10/20/2006:
Engineers were sifting flour, but it wasn’t the usual flour that is produced from North Dakota’s golden wheat fields. Instead, engineers were sifting for flour gold in the fields between Towner and Balfour, and the process was proclaimed successful today in 1934.
The area where the gold was being mined had been part of a glacial lake that stretched from Devil’s Lake to Scobey, Montana, and up into Canada, and gold was found in the three separate strata of the bed. Attempts had been made to mine this gold for several years, but there hadn’t been a process of mining it at low enough cost to return a profit. This is mainly due to the large amount of earth that would have to be handled in order to recover the fine particles of gold.
Under Rich’s supervision and the financial support of a group of Minot men who formed the First North Dakota Placer Mining syndicate, however, steps were taken to try and develop such a process. An experimental plant had been in operation between Towner and Balfour throughout the week to try and separate the powdery gold from the sand and gravel. The sand was put through a vibrator and screen and placed in settling tanks. The finer particles were treated with both mercury (amalgamation) and cyanide (cyanidation) to expose the precious metal. “The result was gold,” reported the Minot Daily News, “but gold sufficient to satisfy observers that the system is proven.” According to Rich, the tests of soil so far have yielded anywhere from 10 cents to 40 dollars per ton, “conservatively.”
The Mining syndicate plans to establish a portable plant that would separate the fine gold from the slime and black sands of the glacial drift. The plant, reported the Minot Daily, would have a sand and gravel pump that would bring material from any reasonable depth to the screen and vibrator. From there, the material would be separated by 50 different screens to reduce the material to a smaller amount. “The next step is the settling,” said the Minot Daily, “which is done in special tanks, and then the removal of the sediment from the bottom of the tanks. Then the residue is pumped thru the combination process perfected by Rich which includes the welding of tiny particles into coarser units which gives them sufficient weight to be amalgamated.” After that area had been exhausted, the plant would be moved to another location.
Rich said, however, a larger plant was needed to return a profit, and this was one of the few things standing in the way of beginning a multi-billion dollar industry in North Dakota. “There are literally thousands of acres of gold bearing sands in the glacial drift,” reported the Minot Daily, “with literally billions of dollars in new wealth available.”
Written by Tessa Sandstrom
Source: “Problem of Golf Recovery thot solved in Towner field,” Minot Daily News. Oct. 20, 1934: 1..