New Britain herald., 1927-01-19
SOL0M0N'S TEMPLE
 STAGGERS SENSES
Gold and Silver in It Worth
 More Than Five Billion

More than five billion dollars worth of gold and silver, almost the total of the New Britain grand list for 50 years, was used in the build ing of King Solomon's temple, ac- cording to George H. Dyson. who spoke 10 the Kiwanis club today on precious metals. Mir. Dyson, be- sides being first vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. is state pres ident of the Connecticut Jewellers association.
 These figures, he said, represented the gold and silver used in the con- struction of the building alone. There were used 100000 talents of gold, each talent weighing 131 pounds troy and worth S20.67 an ounce, or sS2!49 A for the tale.lt. This made the total cost oi gold s3.249,324, 900.
 There were used 100000 talents of silver. weighing IF pounds troy. and worth s1o9 an ounce or s1,- s11.16 per talent. a total of sl,- .St1,160.000 for silver.
  sticks were made of pure gold and were three cubits, or six feet, high. and o1s cuhits, or five feet, wide. and were of the value Of one talent. $3o,4a3o4.
 Pure Gold Non-Existant
 Although gold can be refined to the point where it is called "pure gold" there is no such thing as literally pure gold, the jeweler ex- plained. The United States essay office refnes gold to g and 99-1o0 per cent purity which is as close as it ever gets
 He explained that there are four principal metals In the list of pre- cious metals today They are sil- ver. gold. platinum and iridium. The method of refining gold today is practically the same as the Egyp-'
 Speaking Of the process of beat ing gold, the speaker said a piece Of gold the size of an ordinary Albert nut could be hammered by an ex- pert gold beater so thin that 1t would cover a space three feet square.
 With the use of certain chemi- calls gold can be dissolved until the liquid would look as clear as wa ter, and could be restored again with ease. by the addition of suf- ficient salt.
 Calls White Gold Nuisance
 Speaking of gold alloys he said red gold is alloyed with copper, yellow gold is alloyed with silver, green gold is an alloy of yellow gold and silver, and white gold, which he characterized as nuisance to jewellers. is an alloy of yellow gold and nickel.
 Palladium is another precious metal now being introduced but is not as fine or high grade as plati- mum. Iridium is the only metal which can be aloyed with plati- num- Iridium is so hard the finest file will not affect it. Platinum could not be worked up. he said. without a quantity of iridium.
 A peculiar thing about gold was that when the United States bought the Panama canal it paid France 2S million dollars in gold. The bull lion was shipped to France in boxes with the United States seal thereon. In the World war when France wanted to borrow from the United States the same gold, which never had been removed from the original boxes. was sent here as collateral
 The use of platinum Is so wide spread today that science could do very little without it, he said.
 He denied the belief that the carly Egyptians made synthetic gold by saying there is no such thing.
 There will be no meeting at noon next Wednesday and the club will hold it's annual banquet in the eve ming.