The southern sentinel. (Winnfield, La.) 1883-1910, 1901-10-04
1T OUR YELLOW SLAVE
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS
PURE GOLD.

Eature's Purest, Her Virgin Gold, II Al
ways AlIoyed With silver-There 10 In
II calculable Auriferous Dust at tn
Bottom of the Sea.
Z c. F. Lummis writes In st. Nichola:
8 that the only abundant metal in the
. world that is yellow is the most prec'
ious of them all-gold. Brass is not q
!. true metal. but an alloy, a compound
Q And the color which gold shares
+ with the sun has a great deal to do
with its value. do not think 1t would
E be possible that he should ever have
come to love and admire any metal so
much, to choose 1t for our highest cur
rency and our ornaments. no matter
how rare or ductile 1t might be, IL It
were q dark. dull. gloomy color. The
human eye never gets too old to be
: pleased with very much the same
things which pleased 1t in childhood;
and no eye is insensible to the charm
OF that precious yellow.
1 like sometimes to think back to
the first man of all men that ever held
that rock Of the sun" In his savage
hand, and to imagine how he found il.
and how 1t made his sharp eyes twin
kle; and how he wondered at its
weight. and pounded 1t with one
smooth rock upon another, and found
that he could flatten 1t. All these
things come by accident; and gold was
an accident that befell when the world
was very young. Probably there had
been a great rain that washed the
comely lump from its nest in some
gravelly stream-bank; and the pre-
historic man, In his tunic of skins.
CHANGED this way and found 1t. 1t
may be that the poor barbarian who
picked up the first yellow nugget sank
with 1t still grasped in his swarthy fist.
We do not know even the name Of
the man who first discovered gold, nor
where he lived. nor when. But 1t was
very. very long ago. Before the time
Of Joseph and the coat Of many colors |
gold had already become not only a |
discovered fact. but used In the worlds |
trade. The early Egyptians got their |
gold from Nubia; so. very likely. the |
discovery was first made In Africa. |
At all events IL dates back to the very
childhood Of the race. and before men
had invented the letters Of the alpha
bet mankind had achieved the prettiest
plaything it had ever found.
All gold began in veins" in the
earth's rocky ribs. but time. with his
patient hammers Of wind and rain and
frost. has pounded vast areas of these
rocks to sand. and the gold. broken
from great bands to Jumps. has drifted
with the bones Of the mountains into
the later heaps of gravel.
The processes of mining gold which
still remains In its original home i'm
the rocks are much more complicated.
There is a vast amount of boring to
be done into the fiinty hearts Of the
with steel drills and with
and then the rock which is
iotted with the precious yellow fakes
has to be crushed between the steel
avs OF great mills. Much Of the gold
hat Is mined. too, Is SO chemically
hanged that 1t does not look like gold &
It all. and requires special chemical
PROCESSES to coax it out. In all gold
mining. mercury is one Of the most i'm
ortant factors. 1t is the mineral 6
heriff. swift to arrest any fugitive 4
eek OF gold that may come in its way.
ne sluice-boxes In extensive placer
lines and the sheets" In stamp mills
re all charged with quicksilver, which a
ayes vast amount of the finer gold d
ust that otherwise would be swept :"
way by the current Of water. for :
'ater Is equally essential In both 8
inds Of mining. y
There Is no such thing as "prre
DID," often as we hear the phrase. Ia
ature's purest, her "virgin cold.~ 60 d,
ways alloyed with silver; and the Il
Fry finest Is ninety-eight or ninety
ne per cent. gold. California gold
'erages about the fineness of our
merican coin-ninety per cent. of CT
lrity.
Ii Is an odd fact that the sea is full oil
gold. No doubt at the bottom of
at stupendous basin. which has re- pa
ived for all time the washings of all II
9 world. there Is an incalculable
saith OF gold In dust. but the strange
can mine Is not all SO deep down as
at The sea water itself carries gold n1
solutions fraction Of q grain of ,'
10 to every ton OF water, as a fa- i.'
BUS chemist has shown. TN
among the historical big nuggets az
md In various parts of the world L
ere have been some wonderful vel "
Jumps. In Cabarrus County. esl
rth Carolina. one was found in 1910 on
Itch weighed thirty-seven pounds sp'
y. In 1S42 the gold fields of Zla- tns
ISL In the Ural. gave a nugget of 'ui
lety-six pounds troy. The Victoria aV'
astraiia) nugget weighed 146 pounds mo
three pennyweights, Of which only ke'
ounces were foreign rock; and the for
Karat Australia) nugget was thirty. mil
e pounds heavier yet. The largest Elf
sget ever found was also dug in the