The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-01-09
ASSAY OFFICE
SWAMPED WITH
TONS OF COLD

OO14lC0 OO L dSO IOlll xAUIOdu
There Is No More Room
For Storing It.
Midas had his share of the troubles
of the rich-but consider Uncle Sam,
his family and their servitors. Gold
comes so fast from abroad that in the
United States assay Office in New York
there Is no more room for storing it,
not enough men or smelters there to
smelt it (although employees have been
increased) and the buildings of the
sub-treasury has had to be comman
deered for storage space, while the
minis at Philadelphia, Denver and
SanFrancisco have had to help the
overworked assay Office to catch up
with its job-whfch still it cannot do,
for in the first place Immigrant gold"
all gold arriving from foreign lands
must be weighed. says Franklin Clark
in in the Boston Transcript.
1t has been possible to weigh only
from two and one-half to three mil
lion dollars worth a day. OF the
nearly $51,000,000 lin gold received
here last week the overwhelmed assay
office, even with the help of the Phila-
delphia mint, could pass upon and try
by scales and chemicals, only s25,000,-
900 worth. Not till the metal has
been weighed and perhaps melted can
the assay office tell the value to the
smallest of fractions. and not till then
can the government pay to importers
or consignees it's checks representing
j98 per cent. Of the demonstrated, val
ue for bars and 80 per cent. for the
demonstrated value for coins. Mean
time the appropriation set aside for
assaying by the government has been
overspent. Plants are running at a
deficit. Secretary McAdoo has had
to ask congress for $107,5OO to make
good the operating losses at the assay
office and in Denver, Philadelphia and
San Francisco minis.
Where the Gold Trucks Go
If you are a truckman with a load
of gold you can easily find this treas
ure-house. Driving into the midst
Of many sumptuous money changers
temples you merely search out the din
giest, most temporary and casual look
ing entrance, in the neighborhood,
back up, and trundle your iron-bound
boxes up temporary inclined walk
and under a signboard almost erased
by the wind that ceaselessly skurries
through the canyons. The door mat
has no welcome" on it. The shift
of workers see in your precious ap-
preaching cargo only a piling up of
more and more labor. Except that
there are armed guards standing at |
the entrance and in odd corners of |
the great rooms. you will see little that |
is different from the interior Of any,
orderly factory. Quiet and system
everywhere - Superintendent Bowie
attends to, that. The great impor-
tant machines are the giant scales,
which have delicacy of balance down
tc the last notch, and the cauldron, or
melting pot.
For all gold is melted and much of |
it refined and tested as soon as may
be after delivery. All the bright I
proud sovereigns Of England, all the
beautiful, well-Wrought Napoleons of
France, all the splendidly worked null
tip1es Of yens, drachmas. rub1es, flor
ms, liras tkrans, marks, on which gift
ed designers have spent imagery and
symb olism-all of these that come
this way are cast into the melting
pot like ordinary nuggets. Unlike
people. arriving gold, wheth-
er in coins or bars, must become i'm
"naturalized.'' They must
go into the common melting pot and
then through testing, separating, re-
fning processes till they reach the
American standard. all except the gold
coins of France and Britain, which
have the same quality as our own.
Melting Immigrant Coins.
United States gold coins, 25.S grains
to the dollar, COOL 900 fine no limit
on the issue, correspond in amount
of pure gold and amount Of ALLOW to
the gold coins of France and Britain.
So sovereigns and napoleons are not
subjected to the disintegrating bound
boxes in which they arrive are OPEN
ed. The bags of aovefeigns and ma
poleons are lifted out and weighed and
dumped at once together into the melt
ng pot. For other coins and bar ma
,erial for coins there are searching an
alyses tests, and electrolysis operations
because they contain different alloy
The latter, like bullion, are put
through courses which resolve them
nto their component parts. First
he silver is drawn from the gold, and
'un into special moulds. Next from
he residue is separated the gold, plat
mum, iridium, etc. The gold pro-
cured in this way is absolutely pure
Ind is moulded into bars These are
ested and stamped, then put away
Until needed either for coinage or for
Use in manufactures.
Troubles Of Being Midas.
Uncle Sans family has q wealth of
1920, 000,000,000 this week - three
lines, the comptroller of the curren-
" says, the wealth Of Germany in
oil, twice the wealth Of the British
empire before it gathered in German
colonies by force of arms. One who
las followed the several attempts to
Explain why the present stock of twoA