easily
moved from place to place. They require less motive power, and their
first cost is considerably less. All these things are strongly in their
favour ; and if in actual operation they prove to be as serviceable as
their advocates contend, they will doubtless be a valuable acquisition.
But this result is exactly what has yet to be demonstrated.
The
crushing machinery sent out by the South Indian and Indian Grlenrock
Companies, consists of eight batteries, of five gravitation stamps
each, in all, forty heads of stamps. These have been manufactured by
Messrs. Appleby Brothers of East Greenwich, at a cost of about £6000,
the total weight being over 190 tons.
I
now propose briefly to describe the processes of reduction. The quartz,
after having been broken up in the stone crushers, passes into the
stamp coffers or mortars, where it is stamped in water to the degree of
fineness requisite to liberate the particles of gold from their natural
matrix. This being done, the object of all the subsequent operations is
to separate and secure these golden particles from the worthless matter
or tailings. This is accomplished in all cases by the use of
quicksilver, and various methods are adopted for this purpose. The
three principal systems, upon one or other of which, or upon
modifications or combinations of the same, all gold-reducing machinery
is designed, may be described as follows:—
