LOSS OF GOLD.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1222, 19 January 1883, Page 2

LOSS OF GOLD.

In an article by Mr W . R. Buchan in the Cromwell Argus, on the Reefton mines the following paragraph occurs: — " Some of the Boatman's reefs are charged with base metals that it is not safe to use quicksilver about the battery. The Welcome stone is on the average 4oz stuff, not counting what is in the pyrites, and the most they can save is 2oz to the ton. Neither silver nor copper plates are used. There are blankets right from discharge to the end of the tables. Of course the blankets are frequently washed, then the whole of the tailings are put through percussion tables, and all shakings and blanketings are further pulverised by berdaus, of which there are about a dozen. With careful berdaiiing another ounce* is got, which makes about 3oz to the ton. Still there is an ounce to the ton lost, exclusive of the auriferous pyrites and there is a very large percentage of pyrites carrying from 4oz to 12oz to the ton ; so the Welcome Company must be losing quite as much gold ,as they are saving, and the same can be said of other claims. No amonut of ! grinding, nor, in fact, no mechanical appliances of any kind, will ever save all the gold ; but every grain of it could be extracted, and profitably, too, by means of the chlorine process, which is so successfully worked in California and Victoria. It is only a matter of time when it will be adopted in New Zealand, where the loss from base metals and pyrites is quite as great as in either California or Victoria. Besides, in this colony there are several highly-auriferous pyrite lodes, some of them of great size, with as much as 4 per cent of clean pyrites, carrying from 4oz to 30oz to the ton."