ELECTRO PLATES FOR BATTERIES.

Thames Star, Volume III, Issue 1668, 23 April 1874, Page 2

ELECTRO PLATES FOR BATTERIES.

Some time since the experiment was tried on the Thames by -one'br two of our batteries as to how copper plates, electroplated before being laid on the battery tables, would act, so far as their attractiveness in catching any particles of gold passing over them. For some time a doubt, and ,a very reasonable one, was expressed as to whether the electro-plating would, when brought into contact with mercury, peel off, if not entirely, at least in patches. The sharp trial the plates electro-plated in use at the Moanatairi battery have stood has removed beyond the least shadow of a doubt the superiority of copper electro-plates for battery tables over those dressed in the ordinary way. The electro-platea at the Moanatairi battery were hardly treated fairly as to the position on the tables in which they-were put. The tables are what in battery.parlance is called step—the elector-plates are placed on the bottom section of the tables,: and thus would, in the. case, with other plates; catch the leaj^ of gold, the two;above, them having hasf^first chance. Not at all strange to say jthe electo plates in the Moanatairi have; caught the most gold, their surface 'having more affinity to the gold passing over them. How or why, is a question for scientists, which should' be by them immediately taken up. It is all very well to depend oh the blankets as gold savers, but if the gold can be saved before it gets on to the blankets surely it is a " bird in hand," and saves further anxiety as to its caging. The use of electro plates on bur battery tables was urged long and long ago. What the actual first cost may be the writer is uninformed; but if when a plate, as it is first laid down, immediately attracts gold, wky not use them.' By no known method of dressing copper plates in the old style, is this object effected. We most heartily commend electro plates to the attention of up country battery managers, where the water they use is in almost every instance the best they can get, but the worst they could possibly use. The writer by experience caught more gold after it had passed over plates and blankets, in contrivances 20 yards away from the'battery, than in it. Why not try electroplating, and see if it will;not in some measure prevent this. The experiment will cost but little, but if over.cost the electro plates save only one extra ounce of gold, it represents so many loaves of bread saved from going to utter waste.