Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-07-21
FOOLS Gold.

natural or artificial. Leaving aside the
latter class, from time immemorial have
men been deceived by those of the
former, that is, in installing other min
erals for gold.
A farmers lad, slowly wading through
q little stream. looks down into the wa
ter, and there, brought into view by the
sparkling rays of the sun, he sees some
thing g1istening and shimmering so
brightly that, seized by sudden curiosi-
ty, he runs his hand through the bed
Of the brook and brings up q handful Ct
sand in%terspersed with shining yellow
specks, and, behold, he has found gold!
So he fancies, and the wonderful dis
covery is noised far and wide. A sam.
pie is quickly sent to some expert, and
the report is, mica inssand. But who
a blame the infatuated, self-deceived
rusticP It looks like gold to him, and
his castle in the air rises higher and
higher until the rude fiat of the one who
does know dashes it to the ground.
1t is not SO long ago that a pill-box
containing an ounce or of this mi
ca-bearing sand was sent to me to as
certain its value; and the sender was
exceedingly disappointed when I in
formed him of its worthless character.
And to-day I preserve some of it in my
cabinet to show my visitors, and when
the question is asked of each as to its
nature, nine out of ten promptly reply
that it is gold. Then, as a short, prac-
tical lesson in mineralogy of this metal,
a second bottle, containing sand carry
ing the genuine article is brought out,
and the difference is seer at once.
What assayer, mining engineer, min
eralogist, or metallurgist has not had
the same experienced
But mica is not the mineral that has
done the most harm. Pyrites of iron
and copper "copper" pyrites or chalco-
pyrite), and pyrites of iron, the 'fool's
gold" have misled thousands.
In general appearance, this ''fool's
gold" is not SO very unlike the true
gold, that is, when the latter is not di-
rectly compared with it. 1t has a
bright, yellow, metallic luster on the
surfaces of unoxidized pieces and the
interiors of freshly-broken pieces which
are decomposed on the outside.
In 1908, about the time of the first
settlement of Virginia, the colonists ''be-
lieving that they had discovered grains
of gold in a stream of water near James,
town. the entire industry of the town
was directed to digging, washing, re-
filming and loading gold; and notwith-
standing the remonstrances of Smith, a
ship was actually freighted with the
glistening earth and sent to England"
(Willson's American History. Wheth-
er this %glistening earth was mics or
minute pyrites in The clay or sand, his
tory does not tell us, but presumably the
latter, since it is found to a considera-
BILE extent throughout that State.
From that time down to the present,
the mistake has often been made, not of
imagining the pyrites to cont q in gold,
but that it is gold.
There is probably no other metallifer-
u mineral more widely distributed
than iron pyrites. Iii found in rock.
Of every age, and almost in all parts OF
the world. Hardly a State or Territory
of the United States but contains it to a
greater or less degree, hence the great
prevalence of the error concerning it.
To illustrate: A colored man in Mis-
sissippi mailed me a lump of this min
eral, water-worn into . rude resem-
blance of gold nugget, and desired me
to sell it for him! All l could do was
to tell him Of its worthlessness, and in
stead of a piece of gold worth $50 to $50
as he supposed, it was, in fact, not worth
the postage paid on it.
To come nearer home: Fromtwo sep
arate places in Michigan and from two
different counties in Wisconsin has the
same mineral with the same question
been sent me, and lately an intelligent
looking gentleman brought me three or
four pounds Of this same delusive stuff,
picked up on the shores of our lake,
twenty miles north. It is needless, per-
haps, to say that they were all disap-
pointed in their great expectations.
From all that I have written there
can as surely be deduced a moral as it
can from the history of any nation, race
or sect, or life of any eminent individ-
ual and the moral is a more practical
education in all of our schools.
/ do not refer to those institutions
which make a specially of teaching
geology, mineralogy, metallurgy, as
saying or other branches of science, but
w 1AO "SCAoSC, CuC COluu1OA oC1tOOlos
for it is in such that the majority of our
people obtains all it knows of books and
learning. 1t should be as imperative
for the scholar to know a lump of coal
from a piece of iron ore, to be able to
distinguish a copper ore from one of
lead, to learn the difference between
granite and limestone, between fools
gold' and real gold, as it is for him to
learn that six and seven do not make
eleven or that the wonderful English
language is capable of pronouncing
rough as ruff and bough as bow!
1t is not necessary to make of the
youth whose entire school education is
acquired in n or two years an expert
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. are limits to all
things-but simply to know more of the
material things, such as he is likely to
meet with in his every day life.
To give a point to my moral and to
return to my subject, let the one who
finds something bright and yellow and
imagines it to be gold try to cut it (if it
be large enough to handle) with his
knife. If it cuts easily somewhat like
lead) and flattens by use of hammer
and anvil, it probably is what it is
thought to be, at all events it is worth