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Page: of 90
into a crusher and is ground up. ‘Then the pulverized ore
is placed upon a table and cored the same as a druggist
or chemist would core a quantity of stuff in filling a prescription. It is then cut in four quarters—each alternate
one being put in the next plate and the remainder is
thrown away. ‘Then this second quantity is cored and the
same process employed until the assayer has remaining
what will weigh up 29.0166 grams, or just about one
ounce. ‘This little bit is placed in the furnace and melted.
In the bottom of the cupel in which it is melted down the
mineral remains. In order to assay $20 to the ton this
little button of gold must be about the size of an ordinary
pin head. Half the value would be represented by a button about half that size.
Now let us employ reason in this. Anyone familiax
with the matter in which gold is deposited, its affinity for
crevices or seams in the rocks where it was probably at
some remote time deposited in solution, will realize at
once what such an assay must mean. Suppose this original piece of ore, the size of a man’s fist, had contained .
one little particle of the metal the size of a pin head.
‘Then again, suppose in coring this the assayer had thrown
away the portion containing this particle. What would be
the result? ‘The man who had the assay made would say
that there was no value in the vein. If, on the other hand,
fortune had been kind enough to have given him an assay
on the quarter or eighth that contained the particle of gold
he would have said he had a vein of $20 ore.
This is not the fault of the assayer. Even if you
were a chemist and someone should grind up a $20 gold
piece and place it in a ton of rock and then tell you to tell
him how much he had put in it, how would you go about
it to find out? Do you think you could pick up one or two
pounds from the pile containing the 2,000 pounds and tell
him how much he had placed in the pile?
m 29