A New Buddle.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 244, 14 July 1874, Page 7

A New Buddle.

A new buddlo has been invented by Mr Corbett, manager of the Moanatairi Company’s battery. The huddle, in shape, is like one of the old Cornish hand-huddles. The pair working at the Kuranui are each 25 feet in length, by 2 feet 6 inches in depth, and 2 feet 6 inches across. The huddle head is 8 feet long, and has a gradient, of 5 inches to the foot. On this incline is a series of slide boards or ripples, 4|- inches high, and G inches apart. At the foot of the huddle is a slide door, or valve, just such a shape as a damper in a furnace flue or stack. The slide is raised or lowered by means of a toothed disc, or ratch wheel, placed at the head of the huddle ; this wheel is worked by two palls working off a shaft inside the battery. The palls are so arranged that they catch from 1 to 12 teeth, as may be required, lifting the slide at the huddle foot gradually, so that all heavy particles may be saved ; but all mud, or discoloured water, passes over it and flows away. This new invention acts both as a huddle and tailing pit; it will save every particle of grit, or only munclic. At the time it was inspected, the ratch wheel was going slowly, and all the stuff saved was fit for roasting. The tailings, by the way, were coming full rush from 20heads of stamps. A second huddling would leave almost pure mundic, or pyrites. The stuff left in the huddle when the water is turned off is quite hard, and entirely free from sludge. —Thames Evening Star.