Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1889-09-05
THE AIUNINUM AGE.
THE CHILD IS BORN THAT WILL
SEE IT FULLY REALIZED.

@a9 49, NN0tiAy DthtTtuutc0s IOaL OoG~
full and Now Most DIneuIt Mesaa -
HaDdSe-Tsut IN Time inventors wm 10
Even BETTER Than the Seymour Aethod.
To aluminium enthusiasts the death OF
Fred J. Seymour win be most keenly
felt For the man who believed, and
believes, that It Is the metal Of the
future, and that 1t Is being developed
through slow stages. there is some con-
ISOLATION left.
Others are at work at this moment
perhaps hundreds of them-as many, no
doubt, as are at work on any other one
thing, striving by night and by day TO
usher In the aluminium millennium at the
earliest possible date, with every chance
Of success in their favor
The metal Is known to exist in every
clay bank and in every rock. great and
small; Il Is more plentiful than all other
metals combined: the modus operandS
whereby 1t is separated is well known to
chemists and mineralogists already; the
objective point of all this research i'd
cheapness The Seymour process did the
work more cheaply than any other YET
devised; hence the lamentations over his
death.
CONFLICTING STORIES 4
Even with the Seymour process tn
cost Of producing aluminium has been 80
great as to exclude it from general use.
1t has been announced at least half
dozen times that a new and cheaper mode
OF chemically extracting the precious
metal from its earthly base had "just
been discovered" Still 1t was worth
$4,000 ton, according to Maj. Powell
Of the geological survey.
The newspapers reported the shipmen,
Of 16O pounds Of chemically pure alumi
mum, manufactured under a new pro
cess, from Newport, KY. to London
England. in August. 1885,
The same account, besides telling us ia
was the first Of the metal ever extracted
from clays for the purpose of shipmen:
in the United States, tells US how it solo
for fifty cents per pound Both allega-
tons must be untrue, as the Engineering
Journal Of March thus year gives tabu.
lar exhibit Of the value Of rare metals
in which it classes aluminium as being
worth $3.50 per pound. The journal is
good authority, too.
About the time of this reported ship
ment Of aluminium from Kentucky an
other and more startling story was cabled
from Germany. According TO the Ger
man Don Quixote aluminium was being
rapidly turned out In 100 pound bars at
the krupp gun works at a cost of less
than twenty cents per pound. Teutonio
"goaheadness" did not cast a bar and a
half and then make a shipment like they
did in the land of blue grass, but they
turned them out in great bars as rapidly
as wood chopper would sticks of wood
and piled them up for future use, per-
haps with view to cornering the alumi.
mum agel
This metal Of the future, OF which so
much has been said, was discovered by
Professor Wohler in 1923. While seek
ing to settle in his own mind the ques-
ton as to what were the component
parts of common clays, and while fusing
a mass of the yellow mud at white heat
under the blow pipe, he accidently OBJ
tained single minute globule or bead of
what was to him and the rest of the
scientific world at that time new metal.
Subsequently by various chemical tests
he proved the drop to be the precious
aluminium. He surely did not consider
his discovery of grave importance, other
wise he would have given it more atten-
ton than he did; as it was. it appears
that he did not experiment with the
aluminium idea in view again for some
thing like eighteen years. In 1S46 he re-
discovered it in mixture of cloride of
aluminium and common salt This time
the metal was obtained in quantities suf-
ficient for more extensive examination.
It was found to be white metal between
the color of zinc and silver, but with a
more blush tinge than that found in the
last named metal.
Its specific gravity is from 2.5 to 2.67,
according to purity, that of the average
grade being about 81 times heavier than
water. 1t is four times as light us sill
ver-in other words, coin the size of
silver dollar made of aluminium would
weigh about the same as a twenty cent
piece in silver It has great rigidity and
tenacity; is nearly as hard as iron. but
can be wrought into wire as fine as spi-
der webs after being thoroughly an
nealed .
WONDERFUL QUALITIES.
BY being subjected to the goldbeater's
art, piece of aluminium the size of
dime may be beaten into a sheet several
feet square, SO great is its tenacity. Only
two metals known can be rolled into
sheet as thin as it can, and they are gold
and silver. When it does at last come
into general use, and the advent of that
era will not be retarded much by the
man whose death furnishes the text for
this article, it will be used for every
thing and put to every purpose to which
iron, steel and wood are now put. Its
adaptability to ship building is very ap-
parent.
Great steamships, the size of the larg-
est Cunards, with the same tonnage and
the same number of exposed linear feet,
If constructed of aluminium from keel
to the top of the masts, instead of draw
ing eighteen to twenty-six feet. would
not draw more than four or Eve. In the
days of the future aluminites deep water
conventions will be useless assemblages.
1t holds polish the best of any metal
known, there being but few elements