LIQUID GOLDFIELDS

Evening Star, Issue 22229, 6 January 1936, Page 8

LIQUID GOLDFIELDS

The Rand may find a new competitor in Father Neptune if success attends the researches of Professor A. Glazunov, director of the mining college in Pribram, Czechoslovakia, who has been exploring the possibilities of extracting gold from sea water, says the ‘ Cape Times.’ The professor, who recently visited Paris attending the International Mining Congress, said that he and other well-known Czech scientists have been experimenting with sea water off the French coast, and at Madeira, and have come to the conclusion that if sea water contains six milligrams of gold per ton, that is .000192 of an ounce per ton, the production of gold from the sea would be a commercial possibility. _ Professor Glazunov discovered in water near the coasts of Europe a gold content of only .000032 of an ounce per ton, but he quotes scientists who in ilio past have found a higher content elsewhere. He refers to Liversidge, who claimed in 1895 to discover .0016 of an ounce off the Australian coast—which Professor Glazunov doubts—and Don. who found about .00032 near California.

The professor himself thinks that the Pacific Coast of America would, be a

good place to “ prospect ” for liquid goldfields. He considers that the gold content in the sea water depends firstly on the volume of micro-organisms in the water; secondly on the presence of pyrites and quartzes; and thirdly the chlorine content of the water.

The cost of pros]>ecting is small—almost limited to the salary of the chemists—hut the cost of the installation of plant for the production of 650 z of gold per annum he estimates at about £2,000,000. He would propose filtering the sea water through pyrites which would absorb the precious metal.

As mechanical newer would be too costly, Professor Glazunov thinks the power of the tides could be utilised. A bay in the selected district would have to be closed witli a special doublewalled dam. and special baskets of pyrites placed between the two walls. Sulphuric ore would retain daily a certain amount of gold. The production of O-loz of gold would reouire about 10,000 tons of pyrites, and quantities of sulphuric acid would be produced as a by-product when the pyrites were burned to extract the gold.

Professor Glazunov said that two financial groups, one in Zurich and the other in America, were interested in his researches.