The flotation of a West Joplin, Mo. slime

Owing to the high price of zinc and the success attending flotation in other districts, intense interest was aroused in the flotation of slimes of the South-West Missouri District. These slimes are the accumulation of the finer particles of the ore during the milling process and their metallic content is generally higher than that of the original ore. They have been disposed of, in the past, by sluicing them to the tailings ponds because no economical method of saving the zinc had been discovered. The object of our experiments was to economically extract from these slimes, by flotation, a product of sufficient zinc content to be of commercial value. To carry on this experiment in a practical manner, a dried slime was obtained from a West Joplin pond. this material came to us in two lots and will be referred to in further statements, as Ore No. 1 and Ore No. 2 . All experimental work was performed in the flotation laboratory of the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy --Introduction, page 1