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snv002186-032
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University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Libraries

The Nevada Goldfield Reduction CompanyONE of the most interesting and instructive sights of Goldfield is the mammoth mill and sampling plant recently erected by the Nevada-Goldfield Reduction Company, of which W. L. Dowlen is vice-president and general manager. This mill is something of which Goldfield is immensely proud. It has been erected by a French syndicate which has operated in every section of the world where mining is carried on. The men who compose it believe firmly in the future of the Goldfield District. Their plant has been erected at a cost of $250,000. It is undoubtedly the largest and best equipped plant in all Nevada.The president of the company is M. Edouard Riondel, a banker of Paris, who conducts an international system with seven branch establishments. He is likewise heavily interested in the mining and milling industries of Northern America, owning two smelting plants, a concentration plant, and several mines in British Columbia.J. E. Harrington, also of Paris, and M. Dowlen, with M. Riondel, form the directory of the company: Under M. Dowlen's direction is a staff which is inferior to none in this country. Every man is an expert in his department.The superintendent, Mr. E. S. Leaver, was for years in charge of the Salt Lake laboratory of the Charles Butters Company, Ltd. Mr. Leaver has also been connected with the San Salvador mine of Central America, the Tuscarora of this State, and the Butters plant of Virginia City. The purchasing and sampling departments are in the hands of Charles Woores, a man of great experience in this line.The workings of this mill, with its daily capacity of 500 tons of ore, is of immense interest to all interested in mining. A railroad spur leads from the Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad to the works. At a point 100 yards from the entrance, the cars are turned loose from the engine and run by gravity into the plant and over the scales. Passing the scales, the ore is dumped into bins, which in turn empty automatically into a McCully crusher. From the crusher the rock is raised to a tower ninety-three feet high in a fourteen-inch elevator. The buckets are placed eighteen inches apart on a belt of rubber and canvas intertwined. In the tower the ore is emptied into an automatic sampler, which segregates one-tenth of the mass and drops it to the ground level. Here it enters a great roller, which reduces it to the quarter-inch size. Entering a smaller elevator of the same pattern it is raised again to the tower, where it enters a smaller sampler and is again divided. Nine-tenths of the mass goes into the bins with the first lot. The balance drops through a six-inch pipe into the sampling room. One side of this room is lined with windows, through which the owner of the ore can view the sampling from the moment it drops through the pipe. It is fed automatically through a smaller crusher and then by hand to one of a still smaller size. This machine divides it into two portions, one of which is rejected. From this machine it is run through a grinder and reduced to pulp. Of this, one-fourth is sealed and delivered to the owner. The remainder, in three portions, is sealed and handled by the company. In the meanwhile, the mixture for milling has been made and passed into the next building, where, after lifting to the tower it is shot under the stamps.