Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1888-11-02
THE ALUMINIUM AGE.
A Pleasant Word Picture Drawn by an En-
thusiastic Chicago Man.


cents per pound. If this is true its
full significance is not realized by the
public, for this silvery metal is the
most abundant in nature. Common
clay everywhere contains from two to
ten pounds of it in every 100 pounds
1t is therefore more common than iron
or all the metals taken together. The
cost of extracting it has been the great
and only hindrance to its general use.
In 1858 its value was $240 per pound,
and the following year chemical dis
covery dropped its price to $44. A
steady decrease since then has taken
place to about S. per pound, at which
price its uses are enormous. but moth
ing to compare with the alleged %
cent value.
As iron weighs three times as much,
and is, therefore, one-third as bulky
as aluminium, when the latter can be
obtained at three times the price of
iron that metal will be supplanted rap
idly. Even at the Krupp price it will
pay to build railroad trains of alumni
mum. because of the greatly reduced
weight afforded. This dead weight of
trains is a prodigious expense to rail
ways, nine-tenths of which could be
saved by constructing passenger and
freight cars of aluminium weighing
from half ton to ton each The
adaptability for this purpose may be
instantly seen in roughly stating alum
mum to be far stronger than steel and
as light as chalk. Locomotives need
ing traction weight would still be
made of iron and steel, though
they could be reduced in weight
materially in proportion to the
diminished deal weight, or the old en-
CINE unchanged would be enabled to
add ten aluminium cars for each one of
the old style discarded. 1t would be
equivalent to doubling the freighting
capacity by counting the weight of
present cars and their contents as
equal in reducing the car weight to a
practical zero.
Aluminium conducts electricity bet
ter than iron, the comparison being
one-third as well as copper while iron
Is one-seventh, hence aluminium will
be used for telegraph lines. The met
al being so light and strong, inch rods
OF it will hold up the wires as we'll as
the largest telegraph poles under
greatly reduced weight.
Houses could be easily constructed
by pouring the metal into sand or or
binary metal molds. 1t melts easier
than silver. Every part of the domi-
ellie could be cast on the spot in this
way into solid mass of metal more
rigid and durable than stone. Movable
parts such as doors, windows, tran
SONS, scuttles, could be mado of the
same bright metal and just as heavy
or light as desired.
Ships larger than the Great Eastern,
with less draught, could be construct
ed nearly entirely of aluminium, in
Guiding the machinery and boilers,
which at present weigh down vessels
seriously.
The stone age held fast our ancest-
ors in condition but little better than
that of our arboreal progenitors, the
apes; the bronze age was great step
ahead, and the iron age ushered in
civilization and made it possible We
are now living in the latter part of
that period and beholding the dawn of
the aluminium age, which will confer
blessings millions of times greater
than can be understood I'M
der existing circumstances. The
possibilities of cheap aluminium are
limitless. Erial navigation will be
etfectually settled, and monstrous
aluminium air-ships will literally give
wings to commerce and settle the tariff
question by rendering trade as free as
the medium in which it will be CON
Quoted. Cities of solid aluminium will
spring up everywhere, fire-proof, in
destructible, paved with the white
metal, lighted by electricity passing
over aluminium wires to towers of the
same substance. Railway beds, Sleep
ers, ties rails, bridges and all will be
cast solidly in their places, with airy
aluminium palace-cars dancing over
them one hundred miles an hour or
more. Floating bridges can be built
upon the seas; wide rivers can be
spanned by cobwebby but strong
structures at small expense, and in
few days where years were previously
required. Sanitation will become a
great possibility, and every one, no
matter how poor, can have home of
his own far better than the present
ordinary dwelling.
Transition stages such as this in
volve rapid and decided changes from
past modes of living, and like all
other civilizing influences, aluminium
will prove to be great leveler, for
wealth will decrease in the hands of
the few and increase in those of the
many. Old-time manufacturing pro-
cesses will be killed off and thousands
lose employment, to be re-employed in
new lndu StripS Or ada tiOnS Of the