LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Fire-assay procedures provide

Regarding “unconventional” assay techniques, my own experience in the early 1980s is forever burned in my memory. I was hired by a worried California investor who had spent 7-figure sums on a gold and platinum group metal (PGM) prospect involving a “complex ore, not amenable to normal fire-assay procedures.”

The property owners had developed “special assay procedures” involving pre-roasting steps and all kinds of wonderful “new developments,” producing assay results that had investors’ tongues hanging all the way down to their cowboy boots.

The “complex ore” theory was invoked by the owners every time my assays failed to produce not only the “desired” grades of gold and PGMs but any grade of precious metals. As proof that the “ore” is complex, they would simply point out that no one, including me, could assay it.

Of course, the theory that the ore was “too complex” was also handy for explaining why no one, including themselves, could mill it.

I was able to prove later that the complexity was due to the fact that the “gold” and “PGMs” in the ore had the wrong atomic weights.

How many more of these situations will occur before the investment industry demands that governments act to legislate the assaying profession? Rule No. 1 in assaying is that if you can’t fire assay it, it isn’t there. Rule No. 2 is that if someone is telling you it is there but you can’t assay it, refer to Rule No. 1.

George Duncan, President

Accurassay Laboratories

Kirkland Lake, Ont.