Chinese Plaoer Mining.

Otago Witness, Issue 1555, 27 August 1881, Page 10

Chinese Plaoer Mining.

A gentleman who has been examining the methods of the Chinese who are engaged in plaoer mining on Gold Canyon, below Silver City, says they excel white miners in saving fine gold under difficulties. In the gravel of G>>ld Canyon is an immense amount of black sand and great quantities of iron stones and pebbles. Tbe sand and stones settle to the bottom of the Bluices, and there become so compact that the gold oannot reach the quicksilver, but is carried away and lost. The Chinese have their sluices so arranged that all the mateiial passing through them falls into a large shallow tank, tbe bottom of which is floored with iron pierced with holes. From this is shovellod or forked all the material that is too coarse to pass through the soreen.

The material that falls through the screen with the water is carried out upon broad Bluioes covered with blankets, and the process then employed is very similar to that used in ordinary blanket sluiciog. By the use of the screen in the start they greatly reduce the bulk of the material to be handled in after operations, and at once get rid of all coarse, heavy, and troublesome stoneß and gravel. The earth and light material of all kinds float away with the water, and give no mire trouble, therefore little is left behind on the blankets but the gold and black sand, and the quicksilver and amalgam that have found their way into the gravel along the bed of the stream.

In places where the ground is fiat, and sufficient fall cannot be found to carry away the tailings from the end of the Bluices, the plan adopted by the Chinese Baves a good deal of work. It is much easier to shovel the large rocks out of the box than it would be to stand at the tail of the string of sluices, and there shovel out coarse, fine, and all as it comes down.

As the Chinese work, they have no trouble with the fiao stuff. It runs away of itself when separated from the course and heavy material —Virginia Enterprise.