Modification of mineral raw materials is the final stage of mineral processing. The oldest and simplest methods were manual sorting and crushing with stone tools - sledgehammers. In the 13th century, new facilities appear – stamping mills, which were used until the 19th century. An important method of modification was amalgamation, where a compound of gold and mercury was first obtained and the mercury was then thermally removed. In the 19th century, there was the development of technologies using the flow of water and vibrational movement for sorting of raw materials. The modification of raw materials was always supplemented by laboratory tests and new technologies were tested in the laboratories.
