A Practical Treatise on Testing and Working Silver Ores

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876. Excerpt: ... hands of an expert, the use of this instrument requires great practice, and considerable skill in manipulation, and the big fingers of miners do not take kindly to such delicate work. Nor do I describe the usual methods of fire assay, because they require an outfit which could not well be carried about by the prospector; nor are these things necessary till it is required to know the richness of the ore, when it is best to apply to a regular assayer, though, when it comes to that, the blowpipe assay of a carefully taken sample, or of mere specimens, is quite accurate enough, if well made, for all the purposes of the prospector, or for assorting ores, and as it costs a mere trifle, I think assayers ought to use it more than they do, as a cheap and lucrative method of supplying the wants of poor laboring men, who merely require to know approximately, the value of their ore. I have made hundreds of these assays for fifty cents each in the mines, as it takes only from fifteen to twenty minutes to make one. TESTING FOR A PROCESS. 7. When ore has been found, which, by either of the foregoing tests, gives evidence of containing silver, it will be well to make some exploration to ascertain if it exists in considerable quantity, in which case a few fair samples should be taken to a reliable assayer in order that its richness may be known. If the ore is very rich, it will, of course, bear transportation to a market; yet the losses, expenses and discounts which are inseparable frorn this way of disposing of it, not to mention the trouble and risk of fraud, have caused miners in general to entertain a strong, and not unfounded objection to selling their ore, especially when the market is very distant; besides which, the quantity of such ore is usually quite small, tho...