Show IGREEN It I RIYBRGULll BARS I Bennett Amalgamator is Ii Now in Successful Operation f FINE GOLD IS SAVED h t The Enterprise Indicates Increased In-creased Activity All Along the Green River t WORK GOING STEADILY ON i I It Alay Result in Revolutionizing Placer liming The Plant Cost Sixty Thousand Dollars o Dol-lars Detailed Description of It i I Cost of Operating and Values of the Dirt CasM Kite Gives Hill F Opinion of the Project V Xevr IrrJBration SchemeOil Wells Are L FlOWing i t Green Rivers golden sands promise from now on to yield treasure at a rate that will astonish even those who I are familiar with placer mining Latter day men and measures have successfully solved the problem of l handling cheaply arid in quantity the i gold bars that abound along the Green J river for hundreds of miles and extract ex-tract from them gold in such proportion propor-tion as will make the investment of I capital very lucrative with the prospect pros-pect of revolutionizing placer mining The statement is not overdrawn It has been demonstrated and the first I t fine finish of the test has been within I the confines of the new state of Utah f r of it so thoroughly that not even the faintest color of gold could by any means accompany the debris Tis there the gold parts company with all that hid it from man down through all the ages REVOLVING SEPARATOR The cylinder revolving separator I that makes such havoc with the gold bearing gravel is submerged in water within the tank It is eight feet long and nine feet in diameter and capable of turning out four cubic yards in I five minutes when taxed to the maximum I maxi-mum This cylinder is a marvel of I mechanical construction consisting as I it does Of an innner and outer screen each provided with an Archimedian I screw ending up with discharge falling through the vat i to one side I and the other oll the amalgamated plates which are formed into peculiarly j shaped riffles and pockets with which the material must come In contact 600 times prior to its exit 1 In the course of its travel the material ma-terial gets twelve severe scourings through the action of the jets and also twelve opportunities to gravitate J in still water It also passes over 011 into 600 peckers provided with mercury and and about an equal number of i hiding places Itis well known that i gold and mercury both have propensi 1 ties for seeking hiding places when in motionthe old pan process has demonstrated this to the placer miners II enrichment in the days gone by The sides of the great tank are lined with plates to catch the gold They I are made of copper coated with silver and charged with quicksilver They are formed in U shape and every I other one is doubled in an inverse ratio thus insuring a secure hiding place for the fine gold being so mercilessly I 1 threshed about Should it escape one of the double plates it must necessarily be caught in the next plate charged with mercury Of such surface in the great tank there one 1000 feet surface of such plates the aggregate weight being 2000 pounds and costing 5000 There are three patents on these plates r t II I It C f H t M I i 2 r I I I i I fL tji i tj i t I 1 S I r 5 = sf 1 d 1 l 1 Bennett Plant Viewed from Across the River On Line of R G W Railway i which means an added and soon to be i active development of the many rich t placer properties in the Green River country i The Herald was the first and only paper j pa-per that dispatched a representative to the bars now being so successfully I worked on the river at a point seven l miles below Green River station on > the line of the Rio Grande Western railway the time being last December I I Decem-ber and when the thirteen car loads of machinery comprising the great plant that was shipped from Denver was being hauled by slow and laborious I fJ labor-ious process to the bars selected for operations op-erations At that time this paper gave a detailed statement of forthcoming tV operations as clearly as might be Two If q months later its representative again visited the site Operations had not H begun as there was yet much to do in 11 I detail ere would he heard the busy f hum of machinery betokening the dawn of a new life in plater minim B 11 1 STARTED UP LAST WEEK During the past week operations commenced and so soon as they did II The Herald representative visited the section for the third time making the i Jong and arduous trip embracing 186 l miles by rail and seven miles by private t pri-vate conveyance down the river thence across by boat over the river that was J swollen from melting snows in the mountains At the point where crossed it is 700 feet in width and with an upstream 4 up-stream gale blowing and the waves I I three feet high there was some silght A danger attending the passage of a 1 frail boat this for the benefit of others who c line after us In the party was the well known placer mining experts Cass HUe and A B Hower of this city who was special photographer and secured a t number of fine views that clearly convey con-vey to the observer the scale of operations oper-ations being conducted I i THE VIEW IS INSPIRING Th view is inspiring when one stands upon the opposite side of the river and is confronted with a large power house built securely on bed rock 1 above the high water mark the while from a great smokestack is belched 4 forth clouds of black smoke and the whirr of machinery goes ceaselessly onTo H on-To theleft and sheltered securely under un-der the brow of the bluff may be seen ten enow white tents comfortable domiciles dom-iciles for those who abide there A IJrie of poles stretches away to the right from the power house on which are strung the heavy copper wires that give life to the great machine continuously contin-uously working its way through the gravel bed There where but < a a short tlne ago was heard only the swish of the river and the howl of the coyote i vnow given to the hum of an industry thit srpealcs for itself reared at a cpst ot raorerihan 60000 gjQ T4H > PAIlK MINING COMPANY c Thfe South Park Mining company Is J v j T the name of the corporation doing business bus-iness on the Green river bars and they intended at first to work in the South Park region in Colorado Afterwards Af-terwards they concluded to operate in Utah owing partly to the fact that the seasons in Utah admitted of much steadier operations than in Colorado a point not to be lost eight of as so vast a plant is intended to foe worked every day in the year that may be Again the richness of the Green river bars appealed to them and taken asa as-a whole was the means of making Utah the base of operations THE PLANT The Bennett amalgamator is manufactured manu-factured in Denver by the Bennett Amalgamator company and the plant was shipped to Green river last December De-cember it taking thirteen cars in all to haul it The power house is 76 by 24 feet solidly built on the bed rock above high water mark It is equipped with two eighty horse power boilers and the engine en-gine is a high speed automatic The Edison dynamos are 120 horse power There is a double Worthington pump with a capacity of 2000 gallons per minute that forces the water from the river to the amalgamator 800 feet distant dis-tant through a twelveinch pipe To provide clear water for the boilers when the river is high and muddy a well has been sunk near the waters edge and then a tunnel run out for fifty feet under the river This insures a supply of clear water at all times The boiler feed pump is placed down in this well The smokestack is sixty seven feet in height and gives a most excellent draught There are guages that register everything accurately One guage of the Edison system registers the am peremetres up to 160 Another is of the Bains patentdirect current volt me tre of 14700 ohms and registers up to 600 volts There is another Bains patent direct current ampere metre that registers up to 100 Everything is of the latest and most approved patent and the engineer at the power house knows from reading the guage just I how the power is being manipulated by the motorneer handling the current at the other end of the line Number 2 copper wire is used to convey the power and on the same poles is strung a signal wire that instructs in-structs the engineer when need be The Voltage used is but 500 MACHINE WEIGHS SEVENTY TONS The machine weighs seventy tons when empty It requires its own specially constructed railway having a guage of eight feet and laid with seventyfive pound steel rails It I I moves backward and forward by its own power and responds lo the electric I I elec-tric current as readily and easily as does a locomotiveIn fact it responds more readily as the power is instantaneous instan-taneous It has a length of eighty feet overall over-all when theMipper is at its greatest mean extension The frame is composed com-posed of two steel beams each forty feet in length and twenty inches wide resting on standard car trucks There are also steel cross beams twelve feet in length provided on each end with powerful jacks that tend to brace and thus give a twelve foot base for the machine to do its work upon These I II I cables the one that lifts is onehalf inch by six inches wide and the one that crowds the dipper out is of the same dimensions DELIVERING THE GRAVEL When the motorneer fills the dipper the cab is made to revolve around with it until the dipper comes directly over the hopper A heavy spring stop is provided that causes the load to dump and the rebound starts it back again So soon as the gravel is dumped within the hopper it is fed to thegreat wheel that churns and washes every particle I r I j el v 1 r 2 4 S I r I tilL 1 H 77 llW L I 11 ie < 1 1 t Side View of Bennett Amalgamator Dumping Lead in Hopper buckets which deliver the washed gravel by way of a heavy steel cone into the carrier The carrier is thirty five feet long four feet wide t and consists of an endless chain of sheet steel buckets traveling on a track upper up-per and lower side The capacity of such carrier is four cubic yards per minute THE TANK CONSTRUCTION The tank is twentyseven feet long twelve feet wide and is made of one quarter inch boiler steel Its cross and twentytwo on the machine FINER DEBRIS WASHED OUT I The finer debris is driven to the rear of the tank and washed out through the 12inch discharge pipe by means of a 72inch toiling elevator wheel The action of > the jets in the bottom of the tank carries the sand to the rear thus necessitating such cleaning wheel CAB AND DIPPER BOOM The cab and dipper boom is swung on a mast made of onehalfinch steel I 1 s i 1 6 1 Y 6 > 7 t ILL zb7 L 3 7 nt I z4 c 7 < Bennett Amalgamator at Work as seen from rear < jacks also serve another purpose as they lift the entire madhlne clear of its working track when backed up and ready to be moved and over started in on another swath It is provided with sets of transverse sand s-and when a transverse trUQk is run under these the seventy tons of machinery ma-chinery moves sideways as easily as the other way and but little time is consumed in the change The dipper holds three and onethird cubic yards and has a cutting capacity of fiftyfive feet Irom rimtoirim of the excavation It is qalRUlaJed to make two trips per minute The i dipper dip-per Is operated by crucible steel J 4 < section represents the letter W and is provided with a series of jets at the bottom of each valley through which I all the water employed enters These jets are furnished with water from the river by a Worthington pump at the power house and forced through the 800 feet of twelve inch pipe and through flexible connections to the tank By flexible connections is meant rubber hose that admits of the machine ma-chine being moved forward without further adjustment of the pipe line to correspond By means of these jets the washed material is forced upward and forward i for-ward and on one side and the other I t 0 1 < c W formed into a cone 4 feet at base 15 inches at top and 12 feet high From the top of such cone on a 4 ½ Inch spindle is suspended the upper end of the boom iby two cables and the thrust is relieved on these cables by the 20 ton springs concealed in a streel crosshead cross-head The boom weighs complete 7500 pounds The cylinder that grinds and so completely works the gravel weighsu10OSO pounds and can be readily read-ily lifted by the boom in and out of place j1 j CAPACITY OF MACHINE The capacity of the Bennett amalgamator amalga-mator howin operation is from 2000 to 4000 cubic yards per day of twenty Ii fQur hours Under favorable conditions i condi-tions if will handle 4000 yards The I Herald man timed the work and found it handling 150 cubic yards per hour or I 3600 cubic yards for the twentyfour il hours and In gravel from the smallest i size up to that of an average watermelon j I water-melon I THE LABOR THAT IS REQUIRED I The labor that is required consists of t three laborers and the motorneer i the machine besides an engineer and r I fireman at the power house This is I exclusive of a superintendent The I plant as described is the smallest size manufactured There are two larger I sizes one rated at 4000 cubic yards and the other rated at 8000 cubic yards per day of twentyfour hours BARS NOW BEING HANDLED The bars now being handled contain at least 10 cents per yard and are being be-ing worked at a cost not to exceed 3 cents per yard It will be seen from this the revenue that accrues The gravel beds are 12 feet in depth and on the bed rock are now and then to be encountered boulders weighing from two to three tons How are they handled han-dled Easily enough After being loosened the motorneer handles the dipper to such perfection that he can reach out for them and pick them up at will when he gets them balanced on the dipper and lo he swings them to one side and out of the waythats how ARCHIMEDIAN SCREW WHEEL The archimedian screw wheel that does the work has four discharge openings open-ings This because there is an inner and outer wheel all combined Two of the openings discharge the fine gravel and its action too discharges the larger stones some of them as large as a half bushel measure The wheel makes eight revolutions per minute REDUCED COST BY WATERPOWER WATER-POWER The Bennett amalgamator can be operated op-erated at a much lower cost when run by water power as the consumption of coal cuts some figure Coal now costs them 275 per ton on board the cars at Green River and the cost of hauling haul-ing it down the river is considerable in itself The river cannot now be forded by teams from this side and the South Park Mining company is putting up a strong wire cable that is 800 feet in length for the purpose of carrying coal across by the basket system THE GOLD IS BEING SAVED For months past the outside world has been agog over the prespective operations op-erations of the great Bennett amalgamator amalga-mator on Green river Would it save the fine gold and in quantity That was the question For days and even weeks past certain cer-tain papers have been announcing that the Bennett machine was at work and that gold was being taken out all the way from 5500 to 5000 per day It was simply rot Nothing of the kind wash was-h 1 4 h ucmg uuuc jxii Liie pmni was iiui lit operation except for an hour or so at a time to limber up its joints No clean up has been made nor will there be for weeks to come It is not necessary neces-sary All the gold saved will be retained re-tained in the machine until such time as a clean up is in order For information of The Herald exclusively ex-clusively Mr Bennett ceased work sufficiently suf-ficiently long to draw off the water from the work and after the plates were washed off by a hose The Herald Her-ald representative and Cass Hite were invited to go within the tank and inspect in-spect them We inspected them and it must be said that every one of ithe plates showed gold in coating upon them The lower plates showed more than the upper ones according to the natural law governing gol l in gravitation gravita-tion Some of the plates were handed us for inspection and with the finger nail we scraped it along the plates it was there The bulk of it was down in the V shaped bottom of the pan on either side and of course not visible visi-ble without going through a clean up process But the machine is saving the gold without a doubt and all there 4s of it the all important point No more experienced placer miner than Cass Hite can be found in this western country and to the writer he gave his views on the train homeward bound HpIs thorougnly conversant with early history as well as with latter lat-ter day methods in placer mining I Mr Rite said With thirty years of J q i i c > IIB experience in placer mining having been engaged in that particular industry I indus-try from the pan and rocker up to hydraulic hy-draulic work in every phase a goodly portion of that time and having tested very many of the devices for saving I fine gold and examining many others studying the business of handling water and gold bearing gravel in all its multiform character and having watched with a great deal of interest the progress of the Bennett amalgamator amalgama-tor and placer machine I unhesitatingly unhesitating-ly pronounce it a complete success By that I do not mean that some little improvements can not be made which will result from actual practical working work-ing of the machine In the beginning gold was first picked pick-ed up by some ancient and on account of its weight color ductility maleabil ity scarcity etc it along with its natural partner silver became used first for ornaments then for barter Placer gold was the first used and mined for the reason that in those days the drill hammer and dynamite was not dreamed of It being the easiest I easi-est to obtain because of its gravity It was the worlds supply of gold up to about 300 years ago when the first rock mining commenced along the western base of the Ural mountains in EuroDe The first placer gold mining in the United States on the Atlantic coast was less than 100 years ago and was done along the Appalachian range through Virginia Carolina and Georgia Geor-gia But the first gold mining ever done in any part of the United States was done by the early Spaniard about the year 155Ga decade after the conquest con-quest of the Santa Fe country As to exact dates It is not now known but about that time the Spaniards mined with Indian captives in the Jiccarillos Cimmaron and the Manzanares in New Mexico over two centuries ago The Spaniards from the Santa Fe country during their incursions north and west from Santa Fe and before they had discovered Este Laguna Salada Grande the Great Salt Lake mined oro fino on the Colorado river in Utah and above its confluence with the San Juan The placer gold supply from the Colorado Colo-rado basin under the SDaniards is clouded by so much tradition that data is impossible to reach but is supposed from the best information obtainable to have been small as they worked with the most crude appliances a wooden bowl or gold pan called a batia and the most expert panner could not have treated over one cubic yard a day They did with the peons and Indian slaves a good deal of work fifty cents a day and even less being satisfactory to them SIn Carbarrus county North Caro lina in 1803 a British soldier by the name of John Reed who settled on Meadow Creek during the revolution picked out of that stream a 28pound nugget and carried it home where it was used to hold open the doors Reeds wife induced him to carry it to Fayetteville Fay-etteville A jeweler sent Mrs Reed a calico dress and two pounds of coffee for it and it is claimed there that it pas thE fit < Cnnir u very v-ery of gold in the United States Coarse gold is easily saved by the most ordinary sluice and caught by any kind of riffle but fine river and flower gold is more difficult to save Quicksilver being largely used where conditions are favorable but the placer miner is often beset with great difficulty when using quicksilver the gold often being corroded with mineral substances and the slightest oily na ture of the water fouls the quicksilver and gold is lost The grizzly and burlap gives the best satisfaction where the conditions are against the use of quicksilver The treatment the gravel by the Bennett machine is certainly complete A careful examination of it last Friday Fri-day while in operation conclusively demonstrated that the gravel going into the great hopper at the rate of 2 ½ cubic yards per minute passed into the big revolving screen where every boulder gravel and all the gold is thoroughly scoured washed and cleaned clean-ed and the concentrates pass into the most elaborate amalgamator that was ever constructed by human hands and brains One ton of copper plates plated with silver and charged with kui ksilver scientifically arranged with innumerable pockets of quick is I ready > to receive the finest gold that exists A number of water jets entering enter-ing the amalgamator from the bottom agitates the water and concentrates in such a manner that all gold which does not secrete in the pockets is forced against the plates about 2000 times before the rest of the concentrates concen-trates passes away thus rendering it impossible to lose any gold no matter how fine A hard wind dust and sand storm was raging during our visit and the plant was working at great disadvantage disadvant-age but by actual time the great shovel handled about 2 cubic yards per minute of dirt worth from 10 to 20 cents a yard by pan tests and the amalgamator will get more than thai Ten millions of cubic yards lie in one body on the Tickaboo Bar on the Colorado Colo-rado river worth 1 per yard and the Bennett machine could sack up dust fast at the rate of two or three yards per minute with ample water power to generate the electricity The Bennett plant means a great deal for the almost endless gold bearing gravel along the streams of the great Colorado basin in Utan It is the most i stupendous and elaborte machine for pacer mining ever built Too much praise for the brain energy enthusiasm and success of Mr E S Bennett cannot can-not be accorded for he is saifely placed along side of the great benefactors of the worlds treasuries NOT A STOCK COMPANY As previously announced by The Herald Her-ald the South Park Mining company and Its promoters who are so cour ageouslyhandling the enterprise on the Green river bars are in no way engaged in selling stock to carry on operations Nothing but cold cash is behind it and they have come to Utah simply to extract gold from the bars that abound along that river This shows that the people behind it have confidence confi-dence in the i new method as described NUMBER OF MACHINES ORDERED Mr E S Bennett the inventor has tW jiW been a resident of Denver for twenty i two years and for the greater number of those has been at work figuring on a plant that would handle large quantities quanti-ties of gravel and save the fine gold Even now he admits that his note book 1 is filled with notes suggestive of improvements im-provements not on the saving method but on principles of speed in handling the machine For instance where he now uses screw jacks in raising the ponderous mass he will herafter usa a quick action jack and so on to insure in-sure greater speed in all its workings Is Is now at work building two more i machines at his plant in Denver and has orders on his book for eleven more 1 A NEW YORK MAN CONDUCTING IT Within the past few days D W Spencer Spen-cer of Batavia N Y has been sent on to act as superintendent Mr Bennett Ben-nett is still on the ground and will remain to personally supervise until the first of the month when he will turn It over to the new sunerintendent Mr Edwards is the motorneer of the plant and has become strongly familiar with all the working detailsso much so that he can toss out his hat and with a deft touch of the levers within the lobe reach out with the dipper and pick it up free of gravel MISCELLANEOUS NOTES t The Green river sand bars are above par right now Indications are that the coming season sea-son will witness more Bennett machines ma-chines down the river It is said on the q t that parties up in Idaho are contracting for just such machines to work the fine Snake river gold I A new and lm > roved ferry boat is being built at Green River station foe the increased traffic M H Beardsley now has charge oC the Palmer house at Green River Mrs Phelan of Ogden is managing It and the meals set up are par excellence i The genial and wholesouled Charlie Farnsworth of Green River does alii the piloting and hauling of passengers through that country and will neglect his private business at any time to take people about that country The Herald thanks him for never falling it when assistance was needed j The oil wells four miles below Green I River which have heretofore been described de-scribed by The Herald exclusively are showing up remarkably well The shaft is now down 40 feet and some tunnel ing has been done along the seams A J load of the oil is now awaiting shipment ship-ment to Salt Lake It is learned that a diamond drill has been sent for to prosecute the work and most any day now a gusher is liable to be tapped j There were Darties at Green River last week looking over the country with a view of launching a vast irrigation < irri-gation scheme and from all appearances appear-ances the canal will be a go ExAgent T H Fyke who resigned some time ago at that place Is still basking in sunny climes and is evidently j evi-dently casting an anchor to windward on business propositions j I RAY RAYMOND |