Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1901-01-26
LITTLE GOLD CHEESE.
Meal Product of Valuable Relics
Turned Into Cakes.
ola siIverware and odd Bits of Pre-
eIous Metal Melted in Governs
ment Pots-some Interest,"
ing Particulars.

For so years the same two men have
been making the same kind of cheeses
in The same little old building ON Wail
street.
Henry Doherty has handled gold
r,rul i'm the room of the United States
assay Office since 1S49. lie prepares
il for Cyrus g. Brunner, who Tor 90
wears has stood every day in his cor
ner by the hydraulic press, squeezing
gold and silver meal into the cheeses,
Saws The Washington Star.
Anybody can take gold and silver
To the ASSAY Office in lots of not less
than 500 and have it melted or re-
fined by paying small charge IL Is
i'm the character of the wares thus
brought for melting that the human
interest of the Office is found. vi
500, 900, 900 of precious metal melteo
last year about S7,00O,0OO was old Sill
YER. Owing to the fact that plated
ware is accepted. the silver, bullion
made the greatest bulk. 1t consisted
of old watch cases and abandoned
plate. An odd feature is that often
a so-called old family, forced TO part
with its venerable plate through un-
toward circumstances, will have cost
" and artistic forms turned into mere
bullion before it is offered on the
market.
Where there is no especial artistic
value in the old plate. it is wise. from
business standpoint, to melt it be-
fore selling it. Dealers in old plate
buy it for its bullion value only. They,
being expert, can tell what this value
is. and. if they be not exactly honest,
might get much the best of the bar
gain. But when it is melted in the
assay office each bar is stamped with
the exact weight and fineness.. so that
child might take ii to market and
get its value.
Not old plate alone goes into the
melting pots of Uncle Sam. Every
wear hundreds of sets of silverware
that have never left the manufactur-
ers' hands are melted up. These are
wares that have been made in excess
of the demand and have gone out of
fashion. so that the best way to real
ize on them is to remelt them and re-
form them. Some manufacturers do
tt'q. melting Themselves, but the gov
cr~'~ent does it well and cheaply, so
gets much Of 1t to do.
m the smaller bits of gold and sill
yer that come TO the mint are rings.
II is surprising how many love tokens
find their way there to be purified in
fame. Toys, engagement rings, pres
entation badges and odd coins are
mingled into common mass in the
! furnace. Often articles of extreme
value come to the furnaces in these
odd lots, but even if the assay office
employees recognize a treasure they
may not save it without the consent
of the owner.
The melting furnaces are run from
eight o'clock to four daily. The fuel
is gas, aided by blast To melt sill
yer it takes 1900 degrees Fahrenheit;
to melt gold, $500 degrees. This heat
will turn the metal into liquid In rs
minutes. One furnace will run off
$4,000 ounces of gold in day, or 5000
of silver. Molten silver looks like
weak tea heavy with sugar sirup;
gold like rare old Tokay. The ordi-
nary mold is of the size of building
brick. 1t is of steel, the inner sur
face highly polished and smeared with
sweet lard. As the rich flood falls
into it the lard springs into flame and
keeps on burning after the metal has
come to rest, making little wall of
fire about it. Each mold when full
will hold 200 ounces of silver or 300
of gold. The metal is left to stand in
the molds but moment, for the in
stant it Is hard enough to stand alone
ii is turned out on a metal table. AT
first it is a deep red, then gradually
cools and assumes its proper color
The weight and fneness are stamped
before the bricks leave this table.
Now the gold and silver meal has
been left behind in the bottoms of the
respective pots and watts. Each metal
is treated alike. 1t is collected from
pot and'vat with copper hose and put
into tubs, where hot water is poured
upon it while it is stirred with a
wooden ladle. The washing process is
kept up until the water that runs off
is clean. Then it is put into large
tubs and hot water is run over It
with hose. The water run off in
this washing is carefully collected and
strained ten times, so that no particle
of precious metal escapes.
After the meal has been washed
clean it goes to the 2OO-ton hydraulic
press, where it is pressed into cheeses
a foot in diameter and three inches
thick. This pressifre is to dry it. AS
the mighty plunger descends on IL
water is forced out on all sides
through minute Sits. This water Is
strained through muslin ten times
The finished cheese is worth, in gold
$4,000; in silver, $500. 1t looks hard
and dry, but it still contains so much
water that II put into one of the su
perheated furnaces the atoms of wa
fat. L., A