The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-31
FARn OLD METALS
Far More Precious Than Gold, That Are
 Revolutionizing Science.

| Far More Precious Than Gold, That Are Revolutionfzfng Science.
 Precious metals, rare and new, are bestowing wizard powers on science. magical their manifestations that the value of some of them exceeds that of the diamond They are revealing | w5aders hidden since the world was born. They are the essentials in inven- tions that are revolutionizing life in the world. They are filling the future with promise of revelations and crea- tions more wonderful than the inagin-
 aation can picture.
 A few decades ago. platinum was
 worthless. When found 1t was not gathered, but left to lie on the ground Since this year opened platinum has | reached a price nearly double that of gold. A piece of platinum eight | inches wide and a quarter of an inch
 made possible the incandescent light,
 but this is by no means the limit of 1 its uses, in which no substitute can | do its work in things that set the pace of modern progress.
 Platinum. though far less
 magical and costly than, I for instance, radium. is the most Hons of people own 8 little fragment of it's very limited supply or use n little of 1t in their daily life. The miracle working metal radium costs many hundred times as much as platinum: and poionium is valued at s3,50o,0e0 a pound. though there is not pound of | polonium in the hands of mankind
 Gold Is no longer the precious metal.
 An ounce of gal1ium iseworth twenty pounds of gold and there are twenty | metals that cannot be bought with their weight in gold"
 There is wealth for the man who can find platinum in paying quanti- l ing for it. The value of this wonderful
 metal has increased steadily since its | usefulness was discovered. Tn 1899 ' platinum sold for S7.50 an ounce. Tn 1900 1t was &12. in 1901 from s15 to | s1s. The year 1906 closed with the
 metal at $ss an ounce. There Is only
 one man in the world who can corner
 the platinum market. He can do 1t by
 stroke of his pen or a spoken word
 Disaster in the scientific and business
 world would follow. The man with the 1 autocratic power over the precious
 metal is the Cxar of Russia. It car
 ries his absolute authority to every nation of the earth.
 Ninety-five per cent. of all the plat mum produced in the world
 is mined in the Ural Mountains | of Russia. The mines are working slowly now. owing to the the labor troubles in Russia, with the
 constant threat of a shutdown. Tn | this event 1t is not unlikely that the Czar will exercise his power to stop
 the exportation of platinum. Manu- lecturers throughout the world will | then cry in vain for the metal that Is necessary to the life of their business Platinum has many uses In which
 nothing has been discovered to take its place. It is used in telephones, an essential, but small fragment of it in every phone; in dentistry it forms the plug in a crown" tooth; in the manu- facture of incandescent electric light | bulbs it is the material in the short intake wires which pass through the glass and carry the electric current to the flaments. Platinum is the only metal that expands and contracts equal ly with glass at various temperatures. It also endures intense heat without fusing. The hottest blast furnace can rot melt 1t; in fact nothing less than $500 degrees Fahrenheit can change l it. If the Russian supply were cut off for two or three months the manu- facture of incandescent light in this | country would cease.
 Platinum was first used, and is still
 used. to make the spider legs" in | optical Instruments, the metal being drawn to a fineness of 60,000, 000, ,ths
 of an inch; it Is used in laboratory analytical work. in which no other produces an absolutely permanent | picture
 In composition with other metals platinum has been placed in recent | mintages of Russian coin of high | degree; and this platinum money is the only money in the world to-day
 that is above par, reckoning gold as
 the standard.
 And now platinum has come into fashion in Jewelry as a result of its value exceeding that of gold. its hard ness and it's permanency of color Diamonds and other peecious stones now are set in platinum. and the fad for the use of the metal in this way bids fair greatly to increase the demand for it, at time when there is fear for the supply. From Russia last year s,2s9 pounds of the metal. valued at S2,67S,664, was imported into the United States.
 It is only four years since polonium was announced to the world. The discoverer of this marvellous metal was a woman, Mime Curie. in Paris, who also discovered radium. Tn the following year 15-100 of a grain of po1onium was exhibited in Berlin which had been produced from two tons of uranium.
 In n HluCu HlBHSF OeBTe6 than EdQlum polonium has the power to shine in the dark. and though always throwing off it's luminous particles. the strange substance does not exhaust itself nor lose it's luminous power with the pas- sage of time It holds the future probabilities os a constant and brilliant illugoinant generated without heat or combustion. a neverending light that operates inexharstibly in defiance of the supposed laws of nature" with out change or outside interference.
 An ounce of gold Is worth S20 Calcium. which belongs to the alum mum family of metals, costs $S0 an ounce. And there is rhodium, dark metal very difficult to melt, which Is $40 an ounce; thorium is scarce at s16o an ounce, and beryllium, which layman might mistake for lead, is worth $S0 to $90 an ounce. Germanium looks like tin, but 1t Is worth to any one who has it and can find the chemist
 who needs 1t in his business SeO to S105 an ounce. The rare metal gallium, which is now recognised as one Of the clements, also resembles tin. It in fact belongs to the same group of metals as tin, but 1t is a tin worth, in the minute fragments in which 1t
 is obtatnablej in the crueibIes of the chemiSt from sSsoOo to ss.ooo en ounce.