A NEW QUARTZ-CRUSHER.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 984, 2 July 1872, Page 3

A NEW QUARTZ-CRUSHER.

(Australasian.) Rasche's Patent Direct-acting Steam Battery for the reduction of quartz has been before the public for some time, and has already been mentioned in our columns. It has now been brought forward with modifications and improvements, in its new form it has met with the approval of scientific men and practical quartz-miners. A practical model of the machine is on view at the Vulcan foundry, in A'Becket street, and on Saturday last this was seen in motion by many gentlemen well qualified to pronounce an opinion as to its merits, and per. formed to their entire satisfaction. Rasche's battery is a machine that

works somewhat in the same manner as a steam hammer. Besides a boiler, cylinder, and piston, and the necessary stampers, it has scarcely any othergear. Steam is admitted under the piston, which in rising carries up the stamp shafts (four in number) along with it. The necessary elevation having been reached, the stamps are liberated by a simple contrivance, and falling upon the quartz under treatment perform the required crushing process. The chief merits claimed for the machine are cheapness and portableness. A four-stamper battery will cost £l5O, the stamps being scwt each j the whole machine weighing about three tons, and number of strokes varying from 60 to 120 a minute, according to the area of the tables, and the velocity of the discharge of the the tailings. ]So part of the machine, we are informed (except, of course, the boiler) is beyond the power of a horse to carry on its back, and if it ( the machine) proves as efficient in practice as it promises to be, it will prove the means of introducing quartz-crushing apparatus into regions quite inaccessible to a dry reducing machinery. Persons interested in quartz country difficult of access should see Rasche's machine, and form their own judgment as to its merits.