Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-02-28

r DON'T know just why 1t was, but all the
time I was in the Mint yesterday keP.
on thinking about Lenine and Trotsky ana
how much they would have liked to be there.
] found my friend the assistant assafer.
in his laboratory making mysterious chalk
marks a long blackboard and gazing with
keen gray eyes at a circle OF little ootties
containing pale blush fluids. At the bottom
Of each vessel white sediment that
looked like a mixture Of cream cheese ana
headache powder. "Silver" said the assistant
assayer. in an offhand way and l was duiS
impressed.
You may expect to be impressed when
you visit the Mint Spring Garden street.
Most of us know. in a vague way, that Two
thirds of our coinage comes from that disni-
fed building. which is probably the nnest
mint building in the world Fewer Oh us
know that most of South Americas coins
come from there too, and when the citizens
of Lima or Buenos Aires pay out tneir
bright centavos for a movie show or oiack
cigar their pockets jingle with small chahse
stamped in Philadelphia And none OF us
can realize. without trip to that marvellous
home of wonders. the spirit OF devoted ana
delicate science that moves among the men
who have spent self-effacing lives In testing
precious metals and molding them into the
most beautiful coinage known on earth.
TIME assistant sssayer, after last lin
/ gering look at his little blue fasks-he
was testing the amount OF silver in deposits
of ore brought in to the Mint from all over
the country--if you find any In your back
yard the Mint will pay you a dollar an ounce
for twas gracious enough to give me some
fieeting glances at the fascinating work
going on in the building. The first thing
one realizes is the presence or the benign
and silent goddess of Science. Those upper
floors where the assayers work In large,
quiet rooms. are like the workrooms OF some
great university, some university happhly
exempt from the turbulent and Irritating
NJ M professors
are able to lose themselves In the worship
of their own researches. Great delicate
scales-only you mustn't call them scales.
but ''balances"-that tremble like lovers
heart II you lay hair on one platform,
shelter their gossamer workings behind glass
cases. My guide showed me one, fantastic
delicacy so sensitive that one feels as clumsy
as Gibraltar when one looks at IT, Each
tenth of a miligram, which. / should say,
is about as heavy as the eyelash of nea-
With a pair of calpers he dropped a tiny
morsel OF paper on one paiahee ana the
needle swung over to the extreme end Of the
scale. With his eyes shining with enthu-
siasm he showed how, by means OF coun-
terpoise made of a platinum wire as slender
as MOSQUITOES leg, he could swing the
needle back toward the middie or the scale
and get the exact reading
AT ANOTHER balance a scientist was
"A shipping shreds from a long ribbon of
gold I was allowed to hold II In my hand,
and though its curator explained deprecat-
ingly that II was only 1895 thousandths
pure, II seemed pure enough for all my pur-
poses II is wonderful stun. soft enough 20
tie in knots and yet 30 tough that 1t Is very
difficult to cut with heavy shears. That
strip of about sixty ounces. was worth well
over s12OO-and they didn't even search me
when l left the buildihg. Proof gold" 1t
seems which Is 1000 pure. Is worth $40 an
ounce, and all the proof gold used for sci
entifc purposes in this country Is refined In
the philadelphia Mint The assistant assay
or showed me lots of nice little nuggets of
AZ IN a drawer. Almost every drawer he
opened contained enough roots Of evil to
make a newspaperman happy for year.
TN neat little row of furnaces set into
| a tiled wall ] was shown some queer little
Guns heating in. rosy swirl OF fire to 100
degrees These little "cupels as they call
,hem. are made of compressed bone-ash ana
are used to absorb the baser metals In an
ALLOW. Their peculiar merit Is that at the
re0uired temperature they absorb all the
conner. lead or whatever other base metal
| there may be and leave In the cup only the
| gold and silver. Then the gold and silver
mixture is placed In boiling nitric acid. which
| takes out all the silver and leaves only the
| gIobuie of pure gold. The matter that pux-
| zies the lay observer IL. how do you nnd
these things out In The nrst plscs7 bat