Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1891-05-29
IS N A Losl ARrf
How win tho Death of Fred j. seymour
A6ect the aluminium Age?''

Q
Affect the aluminium Age?"
From the tone OF the lament sent up
by the press throughout the length and
breadth of the land, Que would suppose
that the cheap aluminium problem Is,
since the death of this one man, as far
from being solved as it was in 1893, when
very poor quality Of that valuable ma
terial was worth $3.50 per pound, on this
point, however, the people are being
misled
do not believe it to be the intention
of the press to be misleading i'll this or
any other matter, however trivial, but
what one of the numerous croakers who
have helped to swell the cry, Lost,
lostl' from shore to shore believes, after
moments sober afterthouSht, that an
invention or process necessary to the ad.
vancement of mankind could be ire
trievably lost 10y the death of one man?
The Pompeiians could cast plaster
statues whole and hollow at a single
cast; nothing of the kind can DO done in
this day and age Of the world.
The ancieuts understood the process of
manufacturing malleabe glass; cups
were made in those olden times which
could be dashed violently to the ground
without fracture; only dents, where,
perchance, they came in contact with
cobhle stones or other pebbles the dents
could be hammered out Just for all the
world like we would hammer dents in
tinware at the present day Malleable
glass is another of the lost arts In the
year go A. d. the Chinese emperor,
Tai Tsung, came into possession of a
wonderful painting of an OK, which was
visible only during the night--at day
light it vanished 1t was a specimen of
the ancient luminous painting of which
not n single example is now eXtant.
Above have catalogued three repre-.
sentatives of the lost arts, arts which are
indeed lost; but mind, dear reader, they
were not lost by the death of a single in
divfdual. Cities were overwhelmed with
many feet of plastic fiery lava, whole
nations were wiped off the face of the
earth by frightful pestilence, and islands
and continents sunken beneath the rush
ing waters which closed over them,
making the wreck of the nation in which
it thrived as complete as the loss of the
art itself
With these facts in view it is hardly
possible. if the "Aluminum Age has
really been foreshadowed to the extent
claimed by enthusiastic scientists and
inventors, that the brilliant white metal
era will forever recede from our sight.
Because one man has lived his allotted
days and passed to the great unknown
without revealing his process of cheap
ening material that will make an age
as much in advance of this age of iron
as the iron age is in advance of the stone
age or that of prehistoric bronze, there
are no reasons for considering the art
lost forever For the past two or three
years many eXtravagant stories have
been circulated regarding this peerless
metal According to q certain class OF
writers aluminium, SO cheapy produced
as to be a dangerous rival of iron and
steel, was not only one of the future
near future possibilities, but to them the
era had really dawned. OverZealousness
and too much faith in the inventive in.
genuity of an age which has given to us
the telegraph, the telephone, the phono
graph, the electric motor and hundred.
of other useful inventions and appliances
are the only excuses that can be offered
in extenuation of these egregious epis-
tles.-John w Wright in st. Louis Re