A New Quartz Stamping Mill.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3659, 17 September 1880, Page 2

A New Quartz Stamping Mill.

The Mining Journal supplies the following particulars regarding a new quartz crushing machine recently brought under jpublic notice :— With a view to facilitate the treatment of quartz at mines where from difficuly of access or carriage, or other causes, the ordinary heavy stamps worked by water or steam, are not readily available, Mr John Fisher, of Mincing lane, London, has invented a new form of mill. He claims to have taken advantage in an invested sense of the principle successfully used by Nasmyth in his steampile driving machinery—that is to say, that whereas in the latter a very heavy ram or driver is used, falling at a slow velocity upon the head of the pile, which is thus rapidly driven into the ground without the usual disintegration of x its upper end, which takes place where a relatively light ram falling rapidly is used, Mr Fisher uses a light stamphead, impelled with^as great velocity as possible upon the quartz to be pulverised, and thus utilises to its fullest extent the very principle of disintegration Vhich is to be avoided in pile driving machinery. The apparatus consists of a comparatively light stamp-head, of proper form attached to the lower end of a piston-rod, the upper end is provided with a piston working in a cylinder, and made to reciprocate very rapidly up land down in the cylinder by means of steam compressed or air admitted through the. supply pipe by any of now well-known methods, as Mr Fisher dors not propose to confine himself to any particular method, but can adopt according to circumstances, one or other of the methods by which—either with or without a special distributing valve—the pistons of rock drills and machinery of the like kind are made to reciprocate in their cylinders, and, of course, he obtains a similar result in the number. of blows, from 400 to 1000 or more per minute, which the stamp- head strikes. The obj »ct of the inventor is .to obtain in this way from a small light machine a result equal to that produced by several of the ordinary massive and heavy slow-working stamp-heads. Many advantages are claimed for the machine. It - can <be ereoted in a few hours with little or no foundations or buildings, and can be transported to any locality, however hilly or inaccessible, with little difficulty, and the absence of steam engines, with their expensive and troubleome concomitants of brasses, pulleys, shafts and belts, is itself a strong recommendation, especially in countries where the temptation to make away with the valuable parts of such appliances is great. Instances have been known where the whole of the brasses of a large engine ereoted at great cost in an almost inaccessible country have been stolen, and when replaced at a great loss of time and money, have again been Carried off within a few days. No such risk attends the use of the present machine, which has no expensive or valuable fittings, but is fixed at once and finally in a few hours, and the wear and tear of which is very trifling and easily rectified, being almost; entirely in the stamp-heads and the revolving pan. The latter is so shaped that it can be cast with the greatest ease, aud as it requires no fitting or boring it can be removed or replaced when necessary with as little, or less trouble as the blocks of ordinary stamps. Finally, it can be driven either direct by steam from a portable boiler, or by compressed air conveyed any reasonable distance from compressors driven by water-wheels, turbines, or wind power. Further results of this maohine, which is considered to supply a want much felt by miners, will be looked for with interest, and there is no reason to doubt the realisation of the anticipations formed by the inventor. ;