Pan-Amalgamation : An Instructive Laboratory Experiment.

Discussion of the paper of H. 0. Hofman and C. R. Hayward, presented at the New Haven Meeting, February, 1909, and printed in Bulletin No. 30, June, 1909, pp. 513 to 529. GEORGE W. RITER, Salt Lake City, Utah (communication to the Secretary*).-In their paper, Messrs. Hofman and Hayward deal with a branch of silver metallurgy that is on very uncertain ground, both as a commercial process and as a metallurgical science; moreover, its field is limited to few localities and to peculiar conditions. The literature on the subject is incomplete and full of conflicts. The paper under discussion clears u p no disputed points; on the contrary, because of hasty generalization, its tendency is towards further confusion. In Table I., the authors assume that each test-lot of 1,800 g. of ore contained exactly 5.499 g. of silver, that any variation in the quantity of silver recovered, however slight, should be ascribed to variation in the time of grinding. It is barely possible that the ore was mixed so uniformly as to justify this assumption; but those of us who know how difficult it is to get uniform samples of any ore in which silver mineral is present in rich particles will have a doubt on this point. The unlikelihood of getting absolutely uniform test-lots of ore also reflects on the data in Table II., on the effect of varying the amount of salt in a pan-charge. The authors say " The salt series was the last one that was investigated." This again raises a question as to whether the ore was split into test-lots at the time of sampling, or whether it was kept in bulk in such a way as to permit mechanical concentration of values before the end of the experiments. The conclusion following Table II.: " There is no reason, therefore, for going beyond six per cent. of salt," is hardly to the point. If we assume that salt is of benefit only when in solution, it follows that the relation between the quantity of salt