Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/689

Rh essentially in subjecting antimony, sulphur, and iron to intense heat in a crucible, whereby a portion of the antimony is supposed to be changed or transmuted into gold, and this is subsequently recovered by the usual metallurgical methods.

The experts found, on repeating these experiments, using the purest antimony that could be obtained from chemists, that a tiny globule of gold and silver remained after removing all the iron, antimony, and sulphur; but they also found that traces of gold and silver are invariably associated with native antimony, and when they succeeded in producing chemically pure antimony for the test, not a trace of gold or of silver resulted from the subsequent transmuting or "creative" process.

Some criticism has been expressed that the United States Government should have dignified this ridiculous claim, to the extent of ordering an investigation of it by the mint metallurgists, but their report is well calculated to set at rest the preposterous scheme which had already attracted not a few gullible people, including some investors.

This investigation recalls a series of interesting experiments which were made in the Philadelphia Mint about forty years ago by the former assayer, the late Jacob R. Eckfeldt, the results of which were communicated to the American Philosophical Society by his assistant and successor, the late William E. Dubois, who also aided in the work. Samples of nearly all the known metals were obtained from various parts of the country; these were subjected to the usual processes for detecting the presence of gold, the greatest care being used to avoid errors. Gold was found in all the specimens of antimony, bismuth, lead, copper, etc., varying from one part in four hundred and forty thousand parts in a specimen of antimony to one part in six million two hundred and twenty thousand parts in a specimen of galena from Bucks County, Pennsylvania: this was equivalent to two grains and a quarter, not quite ten cents, to the ton.

The most remarkable result of all was obtained from specimens of clay from various localities within the limits of the city of Philadelphia; the clay was taken from a depth of about fourteen feet below the surface, and was found to contain gold in the proportion of one part in one million two hundred and