the bottom plugs are taken out of all the
jars of the series, and the contents washed out into the floor trough,
which discharges them into the tank at the end of the building; here
they settle from time to time, the tank is pumped dry, and the sediment
is taken out. There are two such tanks at the lower end of the room to
allow of one being put out of use for emptying.
The sediment may be treated in any ordinary and well known manner
for the recovery of the silver it contains, and other metals may be
separated from it should it be considered desirable to do so.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said James Balleny Elkington in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 26th April 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
BALLENY ELKINGTON, of Newhall Street, Birmingham, in the County
of Warwick, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-seventh day of October, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, in the
thirty-third year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,,
give and grant unto me, the said James Balleny Elkington, Her special
licence that I, the said James Balleny Elkington, my executors, admi-
nistrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said James Balleny
Elkington, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times there-
after during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COPPER AND IN SEPARATING OTHER
METALS THEREPROM," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the

page_text: said James Balleny Elkington, my executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and
seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said
Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and
cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters
Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said James Balleny Elkington, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement, that is to say:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in the manufacture
of copper and in separating other metals therefrom.
For this purpose I smelt the copper ore so far as to obtain an impure
metal therefrom, which I then cast into plates, and by means of
electricity I dissolve these plates and deposit the pure copper on to
other plates. The other metals with which the copper was combined
fall for the most part to the bottom of the vessel in which I operate.
This process in its general outline as above stated is not new, for it has
before been patented and used by me, see Patent dated November 3rd,
1865, No. 2838.
My present Invention consists in improvements in the method of
conducting this process. I prefer to employ copper ores which contain
sufficient silver materially to injure the copper if smelted in the ordinary
way, and which consequently would usually be submitted to a process
for extracting the silver before they are smelted.
In such ores
frequently the quantity of silver is not such as to pay for the cost of
extraction, but the process has nevertheless been necessary when copper
of high quality is required to prevent injury to the copper. These ores
are particularly suitable for my use, as the silver they contain, which
does not raise their price in the market, is recovered by me without
any additional cost. Ores containing a larger quantity of silver, say
from eight ounces to the ton and upwards, and which are now always
submitted to a process for extracting the silver before they are smelted,
can also be advantageously worked by my process, as can also ores
containing little or no silver, but in this latter case the advantage
of my process over the ordinary process is mainly in the better quality
of copper which I obtain. I smelt the ore in the usual way so as to

page_text: obtain all its metallic contents (except such as may be volatile) in
the form of regulus, from which stage by preference, but it is not
essential, I carry the metal on to the state of pimple or blister copper;
this impure metal I cast into plates, say, 24 inches long, 8 inches
wide, and 1 inch thick. One end of the plate is provided at the
centre with a stout T-shape head of wrought copper; it is placed in
the mould in which the plate is cast. Cast-iron moulds are used.
The metal is tapped out of the furnace on to a sand floor, and is led by
channels into the moulds. The plates thus cast are ready to go to the
dissolving house, which is laid with a wooden floor inclined from end to
end an inch to the foot. The boards are grooved on their edges,
and small strips or tongues of wood are inserted into the grooves so
that there may be no open joints, and the surface is thoroughly
saturated and coated with pitch to make it water-tight. The surface
of the floor is divided into a number of troughs running from end to
end of the building by ledges of wood fixed down upon it; these are
also saturated with pitch. Each trough is of a width to receive threc
stoneware jars side by side. The jars are cylindrical, 34 inches high
and 18 inches wide. There are pathways between the troughs for
the workmen who attend to the process. Each trough is filled from
end to end with jars. There may be, say, about 100 jars in each trough,
and twelve troughs in the width of the building. The jars should
be of fire-clay ware so that they may not be injured by the solution
which they receive. Each has a hole in the bottom closed by a wooden
plug, also a hole in the side 4 inches from the bottom, and another
hole diametrically opposite to the first and 4 inches from the top. The
jars are set up level on the inclined floor with wooden wedges saturated
with pitch. The jars are connected together from the upper to the lower
end of the room, each jar having a pipe passing out from it at the hole
near the top, and entering the next jar below at the hole near the
bottom. The connections with the jars are made with vulcanized india-
rubber, and intermediate of the connections the pipes may be of lead
and about an inch internal diameter.
The solution which I employ is water charged with as much sulphate
of copper as it will dissolve. The sulphate of copper of commerce may be
used, or for economy I sometimes use a solution obtained by boiling
the deposit found in the culvert or long flue by which the smoke from

page_text: the copper furnaces is led to the high chimney; this will furnish
a solution of sulphate of copper sufficiently pure for the purpose.
The solution is stored in a tank at the upper end of the dissolving
room; it is admitted into the uppermost jars, and runs from jar to jar
until those at the lower end of the building are filled. Clips are put
upon the india-rubber connections to stop the flow through the tubes
when the jars are full and so to maintain the solution at the proper level
in the upper jars.
When the process is in operation two clips are taken off, say, once
in twenty-four hours, so as to cause the solution to flow through all the
jars and transfer the solution from the bottom of one jar to the top of
the next so as thoroughly to mix it, as in working it tends to become
weak at the top of the jar. This means of readily equalizing the density
of the solution is of great practical importance. At the lower end of
the room is a tank to receive the solution. When it is thus allowed to
run through it is pumped back into the upper reservoir. The same tank
receives the contents of the jars when they are emptied on to the floor
beneath by the removal of the bottom plug, as herein-after described.
In the gangways between the floor troughs a truck runs to carry the
cast copper plates to the jars in which they are to be dissolved. Six
metal plates are suspended in each jar; they are hung in couples from
the horizontal copper bars having forks upon them to receive the T form
heads of the plates. These bars rest at their ends on other bars of wood
laid on the jars so as each to extend across a row of three jars, and the
same bars also support over cach jar two other metal cross bars to
support plates to receive the deposit of copper from the solution.
There are four receiving plates in a jar, two suspended from each bar;
they are interposed between the cast plates. Conducting strips of
sheet copper are laid upon the wooden bars so as to couple the cast
plates of one jar to the receiving pates of the next jar, and so
throughout the scries of, say, 100 jars. Each metal cross bar is made
to bear on a connecting strip at one end, and at the other on a wooden
block saturated with pitch. The jars are each provided with a false
bottom of wood to prevent breakage of the jar in case a plate should
fall. The receiving plates may be of wrought copper, but I prefer to
employ in the first instance gutta percha coated with bronze powder.
As soon as a deposition of copper is obtained the gutta percha is stripped

page_text: off and the copper left to receive a further deposit. A series of, say, 100
jars being thus coupled up into a circuit I connect to the terminals
of the series one or more electro-magnetic machines. I prefer to
employ the machines manufactured by Messieurs H. Wilde and Co., of
Manchester. The machines called by the makers three-and-a-half inch
machines are those which I use, and I drive them at 2,500 revolutions
per minute. With three such machines working into a series of 100 jars
a deposition of 4 or 5 pounds of copper in each jar may be obtained in
twenty-four hours without injury to the solution. When the cast plates
become so far dissolved as to be unfit for further use they are removed;
their remains are washed in the lower solution tank to remove the
deposit from their surfaces, and they are melted and recast. The wrought
T-heads may be used an indefinite number of times, as I protect them
from solution by coating their stems with wax. The receiving plates
are allowed to grow until they attain a convenient weight; they may
either be melted and cast into cakes and afterwards rolled in the usual
way of working copper, or the plates as they come from the vats may
be sent into the market. The solution may be worked for a very long
time, evaporation being supplied by the addition of water acidulated
slightly with sulphuric acid, and ultimately will become so charged
with sulphate of iron as to make it inconvenient to work it further. If,
however, the metal be advanced to the pimple or blister stage before
casting the plates it will take but little iron into the solution. The silver
or other metals (excepting the iron) with which the copper of the cast
plates was contaminated sinks to the bottom of the jars, and is there
allowed to accumulate until it reaches the lower side hole; when
this happens the bottom plugs are taken out of all the jars of the series,
and the contents washed out into the floor trough, which discharges
them into the tank at the end of the building; here they settle from
time to time, the tank is pumped dry, and the sediment is taken out.
There are two such tanks at the lower end of the room to allow of one
being put out of use for emptying.
The sediment may be treated in any ordinary and well-known manner
for the recovery of the silver it contains, and other metals may be
separated from it should it be considered desirable to do so.
Having thus described the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner of performing the same, I would have it understood that what
I claim is,-

page_text: The general arrangement of the dissolving house with its inclined
water-tight floor draining into a tank at its lower end, and with the
dissolving apparatus arranged thereon, substantially as herein described.
I also claim the so arranging the apparatus that a flow of the solution
may be established from time to time from the bottom of one jar to the
top of the next, so that the solution may be prevented from settling into
different layers of different strengths.
I also claim the use as described of a solution prepared by boiling and
washing the deposit from the furnace culvert.
I also claim the smelting ores containing eight ounces of silver or
more to the ton of ore so as to obtain the silver and copper in the metallic
form and alloyed together, and then separating the metals by dissolving
and redepositing the copper by means of electricity.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Balleny Elkington, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, this 19th day of April, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.