IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 8, Issue 448, 20 December 1866, Page 2

IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.

A Mb Roberts, chemist, of Hokitika, is said to have discovered a new solvent for gold. By the description given it is sufficiently evident that it is none other than our old friend Chlorine, by whose aid the alchemists of old made their solutions. Every tyro in chemistry knows that gold will completely dissolve in a mixture of nitric'and hydrochloric acids, and the only obstacle to the use of this, the normal solvent for gold, has been the expense of acids; but Mr Roberts has, it seems, discovered a liquid which readily gives up its chlorine to gold, that he can procure at a cheap rate, and thus removes the only obstacle that has existed in the way of working much gold-bearing sand that has hitherto been of no value.

The Nelson Examiner thus alludes to the matter;—

The most important news is a discovery spoken of in the Hokitika Evening Star, of the 30th ult., which, if true (and from the manner it is vouched for, we have no right to call it in question), is second only in importance to the discovery of th® West Coast gold field itself. The journal we have named states that a scientific gentleman in Hokitika, has discovered a solvent for fine gold, which will secure every particle contained in sand or debris of any kind.

A Canterbury paper has the following:—

The gold becomes literally dissolved, and not only that but is hold in suspension until means are taken for precipitating it. At first the fluid particles go to the bottom of the vessel, tinging the solvent a pale yellow. As the action is longed the color rises as it were to the top, the solvent then being apparently saturated. The action continuing, a deeper color rises again and again, till at length, when the solution is complete, the whole is of deep orange. Precipitation is simple by the aid of either sulphate of iron or perchloride of tin when the result is a brown powder, which on being evaporated and retorted* gives gold in a greater or less state of purity. The inferior metals with .which it is incorporated are easily separable. At present, without the accelerating means referred to above, the inventor calculates that sand or other material must bo subjected to the solvent for the space of a week, the only apparatus necessary being some ale or porter hogsheads with cocks in the bottom to run otf the solution at the end of that time. He considers a fifty-gallon cask may bo four-fifths filled with sand and one-fifth with the solvent, which need only bo about an inch deep above the sand. At that rate this would require about ton or twelve gallons of the solvent. Its cost is its great recommendation, for in England Mr Pvoherts calculates its cost at a farthing, and hero at a penny a gallon, so that a cask-full would not cost abov» a shilling. There is no costly machinery necessary—no scientific knowledge. Nature does the work, and the greatest clod in the country cannot do wrong in its use.

The Evening Star gives some of the results of Mr Roberts’ operations : He has in his possession one button got from ten ounces of picked Yictorian quartz, crushed in an iron mortar, and subjected to the process, which weighs 2 dwts 22 grs; another, from eight ounces of sand, weighing I dwt 22 grs; another, in which platinum, silver, and iron are present, but which, from its weight, he estimates to be eighteen carat gold, 13 dwts 17 grs. A small portion of sand, about three ounces, got from one of the rich claims on this coast, yielded at the almost incredible rate rate of 1,800 ounces per ton. These are no colored statements, but simple matters of fact, and they can be easilyverified by the sceptical. He has a sample that has been disolved twice, and it is now twenty-four carat gold. Some time ago, Mr Roberts obtained a sample of sand from his son at the Buller, which, tested on a small scale, showed at the rata of eighty ounces per ton. That a solvent has been discovered, there cannot be the slightest possible ground for doubting, and its action can be seen on a half-sovereign in a bottle of the fluid. The gold becomes literally dissolved; and not only that, but is held in suspension till means ara taken for precipitating it.” . The process by which the gold is disolved is so simple that it can be perfored by any lad, and the cost of the solvent is only about one penny a gallon; and'the proportion required is not more than one-fifth the bulk of the sand or other material to be acted upon. If the above statement proves true, the value of the whole interior districts of th is province, where gold is disseminated everywhere throughout the soil, must become great indeed.

The description given of the solution ovidently indicates chloride of gold. The source of the chlorine is probably sea water, which contains chlorides in abundance, and which is decomposable without much difficulty, especially in the presence of a body like gold ready to seize on the chlorine as it is liberated from its compounds. The wonder to us is that such discovery has not been made long ago.