GOLD EXTRACTION TO-DAY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 422, 23 November 1889, Page 8

GOLD EXTRACTION TO-DAY.

Thus a San Francisco paper : Gold-minintr i- in nvmv mind* still associate with a fi.innel-shirted. long-rhooted, gambling rlass of doubtful manrers who with pick, shovel, ami pan. founri foitune. in tin* hill streams of tht* Fa>- West or of the land of ibe ksinfirnjr.n. But this rnce of mineis is r.tpidly l»crr»iqinc as extinct us the redskin of California or the black boy of Australia. j\«* tlvJ snpeificia! deposits which attract the/ | i°-n< i eis were exhausted, the aid of iiiichinerv and science became essential ; aid a new order of: things besran, introducing tb,e papitnljst, the chemist, n rid the onsineer. Moreover, in their haste to fret }-ic]ij and. with th^ir nn.ijh-and-reacty appliances, the early diggers only worked the richest ground and passed over tons — acres — of stuff which, with modem methods, would pay handsomely. To convey an idea of the perfection which has been attended by some of the processes of to-day, one illustration will suffice. During a quarter* (three months) woikinglnst year of the alluvial deposit of Dnj-lesford, Vicioiia, pnrr.e 33,560 tons of era v el were treated, and gave an nvprage yield of lS.Vcr. troy of gold from ea'-h ton of gravel, 'ihat is tp say of all this enormous mass of mateiial dnsr up. p-issed throimh the np.iratu < « and ledeposited, only one eighteen hundred and fouiteenlh pmt was of value; the other 1813 paits beinsj iiKeles*. Tn other woids, suppose an acre of land 15ft deep to be turned over, broken up to the most minute piopoition", and bodily remnved in oider that it might he made to yield up a hidden pleasure in the foim of fine dust, the whole of which could be easily held in a small coal scuttle. And tliis was accomplished presumably at a co^t ■which left a reasonable margin of profit These results are altot»ethor unparalleled in any other kind of metal mining. As a rule, the m^tal or its ore forms the bulk of the mass ticated. Tuns iron often constitutes 75 ppr cent of the mineral, lead 85 to 87 per cent, copper 7-8 to 98 per cent, and silver 85 to 99 per cent ; while the gold in the case quoted only amounted to .000118 or a little over one ten thousandth part of 1 per cent.