Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1883 — Band Power. [ARTICLE]

Band Power.

The Mexican arastra has always been a cheap and inexpensive method of extracting placer gold from our canons, but some power was necessary. Mules and burros were used, and sometimes Indian power, but now a new discovery has been made which is being used with great success in Mono and Inyo counties and is run by a flow of sand. It would be of immense value to mines on our deserts which are not now worked on account of dryness, etc., but where theie is an overwhelming superfluity of sand. Sufficient water is necessary for drinking purposes and to properly moisten the ore. The aratras are operated by sand, which drives a large overshot wheel On this wheel sand takes the place of water. The regulator is sand, a pile, of which has been raked up to the works. The wind-mill runs a belt containing a great number of buckets, and these carry the sand up to a big tank, just as elevators carry wheat in a flouring-mill. A stream of sand being let out upon the overshot wheel, it revolves just as it would under the weight of a stream of water, and the aratras move steadily on at their work. When there is much wind sand is stored up for use when calm prevails, as the aratras are never idle. After a sufficient quantity of sand has once been collected there is no trouble on that score, the same being used over and over. Who will try this inexpensive but promising process in our Southern California places during the dry season? —Los Angeles Herald.