The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1881-08-13
NINETY.NINR TONS Of GOLD.

NINETY.NINE TONS OF GOLD.
Tugged About and Weighed, Hundred
Thousand Dollars Worth at n Time
How 1t Is Tested and Why 1t Is Boiled
I'm Acid.
1t costs 81, 200 to send S5, ZOO, 900 in
bullion from the New York Assay Office
to the Philadelphia Mint. That is why
a room in the Assay Office is at present
walled around with gold bricks. The
weight of $4,000, 900 is eight tons and
a quarter, or. more accurately, 1886
pounds. Congress was asked for $780,
600 to cover the expense of transporting
bullion to the mint, but it only appro-
priated $50, 900. Between the I'd of
August last and Nav /, $50, 600
in gold was received in the Assay Office,
and, for lack of money to send it to the
mint, $50, 000,0 900 yet remains on the
hands of superintendent Thomas c.
Acton. This sixty millions weighs
about ninety-nine tons. A man who
should own it would be able to wall
himself up in it as in well, and the
well would not be so wide or so high
but that he could stand in the middle
and touch every brick. The number of
gentlemen in this country who could
perform this interesting experiment
with their own gold is small. The bricks
in the Assay Office average about 81, 900
apiece in value. The most of them are
not much to look at. They are as black
and dull in color as cheap quality of
stove-pipe. II you scratch one with q
knife you make a bright yellow mark,
and this mark will not get black again.
These black bricks are composed of
melted foreign coins, containing about
the right amount of alloy for American
coinage, and SO the alloy is allowed to
remain in them. When the melted gold
is poured into the moulds the oxygen of
the air attacks the copper of the alloy
and turns it black. If it were worth
while to protect the bricks from the air
until they got cold they would never get
any darker in color than a gold coin
would. Two-thirds of all these bricks
are made of French twenty-franc pieces.
Those bricks made of gold directly from
the mines are very nearly pure metal,
and are as bright as coins. The drain
age from all this gold, if it were put at
interest at five per cent, would make a
golden stream of $342 an hour running
day and night.
81 know just as well how much gold
there is in this ROOM" Superintendent
Acton said, as he gazed about at the
piled up wealth, las i know my own
age, but Notwithstanding that it must
all be weighed again in anticipation of
account to be rendered by July 1. If
we had had money enough to send it to
the Philadelphia Mint, we would not
have the great trouble of weighing it.
About 500. 600 of it only is put on the
scales at time"
Six men were at work. Down the
faces of all but two of them the sweat
rolled, and their hands we're grimy
with black oxide of copper. They tug
ged at the gold bars like 'longshoremen
unloading pig iron. A heavy platform
truck, on four small wheels, was rolled
into the room, and on this about twen-
ty-five bars or bricks, taken from the
built up golden walls on three sides of
the room, were laid. The truck was
then drawn along the floor by four
men. two pulling and two pushing. into
an adjoining room where the scales
were. The scales are about five feet
high, and the index needle is more than
four feet long. The beam and the pans
are suspended on steel edges as sharp
as knife blades to avoid friction. When
the small weights had been added to
the large ones to balance the gold, the
point of the index needle would tremble
over the middle line of the ivory grad
uated scale. This pair of scales is of a
kind so delicate that when brought to a
balance with two pieces of paper of
equal size in the pans. the mere writing
ola name with a lead-pencil on one Of
the pieces of paper will add enough
weight to the paper to turn the scales
in its favor. This has actually been
done on one of the scales in the ASSAY
room. but that pair is protected from
air currents by glass case.
The men who handle the gold, though
not differing much in outward appear
ance to the casual observer from coal
beavers, are, in fact, men of intelligence,
ofapproved reputation, and who receive
good pay.
1--WE would not have all this trouble"
said the chief weigher, as he, put
50O-ounce weight gently on the scales
with his right hand and wiped off his
brow with his left, "if we had arrived
at the parliament of man, the fedora
ton of the world What we sigh for
here is an international system of coin
age. The most of all this weight came
to this country as good foreign coin,
but its lack of uniformity with our mint
age compels the United States to recon
it. and me TO fight these weights all
day."
A larger supply of foreign coins than
usual has come into the country since