Thus ending, he hastily opened the wicket, And out of the door turned the poor little cricket. IV. Though this is a fable, the moral is good: If you live without work, you will go without food. FRO Leaping like a child at play, Winding, widening through the valley, Onward ever, Lovely river, Softly calling to the sea; Time that scars us, Maims and mars us, Leaves no track or trench on thee! 2. Spring's green witchery is weaving Tinkling, plashing, Limpid, volatile and free- To be buried In the bitter, moon-mad sea. 3. In thy crystal deeps, inverted, Like those wavering hopes of Aidenn Here and ponder Hither poetry would dream; Life's old questions, Sad suggestions, "Whence and whither ?" throng thy stream. 4. On the roaring wastes of ocean, Down the sloping paths of Time! Lovely river, Softly calling to the sea; Time that scars us, Maims and mars us, Leaves no track or trench on thee! SAM. L. SIMPSON. LESSON IX. A NEVADA QUARTZ-MILL. PART FIRST. A măl'gam ate, to mix or com- Charged, prepared. Chem'ie al, pertaining to that science which treats of the composition of substances, and the changes they undergo. Cŏn'di ment, seasoning; as, pepper, mustard. Ae eu'mu la'tions, gather- Freight'ed, filled; loaded. ings. HE young man who sets out in this commercial THE age with the worldly lust of wealth in his heart, ought to take his first lesson in a Nevada quartz-mill. It is hard enough to get money even after it has been poured into the lap of Trade as stamped and glittering coin; but to appreciate its value properly one must know something of the dangers and difficulties involved in its original rescue from rock and soil. I had already learned how hard, and long, and dismal a task it is to burrow down into the bowels of the earth and get out the coveted ore; and now I learned that the burrowing was only half of the work, and that to get the silver out of the ore was the dreary and laborious other half of it. 2. We had to turn out at six in the morning, and keep at it till dark. The mill in which we worked was a six-stamp affair, driven by steam. Six tall, upright rods of iron (the stamps), as large as a man's ankle, and heavily shod with a mass of iron and steel at their lower ends, were framed together like a gate, and these rose and fell, one after the other, in a ponderous dance, in an iron box called a "battery." 3. Each of these rods, or stamps, weighed six hundred pounds. One of us stood by the battery all day long, breaking up masses of silver-bearing rock with a sledge, and shoveling it into the battery. The ceaseless dance of the stamps pulverized the rock to a powder, and a stream of water that trickled into the battery turned it to a creamy paste. 4. The minutest particles were driven through a fine wire screen which fitted close around the battery, and were washed into great tubs warmed by superheated steam-amalgamating pans they are called. The mass of pulp in the pans was kept constantly stirred up by revolving mullers. 5. A quantity of quicksilver was always kept in the battery, and this seized some of the liberated gold and silver particles and held on to them. Quicksilver was also shaken in a fine shower into the pans about every half hour, through a buckskin sack. 6. Quantities of coarse salt and sulphate of copper were added from time to time, to assist the amalgamation by destroying the base metals which coated the gold and silver, and would not let them unite with the quicksilver. All these tiresome things we had to attend to constantly. 7. Streams of dirty water flowed always from the pans, and were carried off in broad, wooden troughs to the ravine. One would not suppose that atoms of gold and silver would float on the surface of six inches of water, but they did; and, in order to catch them, coarse blankets were laid in the troughs, and little, obstructing ripples, charged with quicksilver, were placed here and there across the troughs also, to catch the gold and silver. 8. These ripples had to be cleaned, and the blankets washed out every evening, to get their precious accumulations; and still, after all this eternity of trouble, one third of the silver and gold in a ton of rock would find its way to the end of the troughs in the ravine, at last, and have to be worked over again some day. 9. Every now and then, during the day, we had to scoop some pulp out of the pans and wash it tediously in a horn spoon, wash it little by little over the edge, till at last nothing was left but some little, dull globules of quicksilver in the bottom. 10. If these tiny globules were soft and yielding, the pan needed some salt or sulphate of copper, or some other chemical condiment, to assist digestion. If they were crisp to the touch and would retain a dint, they were freighted with all the gold and silver they could seize and hold, and consequently the pans needed a fresh charge of quicksilver. |