The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-11-03
ADDITIONAL EDITORIAL
MAKING GOLD.


to the Inter Ocean says: The director OF
the mint has not yet recovered from the
shock he received last week from the visit
from Emmens, of New York, and the state
ment the doctor made that he was trans
forming silver into gold and selling the
product to assay offices in New York.
Mr.. Preston is not a gullible man when
it comes to such things. but last spring he
had no hesitancy about taking up Prof
Bryces proposition to appoint board OF
experts to test his process of making gold
from base metal. But he is very glad that
he is not called upon to demonstrate that
DR.. Emmens is a crank. or that he does
not know what ne is talking about.
Mr.. Preston finds no satisfaction in
ridicung the claim OF DIR. EmmenS thai
he has discovered a process by which he
can transform silver into gold, for the fact
remains that the doctor has sold the mint
through the best assayer in the government
employ more than $1,000 worth of meta
which was accepted as gold because II
bore all the tests of gold. There is also the
doctors promise to furnish the government
with 81 600 worth of this metal in the next
two months and $1,000 ounces month
next year.
It is not a joke with Director Preston
either he is buying gold from DR.. Emmens
or he is not, and If not he has no one to
blame except the assayer and the tests
adopted for determining what is gold
There is in this proposition Of DR.. Emmens
the bare possibility that new and better
methods of assaying gold shall have to be
adopted.
The doctor has the best end Of the prob
lem so far He represents his metal as the
product from Mexican silver dollars. and
leaves it to the government to determine
it's value, and he is willing to furnish the
government unlimited quantities Of this
metal, claiming that he can do it at a
profit so long as the government pays him
in gold pieces for it. He does not want to
sell his secret, in fact, says he will not
part with it, and the government cannot
compel him to do SO. He has his company
organized and each stockholder is pledged
not to sell his stock.
Mr.. Preston thinks it looks like clear
business proposition, and either the gov
eminent is being swindled through its own
faulty assay of the metal or DR.. Emmens
is producing gold from some other metal.
The director of the mint acknowledges
that he is puzzled He also admits that he
can see no way of showing that this metal
is not gold without at the same time show
ing that much of thevgold from the mines
deposited in the mints is also baser metal,
for the same test is applied to ALL
Dr. Emmens' metal is about the same
color as the Klondike gold which Mr.. Pres
ton has received considerably lighter in
color than the California gold, and the
doctors metal assays about the same, only
a little lower than the Klondike gold. The
doctors metal is valued at from $13 to S14
an ounce, the Klondike gold at from $14 to
SIS an ounce. Both carry considerable
silver and that explains why they are of
lighter color and of about the same value.
The similarity of the two products, that
from DR.. Emmens' laboratory on Staten
island and the gold from Alaska. suggests
to Mr.. Preston that 6perhaps they have
been produced from the same causes DR..
EmmenS says:
take a Mexican silver dollar and dis
pose it in an apparatus which will prevent
expansion or flow, then subject it to
heavy, rapid and continuous beating under
conditions of cold such as to prevent even
a temporary rise of temperature when the
blows are struck. Test the material hour
by hour and at length you will find more
than a trace of gold
He says his secret is that of subjecting
silver to this heavy. rapid and continuous
beating without increasing the temper
allure to expand the metal. 1t is as cold
or even colder Immediately after the beat
ing as before and he claims to have
force engine capable of producing pres
sures exceeding 500 tons per square inch.
and that he can put this enormous pres
sure upon the metal without increasing the
temperature.
This theory has suggested to the direc
tor of the mint that the Klondike gold may
have been produced in like manner. 1t is
in the Arctic region and from glacial drift.
There was, according to the biologists,
heavy rapid, and continuous pounding
among the glaciers of the Arctic region at
one time. and it ground the rocks into
powder, which has since flowed down the
mountain sides and frozen in the sand and
mud.
Mr.. Preston has not developed his theory,
but DR.. Emmens' explanation OF how to
produce gold from silver suggests to him
that nature may have had just such
laboratory as DR.. Emmens' up in the Arc
tic region some thousands OF years ago,
and that it produced and stored the klon-
dixie gold, and this theory, wild as it may
seem, is another troublesome one to the
director of the mint, for if he should
succeed in demonstrating that Dr. EN-
mems argentarumen gold is not gold, he
may also demonstrate by the same method
that the Klondike gold is not gold.
You can see from this article that the
capitalistic class are becoming alarmed.
They would be glad of any excuse to
drop gold and take up silver again; as
they did when gold was pouring forth
in great quantities from California and
Australia. They were converted to the
gold standard by the fact that the sup
plies soon fell off. If DR.. Emmens can
make gold out of silver, and Klondike
turns out immense supplies of the yell
low metal, you will see the gold-bug
papers wheel about, right face, and es-
pouse the cause of silver Already sill
yer is rising. 'f'
NEW YORK. Oct. St-tShver scored a rise
of 1 penny to q pence-in London today, and
cents to So cents in New York.
Bullion dealers were unable to assign any
other cause for the rise than the scarcity
Of supplies. The Indian demand OF late
has been quite heavy The London price
price on Sept. 20, which was the high
point of the rally on the news OF the Bank
of England's proposition to hold one-fifth Of
its reserve in silver.
In the meantime a Mr.. Brice, Of Chi
cago "a good Populist, by the way, who
was delegate to the Peoples party con-
vention last year at St. Louis), claims
that he is making gold out of anthony.
The Chicago Record says:
Unless Edward c. Brice and his associ-
ate have made a misfakelat some point in
their calculations they have lighted the
furnace fires in factory that Is to produce
gold from the baser metals to the value
Of g. eco year.
Without claiming a knowledge Of the
black art, without calling to his aid any Of
the powers Of alchemy. Mr.. Brice asserts
that he can make gold-that he has made
it and sold it on the market on its own
merits side by SIDE with natures product
from the mountains. The orthodox theory
that gold is a primary substance he dts
putes and holds that it is made from other
metals by heat and by volcanic action.
To prove it's faith in the inventor and his
theories a company Of which Mr. Brice is
the president and heaviest stockhoder, has
fitted I'm a plant at Thirty-ninth street