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Gold/Mining/Energy : A New Age In Gold Refining -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael J. Wendell who wrote (372)	12/30/1997 10:51:00 AM
From: Henry Volquardsen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 672

Mike, I have found your insights and commentary on the dd's very useful. In one of your responses you referenced the Johnson-Lett process. You commented that the 1000 mesh required might be difficult to obtain. I followed up on this with the company. They do need 1000 mesh and say they can obtain it using high speed atritters. Yes this is expensive as it is a significant contributer to the $100 per ton processing cost. Does this sound reasonable to you? Also, if I don't post again before then, have a very happy new year. I wish you much success with Consolidated Noble and thank you for your generosity on this thread, Henry

To: Michael J. Wendell who wrote (372)	12/30/1997 12:16:00 PM
From: Kurt R.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 672

Mr. Wendell, thank you for your most informative posts. You made a recent comment about the Franklin Lake ore and the Johnson Lett technology. I it appears that you are not the only one being skeptical about the viability of grinding large amounts of ore down to 1,000 mesh. The finest mesh size mentioned in any reference book I was able to find is 325. As I understand it, mesh size is defined as the amount of openings per inch in a screen. Well, it is really hard to imagine a screen with 1000 openings per linear inch; let alone one through which you can pass tons of ore per day. Unfortunately, Naxos has not done a very good job answering previous questions on this matter. My speculation is that in the JL process, the ore might be ground in one pass only, but not screened. In this case nobody would know for sure if we are dealing with 100 mesh or 1,000 mesh. Another thought is that clay by definition is composed of particles smaller than 2 microns (is that roughly 1,000 mesh?). So by processing only the (presumably) gold bearing clay fraction of the ore, the comminution might not be a full fledged grinding process, but rather the breaking apart clusters of loosely agglomerated particles, akin to crushing a sugar cube. It would be interesting to read your opinion on this and on the JL process in general. Kurt Reschner

To: Michael J. Wendell who wrote (372)	12/30/1997 1:58:00 PM
From: Lawrence Brierley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 672

Mr. Wendell, I have been lurking and appreciating you comments from the start of this thread. You said: "The dilution effect will be 115Ft of low grade will get mixed up with 200 Ft of high grade. The dredge will run at 7,000 to 10,000 tons per hour, if it is that big. It will take a big one to get that deep. It is an attractive proposition if the process can keep up with the production.If they think they have that thickness in high grade (200Ft), they better forget what I said about proving their assays and delineating the reserve. The risk is too great to do otherwise." Naxos has obtained precious metal assay results by high temperature fire assay (albeit from non-COC samples) using a prior technique to Johnson/Lett from surface to 150' on two or three holes, and on one deep hole in Feb./96 down to 510'. Even at that depth there was no evidence that values were falling off. The Behre Dolbear COC drilling is supposed to be a series of 15 holes, each to a depth of between 250' and 500'. A further 190 holes are planned. If these results confirm a more or less uniform distribution of high levels of PMs from surface to 500 or more feet, are you saying that there would likely be a limit beyond which dredging could not be carried on, or at least would no longer be economical? If so, what would limit it? It is very thoughtful of you to take so much time on this thread. It just seems that the more you post, the more questions appear! Many thanks and only the best in '98. Lawrence