The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-07-27
GOLD IN THE OCEAN.
Some Facts That VIII Paralyze the
SiIVerites.

Canton. Ga, July 26.-Editor of the
"a ult., under the head of Items of In
terest" you mention the possibility of
extracting gold from sea water, and
refer to Prof. Lupton of Leeds, Eng
land, who had given this matter some
attention and had given some statis-
tics before the Institute of Mining En-
gineers, declaring that according to his
estimate of the amount of gold held
in the seas there was sufficient to
give every man, woman and child on
the earth 96,000,000, or about 100000 900
each. Next you state that it would be
highly interesting to learn how Prof.
Lupton arrives at this conclusion.
All chemists who have looked into it
say that there is some gold in all the
salt seas, and Prof. James d. Dana,
the best authority in the United States
on gold and minerals, says in his work
on mineralogy that gold also exists
in salt water-nearly one grain of gold
to a ton of water"
Prof Mitchell, who is unQuestioned
authority on all geographical ques
tons, says that all the oceans and
seas of our globe contain 323,000,000 of
cubic miles of salt water.
A ton of salt water contains "a cubic
feet and a grain of gold is valued at
4 cents, but we will say that a ton of
salt water has in it only hree-fourths
of grain or cents, then by a series
of arithmetical calculations, we get
these figures, viz: that all the seas
and oceans hold in solution gold equal
to Sal, 1852, 1876, SIS, $50. 900. This vast sum
of gold would give to each of the $780,
;n,l,a p; &c 1f &c o,-fh
96S, 1888, which statement agrees very
nearly with Prof. Lupton, and while
as you we'll say. they are somewhat
astounding" yet they are deducted
from a reasonable calculation.
The presence of all this vast sum of
gold scattered through the oceans of
the earth may be accounted for in this
way: that it is of course all held in
solution and for ages the internal
forces of the earth have been casting
UP the different elements held beneath
US, among others untold quantities of
the metals, and have not the several
chemical constituents from within the
earth tended in connection with the
salts of the ocean to @aduce all this to
LIQUID and hold it in solution as an
associate element. And, too, ever since
the rivers were formed. they have been
floating down the golden sands to min
gle with the salt waters, and the same
processes have reduced these sands
to a solution. All miners well know
that in the gold regions the beds of
rivers carry a mass of golden sand
that is forever floating toward the
ocean. Notably is this so of the Sac
ramento Columbia, Snake. Yukon and
other streams that have been exam
ined.
1t may be that at a greater depth
in the ocean more per ton of water
may be held owing to the greater spe-
cific gravity of gold.
That any great quantity of this vast
deposit of gold will be made available
for our use is a question for the flu
ture.
l have no doubt but that in time to
come when all the mines on land have
been worked to the greatest depth that
can be reached by miners, that then
scientists viii turn to the ocean and
some practical wizard such as Edison
will devise a scheme to separate the
precious metal from salt water. and
then ocean mining will be as fasci-
mating and profitable as II is on land.
and from the figures above the sup
ply should be equal TO all demands.
7. o. Robertson. NJ. E.