PLATINUM.
INTRODUCTION.
The platinum industry remains practically stationary with reference to the world's supply and the price.
The
supply from the well-known placers of Kussia continues to decline
slowly, but the uses for platinum do not increase sufficiently to cause
the price to advance on account of the decline in supply. If more
platinum were greatly needed, the supply could be augmented from
California and Oregon.
DOMESTIC PRODUCTION. CRUDE PLATINUM.
Although
the high price of platinum encouraged prospecting in the United States
during 1913, the expected increase in the production of crude metal
was not realized. The total production from California and Oregon
amounted to 482.87 crude ounces and was valued at $18,477. Of this,
460.37 crude ounces came from California and were rated at 80 per cent
fine—that is, it contained 368.3 fine ounces of platinum. That from
Oregon—22.5 ounces—was not so carefully cleaned and was reckoned at 70
per cent fine, or 15.75 fine ounces of platinum. The greater part of
the California platinum came, as usual, from the large gold-dredging
operations in Butte, Yuba, Sacramento, and Calaveras counties.
The
question of a larger yield of domestic platinum depends principally
upon working the Oregon and California beaches, including the old
beaches now several miles inland and elevated considerably above sea
level. Several machines involving somewhat fanciful or novel ideas were
installed during 1913, as reported in the last review of this series.
As a rule these machines were handicapped because they consisted either
of competent concentrating apparatus without adequate means for digging
the crude sand and delivering it to the concentrator, or, in other
places, the reverse has been the case, and the machine, well suited for
large-scale excavation at a low cost, has not been equipped with a
proper system for cencentrating these heavy sands after excavating them.
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