AN EXTRAORDINARY POWER EQUIPMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 439, 22 January 1890, Page 2

AN EXTRAORDINARY POWER EQUIPMENT.

The Pci ton Water Wheel Company of San Francisco has recently furnished the Treadwell mill of Alaska with a power equipment presenting many very interesting features. The mill referred to is the largest quartz mill in the world, consi-tlng of 240 stamps, 9G concentrators, 12 ore crushers,etc. requiring about 500 horse-power. AH of this machinery, covering several acres of ground, with its vast complication of counter shafts and connections is now run by. a single Pel ton wheel, 7 feet in diameter, operating under a head of 490 ft, making23s revolutions, and using 630 cubic f ct of water per minute, which is discharged throiieh a nozzle 331 inches in diamater. With a 4 inch nozzle this wheel wit.'work rip t<+ 735. horse power. Comparisons aie often made belwe a the advantage of steam and water power. A striking instance of this advantage is afforded in tins case of tio above mill. Tim wheel referred to weighs hut. 800 pounds, and the entire equipment, embracing shafts, loses, driving pulley, etc, only a! out 4oo<> pounds. A steam machinery plant, to give the max'mum capacity of this wheel, would not W'igli less than 200 tons. The expense of operating such a plant, would run well into the thousands eveiy month, while the cost of running the Pelton wheel is merely the oil needed for the journal hearings. Included in the above equipment was also an S-ft Pelton wheel to drive a 15 drill compressor, r« - qniring 175-horse power. Also two small 18-inch wheels to run dynamos, which light theentire works. Probably no such amount of power was ever before furnished at so small expense, both as to first cost and thet of maintenance. This mammoth mill affords n fair illustration of the modern metho Is of mining, and ef how low grade ore can be made to pay largo, dividends.