AURIFEROUS ORE TREATMENT.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1052, 22 February 1882, Page 2

AURIFEROUS ORE TREATMENT.

A number of gentleman recently assembled at the works of the Foreign and Colonial Tunnelling and Prospecting Company; in Guildford-street York-road, Lambeth, to inspect various kinds of gold mining appliances, and to witness a demonstration of a new chemical system of treating complex auriferens ores. There were present the Right Hon. Lyon Flay fair, C.8., M.P., chairman of the company ; Colonel Bolton, Colonel Beaumont, the Agent-General for Queensland, and others interested in gold mining and metallurgical operations. The chemical process is that of Messrs Molloy and Warren, and its object is the extraction of gold and silver from ores of a refractory character, such as tellurides pyrites, arsenical pyrites, &c, which can only be partially treated by the ordinary methods of extraction. In the new system the ore is first crushed and roasted, and these processes were shown in operation by means of the Beaumont steam stamp, which works direct, and is similar in action to a steam hammer, and an ordinary reverberatory furnace. The ore is then placed in a stone tank, and there subjected to" a nitro-hydroch-loric solvent. The liquid solution is drawn oft" into a settling tank, and from thence into a precipitating tank, where the gold is precipitated as a fine powder. This powder is then placed iuto an ordinary crucible and melted down into a gold bai\ Should there be any silver present it is obtained by washing the residual ore, precipitating and melting down the product as in the case of the gold. The chief point is that about 90 per cent, of the acid is recovered after use, otherwise the process would be too expensive, as has been the case previously tried in practice. It is claimed that by this process the whole of the gold or silver is extracted from the ore. however refractory it may be. This is, in fact,

done by ordinary analysis of the wet process, which, however, involves the loss of the acid. By means of the process discovered by Messrs Molley and Warren, the same acid is used over and over again, with only a fractional loss, as was demonstrated at the experiments. The plant and machinery employed are of a simple character, and appear to be only subject to slow deterioration. Besides the mining apparatus, there was also shown a system of electric lighting, consisting of a Gramme machine, and series of "British" incandescent lamps, arranged to show the application of that form of lighting to mines and other underground works.