ANOTHER NEW GOLD SAVING APPARATUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1423, 28 July 1884, Page 2

ANOTHER NEW GOLD SAVING APPARATUS.

- — ■ ♦ (From our Wakatipu Corrfspondent.) We appear to be in the days of new gold-say ing apparatuses when, unfortunately, the gold to be saved is on the decrease. However, there can be no doubt that, with proper appliances, very large areas hitherto considered rot pay ably auriferous may be madn to yield fair voturns. Every new invention in this department should therefore be welcomed with clue consideration of its usefulness, and not rejected until found useless. The inventor of the new apparatus is Mr George Riesser, of Queensland, and his invention is so extremely simple that it can safely be dignified as an " apparatus." It partakes of the nature of a sieve, a ripple, and a ."«r«?oncr. It is, in plain mining par!;uu'.(\ v " i!a!,so l>oUi.itn,'" o.ud intro- j ;i;uvs th<; principle of separating the !

coarser from the finer stuff. It is equally adapted, with certain modification, of course, to ground sluicing and to quartz tailings, and has proved itself highly efficient in saving the finest pyrites. It is easiest explained as a "false bottom" of basketwork r woven of fine cooper wire for fine gold and quartz tailings, which iv grouud sluicing is protected by a strong frame of basketwork made oi fencing wire. The principle of tl*e tine aud fche strong and coarse frames is exactly alike, the only object aimed at being that of adapting it to all classes of mining. Iv the saving of quartz gold the frames of fine cooper wire areplaced immediately upon the cocoanut matting or blankets, as the case may be, aud secured iv the small wires running transversely across the box, every wire forming a ripple, of which there are probably a dozen in every inch throughout the whole length of the box, or run of boxes. It will be seen that the wires, besides acting as ripples, they being reversed as in basketwork, also act as a protection to the gold when once caught, and effectually prevent it from rising again. In alluvial sluicing it has, of course, exactly the same action, but its gold-saving capacity is in this operation still further increased by the stuff being sifted, the finer gravel and sand only being treated for gold savingpurposes. To this end a set of coarser frames are placed immediately above the finer ones, carrying off in this, manner all the rongher particles of gravel. This new invention thus combinestwo leading principles of gold saving, which are not always duly recognised by inventors — viz the separation of tho fine stuff from the coarser, and a ripple which never " sets hard." All ripples hitherto introduced fail in either one or the other de sderatum, if no both. The invention of Mr Eiessler lias been tried with entirely satisfactory results by the Invincible Quartz-min-ing Company, at the head of Lake Wakatipu, and has been pronounced quite as efficient in saving pyrites as the finest quartz gold, and it may be added that this Company have entirely discarded the use of quicksilver in their battery and the tables. Silver is, of course, used iv the amalgam barrel. Mr Biessler has himself tried his invention in ground-sluicing with very good result, and he intends to apply for a patent forthwith. The invention. certainly recommends, itself to all miners who rather have to deal with fine gold.