The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-04-03

the ocean comes from the iodate of cal
 cium. The amount of free Iodine Is not
 great in the ocean, but 1t is constantly
 being liberated by the iodate of ealci-
 um. As soon as this comes into con
 tact with dead organic matter it be-
 comes decomposed, and the iodine is
 formed. The amount of iodate of cal
 cium in the ocean has been computed at
 nearly five millions of tons. This gives an enormous quantity of iodine in one form, and wherever free iodine is found there gold is held in solution III more or less quantity.
 The question of obtaining this gold from the ocean is the most important that concerns us to-day. If these vast reservoirs of gold could be opened up to commerce the world would be deluged with the yellow metal. No one could wish that the yield would be too large, for the depreciation of the metal would be so great that no one would be actu- ally benefited by it. Besides, the mon | ey centers of the world would be shak- en to their foundations. Coin and cur rency of all kinds would be so altered in value that no man could tell rightly what he was worth. Governments would be bankrupt, and everybody who had his fortune in currency and gold would suffer
 But, of course, no matter how sue cessful the ocean mining may prove, no such sudden supply is going to be thrown upon the worlds markets. The whole ocean could not be raked over in thousands of years, and the discovery of the new sources of supply would re- suit only in satisfying people that gold Is plentiful enough in the land and ocean to supply all future generations with it. The fear of a gold famine could no longer be entertained
 "The soluble gold can be readily pre- cipitated from the iodine, and hence from the salt water, and at the rate of one-tenth of a. grain to the ton it would pay a large concern to put up enormous vats to receive the waters of the ocean. A search of such vats could dispose of thousands of tons of water in a day Before this Is done, however, the ques- tion of location must be decided. It would not pay to put up exhaustive machinery along the coast, where the yield was one-tenth of a grain, when another part of the ocean would yield as high as one-quarter or one-half of grain. The latter would soon drive the first concerns out, of the business. The northern attitudes, so far, have given a higher percentage of gold than the southern. and it is possible yet to dis cover places where the yield will be quite large of the Isle of Man the yield was found to be about one-thir- teenth of grain, and the water from the Kristinia Fjord yielded one-tenth of a grain In the Southern Pacific the yield has run as low as one-fifteenth of a grain, and off the Greenland coast the water produced higher solution of gold than either of the other three places.
 From the results so far obtained we may judge that in few years efforts will be made on large scale to ex- tract gold from the ocean for commer- eiaI purposes, The question has hardly yet left the laboratory of the scientist, but usually where there Is money to be made the transition from scientific ex- pertinent to practical application is very sudden. This we may predict of ocean gold mining"