1906 - Technology

Technology

Textile machine inventor Samuel C. Lister, 1st Baron Masham, dies at Swinton Park, Yorkshire, February 2 at age 91; gunsmith Daniel Wesson of Smith & Wesson Co. at Springfield, Mass., August 4 at age 81.

A U.S. patent issued November 6 to London-born metallurgist Henry Livingstone Sulman, 45, covers a flotation process that Sulman has developed with H. F. K. Picard for concentrating ores preliminary to extraction of their metal, grinding the crude ore to a fine powder, mixing it with water, adding frothing reagents (typically oil or fatty acids) plus collecting reagents. Blowing air through the mixture makes the mineral particles cling to the bubbles that rise from the froth while the waste material (gangue) sinks to the bottom. Sulman has worked earlier on methods (such as treatment with cyanogen bromide) for extracting gold.