caught thereby, and settling to the bottom, or adhering to amalgamated plates in the boxes, where such are used, will not be afterwards affected by the crushing action, which might otherwise break up, or “flour,” the mercury.  On the whole, I rather favour the use of mercury in the box at any time, unless the ore is very refractory—­that is, contains too great a proportion of base metals, particularly sulphides of iron, arsenic, etc., when the result will not be satisfactory, but may entail great loss by the escape of floured mercury carrying with it particles of gold.  Here only educated intelligence, with experience, will assist the battery manager to adopt the right system.

The crushed stuff—­generally termed the “pulp”—­passes from the boxes through the “screens” or “gratings,” and so on to the “tables”—­i.e., sheets of copper amalgamated on the upper surface with mercury, and sometimes electroplated with silver and afterwards treated with mercury.  Unless the quartz is very clean, and, consequently light, I am opposed to the form of stamper box with mercury troughs cast in the “lip,” nor do I think that a trough under the lip is a good arrangement, as it usually gets so choked and covered with the heavy clinging base metals as to make it almost impossible for the gold to come in contact with the mercury.  It will be found better where the gold is fine, or the gangue contains much base metal, to run the pulp from the lip of the battery into a “distributor.”

The distributor is a wooden box the full width of the “mortar,” having a perforated iron bottom set some three to four inches above the first copper plate, which should come up under the lip.  The effect of this arrangement is that the pulp is dashed on the plate by the falling water, and the gold at once coming in contact with the mercury begins to accumulate and attract that which follows, till the amalgam becomes piled in little crater-shaped mounds, and thus 75 per cent of the gold is saved on the top plate.

I have tried a further adaptation of this process when treating ores containing a large percentage of iron oxide, where the bulk of the gold is impalpably fine, and contained in the “gossan.”  At the end of the blanket table, or at any point where the crushed stuff last passes before going to the “tailings heap,” or “sludge pit,” a “saver” is placed.  The saver is a strong box about 15 in. square by 3 ft. high, one side of which is removable, but must fit tight.  Nine slots are cut inside at 4 in. apart, and into these are fitted nine square perforated copper plates, having about eighty to a hundred 1/4 in. holes in each; the perforations should not come opposite each other.  These plates are to be amalgamated on both sides with mercury, in which a very little sodium has been placed (if acid ores are being treated, zinc should be employed in place of sodium, and to prevent the plates becoming bare, if the stuff is very poor, thick zinc amalgam