Daily Kennebec journal., 1904-12-26

that you could rest your hand on 1t
quite comfortably; when it was open
YOU had to be careful not to look too
close. for fear OF getting your eyes
scorched. The big man took crucible
like large flower pot, and put in a few
spoonfuls Of white powder from some
bottles that were labelled Borax Glass.
and Carb. Potass. Carb. Soda and POI,
| Nitrate. Then he threw in the gold
dust. stirred the contents up, and put
them on the furnace. Then he smut
down the lid and waited
by and by he opened it again, and
the mixture was a Gull, semi-opaque
brown. Next time it was bright red.
and the next glowing white. The cook
ricked UP a crowbar made of plumbago
and began to stir. peering at his work
through his spectacles, and then turn
ing away and blinking. The assistant
cook brought up heavy iron mould.
nicely oiled up inside, and put it on the
kitchen table, close to the furnace; his
boss took d pair of iron pincers. hung
them to a hook on the ceiling, gripped
hold of the crucible. and swung the
hook round till it hung over the mould.
Then he pulled on pair of asbestos
gloves that looked as if they were
made of very thick. rather dirty cotton,
and tilted the pot up, the contents run
ming ont III a stream OF faint trans
lucent red.
"This he allowed to stand for quar-
ter of an hour or 50, when the surface
| had cooled and caked to the shiny
black OF patent leather, and then he
turned the mould over and whacked it
with a hammer. When he lifted the
| mould UP there remained on the table
a brick Of hrassy yellow. crusted over
with black varnish, which he Dropped
kissing into a bath of sulphu'ic acid
IT was a good deal cleaner when he
| nicked it out. but the yarn!sh still re-
mained. adhering here and there to the
roughened surface. so he put it under
a rnnring tap, and Clipped off the
larger bits Of Stag with blunt nail.
and brushed the whole thing with a
wire brush. till there remained brick
of pure gold That is, relatively speak
ing. pure gold, because the exact fine
ness had still to be determined. Fof
this purpose he took a keen chlsel ana
shaved a thin slice off each OF TWO
diagonal corners, and handed them TO
| the assayers in the back office.
| .Meanwhile the other assayer mas
been working independently on ms
| sample, and if the two results 90 not
agree to two parts in ten thousand tAe
whole process has to be gone over
again. The scales are made or gold
plating and aluminium. with agate
bearings. because iron might become
magnetic and they are kept under a
| glass case Behind the index was an
| ivory rule. marked off into twenty d.
visions, ten on each side of the index
The assayer asked the Boston girl II
she could spare him a hair of her head,
and she pulled one out and handed II
to him. He remarked smlingly that it
was much too heavy. and. shipping
! tiny piece off one end, so small as to be
almost invisible. he dropped it with
pair Of fine, tweezers into the scale
whereupon the index ran swiftly along
the rule and stopped at No. 6. These
men can guess the approximate fine
ness of-their samples at a glance with
extraordinary accuracy, but they say
that the precision and close attention
required in the work tells horribly on
| the nerves.
I'VE saw gold in dust. and gold in
|
and gold in slabs. and gold III bricks.
and gold in ribbons like wood shavings
chemically pure and worth $26 to s27
per ounce intrinsically; the CONNER
cial value is, of course, still higher
Then NJ. unlocked his cage and let us
out into the sunlt street.
Not only the people in the Vancou-
yer streets, but the streets themselves,
have an English look about them: you
| even see private carriages with coach
| men and footmen on the box. 1t is
| true that in Chinatown the posters on
the walls are vivid orange decorated
| with strange brush mark characters
| But the houses are not the high. mar
row, many balconied buildings that one
associates with Chinese quarter
You enter handsome shop that might
belong to a tobacconist in the Strand
| exchange a few words with the pig
tailed proprietor. and then pass on into
the back kitchen. Here you find some
sixteen or eighteen little furnaces with
| large fiat pans on them. and with half
a dozen cooks making toffee. IT
doesn't smell like toffee, though it
looks like it. but has a sickly, penetrat-
ing odor OF it's own which clings to
your nostrils all day. Now and then
a man shufies up and lifts off one OF
the pans, let's it cool little. and splits
off top layer Of hardened scum while
the smell becomes more oppressive
| than ever.
There is a big china jar near the
door with a dozen pipestems sticking
out of the top. looking like so many
walking sticks. At the first shop I en-
| tered i asked if these were opi,,m
pipes. and the owner promptly denied
the charge. So thought there was no
harm in looking at them, and picked
up one, and found not only that it was
an opium pipe. but also that it had
been used quite recently 1t was a re-
lief to get back into the open air.
While we were looking through the
JOSS house there was a curious sort of
singsong jabbering going on behind the
door that faced the one at the head of
the staircase The attendant in charge
nodded afffrmatively when we asked if