RECOVERY OF GOLD FROM REFRACTORY ORES. [From Invention.]

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 298, 12 September 1888, Page 2

RECOVERY OF GOLD FROM REFRACTORY ORES. [From Invention.]

A new and important process for the recovery of gold from refractory ores is being highly spoken of in Scotland. Th^ process is known as tho " Pollok/' and it is claim jd by the patentee that the process is an improvement on the wellknown method for extracting 1 gold by chlorination under pressure — the advantages being a givat saving in time, in re-ngentfl, and in that it extracts practically all Ihe gold fnun tailings and refractory runs. It is also sail to bo chonper thin other processes, the comparison being- thnt while by older processes the extraction is only 80 per cent, and the cost 20s per ton, by this new process the cost is put at Ga 6d per ton and the extraction at 97 per cent. A great many experiments have been made in tho Glasgow University (where the discoverer is assistant to the Professor of Chemistry;, and, amongst others, in the presence of Principal Cnird, Sir William Thompson, Professor Ferguson, Dr Stewud, &c. ; and most favourable opinions have been expressed bv scientific and practical men a? to the value of the patent. In nnc experiment 9000 grains of tailing were treated, out of .330 grains of gold present .320 were extracted, the residue containing only .010. Samples of .ore from New Zealand, South Afiica, Queensland, and Victoria have been successfully treated. Professor Ferguson writes that the process is specially applicable to " light " gold, is a rapid one, that the apparatus is of the simplest kind, and there is nothing about to get it out of order ; that the cost of materials for the extraction runs from 4s 6d to 6s per ton ; and that the gold is almost entirely extracted. A , number of local gentlemen of* influence are, according to the Engineer and Iron Trades' Advertiser, interesting themselves in the process, with a view to its being put in practical operation.