Talk:An Enigma in Black


 * ONG, long ago a Spanish adventurer in South America, one Ferdinand Ulloa, discovered a quantity of metal in the sands of a river. With crude placering he separated out a considerable: weight of what he thought to be free silver in nuggets. Believing himself in possession of a great treasure, he took it with. him back to Spain. There he was undeceived. The stuff was not plata (Spanish for silver), though somewhat similar in appearance and weight. The metallurgists of Madrid pronounced it worthless, calling it by a patronizing diminutive, platinum. Ulloa sadly consigned it to the waste heap, where possibly it still remains.


 * Telling this in respect to his novelette, “An Enigma In Black,” Anthony M. Rud continues, describing in brief the shrewd deception employed for guarding that treasure of Quitobaquita Sierra.


 * “Kurtt, knowing chemistry, realized that while metallic platinum in its usual form would certainly get him into all sorts of trouble, decided to transform the precious metal into a black instead of a silvery white treasure. And this was easy enough.


 * “As you know, there are four allied forms of pure platinum. Besides the ordinary metallic form we have spongy platinum, colloidal platinum—and platinum black. Kurtt decided upon the last mentioned form. In order to attain it he first transformed the white metal into one of its amine salts, then reduced it with weak acid. The result was a black mixture of stuff that looked like soot and slag—and which effectually deceived Chotty Bedell.

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