The Topeka state journal., 1897-11-25
What He Claims He Can Make
at Present,
EACH DAY,
Made Out of Plain Anthony
and Volcanic Heat.
Mr.. Brice Hit on His Theory by
Accident.

Chlcago, Nov. 20--AS easily and as calm
ly as a baker fashions Ioaves of bread
E. c. Brice at his factory, Lowe avenue
and Thirty-ninth street, began yesterday
to turn out gold bricks But this state~
ment requires some qualification.
According to one of Mr.. Brice's ac-
quaintances it is now twenty years since
Mr.. Brice, who is now IS years old, be-
came weary of the old methods of getting
gold and began to look for some way to
manufacture it. After much study he
was struck with the fact that antimony
always contains minute quantities of sill
yer and gold. From that fact he struck
out the theory that antimony was the re-
suit of an arrested process, and that if
the process could be discovered and re-
sumed the antimony would all turn to
silver and gold.
Mr.. Brtce hit on this theory by accident.
He was in Washington in 1879 and had
little laboratory in which he was trying
all sorts of metalIurgica1 experiments. On
one occasion some melted antimOny was
spilled on the furnace CRATE, and, after
being there a day or two, was examined
and found to contain more gold than in a
natural state. This suggested the theory
that it was heat that would convert an
lAA4AOA4S AAAAO SO4NAs anu tAAelL RASbabAJ WI
canic heat was necessary.
Mr.. Brice became so possessed with this
idea that he went to Italy to study vol
canic heat at the crater of Vesuvius.
Having satisfied himself that volcanic
heat was 5000 or 1900 degrees, he came
back to Washington, invented and patent
ed a furnace which would produce vol
canic heat and resumed his experiments.
He satisfied himself that he was on the
right track, but three years ago his fac
tory was burned and he transferred his
field of operations to Chicago.
In this city Mr.. Brice had small fac
tory at Wentworth and Fortieth street.
which, according to all accounts, turned
antimony into gold. But the plant was
not large enough, so the National Metal
lurgical company was organized, the
stock being divided into 1850 shares at a
par value of SO a share. OF this COM
pany Mr.. Brice is president and general
manager, E. E. Shaw secretary and treas
urer and II. S. Hubbard assistant secre-
tary and treasurer. One of the largest
stockholders is said to be J. J. Danforth,
an officer of the Security Title and Trust
company, and another is Colonel E. r.
Cooke of Virginia, who was the Populist
candidate for governor in the last cleo
ton.
The company leased some plain factory
buildings at the southwest corner of
Lowe avenue and Thirty-ninth street, and
turned them into the gold factory plant
which started up yesterday morning Mr..
Brice wearing a blue jeans jacket and
overaIls and a face expressive of honesty
and cheerfuIness, had to be dragged out
of his arcanum to be interviewed con-
cerning his work
Barring the secrets of his discovery, MI
Brice's method may be told in a few
words. The material he works on is an
timouy ore, which is so per cent anti
mony, the other 80 per cent being iron,
sulphur carbon and all sorts of minerals
and impurities. The ore comes in solid
Jumps, heavy, hard and lustrous enough
to be mistaken for Jumps of metal.
This ore is cracked up and thrown into
a reverberatory furnace, which vaporizes
it. The vapor is conducted off through
long, underground conduit, several feet In
diameter. by the aid of fans. On its way
it is superheated and oxidized by means
of Mr. Brice's patent volcanic furnace.
But further along it is cooled by con-
Quoting the conduit above ground
The destiny of the vapOr is to another
building looking like an old fashioned
smokehouse, where it is forced upward
into twenty or more canvas sacks, fifteen
inches in diameter and fifteen feet high,
! closed at the tops. The effect is to cool
the vapor and deposit it on the inside of
| these sacks in the form of a coarse pOwd-
| der resernbIing sand. By rapping on the
sacks with a pole this powder is loosened
| and falls down into sacks the floor, in
| which it is carried away into another
| building.
The next process is where the mystery
| comes in. Mr.. Brice retires into another
| snokehouse, erected inside the large fur
| mace building. and there, with no human
| eve to watch him, mixes the powder with
| something else, moistens it to the con-
sistency of mud, and makes it into bricks.
| These bricks are of the usual size, and
| are not yet gold, but are called artlnclal
| ore and are to be made into gold and Sill
/ yer by the next process
| These bricks are put into the volcanic
! furnace and baked forty-eight hour in
| a heat which would melt croWnar just
/ as fast as it was thrust into it. At the
/ end of this time they weigh 10 per cent
/ more than they did and are chuck run OF
| gold and silver. All one has TO 90 Is 10
/ grind them up and make little mud pies
! of them and put each pie into Hl1e
/ hone ash CUP and bake it. when the inn
! Durities sink into the bone ash ana leave
| in the cavity a twO-Ounce button Oh nix
] I'D GOLD and silver. The silver is separated
/ b, a hath of nitric acid, and the gold IS
/ ready for the mint
/ T7oT fear somebody might corner the
! antimony the company has bought
| mountain of it out in Utah, and now mas
/ ton teams hauling it to the depot TO De
4 shipped to the gold factory IN Chlcaso'
/ ~ Price saws that it costs the company,
/ 1-t5 down in the factory, 800 a ton, ana
! - from each ton of the antimony ore
-,,a1-as 81 $50 in gold. The amount Of
/ ,-o1d he can make in day depends on
| +te number of furnaces he runs, and as
/ he has four he estimates his output at
900 worth of gold a day