Assayer's Guide
Practical Direstions to Assayer's, Miners & Smelters
If
you were adventurous in 1849, you took a train and wagon to seek your fortune
in the California gold fields. After a lot of searching and hard work, you
staked out a claim. But how would you know if the ore you think you've found
really has much gold, or silver, or even lead? Do you send a sample back East
for analysis? Hardly. You took it to the assay office, and using primitive
techniques the assayer could tell you in a couple of days with a remarkable
degree of accuracy if your ore was valuable. So how did he do it? The secrets
are here.
This was first written in 1852 to teach people ore analysis, what we call assaying. The techniques don't use mass spectrometers or chromatographs - just simple techniques of crushing, combining and firing in a crucible. In essence the assayer smelted the sample you brought him to extract as much metal as possible.
Chapters
are short and to the point. You learn about techniques for assaying gold,
silver, platinum, copper, lead, iron, and mercury ores. And you get details
for testing gold and silver coins, and even coal. Most techniques are true
fire assays, but several use wet methods. And if you're not careful, these
processes can certainly be dangerous.
These techniques look like a natural extension of foundry work.
You don't 
need
the described furnace with a 20 foot chimney. Instead you have electricity
and can use a blower to get the necessary air blast. Anyone who has poured
metal should find much of this familiar.
Geez, that red dirt out behind the chicken coup might actually be iron ore. But how are you gonna know? Assay it.
Actually, this is a little book with primitive but usable techniques. Being inexpensive, you can study it to see if you find these techniques sufficiently interesting to try. If so, you may want to pick up later, more expensive and complicated books on assaying. (And of course, should there be enough interest, we might reprint one of them...)
Learn these techniques and imagine yourself as an California assayer in 1850 impressing the ignorant 49ers with your magical knowledge! Nuts. Forget the 49ers. Just impress your brain-dead neighbors. On the other hand be careful, they're liable to think you're some kind of a terrorist!
Get a copy and learn some long lost how-to. Interesting stuff. 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 booklet 48 pages
No. 23101 ... $7.95
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