IMPROVED METHOD OF OBTAINING GOLD.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 75, 17 July 1869, Page 5

IMPROVED METHOD OF OBTAINING GOLD.

An Auckland journal says : — " We have been informed that the commander of one of the vessels trading out of this port, on the occasion of a recent trip to San Francisco, took with him a small parcel of quartz, taken without prejudice from a quantity which had been tested at the Thames by some of the machinery there, and found to yield nil, or very little more. He had the sample crushed at San Francisco, and treated by the dry process, when it produced gold at the rate of thirty-five ounces to the ton ! So much fbr the comparative value of the two methods of extracting the metal.. There can be very little doubt but that by the imperfect system of crushing, and the faulty plans in operation for bringing the whole mass into contact with the quicksilver, a startling per eentage of gold is carried out into the tailings. In the Californiari operation, per contra, the stone is ground to an impalpable powder, and proper means being adopted to bring , the whole of the material into contact with the mercury, by literally shaking the masß up into a kind of dough, it is impossible for any particles of gold to escape. It seems wonderful that, in the face of the ' well-authenticated -great loss of precious metal by the Thames process, so little attention should have been given to the other (Hid more obviously certain dry grinding method.

In one pf our schools, the other day, a small scholar was asked by the mistress, "Wno discovered America?" and replied, «< Yankee-doodle."