Evening star., 1952-10-22
8 Billion Tons Of Gold
Locked TightIyin Seas
Scientists Consistently Fail
In Attempts to Get 1t Out
By Thomos R. Henry

The sea will keep its eight billion
tons of gold.
1t is locked up lot tighter than the
gold in Fort Knox. although every
body is free to help himself. according
to DR.. Edward Wichers of the United
States Bureau of Standards.
Early in this century an eminent Brit
iSh chemist tried to get some of tho
gold out of the sea-and spent 5000 to
extract IS of the precious metal. Still
the delusion persists, and in the past
few years there have been three United
States patents filed on new methods
OF extraction.
The wild-goose chase should have
ended, DR.. Wichers thinks, in the sad
experience of DR.. Fritz Haber Nobel
prize German chemist, who undertook
the most ambitious project yet re-
corded for relieving the oceans of their
gold burden and miserably failed. Haber
was one of the worlds most brilliant
chemists. Germany was bankrupt. Not
only could the defeated nation pay all
its reparations, Haber calculated, but
could pile up q nice surplus by ex-
tracing the seas gold.
Some so Patents Issued.
"For a half century prior to 1920"
says DR.. Wichers, gold was repeatedly
detected in ocean waters and many
methods were proposed for its recovery.
In spite of some so patents that were
issued in this field, there is no record
Of any successful accomplishment.
About 1920 the history of these
efforts was reviewed by Haber. On the
basis of six milligrams ton, it would
be necessary to process $50 tons Of
water to get one dollars worth of gold.
but Haber considered the operation
could be conducted with a margin Of
profit. He picked IA assistants and with
this team worked seven or eight years
before the investigation was finally
terminated.
"The work began with the determi-
nation Of gold in a number of samples
taken from the North Sea. and a few
elsewhere, all in great secrecy. The pro-
posed recovery process was based on
precipitation with alkali polysulphide.
Less than a gram of this reagent, plus
q trace of copper solution, yielded q
precipitate which coagulated sufficient
ly to be collected on sand filters. from
which it could be recovered by washing.
"A pilot plant was constructed on
shipboard and with this Haber and his
associates cruised the Atlantic. The
outcome of these journeys was completely
and overwhelmingly negative. Next
came the task of resolving discrep-
ancies between the early analyses, tho
trial recoveries from synthetic sea water
and the plant operation on shipboard.
It ended, some years and 5000 analyses
later, with conclusive evidence that tho
average content of gold in ocean water
is Of the order of microgram tabout
a half billionth of q tom rather than
milligrams q ton. A dollars worth OF
gold would require processing not ESQ
tons of sea water but perhaps 100000
tons.
Everything Caused Errors.
I'm the hands of Haber and his team
the ancient art of gold assaying reached
its ultimate refinement. 1t is reported
that the correction Of the early erron-
eous results was not a sudden process
but took place step-wise, an order OF
magnitude at q time. Beginning with
the ANALYSTS normal fear Of incomplete
preciptitations and hence negative er-
rors it was found that almost every.
thing caused positive errors-gold in
the reagents, in common glassware, In
air borne dust, and transferred from
fingers contaminated by casual han
ding of q watch or ring. Each OF these
sources of error had to be detected and
eliminated before the analytical results
confirmed the operation Of the ocean
going pilot plant.
'Bdt Haber's investigations did not
completely end the dreams OF mining
the sea for gold. Since 1885 three more
United States patents have been
granted, and several scientists have
considered the problem, apparently in
ignorance of Haber's work"
Gold constantly is being washed into
the sea from the land, but the actual
increment to Father Neptune's wealth
from year to year is almost infini-
tesimal. There is lot more silver
there than gold, but 1t is even more
irrecoverable, since most Of 1t prob
ably is bound up with organic mate
rials. such as sea weed and animal life.