Seven methods of washing are in common use for the ores of many
metals ; for they are washed either in a simple buddle, or in a divided buddle,
or in an ordinary strake, or in a large tank, or in a short strake, or in a canvas
strake, or in a jigging sieve. Other methods of washing are either peculiar
to some particular metal, or are combined with the method of crushing wet
ore by stamps.
A simple buddle is made in the following way. In the first place, the head
is higher than the rest of the buddle, and is three feet long and a foot and a half
broad ; this head is made of planks laid upon a timber and fastened, and
on both sides, side-boards are set up so as to hold the water, which flows in
through a pipe or trough, so that it shall fall straight down. The middle of
the head is somewhat depressed in order that the broken rock and the larger
metallic particles may settle into it. The buddle is sunk into the earth to a
depth of three-quarters of a foot below the head, and is twelve feet long and
a foot and a half wide and deep ; the bottom and each side are lined with
planks to prevent the earth, when it is softened by the water, from falling
in or from absorbing the metallic particles. The lower end of the buddle is
obstructed by a board, which is not as high as the sides. To this straight
buddle there is joined a second transverse buddle, six feet long and a foot
and a half wide and deep, similarly lined with planks ; at the lower
" silver into a piece of holland and presse it out upon the metall, which goes forth like a dewe,
" alwaies turning and stirring the metall, to the end it may be well incorporate. Before the
" invention of these furnaces of fire, they did often mingle their metall with quicksilver in
" great troughes, letting it settle some daies, and did then mix it and stirre it againe, until
" they thought all the quicksilver were well incorporate with the silver, the which continued
" twentie daies and more, and at least nine daies." Frequent mention of the different
methods of silver amalgamation is made by the Spanish writers subsequent to this time, the
best account being that of Alonso Barba, a priest. Barba was a native of Lepe, in Andalusia,
and followed his calling at various places in Peru from about 1600 to about 1630, and at one
time held the Curacy of St. Bernard at Potosi. In 1640 he published at Madrid his Arte de
los Metales, etc., in five books. The first two books of this work were translated into English
by the Earl of Sandwich, and published in London in 1674, under the title " The First Book of
the Art of Metals." This translation is equally wretched with those in French and German,
as might be expected from the translators' total lack of technical understanding. Among
the methods of silver amalgamation described by Barba is one which, upon later "discovery"
at Virginia City, is now known as the " Washoe Process." None of the Spanish writers,
so far as we know, make reference to Biringuccio's account, and the question arises
whether the Patio Process was an importation from Europe or whether it was re-invented
in Mexico. While there is no direct evidence on the point, the presumption is in favour of
the former.
The general introduction of the amalgamation of silver ores into Central Europe
seems to have been very slow, and over 200 years elapsed after its adoption in Peru and Mexico
before it received serious attention by the German Metallurgists. Ignaz Elder v. Born
was the first to establish the process effectually in Europe, he having in 1784 erected a
" quick-mill " at Glasshutte, near Shemnitz. He published an elaborate account of a
process which he claimed as his own, under the title lieber das Anquicken der Gold und Silberhält igen Erze, Vienna, 1786. The only thing new in his process seems to have been mechanical
agitation. According to Born, a Spaniard named Don Juan de Corduba, in the year 1588,
applied to the Court at Vienna offering to extract silver from ores with mercury. Various
tests were carried out under the celebrated Lazarus Erckern, and although it appears that
some vitriol and salt were used, the trials apparently failed, for Erckern concluded his report
with the advice : " That their Lordships should not suffer any more expense to be thrown
" away upon this experiment." Bom's work was translated into English by R. E. Raspe,
under the title—" Baron Inigo Born's New Process of Amalgamation, etc.," London, 1791.
Some interest attaches to Raspe, in that he was not only the author of " Baron Munchausen,"
but was also the villain in Scott's " Antiquary." Raspe was a German Professor at Cassel, who
fled to England to avoid arrest for theft. He worked at various mines in Cornwall, and in
1791 involved Sir John Sinclair in a fruitless mine, but disappeared before that was known.
The incident was finally used by Sir Walter Scott in this novel.
