The general construction of the appliance is as follows:  The casing or receiver is a steel cylinder, which has a pivot at the bottom to receive the step for an upright hollow shaft, to which a second cylinder of smaller diameter is attached.  The second cylinder is perforated, and a fine wire cloth is inserted.  The mercury, after passing through the cloth, is discharged through the perforations.  When the machine is revolved at great speed, the mercury is forced into the outside cylinder, leaving the amalgam, which has been first placed in a calico or canvas bag, in a much drier state than it could be strained by hand.  While not prepared to endorse absolutely all that is claimed for this appliance, I consider that it has mechanical probability on its side, and that where large quantities of amalgam have to be treated it will be found useful and effective.

SLUICE PLATES

I am indebted to Mr. F. W. Drake for the following account of sluice plates, which I have never tried, but think the device worth attention: 

“An addition has been made to the gold-saving appliances by the placing of what are called in America, ‘sluice plates’ below the ordinary table.  The pulp now flows over an amalgamating surface, 14 ft. long by 4 ft. wide, sloping 1 1/2 in. to the foot, and is then contracted into a copper-plated sluice 15 ft. long by 14 in. wide, having a fall of 1 in. to the foot.  Our mill manager (Mr. G. C. Knapp) advocated these sluice plates for a long time before I would consent to a trial.  I contended that as we got little or no amalgam from the lower end of our table plates there was no gold going away capable of being recovered by copper plates; and even if it were, narrow sluice plates were a step in the wrong direction.  If anything the amalgamating surface should be widened to give the particles of gold a better chance to settle.  His argument was that the conditions should be changed; by narrowing the stream and giving it less fall, gold, which was incapable of amalgamation on the wide plates, would be saved.  We finally put one in, and it proved so successful that we now have one at the end of each table.  The per-centage recovered on the sluice plates, of the total yield, varies, and has been as follows:—­October, 9.1 per cent; November, 6.9 per cent; December, 6.4 per cent; January, 4.3 per cent; February, 9.3 per cent.”

MEASURING INACCESSIBLE DISTANCES

To ascertain the width of a difficult gorge, a deep river, or treacherous swamp without crossing and measuring, sight a conspicuous object at the edge of the bank on the farther side; then as nearly opposite and square as possible plant a stake about five feet high, walk along the nearer margin to what you guess to be half the distance across (exactitude in this respect is not material to the result), there plant another stake, and continuing in a straight line put in a third.