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Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 160, 8 July 1899, Page 5

(From the "British Columbia Review" of May 13, 1899.) >

The general traffic manager of the White Pass and Yukon Railway has endeavoured to obtain reliable figures as to the output of gold from the Klondyke this summer, and has reached the conclusion that it cannot fail to be between £8,000,000 and .£10,000,000. Amongst others at Dawson he interviewed . .Messrs Gruger and Apple, who manufacture the galvanised iron boxes in which the bulk of the gold will be shipped. They stated that ".From the number of miners who have been to our establishment to inquire after the iron boxes, we would place the figure at $50,000,000 (£10,000,000). Albert Hosmer, a mining engineer at Dawson lias put forward a remarkable theory as to the probable causes of the gold deposits on the different streams of the Klondyke and Yukon basin. His opinion is* that this section, from the Rockies to the Coast range of mountains, at one time was a low flat marsh, or possibly a lake. This .Klondyke basin had many quartz veins, many fissures of what might be called knife veins, all oxidised by the action of water and volcanic heat. The gravel and quartz washed into the deepest parts of the lake. Then came upheavals, raising the bottom of the lake into hills and ridges. Then the watercourses bega.n making channels and depositing the first stratum of gravel that lies under the present hills. Then another upheaval threw those small hills still higher, rocks and gravel sliding down the old channel. Then the cold and freezing process began, forming glaciers, which moved along, grinding the quartz and freeing the gold therefrom, which has been carried into •the channel by the force of the water. Then another upward movement of the earth, which also makes its deposit of gravel, making three distinct periods, each one separated from the other probably by immense periods of time."

"The owners of a claim near Upper Discovery, on Dominion, had a surprise recently, when they went through what they had supposed to be bedrock, and struck a second gravel paystreak richer than the one they had been working above. It is thought that this is one instance^ of many where miners are working above a false bedrock, beneath which is a deposit of another age."

THE "BE/¥M" CONVERTING PROCESS.

This process has been in active and successful operation for two years in the United States, but nobody on this side of the Atlantic appears to know anything about it, but it is a fact that an advance has been made in metallurgical treatment which amounts to a revolution.

The scientific accuracy, of Professor Beam's converting process would be a revelation to the directors of mining companies who are. spending thousands of pounds in deciding the relative merits of expensive chemical processes. By accomplishing, through a chemical and mechanical combination, the oxidation of the ore, Professor Beam forestalls nature, and in from 30 to 50 minutes liberates the metals from their surrounding combination, rendering their recovery simple, speedy, and 'economical. Tests and investigations have been made of this process, by the most expert chemists and metallurgists in America, who, by careful and actual tests on a large scale, have pronounced, it to be in the front rank of benefactors to the mining industries of the wprld. By

it over one-half in time is saved in converting- instead of "desulphurising," while the cost of fuel is threefourths less than by any other method. Five to seven per cent, is saved an preventing volatilization and shrinkage. The sulphur is not destroyed, but converted, hence there is no loss of weight during the process of roasting. One pulp expands and is in condition to take up oxygen when the air is admitted, while under the old treatment the sulphur is burnt up, and the volatile elements, when they leave, form a centeut over the rock particles holding the gold, forming a hard, compact mass, which has no ability to hold any more oxygen than it has already taken up. The recovery of values is much greater than by any other process, while the plant is comparatively much less costly than auy other method. The expense of treatment does not exceed $1 per ton of ore (from the time the ore is delivered at the mill till the bullion is recovered). The fluxes used are readily obtainable anywhere, and at an exceedingly low cost, the most refractory orels Snot (requiring fluxes to exceed 15 _ cents (7^d) per ton of ore. The method, in brief, is to crush the ore to 40 mesh, from the crusher it falls on the drying:bed on top of the furnace, where it is mixed with the necessary fluxes. The ore is then fed into air-tight muffles, through specially prepared openings, where conversion takes place. The entire operation is automatic, and at all stages of the treatment under the control of the operator.

Professor Lindeonan, of Denver; Dr. Charles Gibson, D.Sc, ,(London University; Professor Rudolph Keck; Captain J. It. Holibaugh; Professor Alvin Phillips; J. D. Caldon; Dr. G. Munson and Horace V. Winchell have all reported most favourably upon this process, which has been in steady and successful operation in America for months.