A METHOD OF EXTRACTING GOLD AND SILVER FROM THE CINDERS OF GOLD REFINERS, AND OTHER SUBSTANCES, BY MEANS OF CERTAIN CURIOUS MACHINERY
Year: 1815

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
POSTEL, of Great Suffolk Street, Charing Cross, in the Parish of Saint Martin's
in the Fields, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, do send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Eighth day of June,
in the fifty-fifth year of His reign, did give and grant unto Julien Joret, of
Wells Street, Oxford Road, Sweepwasher, John Postel, of Great Suffolk
Street, Charing Cross, in the Parish of St Martin's in the Fields, in the
County of Middlesex, Gentleman, and Lewis Comtesse, of Bateman's Buildings,
in the Parish of Saint Ann's, Soho, in the County of Middlesex, Jeweller, their
executors, administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full power, sole
privilege, and authority that the said Julien Joret, John Postel, and Lewis
Comtesse, their executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term of
years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, a certain
Invention, communicated to them by a foreigner, residing abroad, of "A
METHOD OF EXTRACTING GOLD AND SILVER FROM THE CINDERS OF GOLD REFINERS,
AND OTHER SUBSTANCES, BY MEANS OF CERTAIN CURIOUS MACHINERY;" in which
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging the said Julien Joret,
John Postel, and Lewis Comtesse, or one of them, under their hand and
seal, to cause a particular description, or explanation, or communication of the
said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be used, to be enrolled in

page_text: His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same
(relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Postel, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and
manner of performing the same, are fully described and ascertained in manner
following and according to the plan hereunto annexed, that is to say :-
The machinery consists of a certain number of tubs or vats with cast-iron
bottoms, in which the articles from whence gold and silver is to be extracted
(being previously pounded in mortars also worked by the same machinery), is
put, with a proper quantity of quicksilver & water, where it is ground, by
means of wheels, for a number of hours, and the matter so ground, together
with the quicksilver, is then drawn off by cocks, when the whole is washed in
certain sieves, and the gold or silver being collected together, is then enclosed
in a cast-iron retort, when the quicksilver is seperated from the gold and silver
obtained being forced out by heat, by a conducting pipe to the neck of the
retort, and the operation is completed. The said machinery for extracting the
gold or silver, as aforesaid, is either worked by steam or horse power, whereby
one horse in one day performs as much work as by the ordinary means hitherto
employed required four men for three weeks.
. In witness whereof, I, the said John Postel, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Second day of August, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifteen.