The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-24
SEPTEMBER MAGAZINES.
Harper's Monthly.

ont 80 thin that IL covered nneJy-elgnJ square
inohes This experiment proved that silver is
more malleable than gold, for grain of gold
has never been spread over more than seven
ty.fve square inches. II eleven hundred OF
those films of silver had been laid one upon
another, they would have formed sheet about
as thick as the paper upon which these words
are printed. If it had been required to form
pile of them one inch high, about three hun
dred and twenty thousand leaves would have
been necessary. Now three hundred and twen-
tv thousand sheets Of good thick printing paper
would make a stack as high as an ordinary
church steeple. If we desired to make pile of
those thinnest leaves of silver as high as that
we should require four or five hundred millions
of them. 1t was the opinion of those who
conducted this experiment, that even these
inconceivably thin silvery films could be
beaten out still thinner II more delicate means
could be devised for doing the work, for when
the implements employed could effect nothing
further the malleability Of the metal did not
seem to be near exhausted. Tested in another
way, silver shows the fneness of its temper,
and a slight superiority over gold. When
mechanics desire to ascertain the tensile
strength of material, they get a slow, steady
pull upon a bar Of it one inch square, and
note how many pounds that bar will bear
before being pulled apart There is beauti-
full machine for the purpose, which consists OF
a series oflevers so arranged that half pound
placed upon the first lever pulls five thousand
pounds upon the bar to be tested. 1t has been
found that an inch bar of cast lead breaks at
$50 pounds, while the same thickness of oak
wood will sustain before breaking 1b300
pounds, and locust 5000 pounds. An inch
bar of cast gold will sustain twenty-five thou
sand pounds but similar bar of cast silver
will not break until it has been subjected to
strain of forty. one thousand FIVE hundred
pounds. Thus silver is not greatly inferior in
strength to the best cast iron, an inch bar of
which sustains $4,000 pounds. The best
wrought iron, however, will support weight
of eighty-four thousand pounds; and steel
has been made of such astonishing tenacty
that an inch bar of it has lifted one hundred
and fifty thousand pounds before breaking.
1t is a curious thing, however, that a mixture
of two metals is stronger than either of its in
gradients; and here gold has slight advan-
tage over silver. An inch bar composed of
five ounces of silver and one ounce OF copper
breaks at forty-eight thousand five hundred
pounds but one made of the same proportions
of gold and copper will hold until fifty thou
sand pound pull is brought to bear upon it.
OF the eight metals now ranked as precious
namely, gold, silver, platinum, iridium, rhodi-
um, palladium, ruthenium and osmium, each
possesses some quality or qualities which rem
ders it uniquely valuable for some purposes;
but silver is the one which unites in itself the
greatest number of useful properties with very
great beauty.
All the bullion and coin of Wall street is
carried about the streets in common, open
carts, precisely such as are used in carrying
ordinary merchandise. For twenty-five years
past one carman, John c. Barkley, best known
in the street as 'Honest JOhn," whose three
carts stand at the busy corner of Wall and
Broad streets, has done the carting for the
bullion dealers and bankers of the city, any of
whom would trust him in their vaults with
treasure uncounted. Tall, robust, and ruddy
Inhr hoe in alx
the expression which we should expect to
see in the face of one who for so many years
has borne so honorable q name. He began
in the street twenty-seven years ago, and,
after his fifth year, he became the established
carman of the coin and bullion men. 1t is
his carts that 60 to the California steamers
and convey their kegs of gold to the
vaults to which they are consigned His
carts assist to restore the financial balance
between the two continents by conveying gold
to and from the Cunard steamers in Jersey
City. He had occasionally carried for short
distances, down hill, million dollars in gold,
which weighs two tons; but his opinion is that
seven hundred thousand dollars is about as
much as a humane man will ever permit his
horse to draw over these rough psvements for
any considerable distance. On a busy day he
will have as many as twenty loads Of precious
metals. load of gold, when it goes across
the town, is usually accompanied by clerk
OF Ino mousse 10 Wnlcn III belongs; Dut III often
happens that honest John is quite alone when
he has as much gold on his cart as horse can
draw. For such service he gets higher COM
pensation than when he carries an office desk
or a load of printing-paper and, indeed, he
has the air of man who could show little
gold and silver of his own if there were oc-
casion.
In the "Last Years of Kosciuscko" we
find the following description of the closing
hours of the great Polish hero:-
Filled with fOrebodings of his approaching
end, he also took that step which excited the
admiration of all Europe, and by which he
once more manifested the humane and en-
lightened spirit which animated him-he freed
all his serfs on his estate of Siechnowice. The
memorable instrument, which was signed or
the I'd of April, 1917, declared ssrfs be
longing to the above named estate to be free
citizens and proprietors of the soil which they
had hitherto cultivated, and provided also
that they should henceforth not pay AM
more taxes in money, kind or labor to tn,
lords of the manor. At the same time he be
queathed this estate to his niece, CATHERINE
EstkOwa and her children.
In the fall Of the same year malignant epi
demic of atyphoid character, probably brough
on by the preceding famine, broke out AT So
leure. II was to become fatal TO the old Gene
raj too. On the first of October the first symp
toms OF the disease made their appearance
With the calmness peculiar to him he mad
at once his will. The larger portion of hi
considerable fortune he bequeathed to tn
Zeltner family, and made, of course, tn
most liberal provision for his belove
Emily. The poor, the orphan asylum, an
aaVaral Othar charitable institutions