Atmospheric Stamp and Quartz Crusher.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 32, 22 June 1870, Page 7

Atmospheric Stamp and Quartz Crusher.

The very latest novelty in the quartzmining world of Australia is a patent " atmospheric stamp and quartz-crusher," just arrived from England, and exhibited to the cognoscenti at Ballarat with results which have in less than a week commanded nearly universal attention in that enterprising locality. It is, indeed, something more than a surprise to find a battery of two stamps, weighing just one ton, costing scarcely £IOO, and being worked by the same machine power, doing the work of a battery of eight or ten stamps of the latest Victorian fashion. Yet such was the experience of about one hundred gentlemen, representing the leading mining men of Ballarat, who saw the thing at work on Wednesday, at the Black-hill Company's works. Its history is this. When Mr W. C. Smith visited England a few months since in order to push the interest of the Winter's Freehold Gold mining Company, a certain manufacturer and inventor of Norwich invited him to witness the operation of a new crushing-machine which it was thought would answer in Australia. The invitation was accepted, and the machine inspected as it was at work, crushing and pulverising hard flint stones. Ic was a dry crusher, and the debris was carried off by a fan, which did not act fast enough. , Mr W. 0. Smith decided, after examina- I

tion, to purchase the patent for the Australian colonies and New Zealand, provided certain changes were effected, and the machine altered to a wet-crusher, with ampla means to carry off the crushed material. It will illustrate the nature of the suggested alterations to mention that means should be provided to "shoe" the stamp, the want of which precaution would assuredly have caused the machine to break up directly the worn stamp ceased to strike an even blow. The inventor accepted the engagement, made a modol, and has now sent out the sample machine in question. The leadiug differences between it and the apparatus in general use—the batteries at I the Black-hilt works, for example—are, that each of the stampers at the latter i weighs 7001bs, and, falling by its own weight at the rate of 70 blows per minute, causes so many percussions at just that strength; while in the former each stamper weighs 751bs, and is made to give a stroke equal to lOOOlbs weight, at the rate of 300 per minuta. When we saw the machine at work, the average rate of blows was 200 per stamper per minute. The difference of results is that the old stamper gives blows equal to 98,0001bs per minute, the new one 400,0001bs per minute. The idea of having a wet instead of a dry-crusher was suggested by the fact that much Victorian quartz is so mixed with clayey matter that a fan could not be made to drive off the pulverised matter. The machine is itself surprisingly small, and can be taken to pieces and put together with ease. It cm, moreover, be carried in a cart, or on packhorses, be put up in a few hours, and being worked by the horses that have served as the means of transport, begin—when there is sufficient water—to crush immediately. Such qualities must make it extraordinarily useful to prospectors ; but there appears to be no reason why it should not answer equally well as an every-day crusher. It may be described thus : Each piston and stamp-head, which rotate in the usual way, is raised by a double cam on the main shaft, thus alternating the blows, and making it equivalent to a balance-Avheel. The piston is raised into an atmospheric chamber, thereby creating a vacuum underneath the same, which gives such great momentum to the stamp, when relieved from the upward motion of the cams, as to produce the results above mentioned. This two-stamp battery is stated to be capable of crushing from four to eight tons per day, according to the fineness of reduction required. Mr "W. C. Smith informed us that so great an impression has already been made upon those who have seen thfi machine at work that ho has orders for 23 of ihem already,