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There are a set of four tailings wheels at the Kennedy Mine near Jackson California. They were erected after 1912 and were used to lift 850 tons of tailings per 24hrs to a tailings dam and treatment plant. The initial idea was to stop the tailings contaminating local rivers but later they started to recover gold from the residues. The wheels are similar to water wheels but are powered and the buckets act as scoops. It apears that wheels were used rather than pumps because centrifucal pumps at the time were not capable of handling this kind of slurry. The reason they had to lift the material to a dam rather than constucting one down slope from the mine was a lack of available land. I have a small booklet written by a local historian if you require any more details. Martin Roe ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%