NQ goldfields hosted secret cyanide mission

Two men carrying out secret experiments for the Cassel Company saw Ravenswood become the first site in Australia to use a gold extraction process that was destined to sweep the goldfields more than 100 years ago. Clipping from The Miners' Daily News in 1898. The MacArthur-Forrest Cyanide Process, first patented in 1887 in Glasgow, Scotland, changed the economics of gold ore treatment. Dr Sandra Close, a director of Melbourne-based gold mining consultants Surbiton Associates and author of two books on the gold industry in Australia, tells how Ravenswood, and then Charters Towers, took pioneering roles in the adoption of the new process in Australia. By 1888, the Cassel Company had operatives working in various parts of the world to experiment with the new MacArthur-Forrest process - including in Ravenswood. "The Cassel Company was carrying out secret experiments in their Ravenswood facility to see if the MacArthur Forrest Cyanide Process would work on locally sourced ore, and the two men that they sent to it were Peter and Duncan McIntyre," Dr Close said. "The reason the tests were secret was that the patents for the MacArthur-Forrest Cyanide Process had not been accepted in many parts of the world. And they were not accepted in Queensland, for example, until 1890." The work must have yielded success as, after the patent was granted in the colony of Queensland, the group established the Australian Gold Recovery Company, which was floated in 1891 and set up a plant in Charters Towers in 1892. Dr Close said the Cassel Company subsequently established plants around the world based on the new extraction method, but rivals followed suit and many patent battles followed. Dr Close said the technological change in processing delivered by the introduction of the MacArthur-Forrest Cyanide Process contributed to Australia's second gold boom in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The third Australian gold boom, 1982 to the present, resulted primarily from another change in processing technology - that is CIP/CIL (carbon-in-pulp/carbon in leach), plus the floating of a previously fixed gold price, she said. Surbiton Associates has recently published two books on the recent history of the redevelopment of the Australian gold industry, spanning the 40 years of the third or modern boom. This era has seen the nation's gold production rise from less than 20 tonnes to around 320 tonnes of gold annually. Dr Close has been involved in the sector for more than 50 years, with a career spanning fields including exploration geologist, resources banker, senior corporate executive and consultant. The books can be purchased from the online store at www.surbiton.com.au. The cost (including GST) is $90 for Australia’s Greatest Gold Boom and $60 for The Great Gold Renaissance. The image above is taken from a bound report of the case of the Australian Gold Recovery Company versus the Day Dawn P.C. Gold Mining Company in Charters Towers.

NQ goldfields hosted secret cyanide mission

Industry Queensland

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