Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-01-29

out Of another metal than he has Of
eproutinS pair of wings and flying right
mp into the air. You can combine the
chemical clements, the gases and liquids
and solids in thousands Of ways, but you
can't take simple elementary metal such
as copper and change it into gold unless
you argue that copper contains gold. You
can take chemical element and combine
it in 20 different ways with other elements
so that its appearance will be changed,
but you can't destroy that clement or
change it to another clement. II you
think you can, why, you II be good man
to talk to a promoter.
''Now, look here. / remember the time
when they said we couldn't get a machine
to set type. When l was boy, didn't
they say we never would have self bind
cr? Think Of the telephone, the phone
He has no more chance of making gold
graph and all of them things. I'll tell
You, you don't know what they are going
to do next"
~ think they arc going to do you next.
I'll bet If man came in here at this min
ute and wanted to sell you some stock in a
gold manufacturing company you d bite :"
well, wouldn't right away, but I'd
investigate. p"
That's proper-inyestisate. They d
prove to you that gold can be made from
old tin cans. Why, 500 years ago, when
the world was full of superstition and
most people believed in magic, if man
said that he could make gold out of the
cheaper metals his friends began to watch
him and his wife Kept him in the house at
nights. Ii it seemed foolish thei what
ought it TO be now? Everything that has
been learned in chemistry simply goes to
prove that the talk Of making gold is the
dream OF the ignorant or the device of tho
sharper. 1t belongs with the perpetual
molten scheme. There is no limit to a
mans ingenuity, but tho inventors and
discovorcrs work according TO general laws
which have been tested and proved a mil
lion times. Edison has new method of
getting iron from clay ore He does it
By electricity. But he doesn't make the
iron. Now, ! expect TO see airships some
day. / expect that we shall have devices
for recording thoughts and taking photo
graphs at long range 10y some kind of cleo
trical Transmission, but never expect to
see the day when . straight line will not
be the shortest distance between two
points or when the whole will not be great
er than the part: also, l hardly think that
! shall ever SEQ one chemical element
changed by any hocus pocus into another
chemical clement. When l do see it, ex-
pect to see the rain fall upward and all the
accepted laws Of nature reversed
You be nightly fooled il this fellow
did make gold, now wouldn't you." aske
the other.
"Ill tell you what you do-you wait
until you reach the ago of discretion and
I'll talk TO you. In the meantime you'd
better let me carry Jour money for you.
suppose if You started down street and
met a man who owned two or three gold
factories you'd cash check for him,
wouldn't you? Let me tell you something
If L over turn crooked, this is where !
want to be, right here in Chicago. I'll
organize stock company for extracting
eau de cologne from the Chicago river,
and III sell a million shares at 81 a share.
/ may start two or three gold factories
too. If do, I'll let you know"
The other man was mad, but not con.
WINGED. He knew there might be some.
thing in it, after all