AN IMPROVED METHOD OR PROCESS OF AMALGAMATING ORES, AND APPARATUS THEREFOR
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 3rd June 1879. A communication from
abroad by Charles Eugene Ball, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
of America, Mechanical Engineer.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Hasoltine, Lake, & Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. "AN IMPROVED METHOD OR PROCESS OF
AMALGAMATING ORES, AND APPARATUS THEREFOR." [A communication from abroad
by Charles Eugene Ball, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America,
Mechanical Engineer.]
The nature of this Invention consists in producing an amalgam by causing the
ore in a properly comminuted condition to pass through a body of mercury by
entering the same from below and emerging therefrom above, the process being
attained by exhausting the air from the upper surface of a column of mercury so
that it shall become suspended and supported by the atmospheric pressure at its
base, and then admitting the ore beneath said suspended column.
The said Invention consists still further in the combination, construction, and
arrangement of parts for carrying the said process or method of amalgamation into
effect.
The apparatus for carrying the said Invention into practice may consist. merely
of a bent U shaped pipe placed with its curve downwards, and whose first arm is
provided with a hopper to facilitate the delivery therein of the ore to be
amalgamated, and whose second arm is made to project upwards at least 77
centimetres above the bend, and is fitted at its upper end with a steam jet or other
equivalent device for exhausting the air and discharging the residuum of ore from
the amalgam.
The operation of this simple form of apparatus in practising the said process is
briefly as follows, that is to say:-If a quantity of quicksilver be poured into the U
pipe sufficient to rise above its bend and seal it, and the air be then exhausted
from the upper surface of the column of mercury in the second arm, the mercury
will all pass into and rise within said arm to a height due to the atmospheric
pressure upon the base of the column, but which owing to the specific gravity of the
mercury can in no case exceed 77 centimetres. If now the ore in a finely powdered
condition be admitted admixed with water into the first arm of the pipe, it will so
soon as it reaches the exposed lower surface of the column of mercury lifted and

page_text: held in suspension as aforesaid in the second arm be made to pass into and up
through the mercury, and be discharged above the same by the action of the
exhaust above in connection with the atmospheric pressure below the mercury, &
complete amalgamation of the metal in the ore being produced during its transit
through the mercury.
The exhaust of air produced by means either of a stem jet, an air-pump, a siphon,
or other equivalent device above the column of mercury thus serves in this process
not only to lift and suspend the whole body of mercury within the amalgamating
chamber but facilitates likewise the passage of the ore through it, and expedites
and assists the amalgamation proper.