The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1922-02-16
Making Gold From Base Metal
(New York Herald.)

(New York Herald)
The recent report of the production
OF synthetic gold in Germany attracted
more than the usual interest which
attaches to such statements, princi-
pally perhaps because Professor Irving
Fisher of Yale declared that if the
/ process was as successful as he had
been creditably informed it was, Ger
many had found an easy way of max
ing her reparatiOn payments and in
creasing enormously the wealth of the
country. Professor Fisher said that
he had been told that the inventor of
the process had made gold as long ago
asserted were products of his labOra-
tory and which he submitted to the
Reichsbank were pronounced real gold.
Professor Fisher learned that the sup
posed inventor was a fraud and a man
with a prison record.
This disclosure emphasizes the opin-
ion that man apparently is not much
nearer to a solution of the great prob
lem of ages, the transmutation of base
metals into noble ones, than he was
centuries ago. He may know more of
the chemistry and have more theories
than the Aiexandrian Greeks or the
Arabian alchemists; he may not pin
his faith on the philosophers stone of
medieval times or trust to red elixir |
of life or to black art, but he has not |
yet found a profitable way to turn |
cheap substances into a wealth of yell
low gold.
To the general reader one of the
striking things in the history of the
attempted transmutation of metals is
the use of mercury. 1t has been the
resort of the serious investigators as
well as the charlatan. With the
Greeks philosophers mercury"-that
is. the soul of mercury-was the prima
In the twelfth century mer-
curry was the most important of the I
spirits, the others being sulphur. ar
senic and sal ammonica. Van Hell
mont who was perhaps the last dis
inguished Investigator to pretend to ;
make gold. asserted that he obtained J
lis metal by his own process from
mercury.
Others said that in their expert
rents they mixed mercury with sui \
thur, and others that they had a com
'ination of salt, sulphur and mercury.
IN English physician of the eighteenth il
century said that he changed mercury 7
o gold by the aid of red and white :
Owders. but when he publicly applied 4
lis formula his experiment failed and @
e used the last of the mysterious a
owder to end his life. The German 7
hose scheme Professor Fisher inves- 5
gated said that he extracted his gold G.
rom mercury in a vacuum furnace of "
is own invention by which an extra
high temperature was OBJ Il
lined. II
The recovery of gold from sea water $,
as been a matter of interest to the 81
nposter as we'll as to the scientist. II
has been asserted that in every Gu III
c meter of sea water there is half tr
milligram of gold. Not long ago an of
allan declared that the water off the I've
frican Gold coast was four times as de
eli as this estimate and offered to
owe this to anybody who would buy W,
ares in his invention. An official nj
the Prussian ministry of finance ar
lde an unsuccessful effort to extract ST.
ldf from the waters of the North
a in the last years of the war, and hls
waite German enterprises had no tee
tier luck in seeking gold in the Elder, w
inc and Weser Sc
rhe most famous of all the modern tor