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Show EDISON PERFECTS PLAN FOR EXTRACTING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN GOLD FROM LOW-GRADE GRAVEL BEDS '; " Q'' . NEW YORK, April 29. Thomas A. Edison has a scheme for extracting the untold billions of dollars' worth of gold that lie in the immense "low grade" gTarel quart beds in Lower California, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah and northern Mexico. They cannot now .be .- worked because the old-fashioned placer hydraulic system is lacking, and the gold runs in too small a quantity to the ton to make mining it J profitable under other systems. An air blast is employed by Mr. Edison in his solution of the problem to separate the gold from the mass. ' The system, it is claimed, has now reached a working basis. Experiments on the desert near Santa Fe by .Floyd M. Chapman, one of Mr. . Edison's assistants, have enabled Mr. Edison and Mr. Chapman to produce a machine which they declare will reclaim' 90 per -cent of the gold from the gravel. In hydraulic mining it was thought remarkable if 75 per cent of the gold was washed out. One man, it is stated, can - , run scores of separators. The gravel is first dug out of the ground with a steam shovel; conveyors then carry it to sieves that separate it S into particles of uniform size. Each separator is designed to handle gravel of a .certain size, and the gravel is' automatically distributed j ..to the hopper of its proper machine. The gravel falls through a .narrow slit before a rotary blower, which drives a full blast of air against the falling gravel. The gold being heavier, falls to the bottom of the machine, but all of the lighter gravel and sand is blown into a sepa- . ..rate apartment' r , .' ' '-4 k : .' - -.- , i - .ii'i i iij ii, ,i i |