A NEW FLUX FOE GOLD ORES.

Southland Times, Issue 1015, 4 September 1868, Page 3

A NEW FLUX FOE GOLD ORES.

We extract the following from a late number of the " San Francisco Bulletin":—

Eastern journals continue to record experiments with new agents" for desulphurising gold ores. A pet theoryhas always been that the best method would be that which would dissolve the quartz and leave the gold free and separate. For the twentieth time we are assured a mode of doing this very thing has been discovered. The war of the great rebellion was not fought in vain, for while Colonel C. C. Stevens, of New York, was imprisoned with some rebel deserters who had been miners in Georgia, his attention was turned to the subject of working gold ores. He was not a miner nor a chemist, but his mind was impressed with the idea that the discovery of an efficient desulphuriser would be a " big thing." Some time after the close of the war he " accidently" became acquainted with a new smelting material, which is referred to at great length in the Boston " Post " of a late date, and for which great things .are claimed. Professor Hayes, the Massachusetts State Assayer, says : — " This new flux is a residue remaining after the extraction of sodium from the mineral cryolite, and consists of fluoride of calcium and aluminium, with some caustic and carbonate of lime, in varying proportions, a little silica and oxide of iron." " The fluxing power," he adds, "is dependent on the fluorides present, and is generally aided by the addition of a chloride, such as commou salt, in mixture with it. Besides a high efficiency in causing ordinary rocks and gangues to become fluxed by heat, the fluorides give a remarkable fluidity to the melted mass, and they ensure the deposition of any metalic globules, reduced from the ore submitted to trial, so that the metal is found at the bottom in a clean solid state in cooling." Professor Hayes gives it as his opinion that "this flux may be applied in the large way for reducing ores directly in furnaces of a proper form ;" and the " Post" says this statement has been verified by the Acworth Mining Company, of Georgia, in a furnace erected at Litchfield's foundary, in East Boston. The experiment was witnessed by many persons, including the representatives of 10,000,000 dollars of Boston capital. T?he amount of ore put into the fnrnace was 2,500 pounds, The amount of flux is not stated. On a Thursday noon the furnace was fired, on Friday night the fires were extinguished, and on Saturday morning the gold was removed from the various depressions at the bottom of the furnace. The ore, of which that fluxed is said to have been a sample had never yielded more than 20 to 22 dollars per ton by any other process in use; but, on this occasion, several nuggets were extracted, weighing in the aggregate 391 penny- weights, and worth, in currency, 539 dollars 58 cents, or at the rate of 451 dollars to the ton. This result is stated to have made a great excitement among holders of mining stocks. Bock from anothe Georgia mine was to be tried in a few days, and meanwhile several small assays had been made with equal astonishing results. Finally, we are told that the furnace slag left by the Stevens process is worth from 40 dollars to 50 dollars per ton for the manufacture of tiles and heavy glass bottles, which is enough to defray smelting expenses. All these statements are certainly renarkable, if true ; but if the new process costs so much as stated it can only be profitably used for the richer class of ores, especially in the Pacific States and Territories, where there is not a very lively demand for slag to make tiles and glass bottles.