The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10th, 1925. ARTIFICIAL GOLD.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 June 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10th, 1925. ARTIFICIAL GOLD.

I'Oit viine three tlioiis ml years. off ami on, notes a .science journal, eheiui-ts have been trying lo make g'bl out of the baser metals. Just mm lliev are on lb-' qur-l again, villi as iugli hopes at the mediae! al alchemists. and with better re. son. We now know that same alums can lie broken to pieces, and that seine elements tan be transmuted into utheis. The metal radium decompose.! spontaneously into tile gas helium i.nd the metal lead. Professor Hutiierford has split tin the nitrogen atom into helium and hydrogen. The helium atom weighs I and Ihe hydrogen atom 1. The helium is sii| posed to be made by the eombina--1 ion of I hydrogen atoms. Now, if you subtract the weight of the gold atom (197) from the weight of the

mercury atom pit)l) you get I. So it would i cent that il you tould knock out front the mercury atom a helium atom, or its equivalent, t hydrogen atoms, you would get gold. Hut tan you 'i That is the question. This may be, like many another chemical feat-

tion. easy to write out on paper yet impossible to accomplish in tho laboratory. But two chemists, a German and Japanese, say that they have done it. Professor A. .Miothe. of tin' Plmto-eheoiii al He, art moot of the Berlin Technical Hitch School wlm has been lor years studying the discolouration ei minerals anil glass by ultra-violet light lon ltd that the mercury vapour lamps used a source for these rays ceased

ill tor a time to work, owing to tin* tl«‘pt)sit ot :i sort of soot on tlie* quartz glass wall, lie tested tins deposit and got indications of gold. .Now, continues tin* scientist, it is not surprising i i find a trace of gold ■ *> coininerciid samples of iner. tiry. for mercury is one of the few li<|iiids tlnit will dissolve gold, and is used t i extract the precious metal from sand or ores. Milt tiie mercury in the lamps had •icon twice distilled to free it from all impuritiou and m analysis showed n> trace of gold until after it had hoen subjected tn the prolonged action cf the elm trie current in the lamp. The quartz, the iron, and the ear- • ■nils of the lamp were also analysed and pronounced gold free. Miethe M lit .samples (t the.se ; nd of the n: *r-*-ii r v. I.elere and after using in the lamp, to I'rofessor Ilahcr. the inventor o; the Maher proves- for fixing nitrogen. v.ln has boon interested in the extraction of gold from -sea water, and had developed a very delicate method of estimating gel 1 in minute amount. He rep tried finding gold, and in some cases -silver, in the samples that tame from tin* !ain;.s. The amount varied fr pi 1 to 52 parts in a billion parts of mercury. From tin . e cxn.-riments. which .Miethe has parried cn with his assistant. |)r. H. Stnmmreii )i. .since last April, lie emu-lades that some of the atoms of the mercury have been crumbled away by the electric current passing through the vapour, leaving g as a residue. In his lamps lie used 170 volts between the electrodes, and ran currents from -100 tn 2000 watts for periods of 20 to 200 hours. From the other side of the world comes the report of similar suc-tess in the manufacture of gold artificially. Professor Hnntarn Xagaoka. of the Tokio Imperial University. has published a photograph of a deposit of gold which he obtained by running a mercury lamp for more than 200 hours under a voltage of 226. The gold obtained amounted to a milligram, and a white metal that appears to bo platinum was also produced. In the United States Professor H. H. Sheldon, of New York University, is engaged in repeating these experiments, and doubtless many others are quietly carrying on the quest. But there is as yet no apparent reason for the alarm that- synthetic gold will upset the standard of the j

wor Ill's currency. The protests. if possible. is too expensive to be profitable. Although gold is more than tliree hundred times as costly ns mercury, yet the eleetrie current would cost more than the value of the gold ptoduced. Tli is is likely to remain true, however, much the efficiency of the apparatus is improved. Professor Miethe expressly "arns tlie public that his discovery of the possibility of dec. tnposing the mercury atom ha< no ci mmercial importume. ami that .'peculation in this direction is rush ami premature. There is no ground for the ,-.us|.ii ion that the Germans ate secretly manufacturing colli with intent to pry o!f nil their war debts before the rest of the world learns how. If the aim is to produce wealth it would he milch more profitable to find out how to get energy out of the atom than how to transform the elements by putting energy into the