Precious metal

“ Considered wholly by itself, and from the standpoint of its purely physical properties, silver is yet a precious metal. Its pure white color and soft luster can not be approached in aluminum, tin, nickel or any other metal, and though it tarnishes quickly, and has not the resistant qualities of gold to the action of acids and of sulphur, yet no metal we at present know of can take its place for small coinage, or for ordinary table ware and decorative purposes. ”

“ He also knew by hearsay the western route, viâ Apollonian Béin.
c. Native Modes of Working Gold.
In all places, and at all times, gold, probably the metal first used by man, has been worked in the same way. This is a fair evidence of that instinctive faculty which produces a general resemblance of rude stone-implements from England to Australia. There are six methods for 'getting' the precious metal—surfacing or washing; shallow-sinking; sluicing, or removing the earth through natural and artificial channels; deep sinking; tunnelling, and quartz-mining. ”

“ At last it is found that metal is stable, durable, divisible, and of generally recognised value; and finally the precious metals take precedence of all others. Finally this form of money is adopted by all civilised races. ”

“ The unrecovered metal may be judiciously proportioned as follows:—A portion of it works itself into the wood-work of the flooring of the shops, lathes, boards, and other parts of workshop appliances; then there is the refiner’s profit—as purchases of the sweep, polishings, and other refuse of precious metal workers. Instances can be recorded in which shrewd business-men have actually taken up the floors of their workshops and recovered a vast quantity of metal which was supposed to be lost for ever ”

“ The rock that contains the precious metal is crushed fine, sifted and washed until as much as possible of the gold or silver is removed; then it is placed in a vessel with the quicksilver, which seems immediately to absorb it, thus separating it entirely from every particle of sand or rock. If the metal to be cleansed is gold, you will see a pasty mass or amalgam, as it is called, of a yellowish tinge. This is heated, and the mercury flies away, leaving behind it the pure gold. ”

“ So long as bronze continued to be the rare and precious metal which we find good evidence for concluding it to have been during a transition-period of considerable duration, we may be well assured that neither domestic utensils, nor such implements of common use as the older material could supply, would be manufactured of it. We have abundant proof, however, that the supply of the metals kept pace with the increasing demands of progressive civilisation ”

“ This is not altogether to be regretted, as the use of the more precious metal in such a form that it is ultimately totally lost to the community is a deplorable waste, which is not entirely defensible, especially as it draws a large quantity of the metal away from its more legitimate use in the arts of the goldsmith and metal worker. ”

“ Gold and silver have been distinguished in all ages as the precious metals, both for their comparative rarity and their freedom from corrosion, and their extreme beauty. They are both extremely malleable and very readily worked. Unhappily there is little original English work being done in these metals. The more ordinary wares have all life and feeling taken out of them by mechanical finish, an abrasive process being employed to remove every sign of tool-marks. ”

“ The gold used by jewellers has often a much greater proportion of alloy—for this name is given both to a compound metal and the cheaper metal made to combine with the more precious. The object gained by thus alloying the coinage, is that of rendering the metals harder, so that they shall not suffer much loss in wearing; thus a small quantity of copper mixed with either gold or silver, renders them both harder, although itself softer than either. ”

“ I 37shall always couple silver and knowledge together, the best metal and the best thing in the world!”
“Ah, there you are wrong!” said my bright companion; “there is a metal far more precious than silver, and a possession even more valuable than knowledge. What is learning compared to virtue! what is silver compared to gold!”
“Gold! what is that?” said I. You must remember that I was but a young needle, with little information, but eager to obtain more.
“Gold is what is called a perfect metal,” replied the Thimble ”

“ Set any one to talk about himself, instead of about other people, and you will have a seam of the precious mental metal opened up to you at once; only ore, most likely, that needs much smelting and refining; or it may be, not gold at all, but a metal which your mental alchemy may turn into gold. ”

“ The first symptom of disorder seems to have been a rise in the purchasing power of both the precious metals, but particularly of gold, which rose in its ratio to silver from about one to nine and a half, to one to twelve. ”

“ The quantity of brass and iron annually brought from the mine to the market, is out of all proportion greater than that of gold and silver. We do not, however, upon this account, imagine that those coarse metals are likely to multiply beyond the demand, or to become gradually cheaper and cheaper. Why should we imagine that the precious metals are likely to do so? The course metals, indeed, though harder, are put to much harder uses, and, as they are of less value, less care is employed in their preservation. ”

“ The high specific value of the precious metals, their durability, comparative indestructibility, insusceptibility of oxidation through the action of the air, in the case of gold insolubility in acids except in aqua regia,—all these natural properties make the precious metals the natural material for hoarding. ”

“ In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion between the respective values of the different metals in coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin. ”

“ That metals were used for the purpose of money much later than the commodities above mentioned, and the precious metals in turn later than the non-precious metals, cannot by any means be shown to be universally true. Rather is gold in some countries to be obtained by the exercise of so little skill, and both gold and silver satisfy a want so live and general, and one so early felt, that they are to be met with as an instrument of exchange in very early times. ”

“ Fire may, indeed, change their form, but scarcely in any degree the value of the material of gold, and that of silver very little, and then only when it is subjected to a very powerful blast or draught of air.727728 Hence, while by laying them by, they suffer virtually nothing at all (a most valuable article is an article to deposit savings in) , their wear and tear from use may be very much decreased by an admixture with other metals in the proper proportion.729 This durability contributes largely to keep the price of the precious metals more uniform. ”

“ For several uses in the arts, these precious metals are required in an absolutely pure state, in which alone they possess their malleability and peculiar properties in the most eminent degree. Thus, for example, neither gold nor silver leaf can be made of the requisite fineness, if the metals contain the smallest portion of copper alloy. Till within these ten or twelve years, the parting of silver from gold was effected every where by nitric acid ”

“ What becomes of the Precious Metals?
The indestructibility of Gold is one of its many characteristics, and some very curious questions arise from the fact. We know that at a very early period of the history of the human race, gold was discovered in very large quantities, and was used for a variety of ornamental and useful purposes. ”

“ Very few metals are used alone in the various arts and manufactures. For every purpose some combination has been found which makes the product better. Even coins are so alloyed. Silver and gold in the form of money would be entirely too soft, unless alloyed with some hardening metal. Some substances, like arsenic, antimony and bismuth, are too brittle to be used alone. The only metals which can be used alone are aluminum, zinc, iron, tin, copper, lead, mercury, silver, gold and platinum."
"What is bronze, of which all the ancient guns were made?" ”

“ Returning to the eleven well-known true metals, viz., aluminum, copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, nickel, platinum, silver, tin and zinc, wonderful progress has been made during recent years in the matter of their production. Few of us appreciate the extent to which we are absolutely dependent on some of these substances which, a generation ago, were so rare. It is quite impossible now to conceive of a metal-less civilization, or one in which they were so costly as to be practically unavailable for the ordinary affairs and circumstances of life. ”

“ Gold is going to be as plentiful as iron. If there were not such a flood of it, we might manage, but when they begin to make trousers buttons out of the same metal that is now locked and guarded in steel vaults, where will be our standard of worth? ”

“ A third group of metals have coloured rusts, e.g., silver, copper, and iron. A fourth group never rust, such as gold and platinum, which occur as metals in the gangue, not as ore from which the metal is produced. In the case of the other metals it is an advantage that they are found in the rust or ore condition, as they can be manufactured much more easily than native metal. ”

“ And as we have shewn that out of any lead, by the help of gold, a good part of silver may be extracted; so likewise may the same be clearly proved to be done with the other metals, and which may also be effected without the help of gold. Yet nevertheless the more fixt metal doth more readily and willingly atract the more volatile and purer part of the other impurer metals, than an unclean metal doth, and even much more readily yet, when there is afore adjoyned to that metal from which any thing is to be extracted, an enemy of that thing which you labour to extract. ”

“ It isn't nearly so handsome as either gold or silver, and if it wasn't the most costly common metal we have, the jewelry-wearing crowd wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Useless as an ornament, it is the one absolutely indispensable laboratory metal, and literally hundreds of laboratories that need it can't have it because over half the world's supply is tied up in jeweler's windows and in useless baubles. ”

“ Gold may be separated by fusion, from every addition of Copper, Tin, Iron, Lead, Orpiment, Antimony, Arsenick or the like, and be purifyed without Cupels, each being kept apart; profitable for Metallurgists and the like, from the shortness of the time, smallness of the charge and labour, and much gain.
Every imperfect metal without the mixture of other metals, may be ripened by this secret alone in the fire, in the space of an hour, so that it will yield Gold and Silver, but without gain. ”

“ Of course gold and silver are unfit for weapons and implements, save in the case of the gods, as for instance the chariot of Hera, with its wheel-naves of silver and its tires of gold [164] . The spear-head and sword-blade must be made from tougher and cheaper metals. Hence copper or bronze (copper alloyed with tin) in the earlier periods which succeeded the stone age, and iron at a later time, have mainly provided mankind with weapons of offence and defence. But precious as copper and bronze and iron were to the primitive man, we do not find them sold by weight: a simple process was employed ”

“ Gold is rarely employed in a state of perfect purity, but is generally used in combination with some other metal, which renders it harder, and consequently more capable of enduring the friction to which it is exposed. The metal used for this purpose is called an alloy, and generally consists of silver or copper. ”

“ Gold, as I believe, was everywhere the first metal wrought. The bright nugget tempted the savage, with whom personal ornaments precede dress. It was readily fashioned into any desired shape. The same is true, though in a less degree, of copper; and wherever, as on the American continent, native copper abounds, the next step in metallurgy is to be anticipated. With the discovery of the economic use of the metals, an all-important step had been achieved, leading to the fashioning of useful tools, to architecture, sculpture, pictorial ornamentation, and so to ideography. ”

“ The labor-time required for the production of the metals will depend on the degree of their natural scarcity, as well as on the greater or less difficulty with which they can be obtained in a purely metallic state. As a matter of fact, gold is the first metal discovered by man. ”

“ We have been thus led to the conclusion that gold is [60] known to man at a far earlier stage than silver; furthermore that copper is also prior in discovery and use to silver owing to its natural form of deposit, and that, although in a region where gold does not exist, copper may have been the first of the metals to come under human notice, yet wherever gold-bearing strata are found, there is a great probability that gold was the first metal known. ”

“ Their neighbours being more favoured by the nature of their gold deposit are able to use the metal in the way in which we may with safety conclude that mankind everywhere first employed it. Accustomed to use ornaments of shells made into rude beads, they had no difficulty in adapting for like use the small lumps of native gold. They readily pierced the soft metal and making the nuggets into beads used them to form their necklets and armlets. But although this people had made some progress in the working of gold, they were incapable of working copper and silver. ”