The Savannah morning news., 1901-08-31

At all events, it 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 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 III the
rocks are much more complicated
There is a vast amount of boring to
be done into the fiinty hearts of the
mountains with steel drills and with
blasting: and then the rock which Is
dotted with the precious yellow fakes
has to be crushed between the steel
jaws of great mills. Much of the gold
that is mined, too, is so chemically
changed that it does not look like gold
at all, and requires special chemical
processes to coax 1t out. In all gold
mining mercury is one of the most i'm
portant factors. 1t is the mineral sher-
if, swift to arrest any fugitive fieck
of gold that may come in its way. The
sluice boxes in extensive placer mines
and the sheets" in stamp mills are
all charged with quicksilver, which
saves a vast amount of the inner gold
dust that otherwise would he swept
away by the current of water for
water is equally essential in Goth kinds
of mining.
Gold in the Sea.
There is no such thing as pure
gold" often as we hear the phrase. Ma
lures purest, her virgin gold is al
ways alleged with silver and the very
finest is 9S or 80 per cent. gold. Califor-
MIA gold averages about the f1neness
of our American coin-9O per cent. OF
purity 1t is an odd fact that the sea Il
full of gold. No doubt at the bottom
of that stupendous basin, which has
received for all time the washings oil
all world, there is an incalculable
wealth of gold in dust; but the strange
ocean mine is not all so deep down as
that The sea water itself carries gold
it, solution-a fraction of a grain oil
gold to every ton of water, as a famous
chemist has shown.
Among the historical big nuggets
found in various parts of the worlf
there have been some wonderful yell
low Jumps. In Cabarrus county, North
Carolina, one was found in 1910 which
weighed thirty-seven pounds troy. In
1912 the gold fields of zlatoust, in the
Ural, gave a nugget of ninety-six
pounds troy. The Victoria (Australia)
nugget weighed 146 pounds and pen
nyweights, of which only ounces were
foreign rock, and the Ballarat (Austra-
lia) nugget was thirty-nine pounds
heavier yet. The largest nugget ever
found was also dug in Australia--the
Sarah Sands" named for a far-olI
loved one. 1t reached the astonishing
weight of 233 pounds and ounces
troy. wonder what Miner Sands felt
when he struck his pick upon thai
fortune in one lump
Within the last fifty years Califor
MIA and Australia alone have producet
more than half as much gold as the
whole world had mined before Colum
bus. At present the United States pro
duces over $50, 900, 900 worth of gold {
year, which is far more than any othei
country. South Africa and Australis
rank next. producing each over $50.
900 900, and after come Russia, Souti
America and Mexico. The total annua
production of gold in the world is ovei
$500 900 oO0
The Annual Lost Gold.
Yet the world is not richer in GOLD
by all that vast amount every year
1t is losing. too--an amount very trif
ling compared with the whole. and We
very large in fact. You hear people
wishing that they owned this ricl
mine or that vast fortune, but if on
could have just the annual loss on tn,
billions OF, dollars worth of gold nov
in the worlds hands there would b,
no need to envy Croesus. Every yea,
an impalpable golden dust--so infinite
ly fine as to seem rather a vapor thar
a dust-is worn from all gold in use
and passes forever from our wealth
and our knowledge. And in our han
ding enough gold to make one per
son intellectually rich disappears ever!
year lost as absolutely as If it hat
never existed. So even If the world
needs of gold were not multiplying
very rapidly, there would be required
a large annual production merely t
meet this shrinkage by wear an.
tear" The quality which makes golt
the most valuable of the metals is it
docility. The cunning hammer o
the smith can teach" il almost any
thing. The more stubborn metaI
crumble after they have been reduced
TO certain point of fineness, but golC
can be hammered into a sheet so in
initely fine that 2s2, 900 of them. pilet
one uDon the other. would be but al
inch thick, And a fake Of gold tin.
as pinhead can be drawn out in {
finer thread than ever man spun in (
spider thread-to length Of 500 feet
There is no end to the uses of gold
They broaden every day. In one of 1T
many forms our Yellow Slave helps Vi
in almost every art and walk OF life
1t is as necessary as its red fellow.
servant, flre-and better in one way
since, unlike fire, it can never become
"a bad master" except through oui
own fault.
AnNENrIRE WITH nIII MonSIr