Gold plate

“ The use of silver appears to belong to a rather later period, probably because, though a widely spread metal in almost all parts of the world, it is usually found in a less pure state than gold, and requires some skill to smelt and refine it. Though both these precious metals were largely and skilfully used by prehistoric races, they were generally employed as personal ornaments or decorations for weapons. Except in Scandinavian countries, but little that can be called “plate” has been discovered in the early barrows of the prehistoric period in western Europe. ”

“ A very small quantity of the precious metals will plate a large number of articles; but even with this small amount of gold, the gold-plated substances are too costly to be in general use; though it is quite common to line silver-plated articles with a thin plate of gold. ”

“ The goldsmith prepares the plate that is to be painted upon. The gold should be 22 carats fine: if purer, it would not be sufficiently stiff; if coarser, it would be subject to melt; and its alloy should be half white and half red, that is, half silver and half copper; whereby the enamel with which it is covered will be less disposed to turn green, than if the alloy were entirely copper.
The workman must reserve for the edge of the plate a small fillet, which he calls the border. This ledge serves to retain the enamel, and hinders it from falling off when applied and pressed on with a spatula. ”

“ Owing to the Egyptian practice of burying with their dead personal ornaments and jewelry, rather than other possessions less intimately connected with the person of the deceased, but few specimens of either gold or silver plate have survived to our times, whereas the amount of gold jewelry that has been discovered is very large, and shows the highest degree of skill in working the precious metals. ”

“ With old china, and probably with old furniture, the taste for collecting is oftentimes an acquired one, but it is in the Englishman’s blood to ruminate over his old plate, and the hall-marks of the assay offices in London and in the provinces, in Scotland and in Ireland, have been placed thereon with aforethought. The plate closet is cousin to the strong-box, inasmuch as the coin of the realm and gold and silver plate have been subjected to stringent laws extending over a period of five hundred years. ”

“ Wherever a speck of gold has fixed itself on the plate, there others will collect about, evidently preferring to fix themselves in a neighborhood rather than in a waste place. The more gold there is on a plate, the better it is considered to be. ”

“ Place the plate on its stand, or hold it in the plyers, in a perfectly horizontal position--silver surface upward--having previously slightly turned up the edges, so that it may hold the solution. Wet the surface with alcohol, letting any superfluous quantity drain off. The alcohol is of no farther use than to facilitate the flowing of the gold mixture over the surface. Now pour on, carefully, as much of the preparation of gold as will remain on the plate. The under part of the plate is then to be heated as uniformly as possible with the spirit lamp ”

“ Gold-leaf is made by beating a plate of gold placed between pieces of skin, with heavy hammers, till it is spread out to the utmost degree of thinness. And so great is its capacity for being extended, that a single grain of the metal, which would be scarce bigger than a large pin’s head, is beaten out to a surface of fifty square inches. ”

“ The distributor is a wooden box the full width of the stamper box or mortar, having a perforated iron bottom set some three to four inches above the first copper plate, which should come up under the lip. The effect of this arrangement is that the pulp is dashed on to the plate by the falling water, and the gold at once coming in contact with the mercury begins to accumulate and attract that which follows, till the amalgam becomes piled in little crater-shaped mounds, and thus 75 per cent. of the gold is saved on the top plate. ”

“ In like manner, during the Saxon period, though gold and silver jewelry was common, yet little plate appears to have been made, with the exception of shrines, altar-frontals and vessels for ecclesiastical use, of which every important church in England must have possessed a magnificent stock. With regard to English secular plate, though but few early examples still exist, we know from various records, such as wills and inventories, that the 14th century was one in which every rich lord or burgher prided himself on his fine and massive collection of silver vessels ”

“ Some of the Texas gneiss rocks are suitable for use as building stones.
Gold
Gold commonly occurs in nature as a single element—gold—but much native gold has a small amount of some other element, such as silver, copper, or iron, mixed with it.
Native gold is a shiny, yellow, metallic mineral that does not tarnish, and it leaves 60 a shiny, golden-yellow streak when you rub it across a streak plate. If silver is present, the color and streak have a lighter shade. Pure gold is extremely heavy—its specific gravity is 19.3. ”

“ At the taking up of the table he distributed amongst them his whole cupboard of plate, which weighed eight hundred thousand and fourteen bezants (Each bezant is worth five pounds English money.) of gold, in great antique vessels, huge pots, large basins, big tasses, cups, goblets, candlesticks, comfit-boxes, and other such plate, all of pure massy gold, besides the precious stones, enamelling, and workmanship, which by all men's estimation was more worth than the matter of the gold. ”

“ In addition to the gold and silver plate of the kings’ palaces and of private families, corporations and colleges accumulated great quantities of plate, and before banks were properly established, gold and silver plate and jewellery were the chief store of wealth that could, when necessary, be easily converted into money. ”

“ Twice ten fat oxen to the ships she sends;
Besides a hundred boars, a hundred lambs,
With bleating cries, attend their milky dams;
And jars of gen'rous wine and spacious bowls
She gives, to cheer the sailors' drooping souls.
Now purple hangings clothe the palace walls,
And sumptuous feasts are made in splendid halls:
On Tyrian carpets, richly wrought, they dine;
With loads of massy plate the sideboards shine,
And antique vases, all of gold emboss'd
(The gold itself inferior to the cost) ,
Of curious work, where on the sides were seen ”

“ Most of the men carried iron pans full of the earth to the waterside, where, after submerging until the lighter earth had floated off, they slopped the remainder over the side with a peculiar twisting, whirling motion, leaving at last only the black sand–and the gold! These pan miners were in the great majority. ”

“ The ornaments upon snuff-boxes, fans, and various kinds of trinkets, are merely thin plates of silver, gilded in this manner.
The edges of tea-cups, and other similar articles, may be gilded, though not in a very durable manner, by applying a thin coat of amber varnish (224) , and then placing leaf-gold upon it. When the varnish is dry, the gold is to be burnished.
Gold, in a state of solution, is sometimes used for staining marble, ivory, ornamental feathers, and other articles, a purple-red colour, which cannot be effaced. ”

“ Sometimes it is ’bedded in quartz when the ore, as it is called, has to be mined and then crushed in a stamp mill to get the gold out; more often it is found as free gold, dust and grains and bits of pure gold mixed with the dirt when it must be panned, that is, put in a pan and the dirt washed away and then the gold, which is the heaviest, falls to the bottom of the pan, and again,” he lowered his voice to make what he was about to tell them more impressive, “nuggets of gold are picked up from bits the size of a pea to chunks as large as my fist! ”

“ After the whole surface is carefully skewed, or gone over with the brush which removes the ragged edges and still further presses the gold into the ornaments, the frame is well dusted with another soft brush, and then sized with clear size, after which the work is complete.
Supposing however that any part of the frame is to be of burnished gilt, the clear cole and the oil gold size must not be suffered to touch that portion,—burnish gold size, a substance made of grease, clay, black lead, red chalk, and bullock’s blood, is used instead of the oil gold size. ”

“ The gravel is then placed in the hopper of the cradle which separates the larger stones and pebbles, the remainder passing down over inclined ledges as the cradle is slowly rocked and supplied with water. At the bottom of each ledge is a riffle to arrest the particles of gold. Sometimes, when the gold is very fine, amalgamated copper plates are introduced and the lower ledges are covered with green baize to act as blanket tables and catch gold which might otherwise be lost. ”

“ The oval bases and the touch of floriate ornament under the nozzle urns have their indicative note. It will be observed that the camera, with more penetration than the human eye, has brought out the thinness of the plate, and it is here represented in the illustration. It denotes perhaps less of a delinquency on the part of the plater or a flaw in his technique than a grave indictment against generations of housemaids who have used metal polish which contained mercury or some other noxious compound inimical to the longevity of the superimposed silver. ”

“ From the number of these relics of the precious metals which have been discovered, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that gold must have been much more abundant at that remote era than it has been within the period of authentic history. Nor is it difficult to account for such a state of things. Though usually found in very small quantities, gold is well known as one of the most widely diffused of all the metals; and the clay slate which frequently forms the depository of gold, silver, and copper, exists in great abundance throughout the Highlands. ”

“ Gold, silver, copper, and quicksilver are often found native [5] ; less often iron and bismuth; almost never tin and lead. Nevertheless tin-stone is not far removed from the pure white tin which is melted out of them, and galena, from which lead is obtained, differs little from that metal itself.
Now we may classify gold ores. Next after native gold, we come to the rudis [6] , of yellowish green, yellow, purple, black, or outside red and inside gold colour. These must be reckoned as the richest ores, because the gold exceeds the stone or earth in weight. ”

“ In searching for the course of the metal, I have found small quantities by digging on the hill-tops, and am fully persuaded that the gold is washed by the rains, until seeking, as it always does, a permanent bottom, it rests in any pocket or crevice that can prevent it from being washed further, or falls into a stream running at the base of the hills, to find a resting-place in its bed, or be again deposited on its banks. ”

“ He affirms, that 80 books, or 2000 leaves of gold, each leaf containing 10.89 square inches, weigh less than 384 grains. Each book, therefore, of 25 leaves, or 272.25 inches, weighs less than 4.8 grains; so that each grain of the metal will produce about 57 square inches of gold leaf.” From further calculation it appears, that the thickness of these leaves is less than the 282,000th part of an inch; and that 16 ounces of gold would be sufficient to gild a silver wire, equal in length to the whole circumference of the globe we inhabit! ”

“ Pale leaf gold has a greenish-yellow color, and is an alloy of gold with silver. Dutch gold leaf is only copper colored with the fumes of zinc. Being much cheaper than [Pg 48] gold leaf, it is very useful when large quantities of gilding are required in places where it can be defended from the weather, as it changes color if exposed to moisture; and it should be covered with varnish. Silver leaf is prepared like gold leaf, but when applied should be kept well covered with varnish, as otherwise it will tarnish. A transparent yellow varnish will give it the appearance of gold.
Gilding in Oil. ”

“ It is 211⁄2 carats fine—within half a carat of the quality of English sovereigns or American eagles—and is almost ready to go to the mint. The finest gold metal we get is from Africa, which is 221⁄2 to 23 carats fine. In Virginia we have mines where the quality of the gold is much inferior—some of it so low as 19 carats—and in Georgia the mines produce it nearly 22 carats fine. ”

“ Because it is malleable, this mineral will flatten into a thin sheet when hammered. It is ductile enough to be drawn out into wires. Gold is also soft—a pocket knife will scratch it easily. When it is to be used for ornaments and jewelry, gold is usually mixed with other metal, such as silver, copper, nickel, or palladium, to make it harder. ”

“ The deposits of gold at the south pole were richer than the wildest reports had represented them. The shipments of the precious metal to America and Europe soon became enormous—so enormous that the metal was no longer precious. The price of gold dropped like a falling stone, with accelerated velocity, and within a year every money centre in the world had been swept by a panic. Gold was more common than iron. ”

“ Besides the above cast-iron pots, destined to dissolve only the coarse cupreous silver, containing a few grains of gold per pound, there are, in the centre of the apartment, at the right-hand side of the chimney, 6 alembics of platinum, in which the rich alloys of gold and silver are treated in the process of refining gold. ”