Carrie Everson

Carrie Everson

Carrie Everson (born Rebecca Carrie Jane Billings; 27 August 1842–1914) invented and patented processes for extracting metals from ore using the flotation process. The Mining Journal noted in 1916 that "as a metallurgist she was a quarter of a century in advance of her profession."

Everson was born in Illinois and educated in Massachusetts. Everson discovered that if fats or oils are combined with an ore, the oils adhere to the metals and not the rock. On her lab bench she tested this technique with gold, copper, antimony, and arsenic ores. She was awarded two United States patents for her discoveries, US471174A and US474829A.

In 1864, she married Dr. William K. Everson, a physician. Everson had a son. After her patents had expired others used her methods which she lived to appreciate if not to benefit from.

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