The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-09-10
HOW TO FIND GOLD ANYWHERE.
Interesting Swindlers Who Make the
Life of an Assayer Miserable.


member of a great firm of chemists whose
certificate as to the output of a mine would
be worth fortune if favorable. Sorry to
offend you, sir" ne continued, but we as.
sumo that every man who comes in here is
a knave."
This aroused my curiosity and improved
the first opportunity to ask an expert
assayer to explain these misanthropic senti-
ments. DR.. Ledoux, a famous chemist con-
nected with the firm mentioned above, salts
fed me that they were well founded 1--WE
can hardly trust our own senses" he said.
81 have known a sample of ore to yield a
heavy percentage of gold when its owner
was present at the test and none at all when
he was absent. How can that be- Well,
in this instance | saw nothing wrong,
but recently was conducting
an assay in the presence of
the owner Of the sample and noticed that he
was chewing tobacco very vigorously, and
also going to the assay furnace to expecto-
rate into the fire. Watching him narrowly,
| saw him spit into the crucible, and, seiz-
ing him by tue throat, | forced out of his
mouth the tobacco, and along with it a
quantity of gold dust, which he was at
tempting to get into the crIclble, this way
to make his assay run high. 1t would re-
| quire very little gold thus added to an ounce
| OF ore to make difference of many nun
/
I'VE once sent an engi Ger 60 Colorado to
sample silver NINE" said DR.. Ledoux.
! He was entirely unmoeSted in the per-
formance of his duty and felt sure that be
! had fair ave age sam0le. He took the
| precaution, however, 10 divide his sample
into tao Its, sending one lot by express
and bringing the other with hun III his
| trunk Both samples arrived with their
seals unbroken, and the bags apparently in
tact, but when we came to assay them we
| found nearly double the amount of silver
| in those which had come by express. In
veStigatiOn shovel that somebody had
| punctured the bags which came by express
with the point Of a syringe, and had
| squlrted in among the ore strong solution
| OF nitra of silver, which drying upon the
| ore, of course added greatly to the ASSAY.
The most singular attempt at swindle
which we have ever come across was i'll
connection with 'GabrieIs Sword You
may remember that in the month of May,
| 1888, the papers in Ulster and Sullivan
counties and the New York daily papers
were widely excited over q most remark
able discovery back Of Kingston, n. Y. A
strange sword had fallen from the skies and
| had been q discovered in the town of Roches-
| ter, Ulster county.
"Some time in July following, long
| haired individual came into our Office stag
! gering under the weight of box seven feet
| long with a cross piece near one end about
| two feet in length. He asked if we would
| assay anything, and on being assured that
we would, pulled out a screw driver and
| careful ly unscrew ed his box, out of which
! he took a sword. 1t was a curious weapon
nearly seven fest long, and SO heavy that
could scarcely lift tine point from the ground
with one hand by taking hold of lie handle.
1t was covered with Hebrew or PhGnecian
| characters apparently, and covered With
rude figure; of men and animals. This
marking was only appa ent where the rust
with which most of the weapon was heavily
corroded had been rubbed off.
| "The man said that he was the discoverer
of this strange sword, and was exhibiting
1t about the country that some unbelievsrs
| had scolfed at his statements that it came
| from spiritual world and thrt he desired
| us to make an assay of it TO prove that ii
was genuine. lie stated further that on its
| appearance and ring wbeI it was struck one
would naturally take it to be steel, but that
he had been in times past blacksmith, and
was familiar with metals, and that it was
| mis- opinion that 1t was compound of silver
and iron, and asked me whether such an
| alloy was not uncommon.
| Il told him eS OF course, when he tri-
umphantly added: Now | want you to as
say this sword and give me a certificate that
| it is neither iron nor steel, but an alloy con-
| tanning silver, and | want you to say on
your certificate that such an alloy is not
used in this world for such purposes and
and would not have the hardness, flexibility
other characteristic, which this sword
possesses
| 81 was interested and amused, and agreed
to make the test The old man seemed
anxions not TO mutilate the weapon. and it
was agreed thai we should file off portion
from e place where it was particularly
rusted and assay the filing. | was CON
WINGED that it was noJ ing but steel, and
was most intensely surprised whel our
assayer brought up a large silver button,
which he had Obtained from the filings
| The old man was triumphant, but
was at once on my guard, as
scented a swindle. 1t was of course
possible to coat the surface with a silver
solution which would dry on and produce
the result which we found, and refused to
give him a certificate without further
| test. He readily acquies1ed in this, and said
that he had rather anticipated such a re-
quest. and proposed that he should file off
tho end OF the cross bar, calling my atteu-
ton to the fact that one end was about half
an inch longer III m the other,
and that the cross-har and sword
were undoubtedly forged out of tle
same piece of metal, SO that what was
true of the composition of the bar was
the end was tiled off It appeared to be
simply cube of soft irol or steel heavily
rustod on five sides, and bri int aud homo
geneous where cut by the file. Now said
my client, you tell your man to put this in
the crucble and viii abide b. the result
In spite Of tie appearance of the piece
| of metal our aSSayer was instructed
to take cold chisel and cut it in two
and assay the two halves separately.
| To our intense establishment he
brought the two portions upstairs,
of silver surrounded on all sides by the
steel or iron. The whole thing was at once
plain. The Id man, or some o g, in manu-
| featuring the sword had bored a hole
through one end of the cross bar and
pluggled it up with silver 50 that it did not
show. lie had probably Invented the me
teoric story. We Of course declined TO give
him u certificate Ct the supernatural origin
| of tire weapon. which he had uRdoubtedt y
made himself. and he departed.
! Il must tell you, however. of good Joke
which the old man gave us the benefit of
before he left. As he was packing his weapon
Il western gentleman happened in, who lis
| of decidedly Jewish cast IF counJOnance.
He is very sensitive on the subject, and con-
tinunlly goes out Of his way to assure people
| that he is not Hebrew He was arrested
by the sight of the sword, and called out:
"Well, old man, what have you got
theref'
HE received no reply, and repeated his
| dlnstiou. adding. 'IS H. n chpasa knifnr