Gold Saving Apparatus.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 135, 11 June 1872, Page 7

Gold Saving Apparatus.

The Grey Elver Argils says : —We have had an opportunity of inspecting the plan of an apparatus invented by Mr Crossley, now of this town, 'which seems highly necessary for adoption by the mining companies who are crushing or about to crush at the reefs, hi its very simplicity its excellence is constituted, as it neither requires extra gear or runs any danger or breakage or stoppage to the works by getting out of order. It is simply a patent ripple wherein the quicksilver is made to act as wanted, despite of cold or atmospheric influences. As it is wed known that mercury at lodeg. below zero freezes harder than solid iron, and cannot act as a recipient of gold, and then also contracts to one-third of its dimensions when active and well disposed, we can easily imagine that any means that can remedy such inactivity in this most necessary aid to gold-saving must be of great importance to the district. Such a want Mr Orossloy's ripple professes to meet. This plan has been successfully adopted at Wood's Point, where the atmospheric influence exercises such a depression upon the mercury as to render it almost totally inactive. The same affair was experienced upon some ol the claims on the Thames, and it was not until .Mr Crossley's apparatus was brought into use that the real value of the stone was known. The deterrent influences that operated against the true testing and amalgamation of the quartz, gold, and quicksilver in both these places are much in excess in the Reefton district, inasmuch as the cold is greater and the humidity is more. We also know from specimens shown that gold of a very line floury nature is obtained in many of the claims, and when such is the case, unless it is caught by some very strong and powerful recipient the veriest trickle of water will carry it away. In the design we have mentioned all such difficulties are met by merely being able to keep up a requisite temperature of such a heat as to enable the mercury to act as wanted. The ripples are kept in a continual siate of agitation during the crushing, and receive all the matrix into a 0 in. trough, through which the mercury is at times running. Attached to this is a pipe which receives a continual supply of steam, which traverses through the three or four troughs that may constitute the apparatus. Along with this are other appliances of a substantial nature that act in conjunction to keep the mercury alive, while attached to them

are the usual boxes and plates in ordinary use. It has, however, been proved in every case where these ripples have been tried that from 95 to 98 per cent, of the gold produced has been got in them, and this result has been when there have been silvered plates, blankets, and plush used in long Hunting to catch what might have been missed in the first instance. In crushing by this process, as we have already observed, cold and like deterring influences upon the mercury are combated, and we should therefore welcome the introduction of such an idea as Mr Orossley has invented. It is simplicity itself, and when once looked at by experienced miners will, in our opinion, be immediately adopted.