PATENT SUBAQUEOUS GOLDMINING AND WASHING STEAMBOAT.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 704, 23 July 1870, Page 1 (Supplement)

PATENT SUBAQUEOUS GOLDMINING AND WASHING STEAMBOAT.

[CORNWALL CHRONICLE.] There is now oh view at the Mechanics' Institute a model of a patent river-bed goldTmining and washing machine combined. The designer and constructor is Mr A. F. Errington, senior, who must have bestowed no little pains and ingenuity in its construction. At first sight it looks like a steamboat, with raking fore and mainmasts, paddle-boxes, and other gear for its navigation The scale of the model is half an inch to the foot, or sft in length overall, 13in beam, and sin hold. The proposed boat to be built will therefore be 320 ft long, 26ft beam, and 10ft hold built with four waterright compartments. The engine for propelling the boat will be 80-horse power, with two oscillating cylinders. A second engine will bo erected on deck to work the winding-gear and washing machinery, and will be of thirty h. p., also fitted with two oscillating cylinders. She is to be schooner rigged, and provided with four-fluked anchors, the speed of steaming up stream being calculated at 11 or 12 knots an hour against a current of ten mile 3an hour. There are several peculiar adaptations made, one being that the propelling, paddle-wheels are to be convertible into undershot waterwheels where a stream exists, and so save fuel and steam in the working of the washingmachines. The foremast is of iron, is intended to ; be hollow, and will form a pump for supplying the same machines to be worked by the deck engine, which is also adapted to work the windlasses or to work the Bhip. The centre of the boat is pierced with an open shaft Bft in diameter ; and, of course, watertight as high as the deck, where it becomes open at one side, and is continued upward to form a landing brace. In this shaft is to be fixed a conductingrod about Bin square, acting as a guide to the dredge bucket. This is attached to a series of what the inventor calls fulcrum

i levers, which cross and recross, moving on joints at the angles of intersection and extremity. This action can be compared with that sometimes observed in certain tongs used by shopkeepers for drawing small articles out of a shop window, the implement shooting out to a distance and contracting at desire. To the end of this apparatus is fixed the bucket, formed like a bivalve shell with the month opening downwards, and calculated to contain a ton of sand or gravel. A digging and grasping power is thus obtained by the levers on the soil, or whatever is to be raised, by means of steam power. A pressure of three tons is necessary 'to close this bucket with its load, its edges being closely adapted to fit one within the other. Only about a third of the power is needed to raise the bucket on the top of the. shaft, and here it becomes self-emptying by means of trigs into a swing shoot, the latter being next caused to swing round and discbarge into the washing - cylinders. These cylinders are two, of spiral form, and fitted one within the other, the inner one being perforated and receiving the wash- . dirt, also discharging all the debris not passing through the small holes. The cylinders revolve 20 times per minute, the exterior one discharging the gold and fine debris into two cradles beneath, and which again stand over a large shallow settling pan. From this pan the auriferous material is removed into foiir dishes, 17in in diameter, and lifted into a revolving framework in the centre of which is a larger dish containing mercury. The smaller dishes are made to pan off the stuff in the same way as the old handpanning process. From the mercury dish the stuff passes over a blanket shaking table, then along a trough, and into the cradles again, leaving the gold saved in the ripples of the trough. The debris is sent . overboard by a set of propellers similar to those of a Californian pump, except that instead of a rotary motion theirs is backwards and forwards. The inventor claims seven different patent ■ inventions, two of which are applicable for extracting fine gold from tailings generally, the seven being applicable to \ subaqueous gold mining. For this 'latter use the proposed boat is to be ! capable of raising from an average depth of sixteen feet, with a sweep of 20ft in diameter, in the bed of a river running ten miles an hour, 15 or 20 tons in the same time, with simultaneous extraction of the gold. Mr Errington estimates that with an average yield of 5 dwfc per ton a return of L2OOO per week could be realised, whilst the total cost of the outfit will be only L7OOO, and the working expenses Ll6O per week. The vessel could also be put to many other uses, such as dredging for oysters, shells, and pearls. With the aid of divers also, the cargoes of wrecks could be readily extracted, the inventor having also provided, for a sort of skid, in which two men in diver's dres3 can be accommodated, and furnished with lamps, compass, air-pipes, and signalling gear. This one diver could remain in this sort of open bell and attend on the other in his explorations, a life line running from one to the other. An iml_prqved diving bell is also shown. by the Sam^^lTVßTltpry-ony-c^Tn«t« vr >-V=i». s --~-Va.«_ that can be filled in the bell, launched outside, and drawn up the shaft to the boat. The inventor has most certainly hit upon some ingenious contrivances, which, to be supported by outside capital, must uudergo the still more crucial test of actual experiment, in our opinion at least, before either capitalists or practical men will give in their consent to go in the speculation. It may be said, however, that Mr. Errington has a dernier ressort in case of a mining failure, and this is, in any event the boat could, with little alteration, be converted into a passenger packet.