The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 79, May, 1864 by Various
page 135 of 285 (47%)
page 135 of 285 (47%)
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as it happens,--yet in the month of October the average yield at Oldham
was 1 oz. 16 dwt, 20 gr., and at Renfrew 2 oz.; while for November it was at Stormont 3 oz. 2 dwt. 12 gr., at Tangier 1 oz. 10 dwt, at Waverley I oz. 3 dwt. 12 gr., and at Oldham 1 oz. 8 dwt. The _maximum_ yield per ton was 50 oz. at Wine Harbor, 12 oz. at Sherbrooke, 11 oz. 12 dwt. at Oldham, and 5 oz. 15 dwt. at Stormont, for the same period. "The average yield," says Professor Chace, "per ton of quartz, of the gold-fields of Nova Scotia will, it is believed, compare favorably with that of either Australia or California, while some of the maximum yields _indicate ores of unsurpassed richness_." In regard to the best and most effectual methods of dressing and amalgamating these rich ores, it seems to be conceded that the modes hitherto in use in Nova Scotia have been very defective. Much larger returns of gold are to be expected from the introduction of the new processes, which scientific research is every day bringing to a greater degree of efficiency in Colorado and California. The promoters of the Nova-Scotia mining-enterprises, thanks to the skill and pains of their scientific advisers, are fully awake to the importance of this vital point. Pyrites--the mineral mixture so universally found with the gold of this region--is well known to escape, or rather to resist, the attraction of the mercury used in the amalgamating process, and it has hitherto been allowed to pass away with the "tailings", or refuse from the mills. When we state that it has been repeatedly shown to be from ten to twelve per cent. of the components of the ore, and that by test of the United-States Assay-Office its average yield is one hundred and twenty-eight dollars to the ton,--and by the careful experiments of Professor Silliman, at the Sheffield Laboratory in New Haven, it has yielded even as high as two hundred and seventy-six dollars and |
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