GOLD-SAVING MACHINE.

Colonist, Volume XXXI, Issue 5170, 24 March 1888, Page 4

GOLD-SAVING MACHINE.

(From the ' Oiago Daily Times.1) A. number of gent'emen interested io mining mot at Messrs A. and T. Burt'e foundry on a recent date to witness & test of a gold-saviug machine recently patented by Mr Qt. J. A. Ricbai'Jßon. The machine on view, which had been constructed by Messrs Burt, was of the dimension of a model only. It is called by tbe patentee a lotrnvy amalgamator, and is intended for saving very fine gold from black sand, &c-, or it might go at the end of a battery. In either capacity it would do tery excellent work, aa was shown by the test; but the principle is by no means new. In Mr iiichardson's machine a disa with Ha lower surf&oe covered with spiral grooves fits into v circuhr pan and revolves at a moderate speed only. The bottom of the pan promts a surface of quicksilver, and over thin the sand, which enters by a funnel from tho top, is slightly spread by tbo grooved surface of the disc. Almost every particle of the finest gold will, it is claimed, be saved by this process, aud there can be little doubt of the usefulness of the machine, as it is exactly on tho principal of the Hungarian mill, the value of which has been recognised upon the Continent for many years past. In this mill, though, knives are used to distribute the stuff over tho quicksilver. A test was tried upon Mr Richardson's model yesterday with some sand trom Wuipara Point, sard to con-t-iin some 2.|dwt of gold to the ton. A small quantity of the stuff was washed in the presence of the spfCtators to show -that, it d:d coutnin a little vary line gold, and lhen in was passed through the amalgamator, with the result that scarc?ly the color could be detected on wfishing the tailings. What little gold ihore wn9 in the small quantity of sand experimented upon had been successfully amalgamated. Most of tbe gentlemen seemed to hold tbe opinion that the introduction of such machines would be a deoided advantage.