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Show WIESTErRJSr nycrNXN'O- - GAZETTEER. SILVER THE PROPERTIES OF SILVER. Silver has been known from the earliest ages ; coin of that metal has been found dating back to Soo B. C., and in the pyramids of Egypt linen stained black by salts of silver has been dis-cover- ed. CURRENCY. While the country is peaceful and prosperous there will be no large demand for coin, but the moment danger comes the people begin to look after their paper currency. If the National Treasury and the banks arc then well prepared with reverses of coin to meet this alarm, the country will be safe. If not, depreciation and demoralization are inevitable consequences. It becomes necessary, therefore, to maintain the coinage, not of gold alone, for we have no surer foundation in monometallism than Germany, but of silver. The standard dollar may not be worth but when panic comes, or a reversal of trade to 100 cents take away the gold and depreciate our paper, the dollar of our daddies will be in such demand as to make it worth as much as the gold dollar. It is not gold which is the petted favorite in our magnificent prosperity, but the greenback treasury note, and neither metal will resume its old relations ofimportance as money until calamity strikes us. The old weather-staine- d maxim, in time of peace prepare for war, applies with prodigious force to the currency of the present. We are on the high tide of progress now, but in the evolution of time, peace, and war, prosperity and calamities are equally distributed over all lands and people. Silver will be needed by and by, and will become the savior of the nation. We can no more put it away as a useless metal except for manufactures, and pass safely through the next crash that comes, than an army without arms can meet and overcome a well provided enemy. In such a time a stricken people do not look for bank notes or treasury notes to save, but to the coin behind them. If there is plenty of that, the disaster can be readily measured. If wanting it is simply immeasurable. Therefore the threat which comes from the Atlantic to destroy the silver by demonetization, means the destruction not only of the silver mining industry of the West, but of the only reliable force we can have to meet the shock of panic. Inter Ocean. The alchemists called it Luna or Diana, and we still call the fused nitrate of silver lunar caustic. The Latin name of it was argentum, from which we derive the term argentiferous and the chemical symbol written Ag. Silver is very ductile, and the best conductor of heat of all the metals; its atomic weight is 10S; its specific gravity varies 1043 to 10.56 according to whether it can be hammered, drawn, etc. It fuses at about 1,832 F. (which is lower than the melting point of gold or copper), and can be volatilized by the flame. In melting it obsorbs oxygen from the air, which it gives off again in cooling, causing the molten mass to spit when suddenly cooled. (Only pure silver acts thus.) Pure silver may be obtained crystallized in cubes and octahedrons. It dissolves in nitric acid of medium concentration ; concentrated sulphuric acid changes it into sulphate of silver at a boiling heat, while muriatic acid docs not act upon it. Quicksilver unites with it, forming an amalgam, and it is easily alloyed with many other metals during fusion. The characteristic test for silver in (acid) solution is made by adding muriatic acid ora soluble chloride, when a white, curdy precipitate chloride of silver is formed, insoluble in water or in acids, but soluble in ammonia (also in cyanide of potassium or hyposulphite of soda) ; from the ammoniacal solution acids precipitate the chloride of silver. Very dilute solutions of silver are rendered opalescent on applying this test. All compounds of silver yield metallic silver when fused with carbonate of soda before the blow pipe. Caustic soda or potassa precipitates silver from its solution oxide of S, insoluble in an excess of the precipas grayish-brow- n itant, soluble in nitric or sulphuric acid. Ammonia produces the precipitate, soluble in an excess of CALIFORNIA the precipitant and in nitric or sulphuric acid. to-da- y, oxy-hytirog- en Carbonated alkilies produce a precipitate of yellowish white carbonate of silver soluble in carbonate of ammonia and a nitric and sulphuric acid. Sulphurcted hydrogen and sulphide of ammonia produces a black precipitate of sulphide of silver, which is decomposed by boiling nitric acid with eliminations of sulphur. Copper, zinc and other easily oxidized metals precipitate metallic silver as a gray, spongy powder, and some organic substances act in a similar manner. Silver is found in its native state alloyed with gold, and as sulphide of silver, frequently with copper glance, galena and other metallic sulphides, less frequently as chloride of silver (horn silver) and rarely as iodide or bromide ot silver. Assaycr's Mannual The real riches of Mexico are her mines of the various kinds of metals useful in commerce and the arts. From 1535 when the first mine was established by the Spaniards, till 1875, the total coinage has been $4,450,000,000. Before the war of independence there were 3,000 mines in operation, producing over of silver and $2,000,000 of gold annually. The mines of Northern Mexico are among the most productive in the country, and Chihuahua, Coahuila and Sonora are prolific in veins of metal holding in their rocky matrices fabulous wealth. $21,-coo.o- oo MINERS' HOSPITAL AND ASYLUM. The Bodie Free Press speaks of the above institution as follows, and trusts that the bill will become a law : In accordance with his expressed determination Hon. Joseph Wasson introduced a bill in the Assembly Friday morning, providing for the establishment of a hospital to receive sick, de-crepi- d, injured and aged miners, who have received their ailments while working in the mines of California. The haven is to be named the California State Miners Hospital and Asylum. The bill requires the Governor to nominate, and with the consent of the Senate, to appoint five persons to serve as Trustees of such institution, who shall have power to hold property, dispose of and convey the same, and who shall serve without compensation. These Trustees shall appoint a Superintendent, who shall be a competent physician, and a Treasurer who shall give proper bonds. Indigant miners shall be' charged while being treated in the institution only cost prices. Boards of Supervisors, or other local authorities, having in charge persons who can be proven to have been miners, shall send them to this institution and pay for their maintainance. The Trustees are required to report to the Governor annually. No salary is fixed for the Superintendent, but the Trustees are given power to fix that; nor is any money appropriated for a building. The following named current dividend-payin- g mines have paid dividends from January 4, 1879, up to and including December The pace of the stock speculation does not halt in spite of 20, 1880. Some have paid but one dividend, and others pay regthe high plane which prices have reached. The New York Stock ularly. The aggregate amount paid by the thirty-tw- o mines reExchange on the iSth was a perfect furore of excitement from porting is $25,000,000, viz : The Amador Con., $347,500 ; Bodie, beginning to end of business Little time was allowed for argument $305,000; Argenta, $40,000; Black Bear, $873,500; Bobtail, or reason, and indeed it seemed as though no cause was asked for $1,275,000; Barbee & Walker, $60,000 ; Dcadwood, $275,000; an advance, quotations mounting skyward under the general Excelsior, $875,000 , Eureka, $4,465,000; Evening Star, $75,000; buying impulse. Scarcely a stock on the list shows a decline at Father De Smet, $210,000; Great Eastern, $15,000; Green the close from Tuesdays final figures, and the majority of the Mountain, $107,995 ; Homcstakc, $825,000 ; Idaho, $2,189,900; advances were more than 1 per cent. To say that the present La Plata, $230,000 ; Leadvillc, $150,000 ; Northern Belle, $i,6oo,-00movement can continue forever is to make a gratuitous statement ; N. Broomfield, $225,000; Napa Con., $ 1 30,000 ; Ontario, to attempt to indicate when or how it will end transcends the $3,100,000; Robinson Con., $250,000; Richmond, $2,875,000: possible ability of any man. At the moment the only feeling Rising Sun, $37,500; Sierra Buttes, $1,350,000; Silver King, among general regular and outside operators is one of confid- $525,000; Standard, $2,375,000; Stormont, $135,000, Tomb0; ence and even buoyancy. stone, $450,000; Western, $525,000. |