The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1915-10-28
OUR Worldwide NET
AL OF Worship
The importance OF fhe Metal in the Arts,
Crafts, Commerce, Finance and Policies
OF the World and the Far-Reaching To-
tIuence On Past and Present Civilization
Herbert Qrick

HSTO6TC QCtCR
In precious instdllnaents Herbert Quick has
discussed different phases of industrial and
ethical lye. from the standpoint Of fasseng gers
on board ship "The Earth
There are other metals In the
bunkers which we should he very
sorry to do with out. Copper is
immensely important-and when we
come to the work of using all our
water-power to save the depletion
of the coal in the ground, we shall
need to use a great deal more cop
per. Therefore it would be sensi-
BILE deprivation of all Of us if the
supply of copper were worked out.
So with zinc which is needed
for utensils, for the preservation Of
iron and steel by galvanizing. and
as an alloy of copper for the making
of that very useful metal, brass, and
for paint. Lead is the basis of a
very important industry, is widely
consumed as paint, and is almost
essential to many jobs of work
which we should scarcely know how
to dispense with. And even the
new metal, aluminium, and mapgan-
ese, vanadium, mercury and a lot
more, mostly with names ending in
"um" from the precious platinum
to the unfamiliar molybdenum, are
all useful, and yearly becoming more
so as we find out more about their
properties-all are important; but
we need not worry about the
stores of them being exhausted from
that thin skin of the crust of the
decks of the Good Ship Earth
which we can penetrate and search
and subject to our service.
We need n not worry-because they
are not 80 essential to civilization as
iron and coal; nor to life as is the
soil. We need not worry for the
additional reason that the same NOR
al uplift that carried us TO the height
of looking after the iron and coal
and forests and soil, will bring us
to the point of looking after these
subordinate good things which God
has placed in the bunkers of the
Good Ship Earth for the use of all
the passengers alike.
But l must mention two metals
because they are of such wonderful
interest to the world for the reason
that they have been taken as meas
ures of value for other commodities.
Tho not extraordinarily useful in
themselves, they exert an infu-
ence upon our prosperity, which
would be incomprehensible to a
person brot up outside their sway.
Imean silver and gold.
These metals are useful-in fact,
if they were plentiful they would
take the place of the baser metals in
many of the arts. Like Zinc, Lead,
copper, nickel, platinum and other
of the rarer metals, there is no way OF
telling how much of them the earth
contains. We keep on looking fol
them and the supply varies from
century to century as we have good
uck or bad luck. When Columbus
discovered America he led the way
to the mines of gold ard silver ir
Mexico and Peru. For a hundred
years the precious stream flowed In
to the worlds strong boxes at rate
never before equaled. Then i
dwindled. With the opening of thu
mines in California. the fountain
were again set flowing. Australi,
liberated her great output. TheI
came other new fields in the Rock!
Mountain regions, and in Soutl
Africa witha tonnage of gold equal L
any of these. Lastly, comes Alaska
And all the while the Worlds scienc'
has labored to make the methods o
extraction more eficient-until tn,
output of gold and silver has be-
come greater than ever before. ani
seems to promisecontinuous supply