Dear All
I am coming a bit late to this discussion. So I may be going over old information.
The Life and Work of the Northern Lead Miner by Arthur Raistrick and Arthur Roberts, 1984, 1990, ISBN 0-86299-826-3, published by Alan Sutton Publishing Inc, has a good summary in the introduction on "ore dressing" of lead ores in the nineteenth century.
One of the photograhic plates on pg 67 shows the Rodderhope Fell Mill, illustrating " The Wifley tables for reprocessing middlings from the jigs. Material was spread by a diagonal stream of water, as the table was rhythmically shaken. Galena , zinc blende, middlings and waste ran into different bands, and were collected by troughs under the edge." The photograph is attributed to the collection of A Raistrick, with a negative number of 15384, a copy of which may be obtainable from the archive at the Beamish Open Air Museum.
Regards
Gavin Bowyer
-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard Moore <[log in to unmask]>
To: mining-history <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tue, Jul 5, 2011 7:34 pm
Subject: Re: Lead/Zinc dressing
Dear All,
t is interesting to note that one of the Cwm Heisian mines built a Plant
or gold, but it was, seemingly, at the end of the day, more successful in
ecovering the zinc from the lode! (about 23 tons resulted - it is
nteresting to note they received a bit more for that ore than was normal for
he
ay) - not quite the success that the Dirs. and shareholders wanted... but
here we go!
t is my firm belief that - anywhere pre 1890 - the only way to achieve a
ood product was by hand sorting. The only way beyond this was by jigs
edicated firstly to lead, so to remove as much of that product as possible,
nd secondly jigs to take the zinc. Therefore, in the first instance little
vidence of lead there will be: in the second, well, there should be
egligible lead and less of zinc. A somewhat thankless task, and not easy to
nterpret, since all will depend on how successful the plant was and how good
he Floor Mgr. managed the process.
egards, Bernard
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