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Show HIGH PRICES BRING DISCOVERIES. That necessity is the mother of invention in-vention is proved by the Chronicle of San Francisco In a review of the discovery dis-covery of American chemists of a substitute sub-stitute for platinum. The experiments were made because of the high price of platinum, the metal having advanced advanc-ed from ?40 to $100 an ounce since the opening of the war. It is announced announc-ed that gold and sliver alloys of palladium palla-dium are suitable for use in dental work, while it may be inferred that if the appearance of the new combination combina-tion bears any resemblance to that of the more costly metal It will not only reduce present prices, but have a permanent per-manent effect upon the platinum market. mar-ket. "At first a metallic curiosity, and, indeed, at one time a substance despised de-spised by the Borneo natives as frog gold," says the Chronicle, platinum, so-called because of its resemblance to silver, rapidly became of great scientific scien-tific value by reason of the discovery that it is practically unoxldizable or rustless, practically unattacked by all acids save aqua regia, though it yields to fused nitruteB, to potassium cyanide and ferrocyanide. The supply might have kept pace with the demand so long as the latter was confined to the needs of chemical apparatus, photography, photo-graphy, sulphuric acid manufacture and incandescent lamps, but when the platinum jewelry craze set In and was aggravated by tho fashion of wearing dental fillings made of this truly precious metal, the supply was left far behind, and up went the prices." ' |