Student Designs Gold Ore Machines

1915

Big Saving in Ore Refinement May Be the Result

New equipment for use of the seniors of the University of Washington, which was designed and is being built under the direction of Fred Porter, a senior will soon be installed, and with it the men will perform a series of experiments of great practical and economic value.

Two complete sets of machinery have been designed by Porter for use in fine grinding and concentration of gold ore, some of the equipment being of the same style as has been used in the Alaska, Idaho and Montana gold fields in the last few years for the purpose of experimentation. The experiments to be performed may, besides being the work necessary to constitute the thesis required to gain a degree, result in a large saving in the refinement of ore.

One of the processes to be performed will be that of flotation concentration. the process discovered by Mrs. Everson, described in these columns last week.


Plan to Interest Mechanics

Use Inventor's Tools and Gain Equity in His Patents

William L. Bessola, an experienced mechanic known to practically every one connected with mechanical departments of mines in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and who holds patents for many mechanical devices, is endeavoring to interest capitalists and others in a proposition the success of which is assured.

As a forerunner to the manufacture and of the perfected tools on a large scale it is the plan of Mr. Bessola and his associates to secure the cooperation of every user of tools that they seek to replace with the new inventions, and to this end they have permitted a number of the leading plumbers, master mechanics and men generally connected with things mechanical, to purchase equities in the exploitation company, which not only entitles them to substantial interest in that direction, but also secures for each a proportionate right in the patents which Mr. Bessola has taken out.

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 9.

Five Tons of Gold Ore Sent By Mail

Anaconda, Montana, 1914--

FIVE TONS OF ORE ARE SENT BY MAIL

BIG CONSIGNMENT COMES FROM IDAHO TO SMELTER

IN FIFTY-POUND PACKAGES

"This isn't an ore bin, it's a post office," shouts Harper as high-grade stuff is brought in -- Believe it first instance on record

What is believed to be the first instance on record of the shipment of ore by parcels post, came to light in Anaconda yesterday when part of a five-ton consignment from W. L. Wright of Elk City, Idaho, to the Washoe smelter, was received at the local post office.

Some time ago Mr. Wright wrote to Ore Buyer Warren Jenney, telling him that he had some ore he wanted sampled. Mr. Jenney replied telling him to send it by parcels post. And Wright did.

Elk City is about 20 miles from the nearest railroad. When Mr. Wright told the postmaster at that place that he was going to send the high-grade gold ore by mail, the government official was a little dubious. He wrote to Washington for advice, and was authorized to hire teams and wagons to haul the ore to the railroad.

The postage on each 50-pound package was 54 cents. Packages up to 50 pounds may be sent any place within a radius of about 150 miles, or in the second zone. Elk City, Idaho, is just inside the second zone from Anaconda. But to get the ore to this city it was necessary to send it to Lewiston, Idaho, and then to Spokane, which is in the third zone.

There are 209 of the 50-pound sacks of gold ore altogether, making a total of 10,450 pounds -- a little more than five tons. Of this, 39 sacks, or almost a ton, have already been received in Anaconda and delivered to the smelter.

--The Anaconda Standard, Anaconda, Montana, March 22, 1914, page 4.