TARANAKI IRONSAND.

Evening Star, Issue 11695, 29 September 1902, Page 7

TARANAKI IRONSAND.

A DIFFICULTY OVERCOME.

[Tbom On ttwiciaL Coaunonmi.] , LONDON, August 15. The problem of the commercial treatment of the ironsanns of Taranaki is one with which many New Zealanders have wrestled more or less in vain. So far as X am aware there has, up to the present time, been no successful attempt to deal with the difficulty of ■ getting the , sand into a term easy of handling, nor to overcome the even greater difficulty of getting it into the smelters so that it will not “ blow out ” or reduce the furnace to a state of smouldering incompetence. Mr Bouse, a gentleman of an inventive turn of mind, who rusticates Occasionally in the neighborhood of Stamford Hill, but is more often to be found mak’ng experiments with aU sorts of materials, from furnace waste to Portland cement, at the Waterloo foundry of Messrs Martin and Sons, was recently introduced to the much-belauded ironsand of Taranaki, with perhaps sarcasticallyn.cant remarks to the effect that if he could induce the tend to cohere in a manner that would enable the sand in mass to be easily smelted in on ordinary furnace ou a commercial basis, both as to quantity and~cost, he bad a fortune waiting for him in the offing. Mr House had heard of Governmental rewards in this connection, and ,as New Zealand owed him something—he thought to make a modest pile out of Thames gold mining propositions, and dropped “ four figures ” in one dotation that didn’t float—he obtained a bag of the sand from, I understand, Mr Cadman, and after three or four days aicceeded in bringing the almost mercurial sniff to a condition of cohesion which only a smart stroke from a fairly heavy hammer would disturb. To ha precise, he produced from the sand a series of bricks of about ten pounds weight apiece, possessing all the outward and visible attributes of a well-based “blue Stafford,” and which when broken in twain were hardly less friable than a specimen of that well-known product of the briobmsker’s art would be. Having achieved so much, Mr Bouse was naturally anxious to go further, and to make experiments on a commercial scale with his ironsand bricks, which he found he could reduce to pig iron without difficulty in the crucible. He desired, htwever, to ascertain whether the bricks when subjected to the heat and crushing they would have to undergo in an ordinary smelter would hold together. Mr Martin, who is a founder of many years’ experience, was quite satisfied that they would, but in order to make sure fie desired to try a minimum of scwt of the 'sand bricked by Mr Bouse, but unfortunately such a quantity was not available, and the final part of the experiment is still to come. It may be that Mr Rouse’s bricks will not stand the smelter test, but Mr Martin is confident that they will, and as I know him to be a reasonably good judge in matters connected with smelting of iron I shall be' much surprised if be is proved to be wrong. The point at issue, apart from this important question is, of course, the commercial applicability of Mr House’s discovery. He can, he avers, produce bricks of 20-251b weight from the sand at a cost of Is per ton, and if this is so the use of his process means that the “ illimitable wealth ” of the Taranaki ironsand is within the reach cf anyone enterprising enough to speculate in a nest of furnaces and lucky enough to discover a profitable market for New Zealand “ pig ” or its ultimate products. No special plant of expensive character is necessary to the adoption of Mr Rouse’s process. You can to-day buy in England a plant capable of turning out enough “bricks” to feed a nest of furnaces capable of treating 100 tons of sand per diem for a matter of £1,600, and according to Mr Martin he could reduce the Taranaki sands to “pig” via Rouse’s method at about 7s per ton. This calculation is, of course, based on the supposition that suitable flux can be obtained at a moderate price and on tho English scale of payment to the workers. To this must be added, of course, a reasonable royalty to Mr Rouse for the use of his process, but at present he has net even troubled to protect his invention, let alone fix upon a price or royalty. For this reason I cannot enter into details of the methods used, but I can say fairly that it is exceedingly simple, expeditious, and (as the price of Is per ton for treatment tells) very cheap. So far Mt Rouse has only dealt with sand from which'every particle of moisture has evaporated. This suggested a question—viz., “ Would the presence of a considerable quantitv of saline moisture interfere with the cohering process?”' Mr Bouse was very definite on this point. So far from such moisture being a hindrance, he would, if he could choose the time for getting the sand, take_ it as the ebbing tide left it exposed. As invertors are notoriously partial, to the children of their brain, and as no sand-to-pig trial of the sand on what I may call a commercial scale had been made, I questioned Mr Martin closely upon the point of the possible action of heat and furnace-crushing upon the sample “bricks” ho had in possession. He was quite confident that the bricks were bard enough to go through the smelter ordeal successfully, and if necessary a mere lengthening of the process by which cohesion is obtained will, it appears, .render the “bricks” still harder. Such lengthening of the treatment means, however, a fractional addition to the cost. In the process nothing is used that in any way increases tho normal residual after smelting or its characteristics, and the fullest extraction of the iron in the sand is obtained. So, at least. Mr Bouse and Mr Martin aver. But as I have in times gone by remarked apropos of new methods for preserving fruit, extracting gold and silver from awkward ores, etc., nothing positive is proved by what one may term “ drawing room scale ” experiments. What is required in this case is ocular demonstration of the fact that a ton, say, of sand bricked by the Rouse process can be turned into “pig” as speedily and efficaciously as he indicates at a low cost. To prove this he must have the sand, and though naturally sceptical, I am inclined lo think that if convinced that there is any t uturo for the iron industry in New Zealand the Government would not be going out of their way if they placed at Mr Rouse’s early disposal a few tons of the ironsand in question. He is wnlling and anxious to carry his experiments out on a reasonable scale, if he mti only get the raw material. Perhaps Mr E. M .Smith will be able to see his way to indulging Mr Rouse’s desire. If not. there are surely patriots in the colony who are sufficiently interested in the development of a possibly lucrative new industry to go to the length of consigning a few tons of the sand to Mr Rouse. I have little doubt *hat if the matter is placed before either of the big shipping companies intimately concerned with your trade a concession in the matter of freight would be forthcoming. Meanwhile, Mr Cadman does not seem to be doing more than “marking time” in connection with the flotation of his company, and I fear that in the end he will return to New Zealand with the main object of his mission Home unachieved.