| Show much rich prized nickel ore once deemed worthless man s quest for precious metals throughout the ages has led him in to strange places into the fever infested jungles of the torrid zone and the frozen I linds and wilder nesses demos of the north orth it has carr ed him to the lofty pe ils of barren mountains and deep into the bowels of the earth says the ch cago tr b une sometimes he has been re regarded added not with the treasure he sought but with metals he considered worthless and yet the irony of fate decreed tt ti at some of these so billed worth less metals should eventually prove of greater value to civilization than the nuggets he had hoped to find it Is in this manner that nickel rame came to benefit mankind by prospectors in search of silver and gold their first experience with it caused them to curse it in digap and disgust from these early miners nickel first got its name they were con vinced it had been sent by the devil to confound them and ana had them astray in the early part of the fight benth century lodes of hicl el ore were laid open in saxony where from time immemorial silver and copper mines had been worked the new ore was so glittering and full of prom se that the greatest excitement prevailed among the miners at first they tho ight their find would biln bring them fabulous wealth for it seemed that great quantities of pure silver must be hidden in the mountain of glittering ore after innumerable trials and end less labor to extract the metal from the ore all that could be obtained was worthless slag instead of metal in disgust the superstitious miners named the ore aft er old nick and his mischievous misch levou gnomes who were charged with plaguing the miners and bewitching the ore the name coined by the digap pointed miners stuck nickel it Is in virtually enery lin guage T 0 centuries have passed s nee then and ani for more than 50 years after the first discovery the set elitists and metallurgists labore laborel I 1 and exper dented before they were successful in extracting pure nickel from the ore according to legend the b I 1 ty of the fabled warriors ot of china and persia was due to the r dependable swords which were forged from meteoric iron with high nickel content these anc ancients lenth con the meteors that tell fell to earth as heaven sent for the es ex press purpose of for forging ing superior weapons with wh Y h ch to conquer their enemies that nickel was not unknown to the ancients Is evidenced by the of bilte w 1 ite copper w aich was firby brought out of cl ina in the caravans of bacteria two tuo centuries before tl ti e christian era these anc ent experimenters w tn metallurgy had found a copper nickel ore in cunnan province while they had not been able to separate sepal ate the nickel from the cop per thoy had learned that the addi tion of zinc produced an alloy which was workable useful and attractive in appearance |
