Charles Washington Merrill died on 6th February, 1956, in Honolulu, while on a visit to Hawaii. He was 86.
Mr. Merrill was born in Concord, New Hampshire, U.S.A., and educated at San Francisco. He graduated from the College of Mines, University of California, in 1891, and after a short time as assistant to Dr. George B. Becker, Chief of the U.S. Geological Survey, he worked for Alexis Janin, an eminent metallurgist, on laboratory metallurgical problems in San Francisco for three years.
In 1894 he went to Bodie, California, to study the tailings of the Standard Consolidated mine, and built and put into successful operation an experimental cyanide plant. He constructed a similar plant for the Harqua Hala Gold Mining Co. in Arizona in the following year, and installed an experimental tailings plant at Montana Mining Co.’s Marysville mine, of which he had charge and continued as consultant for many years.
Mr. Merrill then spent ten years directing the cyanide plant recovering gold from tailings at the Homestake Mine at Lead, South Dakota. In 1908 Mr. Merrill returned to San Francisco and began to form his own company to make his own methods and processes more widely available. The Merrill Company was established in 1910 and subsidiary companies were formed later to handle the manufacture and distribution of technical equipment and products developed by him or his associates. He was active in these companies for many years and was chairman of the board of directors of the Merrill Company at the time of his death.
During the first world war Mr. Merrill was chief of the Division of Collateral Commodities in the Food Administration. In 1924 he was vice-president of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers and in that year was awarded the Institute’s James Douglas Medal for ‘Distinguished International Metallurgical Achievement’. He had a place on the Board of Regents of the University of California in 1924 and 1925 and was President of the Alumni Association. Later he was chairman of the California State Mining Board and the Minerals Committee of the State Chamber of Commerce. In 1940 he won an award from the National Association of Manufacturers for ‘distinguished achievement in the field of science and invention which has advanced the American standard of living’, and more recently held various posts with the Federal Bureau of Mines.
Mr. Merrill was the author of several economic papers published by the U.S. Bureau of Mines and contributed a paper to the Transactions of the Institution (vol. 7, 1898-99) entitled ‘Notes on the alleged shortage in cyanide bullion’.
Mr. Merrill was an elected Associate Member of the Institution in 1896 and transferred to Membership in 1903. As well as the American Institution, he was a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and of the Chemical Metallurgical and Mining Society of South Africa.
Vol. 65, Trans IMM 1955-56, pp.515-516
