Turner County herald. (Hurley, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1897-10-07
gold, silver or some new metal.

E0ame ala not trouble him so long as he
could put Mexican silver dollars into
his force engine and produce tnerefron
a metal which the government assayel
would purchase aud pay the price o
gold therefor DR.. Emmens said:
THE producing work in our
largentaurum laboratory is case o.
sheer mammon-seeking 1t is no,
being carried on for the sake OF science
or in a proselyting spirit. No disciples
are desired and no believers are asked
for. We are making gold because it
pays. We buy Mexican silver dollars
because that is the cheapest silver we
can buy, and with my engine I can
take 100 ounces OF silver that cost SOC
and produce from it sixty ounces of
argentaurum gold, for which the gov
ernment pays $l3 an ounce, or $3.50 for
the whole, and have about forty ounces
of silver left.
1T costs me about $3.50 to do the
work, and [ have profit of $3.50 lest
on every 100 ounce of silver so treated
So long as | can make a clear profit of
$3.50 on every ounce of gold produced
am satisfied with the experiment.
II am in the business for money and
am making my pile or expect to. No,
do not want any man to invest his
money in it, nor do | want the govern
ment to purchase the secret. l am not
ready to sell. | have simply found my
Klondille, and in my laboratory on
Staten Island, N. Y"
Director Preston was in state of
mind over this announcement, but as
the doctor answered his questions and
discussed the question from scientific
as we'll as "a selfish point of view, the
director of the mint began to feel very
uncomfortable The idea of having a
New York laboratory dump $4,000
onnces of gold into the mint each
month next year, and 60 on indefinitely
as long as long as Mexican silver holds
out, and then, perhaps. take our own
silver dollars, which Mr.. Preston calls
''43- cent dollars,0 and convert them
into gold, until the treasury vaults are
bursting with the yellow metal, as
they are now with the white metal.
gave him a nightmare Of gold bugs
and silver bugs changing their colors
at will to upset all financial theories
that have been devised with gold as
the basis.
Before Mr.. Emmens got through
with his talk the director of the mint
began to take him seriously. He was
not a crank nor theorist. He was u
scientist, who asked no one TO believe
in his theories. He has a process for
producing gold from silver, and he has
the test of the assay Office to say that
the metal he produces is gold from 900
to 100 fineness and worth Sl3 an ounce.
He processes to be ready to supply
the market, He may be sailing his
laboratory, but as he does not want TO
sell it the question is as to whether be
will keep up his production and in
crease it until he equals the Klondike.
Preston was puzzled but serious.
DR.. Emmens says he has submitted
his argentaurum gold to such scientists
as William Crookes, the discoverer oil
the x ray, and other European chem
lists. and they agree that he has made
a remarkable discovery. He says:
$50 far as my own observations have
gone, am led to believe that ordinary
silver consists of groups Of particles
having varying degrees OF molecular
stability. Some of these groups are
capable of disintegration and rear
rangement in the form of argentaurum.
and this latter appears to be altogether
unstable. At the least provication, SO
to speak, it reverts into silver or adj
vances into gold. This seems TO explain
why the chemical analysis of gold
found in nature invariably shows the
presence of both silver and gold y
The doctor says it is agreed among
chemists that the difference between
gold and silver is difference of spe-
citic gravity. 1t is not color, for Corey
Lea Of Philadelphia some ago treated
silver in a way TO give it a yellow color
so that it looked like gold. Chemists
called this "allotropic silver" but. call
it what they would, it was as yellow as
gold, and by his process DR.. Emmens
says he has given the silver the same
specific gravity as gold. He has
simply packed the silver closer by
beating, and whether he has converted
silver into gold or not, he has produced
metal which commands a price as
gold, and he hopes in time to produce
a metal which will readily sell for $50
an ounce, while fine gold sells at $40 an
ounce. In other words, he believes
his machine is capable of producing
from silver something more valuable
than gold, and that is what worries
Director Preston, who is the arch
enemy of silver, and should he live to
see DR.. Emmens convert the white
%o1 fo h hot