Treatment of Tailings.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 12, 26 January 1870, Page 3

Treatment of Tailings.

(Times di Thames Miners' Advocate, Jan. C>

It is a well-known fact that the pyrites found in quartz-reefs contain a large per centage of gold, and especially sucli as are fouud in the quartz lodes on the Thames. There have been a great many plans tried for separating the pyrites from the tailings, so as to subject them to a process for driving off the other minerals they contain along with the gold. We have several times been shewn, by the battery managers on the field, pyrites which have been treated in different ways, and from which a payable quantity of gold has been obtained. One groat point to be gained was the separating of the pyrites from the tailings at a cheap rate, which would be going on at the same time that the quartz was passing through the battery, so that only the portion of the tailings required would be kept, and the refuse part allowed to run away, without the necessity of shifting and stacking it. The manager of the Una Company has arranged a plan to attain this object, by placing two long ripple boxes, over which the tailings have to pass, as they come from the battery. The boxes are 65ft in length, with a fall of one foot in twelve, in which the ripples are placed. These ripples are the usual ones put in sluice-boxes for saving alluvial gold, and are about 2\ inches in depth, in sections, so that can be taken out with ease, and the boxe3 cleaned. In the ripples the pyrites will be collected, and the lighter portions will be carried away by the water. It is the intention of the company to erect a large calcining furnace in connection with the battery, so that the pyrites can be treated as soon as they are taken from the boxes. From some pyrites washed from stone crushed out of the company's mine, a very payable return of gold has bean obtai led, which has given the manager confidence in the success of his experiment. We sincerely wish such may be the case, and that it may be the means of saving a large quantity of gold at present being lost on this field.