The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-10

or a new industrial use for the metal
Copper has been thus saved, in the COM
mercial sense, recently. 1t was in the
same fix a few years ago, the price of it
having gone down, owing to oVer-pro-
ductlon. Processes were devised for pro-
ducing 1t more cheaply, and vast new de-
posts were found in Montana. But 1t
fortunately happened that novel uses for
copper were hit upon through the develop
ment of electrical science. 1t was peeded
in thick wires over hundreds of thousands
of miles by the long-distance telephone,
and IN other ways a fresh demand for it
arose Thus the price has been held up.
Silver is far more widely used in the
artist o-day than ever before. The com
mOnest articles are now plated with it, or
even made of the pure substance. In va
rious shapes it is sold in dry goods shops,
instead OF being dealt IN exclusively by
leweler, as was the case a few years ago.
ManynOvel emplOyments for it are already
found Much of it is used and entirely lost
IN photography, in the shape of nitrate,
which is sensitive to light. In medicine the
same nitrate is taken for epilepSy-the
symptoms OF which it mitigateS but does
not cure, while turning the complexion of
the patient blue-and, OF course, lunar
caustlc Is simply nitrate of silver. Silver
is substituted for bone in surgery, in ire
phlnlng and otherwise. Good looking
glasses are backed with silver, and not
with mercury, as is popularity supposed.
The glass Is laid back down i'll a bath of
nltrate-that is. silver dissolved in nitric
acld-and the addition of EPSON salts
causes the metal to deposit itself in
chemically pure film over the surface. In
PllnY's time, by the way, mirrors were
commonly made of silver. though pre-
Vl0uSly they were manufactured out of
mixture of tin and copper.
THE DEPOSITS OF SILVER.
Whereas gold is found pretty nearly
everywhere-in sea water, in sand in
rocks quite generally silver is an element
not generally come across, comparatively
speaking. 1t readily combines with all
sorJs of other elements, and thus ordi-
narily occurs in the shape of chlordes.
sulphates and carbonates, being seldom
discovered native or pure. Produced
by nature in such shapes, it is not pretty
to look at, the richest ore sometimes re
sem bling blue sand. That is one reason
why it was utilized to only very small
extent by the American aborigines up to
the time of Columbus They knew little
of it. though some of their ornaments
were covered with plates of it, beaten
very thin.
The great deposits of silver in Nevada,
Colorado and elsewhere in the world were
made by water. That innocen5 clement,
percolating through the earth, picked up
out of the rocks small particles of the
metal and carried them along in solution.
Passing through cracks and cavities the
Subterranean currents deposited their
loads of the metal, and thus after thou
sands of years pockets and assures were
filled with it. Sometimes these deposits
were enormous, as in the case of the Big
Bonanza, which was a slice of ore 300
feet wide and of unknown depth, extend
ing across the famous ComstOck lode. 1t
yielded $500 to 81 900 ton This was
pretty rich, considering the fact that a
ton of ore equals only thirteen cubic feet,
but ore has been dug in Colorado recently
which produced $4,000 a ton.
The great silver deposits of the world
have been struck by chance. The Com
stock lode was an accidental discovery.
Peru's famous mines were found by a
shepherd, who, while climbing slope of
the Andes, lighted some brambles for
bookings frugal repast A pebble, heated
by the flames attracted his notice by its
shining. He took it to Lima, where it
was examined and declared to be precious
ore. the care-taker of f1Ocks became a
millionaire.