PROPOSED EXPORTATION OF QUARTZ TAILINGS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 67, 13 May 1870, Page 3

PROPOSED EXPORTATION OF QUARTZ TAILINGS.

On the important question of "Will quartz tailings pay for working ?" the Advertiser' says:—"Look? ing at the large quantities of tailings which are spread over the district, .the solution of this question becomes of very great importance, and We have frequently wondered that, in the present day of discoveries in chemistry, no successful experiment has been made to prove whether quartz tailings will pay for washing, it appears, however, that the subject, .which has been neglected in the olonies, is likely to receive attention at the hands of scientific men in Eugland. We understand that Messrs. L. M'Pherson and Co., of this town, have received a commission from some capitalists in London to-forward about half-a-dozen samples of tailings, of about one hundred weight each, 'to London. These will be subjected to a careful analysis by one of the best chemists and metallurgists in England; and should gold be found in payable quantities, we understand a company will be formed in England to purchase all that is available in this district. Id the event of the experimental trial being successful—and we have little doubt of it—the company propose to adopt either the course of sending the tailings to England as ballast in homegoing vessels, or to erect machinery and plant here for the purpose of working them. Looking at the trial that is about to be made merely in the light of an experiment, it is a subject for congratulation that machine owners in the district will have the question properly solved without incurring any expense."