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This
BookWebCD holds four early works on gold recovery:
The Milling of Gold Ores in
California.
by John Hays Hammond (1889)
California Gold Mill Practices.
by Edward B. Preston (1895)
The Stamp Milling of Gold Ores.
by T. A. Rickard (1897)
Practical Stamp-milling and
Amalgamation.
by H. W. McFarren
(1914)
These four books and reports describe the methods, machines, and
structures used in California to recover gold from quartz ores and from
drift mine gravels during the period 1888 to 1914.
The six
hundred pages of these four sources:
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describe the evolution of ore milling, from the mule-powered
arrastras of the Gold Rush, to the largest water- and steam-driven
stamp-mills fifty years later;
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tell
how stamp-mills were sited, laid out, and constructed to produce the
most efficient and economical gold-recovery operation;
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show
many diagrams, cross-sections, and plans of the mills;
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provide drawings of milling and amalgamating equipment, including
the stamp batteries, ore feeders, mortars, screens, trommels, and
clean-up pans;
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include drawings of various makes of amalgamators, bateas,
concentrators, mills, rock-breakers, and water wheels;
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give
detailed inventories of construction materials and supplies required to
construct a typical forty-stamp mill;
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relate
details on mill staffing, operation and costs, and indicate the ore
assays required to make a mill profitable; and
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describe retort systems for recovering gold and mercury from
amalgams.
(Parts
of the Hammond article are repeated in Preston's Bulletin.)
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