Show A new dry gold washer SPECIAL correspondence cordova dova alaska oct 8 according to old prospectors here a great deal of alaskan gold bearing territory which has been impossible of working because of the lack of water for washing the sand and gravel will now become available and possible of development by the individual prospector as a result of an invention which eliminates the necessity for water in gold panning alaska is full of locations and claims that are so far removed from water that miles of flume and ditch for the carrying ot of the fluid would be necessary at an almost prohibitive cost to the independent or individual operator and that are not of sufficient area to warrant development by big interests willing to invest some millions in a plant As things look now there is likely to be b a renewal of the gold rush of 1896 in a modified ratio the new device is a purely mechanical one that can be packed and carried in sections by two tivo men and that removes absolutely every grain of color from the sand or gravel it is the invention of a former gold seeker who first came to alaska in the rush of 1896 and who went back to the outside with a modest competency two years later its use is said also to make possible the extraction from dust from desert sands miles from any water the new machine uses nir air always available and which it is claimed will save every bit of color that water would save and do the work more expeditiously the one crank operates both machine and blower the sand and gravel are fed in at the hopper 0 on top and allowed to rundown run down the sluice quite in the same manner as in hydraulic sluicing here however the sluice itself operated by a impie eccentric is given a side shaken motion to further separate the particles and to increase the travel of dirt through it the bottom of the sluiceway contains a series of rif fles these in themselves are unique and find out the most valuable location for tion instead of projecting above the surface of the sluiceway as in the most sluice boxes they consist of a series of depressions each depressed riffle or pocket is straight across at the upper edge sloping at the sides curved at the lower borwer hedge edge and having the bottom of the pocket so formed sloping in the direction to the inclination cli nation of the sluice the metal forming the bottom of each pocket is continuous at its lower edge with that of the sluice but terminates at the upper end of the pocket at a point vertically below the upper edge 4 of the pocket the opening thus formed in un each pocket is covered with a fine wire screen under the sluiceway is a chamber airtight except for the screen covered openings of the pockets into which the ahe air is led from the blowing engine this air escaping through the upper opening in each pocket effects an agitation of the gold bearing material forcing all the lighter tuff stuff gradually to the top and this of course is allowed to run down the incline and is dumped A cleanup clean up simply means an unlocking of the riffles fiffles and the brushing out of the heavy deposit that remains in the multitude of pockets dockets the pan furnished with each machine holds approximately one twentieth of a cubic yard of gravel or in other words seven times as much as the ordinary pan this amount of material can he be run through tho the 93 A Q dry washer for gold machine in about five minutes afterwards the riffles fiffles are cleaned the deposit saved and a note taken of the location in his spare moments the prospector can compare notes and find out the most valuable location for serious work in this manner a cancan man can travel over a great stretch of ground in a remarkably mar kably short time and when completed can decide upon the spot that has been given him the most colors the advantages of this machine are obvious even to those who do not understand mining what appears to be of the most vital importance is the fact that the prospector can go anywhere and at any time without fear of not finding water this means that the countless thousands of acres of desert and arid lands known to be extremely rich in gold bearing sands yet destitute of moisture can be easily and thoroughly prospected |