Tales From the Hills |
VALUES IN REFRACTORY ORES
By Hugh M. Henton, Associate Professor of Metallurgy Alaska Agricul
tural College and School of Mines.
The next evening Larry and Jack
were in a reminiscent mood. Years
Before, they had left a distant pros
pect which had once held great
promise: fon them—a. quartz vein in
the White river country, which they
referred, to as-the Old Judith claim.
They h-ui. found-it to be heavily min
era."zed with some sort of gray metal
lic crystalline sulphide mineral. The
vein had risen well explored and some
development work, done, but the claim
had linen abandoned because it had
yielded, few. gold..colors in the pan.
Lamv as was usual, was doing
most o+ loo.talking. “Jack," he said,
“dV> yo.u know I can’t help thinking
we somehow missed a bet when we
left th.-.-OM Judith.”
“Let’s forget it, Larry. That claim
isia deisukone. Don’t dig it up again,”
broke, nr. Jack with a vigorous wave
of'the keten-edged butcher knife, as he
cut some large juicy steaks from a
quarter.of caribou.
Larry went on without paying any
attention to his partner’s disapproval:
“It Was. the rottenest break we ever
had, the-iend of our. biggest hopes. Do
yqu remember. Jack, when we made
our find sampling and as soon as we
got into the fresh sulphides with our
shaft, the.ore stopped panning?” He
paused, a moment and then added: “1
saved..rot a tobacco can full of the
gray.,.crystals. That can of sample
came ait with us when we left the Old
J udith'.'*'
“I remember our sampling and how
we gufci barely a smell in the pan, but
I’ve .foorgotten about any can of gray
crystals,” said Jack, with a steak on a
fork, just ready to place in a. pan of
sizzling; suet.
“W-iL,Jack, the other day I found
the .rusty can and sample in the bot
tom off our old pack that the-grizzly
tor* -up? and scattered around when he
located our. camp soon after we ar
rived .here. The crystals had been
weatadred some and were darker in
color. Gut of curiosity I tied up the
weathered sample and sent it to the
assay..office, along with a dollar bill,
but you know how it is, we have been
so busy with our new compressor and
our steel., sharpener that I never got
around to the letter. The assay office
ran it for gold and silver, and here’s
what hney reported. I got the returns
the last time I mushed in for the
mail.” With this Larry paused again
and held up a printed form which he
took from a pocket-worn envelope.
Jack glanced over, that way, .but de
cided that caribou steak was more im
portant for the time being. Hie- did
not again think of the report until the
steak was done and they were stow
" ing away large -mouthfuls of the- same
along with numerous sourdough bis
cuits, and huge tins of coffee. Then
• he saw it lying oh the- table where
Larry dud placed' it, reached over and
picking- it. up, began, to read it, care
lessly- at S-zst arid then with interest
ing interest. lie paused suddenly,, in
the act of trai sferring an enormous
steak to his plate; then he dropped
the steak, fork and all, into the plat
■ ter and jumped to-.his feet. “Twenty
fie hundred dollars in gold and fifty
one ounces of silver to the ton! I
don’t believe it!” he yelled. This was
pretty quick for- Jack, for he was
generally quite deliberate in his move
ments.
‘"The assa>- office must be right,"
put in Larry, quickly. “The assayer
ik a man of experience, and I don’t
sCe how an.\o ie could salt the sample.
I sealed it in a new canvas bag after
wrapping it in paper, and mailed it
myself!”
Jack sat. tiarn, but did not at once
resume hiS "Attack on the neglected
piece of s,aftk! “I know,” he said,
“Wiit you., 1-niow- as. well as I that we
didn’t get more than a color or two
when we panned it at the cabin on the
Old Judith. The report is impossible;
Vhe sample must have been salted,
somehow when the bear, spilled thing's
in the cahin here.”
“No,” said Larry,. “I crushed it and
tried panning it again, but didn’t get
anything. Saved the concentrates,
and that is what I sent to the assay
office. The concentrates all seemed to
be some heavy sulphide mineral."
Jack said something under his
breath, then turned to the table again
and they finished the meal in silence,
loiter the few dishes were cleaned up
and turned upside down on the table
ready for breakfast. Jack resumed the
subject. “Now, tell me,” he said,
“how could we get nothing and the
assayer get $2200 to the ton and both
be right?” He said this in a tone
which plainly showed he thought he
had tha last word for once. Here,
again, however, he was mistaken, for
Larry came back with:.
“The gold we see in the pan is free
gold. The assayer didn’t pan the sam
ple for free gold, but made a fire as
say on it. His letter says so. Now
the fire assay, I take it, gets not only
free gold but another kind, called re
fractory gold. Refractory gold is not
free milling. We cannot detect it in
the pan and we cannot catch it on ■
plates with amalgam. It is so closely
associated with arsenic and sulfur, or
lead and surfur, or copper and sulfur,
or with tellurium, that we cannot g4t;
it except by a melting process, or by
dissolving it out with some chemical.
I gathered this much in the short
course which l took at the Alaska
College.”
Nothing was said fo ra few min
utes, then Jack looked up from the
pine stick he was whittling and ob
served, in a matter-of-fact way:
“You may be right, all right, but we
are not any better off with this refrac
tory gold that we can’t pan. or amal
gamate.”
“How is that?” asked Larry, and
Jack answered: ‘We haven’t any way
<>f running our samples except by
pounding, and the Old Judith is too
far from the road to' be continually
packing out samples. If we did go in
again to that claim we would have to
go it. blind.”
“We could tell by the gray crys
tals,” replied Larry, but his partner
rejoined:
“There are lots of gray minerals.
I didn’t take the short course that you
did, but I know there is gray copper,
and arsenical pyrite, and and another
i kind of gray pyrite, and some other
j minerals like blackjack are often
i gray, especially if they are a little
! weathered.”
Larry looked thoughtfully at the
stove for a while and then said: “We
can get the assayer to determine the
mineral and give us a test for it. He
must have saved some of the sample.
If we only had a small assay outfit
we couLd make our own free assays,
because we wouldn’t be inLrested in
the low-grade ore, at least for the
present. I am sure the values are
there in the Old Judith, if we can just
find a way to make this fire assay.”
BLAZING BODY OF WOMAN
FOUND DON JERSEY ROAD
j CRANFORD, N. J,—The blazing
body of a well-dr.wsed woman, about
30 years old, was found by a.-truck
driver on' a lonely stretch of road
l early today near, the Cranford Golf
Club.
| Poliee believe the woman was
I thrown from an automobile, drenched
with gasoline after her head had been
j crushed in, and set afire.
1 Just one year and three days ago
, the body of- Miss Margaret Brawn.
40, was found burning in a lonely,
stretch of woods near Bernardsville, |
15 miles from here. The mystery of
her death was never solved.
Today the truck driver found the'
woman dead and notified police, who.
rushed to the spot and extinguished;
the blazing clothing with snow. A j
wedding ring and two diamond, rings
were on her fingers and her body was j
clothed in expensive silks.
The circumstances surrounding her:
death are almost identical to the slay-.
ing of Miss Brown, who was found,
lying in the snow behind a refresh
ment, stand .by a motorist. She was
taken to a hospital, where she died a
few hours later. Spurred on by a letr
ter in which were enclosed a §1,000
bond and a $500 bill oelonging to Miss
Brown which the slayer mailed to
Bernardsville, police authorities in
New Jersey.and New York joined in a
long but futile hunt
REPORT ON CONDITION
OF BUFFALO HERD
—
(Fairbanks News-Miner.)
A detailed report of the condition i
of the buffal oherd has been received
by Game Warden Sam O. White from.
L. I. Grimsmore at Big Delta, who ad-!
vised Mr. White by wire a. few days
ago that he had found the herd at
Ciearwater. Mr. Grimsmore’s letter f
follows:
“With regard to the buffalo, I be
lieve they will pull through in good
shape. Ed Smith at Clearwater is of
the same opinion, and Ed, by the way,:
is an old Cable man who has seen and
observed the buffalo when they were
still plentiful in the West- The higj
snowstorm, he thinks, was the reason,
foi* the animals migrating at this
time.
“I wish they could be- herded again,;
as they are getting dangerously close,
to the Indian hunting grounds, but I
do not believe this could be accom
plished by less than two men n
horw hack. Two of the animals be-1
cat -panted from the main herdj
: v.anc'i ring into Smith's yard and;
i' r ■ going up the Healy trail. Ij
think they have rejoined the herd by,
this time, though, as they were only
about one mile behind. I tracked the'
stragglers at the Little Clearwater,
about seven miles this way from the
main herd. I could not track them,
down on account of wet weather and
snowshoes playing out. I believe
1 every buffalo can be accounted for..
“They feed on grasses and buck
brush, but instead of pawing they dig
their noses into the snow and with'
sideway movementts of the head clear j
the snow away. The- average depth i
of snow up that way is a scant 18;
inchesV’
President Coolidge, on February 23,
signed the Vestal bill, under which the
Hatch-Lever act will be extended to
Alaska, enabling the Alaska Agricul
tural College and School of Mines to
share in sums appropriated under
these acts foar extension of knowledge
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TABLE OP DISTANCES BE
TWEEN NENANA AND FLAT
Miles!
Nenana . 00 j
Tavern Roadhouse . 17%
Knight’s Roadhouse . 11% j
Nineteen-Mile Roadhouse 58
Diamond Roadhouse. 76
Roosevelt .. 80
Lake Minchumina . 115
Trappers’ Cabin . 132
Lone Star Roadhouse . 150
Telida Roadhouse . 169%!
Slow Fork Roadhouse . 187'
East Fork Roadhouse .) 206 j
Berry’s Landing Roadhouse . 227% j
Big River Roadhouse. 241 i
McGrath. . . 263
Takotna . 230
Bill Goss' Roadhouse . ... 291
Ophir ...-.—. 300
McCafferty . 306
Brown Creek shelter eabia . 318
Fritz shelter cabin ... 333
First Chance shelter cabin . 346
Schermeyer R. H.... 360
Iditarod—... 376
Flat .. 384
Bonanzza sheler cabin, 12 miles
from Flat.
Crooked Creek shelter cabin, 19
1 miles front Bonanza.
i
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A. R. Eldridge - McGrath
TAKOTNA ROADHOUSE
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Where Everything Is Homelike and
Where You Are Cordially Welcomed
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