Show Treatment of Silver Ores In Mexico Colonel Winslow of Guerrero says hat in the neighborhood of all the mines in Mexico there are haciendas de beneficio or works for extracting the silver from he ore The buildings are generally about 300 feet long and at the back there is a courtyard In front there is generally gener-ally a large doorway for entrance where nobody ia allowed to enter without pre ious psrmission The hacienda is man aged by an administrator who has his officials and clerks and directs the establishment ishment The peons or workmen gain from three shillings to four shillings a day and are paid off at the end of each week The ore a it is brought from the mine is in large pieces and these are piled up in the courtyard m a huge pile They are in the first place put into an inclosed box and pounded to pieces by immense wooden pounders armed at the end with iron pestes which are lifted up by arms connected with an axle which is turned by mules The end of these arms lit into a notch in the pestles and lift them up a certain distance dis-tance and then the end of the arm slips out of the notch and the iron pestle falls down with au immense force upon the mineral and crushes it into small pieces These fall down upon a sieve made of hide and the smaller pieces fall down through the holes in the sieve and tho larger pieces are thrown back under the pestles to be again crushed There are several of these pestles in a straight line connected with the same axle and they are lifted up alternately After the ores ore-s pounded to pieces in the mortars it passes to the mills which consist of around round vat placed on a level with the floor where the metal is ground up into a fine mud water being added by means of three heavy and hard granite stones of an oblong shape which are tied to the arms connected with a revolving axle turned by a mule which walks round in a circle blindfolded Into holes made in the stones sticks are introduced and these are connected by means of ropes or chains to the re olving arms There are several of these circular vats all situated in a line in along a-long room each worked by a mule blindfolded called tahones and folded These are caled talonesJ the crest polo in the middle the peon with two arms of wood from which ard suspended the heavy stones called metapiles or crushers From here there the-re which has the appearance of mud is irown out into the courtyard which has a floor well made of hard cement or tone and here are added quicksilver and salt in a liquid state or caldo a it is called I is thus left in the open air exposed ex-posed to the heat of the sun some twenty or thirty days and is stirred up every day or two by the feet of men and homes who walk found in a circle until the quicksilver and the salt are well incorporated orporated with the ore When this process pro-cess is completed the mud thus washed is called torta de lama i After the ore is thus worked brought to a proper state it goes to the lavadero or washing place which i a round vat wahinj wood and stone where the ilver is separated from the earth and sivers here is where the tortas de lama are taken rom the yard and here remains after the mud is washed out what is called the plain pina or amalgamated silver is then into stout can This amalgam thln put stut cn yes bags and submitted to a heavy va bag pressure to get rid of the mercury and afterward it goes to the furnace where the silver is purified of all foreign sub ances There is an additional process which is pursued with certain kinds of ores After the mineral has been exposed to the sun in the patio or courtyard it is transferred tofttfd planillo which is a inclined plane in the open air having a solid stone floor about sixty feet long and twenty feet wide At the foot of this sit tiS a number of nearly naked men who are engaged in throwing water gradually on the mass of mud by means of pieces of ox born so that the mud flows off and runs outside the yard into a ditch and the silver with some mud is left at the foot of the inclined plane After this process the greater part of the mud has been removed and only a small portion remains which contains the silver This mud is then taken to a room on the second sec-ond floor where it is placed in i the crisOf a large round iron boiler with fire underneath water is added and it is stirred up by means of revolving arms worked by a mule and the remaining re-maining mud flows off only a small portion por-tion remaining The rest of the process consists in removing the remaining substance sub-stance to theamalgamating roomwhere quicksilver is added which unites with the silver in tharnnd anjjjhBLK frthpr thenudl lhe quicksilver i left united with the silver This is fur therpnrified in the furnace and thesil verruns off into moulds and is then sent t the mint at San Louis Potosi to be coined Scientific American |