IMPROVE. MENTS IN THE MEANS OF & APPARATUS FOR SEPARATING METALS, ORES, AND PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
Year: 1859

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Oland Bourne, of the City and State of
New York, United States of America, for the Invention of "IMPROVE.
MENTS IN THE MEANS OF & APPARATUS FOR SEPARATING METALS, ORES, AND
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Oland Bourne at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
10th May 1859.
I, WILLIAM OLAND BOURNE, of the City and State of New York, United
States of America, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS OF & APPARATUS FOR SEPARATING METALS. ORES,
AND OTHER SUBSTANCES OF DIFFERENT SPECIFIC GR AIT IES," to be as follows:-
The essential feature of my Invention relates to the use of a current of air,
or other fluid passing through a perforated plate or support of any suitable
character, and separating and agitating the particles of metal or metallic ores
resting on said perforated screen or support, whereby the heaviest metallic
particles will subside and remain at the bottom, while the matrix or refuse ore
will be passed away at the surface. To accomplish this purpose I make use
of an artificial or natural blast, or current of water, or air passing up through
a peculiar sieve or perforated support; and I also use inclined divisions over
such perforated support, and by the use of a vibrating motion communicated
to said apparatus-the operation is facilitated.
I construct my apparatus in such a manner that the screen or perforated
support can receive a vibrating motion, as aforesaid, and at the same time
the chamber below, through which the air or water passes, is kept tight.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said William Oland Bourne in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 8th November 1859.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
OLAND BOURNE, of the City and State of New York, in the United States
of America, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Tenth day of May, A.D., One thousand eight hun-
dred and fifty-nine, in the twenty-second year of Her reign, did, for Herself,
Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said William Oland
Bourne, Her special license that I, the said William Oland Bourne, my exe-
cutors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said William
Oland Bourne, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter
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 MEANS OF AND APPARATUS FOR SEPARATING METALS, ORES, AND OTHER
SUBSTANCES OF DIFFERENT SPECIFIC GRAVITIES," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said William Oland Bourne, by an instrument in writing
under my hand and seal, 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 William Oland Bourne, 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, reference being had to the Drawing hereunto annexed,
and to the letters and figures marked thereon (that is to say):-
Fig. 1 is a vertical section through the whole machine.
"
"
"
"
2 is a side elevation, looking in an opposite direction to Fig. 1.
3 is a front elevation.
4 is a rear elevation.
5 is a plan of the box and shaking table.
6 is a perspective view of the blades in their frame, shewing how they
may be adjusted by a rod, to which each blade is attached, with a flattened
1+

page_text: ores, in which air is substituted for water, so that a dry process can be used
under circumstances where water is scarce, or the same apparatus or means
can be used for washing and separating ores where a competent supply of
water is available.
A is a hopper, into which the material is placed which it is desired to
separate; B is its outlet, the material being fed in at the rear edge of the
machine at C; D is a sieve frame, with a sieve cloth, or seive bed, or per-
forated plate attached to its bottom edge at E, the said sieve cloth (or sieve-
bed or perforated plate) forming the bed or surface on which the material to
be operated on rests; F. is a platform frame, with cross bars to support the
sieve bed and its burden; G is a support frame, on which rests the platform
frame and its burden, and is connected to the top of the table H by
an air-tight flexible substance, such as leather or its equivalent, and may
be supported by connecting rods, or any equivalent, the object of this con-
struction being to make an air-tight compartment between the bottom of
the sieve bed E and the top of the table H, and yet allow flexibility to permit
of motion in the support frame G and its burden; L is a bellows, of any form
which may be replaced by a fan, a blower, or any other apparatus which will
give a continuous or intermittent current ofair, with its outlet communicating
with the air-tight chamber between the sieve bed and the top of the table,
as shewn at M; N is a shaft, with a crank o at one end, connected by a
rod P to the bellows; Q is a shaft, which is driven by a belt and pulleys
R, connecting it with the shaft N. On one end of the shaft Q is a crank S,
connected by a rod to the front edge I of the support frame G, by which a
vibrating and shaking motion is conveyed to the support frame G and its
burden. T, T, are blades, either fixed or adjustable, arranged parallel to
the waste or front edge of the machine, or when used on a circular sieve
bed, in concentric circles, with their lower edges resting upon the sieve bed
and their upper edges inclined towards the waste or front edge of the
machine, the blades forming a vertical and horizontal angle, as shewn in
the section, Fig. 1. The sieve bed, upon which the material rests which is
to be operated upon, and through which the air passes to operate upon it,
may be made of perforated sheet metal, fibrous or textile materials, such as
woolen, cotton, silk, or linen cloths, or any equivalent, but the area of the
perforations or openings in the sieve bed for the passage of the air must be
such as to enforce an equal action of the air throughout the entire sieve
bed surface, and must be graduated according to the fineness or coarseness
of the material to be operated upon. The pressure and volume of the
current of air must be proportioned to the operation to be performed.

page_text: I do not confine myself to any particular form or shape of the machine or
of the sieve bed, or of the apparatus for removing the waste material, because
the chief value of the process results from the construction of the sieve bed,
upon which the ore rests. A machine may have a sieve bed of a circular,
square, oblong, hexajonal, or any other form, but it must combine the
principles of my discovery and Invention or they will proove a failure. The
sieve beds may also be furrowed, corrugated, indented, conical, concave
horizontal, or inclined, but they must all be constructed with reference to this
perfectly uniform distribution of the air,graduated in its passage through the
sieve bed to the fineness or coarseness of the material to be operated upon.
In the case of coarse sand, earth, or other materials, the perforations should
be of a considerable size, say, one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch, and a
cloth must be used in combination with the perforated sieve plate, so as to
prevent the passage of the material into the machine. The said cloth should
be placed under the plate. When the materials are finer, the perforations
may be made by a point, but in any case they must be uniformly distributed
over the sieve bed or plate. In using the finest materials, the effect of perfect
fluidity of the mass is obtained by using three, four, five, or six thicknesses of
woolen or cotton cloth, or any equivalent, the pores of the cloth serving the
purpose of minute perforations or tubes for the passage of the air; these
minute jets of air giving to the fine ore, earth, sand, or other materials a
degree of mobility which makes it perfectly fluid in its action, and facilitating
an almost instantaneous precipitation of the heavier matters to the bottom.
The same effect of mobility or semi-fluidity is obtained in a less degree with
coarser materials, in which case a perforated plate of tin, brass, or other
metal, or its equivalent, is used, and one or two cloths are placed under the sieve
plate to prevent the passage of the materials through it into the machine.
The operation of the machine is as follows:-The ores, sands, earths, or
other materials being in a dry state, they are sifted into various sizes by a
proper sifting apparatus, the sieves of which may proceed from No. 1 to 5 in
somewhat the following order:-No. 1, sixteen meshes to the inch; No. 2,
thirty meshes; No. 3, fifty meshes; No. 4, seventy meshes; No. 5, ninety
meshes to the inch. These numbers are given, not as a fixed scale, but to
illustrate the process, which must be somewhat modied by the nature and
condition of the materials. The sifting operation being performed, each lot is
operated upon by itself, because the coarser sands, by their bulk and weight,
have a tendency to deposit on the sieve bed of the separator, and the ore,
sands, &c., are arranged in the order of their fineness, the finest rising to the
surface. Under these circumstances, the fine metal being displaced by the

page_text: coarser sands which fall to the bottom, are also carried or held on the top,
where they are liable to float or be carried away with the waste material. It is
therefore better to effect a sifting by numbers not exceeding a scale by twenties.
But the necessity of this close sifting operation may be partly removed by
the use of the blades already described, or by rakes or scrapers which are
herein-after described, and the use of which will be pointed out. The blades
already mentioned serve the purpose of keeping the ore agitated at the
bottom and in contact with the sieve bed in such a way that the coarser
sands or matters are continually kept more or less open by the vibrating
motion, thus allowing the heavier matters to reach the sieve bed, where they
are retained by the blades acting as a barrier to prevent their being carried
forward, and lost over the front or waste edge of the machine.
The materials being thus prepared, they are fed through a hopper as at A,
upon the back edge of the sieve bed, which has a vibrating or shaking motion,
and which, combined with a blast, of air through the sieve bed, and the
blades on the sieve surface, keep the material loose and in continuous
agitation, as already described, by which means the heavier substances are
allowed to settle on the sieve bed surface. By deflecting the blades as above
set forth, or by raising the rear end of the machine higher than the waste or
front edge, the refuse materials or substances are discharged over the waste
or front edge, either with or without the above-mentioned vibrating or jarring
motion; or a sieve bed may be used, either circular or of any other form
where it may be fed from a centre, in which case it may be horizontal,
concave, or slightly conical, when by feeding at the centre, the material will,
by the action of the current of air passing upwards through the sieve bed
gravitate or flow towards and over the front or waste edge of the machine.
Other methods of removing the waste matters may be used. In a machine
of a form similar to the shaking table, scrapers, rolling over cylinders in the
form of an endless chain, or a vibrating frame of blades either fixed or
adjustable, or in other ways, may be used.
In constructing one of my machines, I have adopted a fixed circular bed
attached to the top rim of a circular air chamber. Attached to the upper
cross beams of this machine is a horizontal shaft worked by a pulley connected
by a belt to the driving shaft of the machine. At the end of the first-named
shaft, which reaches nearly to the centre of the framework, is a bevel gear
working into a crown wheel, which rests on the top of a short perpendicular
shaft, which revolves when the machine is set in motion. This shaft is set into
a strong iron sliding frame, at the bottom of which is an iron crown to which
a circular framework is attached, having a passage through the centre for the

page_text: ore or other matters to pass directly on to the centre of the sieve bed. This
framework is furnished with a series of arms on which are teeth or scrapers,
either separately or together, which can be adjusted at any required angle
to the centre to assist or retard the discharge of the materials over the waste
edge. The machine being set in motion, and the ores being fed through
the hopper which rests on the top of the framework, the rakes and scrapers
revolve and carry off the refuse matters, the heavier substances being
deposited upon the sieve, as in the shaking table.
The object of the rake teeth is to keep the ore from becoming packed
at the bottom when it is not closely sifted, and thus afford the fine metal
or substances an opportunity to be deposited upon the sieve bed.
The same object may be accomplished in other ways, and I do not confine
inyself to the particular form above described, as an oblong or circular case
with a sieve bed, and with or without cross pieces, or rifles may be used having
an oscillating or rocking motion, the air passing up through said sieve bed,
and producing a separation by fluidity, induced by the air in place of suspen-
sion, as in the ordinary washing process. And where the accumulation of ore
is considerable, as with copper and lead ores, my sieve bed may be formed by a
platform of small perforated pipes, 'through which the air or water is forced,
and the metal will deposit between the tubes, and the bed beneath, on which
it rests, be lowered as the metal accumulates. By a simple and obvious
adaptation of this apparatus in any of its forms, a current of water may be sub-
stituted for air in all cases where water is abundant and easily obtained, or
where the operation of drying would be more expensive than the use of water.
The sieve bed may be provided with pins or small vertical plates around
which an eddy will be produced causing a deposit of the metal, and the sieve
bed may have a lateral vibration or a circular movement, to throw off the
refuse matter by centrifugal force.
The sieve bed may be formed with perforations of an oblong or any other
form, so disposed as to subject the ore to the desired action before passing off
the sieve bed, and the material covering or forming my sieve bed may be
composed of one or several thicknesses of fibrous material, and this may be
disposed uniformly all over the surface forming such sieve bed, or the number
of thicknesses increased or decreased at any desired point for performing
particular operations. My fibrous material should be stitched down at
intervals to prevent the pressure of air lifting it.
What I claim as my Invention, and desire to secure by Letters
Patent is,―
First, a sieve bed in which the openings or perforations for the passage of

page_text: the air or water through it, are so adapted or proportioned as to enforce an
uniform action of the air or water through the sieve bed on the metallic
ores substantially as specified; said sieve bed being made of sheet metal
or of any textile material or their equivalents either separately or in
combination, as above set forth.
Second, the application of a vibrating or shaking motion to a sieve bed
in combination with a blast or current of air or water, in the manner and
for the purposes above described.
Third, the above described fixed or adjustable blades for agitating the
substances on the sieve bed, and for regulating the discharge of the refuse
substances over the front edge of the table, as above described.
Fourth, the separation of metals or other heavy substances from ores or
other materials when fed upon a sieve bed of any form, by the gravitation
or motion of the lighter substances towards and over the front or waste
edge, when acted upon by a current of air or water through a sieve bed in
the manner and for the purposes above set forth.
Fifth, I claim agitating the ore by means of revolving or reciprocating
scrapers, stirrers, or rakes, either jointly or separately, when combined
with my sieve bed aforesaid, to produce an uniform action of the air or
water, or aid in the removal of the refuse substances in the manner
specified.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Oland Bourne, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-sixth day of September, A.D., One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
Witnesses,
LEMUEL W. SERRELL,
121, Nassau St., N. York.
CHAS. H. SMITH,
121, Nassau St., N. York.
WM. OLAND BOURNE. (L.S.)