GOLD SAVING.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 579, 2 October 1869, Page 4

GOLD SAVING.

(From the Argus) A new invention has just been patented, which promises to greatly influence future sluicing operations in saving gold, tin ore, and precious stones, in the shape of a false bottom to sluices. The extreme simplicity of the new plan makes it easy to describe. A board, the width of the sluice used, and two inches thick, is obliquely perforated with an augur at an angle of forty-five degrees against or under the stream. The distance between the holes is equal to the diameter of the holes. The rows of holes are four or five inches apart from centre to centre. A saw-cut is then made about a quarter of an inch from the upper part across each row of holes an inch deep, at exactly the same angle as the perforations. A ripple in addition to the holes is then formed between each row by adzing about one inch from the next row, sloping the. same to the bottom of the saw-cut. The secret of the invention is here disclosed. Naturally, the heavy metal finds its way to the bottom of the material operated upon ; this falls over the ripples into the holes, which, by their peculiar construction, cause a " boiling" backwards in the holes out of the power of the stream, whilst the lighter dirt flows off with it. The efficiency of these false bottoms has been testified to by Mr Witt, M.L.A., chairman of directors of the Kneebone Company's mine, Eldorado, where the invention was brought to perfection, and where the saving effected by the apparatus above described is stated to amount to considerably over L2OOO a year. The merit of these ripples lies in their extreme simplicity, cheapness, and effective self-acting retention of the valuable portion of that which passes over them. It is said that gold, tin ore, or gems once caught can never be washed away. The inventor is Mr S. Milligan, late manager of th« Kneebone Company, and a model of his patent may be seen at the office of Messrs Baillie and Butters, Collins street.