DEAR QUICKSILVER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15965, 9 July 1915, Page 5

DEAR QUICKSILVER.

PRICE MORE THAN DOUBLED.

LOCAL EFFECT NOT SERIOUS.

The price of quicksilver has more than doubled since the outbreak of the war. Quotations a year ago were about £8 per 761b bottle, whereas the present selling price in London is £17 ss. Local importers, who state that the demand is limited, are at a loss to altogether account for the abnormal rise. A good proportion of the metal conies from Russia, from whence, of course, its export is now suspended ; but, as against that, other supply, ing countries are neutral Spain and America.

At one time such an advance in the' price of quicksilver would somewhat seriously have affected the larger bullionproducing mines of the Auckland Province Until comparatively recently all the goldsaving batteries were equipped with amalgam plates beneath the stampers. On these plates, composed of copper, quicksilver was smeared to catch a proportion of the particles of gold passing over them, Ibis process, generally referred to as amalgamation, has now been discarded by two of the largest bullion-producing mining companies in the Auckland district namely, the Waihi and the Wailii Grand Junction. Instead, the gold, which is very fine is caught on the vanners, and afterwards the sands are submitted to very long cyanide treatment. In the case o*f the Thames and other mining companies still using amalgam-plates the rise in the price of quicksilver is not a very serious matter, seeing that only a small proportion of the metal is lost in the process. The Waihi (Jold Mining Company, for instance, formerly estimated its actual loss of quicksilver at one-tenth of an ounce per ton of ore. Apart from the plates, comparatively little quicksilver is used in the batteries, for cleaning up, or other purposes.

Another use to which quicksilver is put is in electric batteries, for the purpose of amalgamating the zinc. The Telegraph and Telephone Department uses a fairly large quantity in this way, but inquiries made locally indicate that there is no shortage of supplies and that the increased price has not yet been seriously felt. Cinnabar ore, the raw material from which quicksilver is obtained, exists at Mackaytown, Ohinemuri, and also at Whangarei. In neither case, however, has a great deal of development been done on the deposits. The Mackaytown cinnabar mine, owned by the New Zealand Cinnabar. Limited, wis worked until last February, and a. plant for the extraction of quicksilver was erected. Neither this property nor the one at Whangarei is now in operation, however. One difficulty appears to be the comparative lack of available experts to supervise development of the ore bodies and the erection of efficient plants.