| Show STORY OF PLATINUM 3 it 4 4 testing thermometers Is part of job platinum has many uselin uses in modern I 1 r science industry and prepared by national geographic society washington D C service T F YOU were to ask a bride IF what her platinum wedding ring has in common with armament races she probably would stare at you in bewilderment yet the same metal that goes into her marital badge also is an important element in the manu manufacture facture of munitions it serves the armament maker in fine fuse wire for torpedoes and shells indirectly it acts as chemical agent in the production of nitric and sulphuric acids used together in making explosives A seldom told tale of the world war conce concerns ans a dangerous and difficult mission of a young american engineer in russia who just before the united states entered the conflict in 1917 undertook to transport nearly a ton of platinum from pet bograd now leningrad to washington crossing the atlantic was too uncertain so armed with a couriers pass he set out with his boxes of treasure marked embassy documents to make the long trek across siberia to vladivostok and bence thence over the pacific with travel complicated by the russian revolution he outwitted secret agents and bandit raids time and again he met peril delay and disappointment as he rode in trains jammed with fretting sweating humanity but the platinum came through several nations have considered platinum coinage made patterns and trial pieces and then abandoned the scheme once called unripe gold valuable as platinum is now considered si its practical career has been brief unripe gold colombian indians indiana once called it prospecting for gold they used to toss white grains of platinum back into the rivers to ripen into the yellow metal in tsarist russia over a century ago a silversmith was hanged because he substituted platinum for silver it was the man in the laboratory who put platinum on the worlds economic map remembering the excitement that swept san francisco when gold was discovered and the sensation of the comstock silver lode the arrival in england of the farsi first crude colombian platinum in 1741 may seem a little dull not so to chemists and physicists of the time quietly they set to work deciphering the mysteries of this stuff that one of them called white gold or the seventh metal it was not an entirely unknown quantity back in the sixteenth century a queer infusible metat metal had been observed in mexico and what is is n now ow panama later don antonio de ulloa had mentioned platina little silver described in his account of south american adventures as a stone of such resistance that it cannot easily be broken by a blow on a steel anvil its resistance to scientific analysis yo b was also great years passed before it was learned that platinum like other metals could be melted if made hot enough in the eighteenth century someone rolled a bit of the metal into foil and drew it into wire a great feat then and the first faltering step toward present day achievement when one troy ounce of platinum can be stretched into a virtually invisible wire nearly miles long the first crude platinum crucible 1 I 1 aphea appeared red pointing to it its s wide use it for the laboratory but it was late 1 1 I in the before they knew how to make a workable solid platinum ingot a necessary preliminary to the widespread modern industry a the first bar is credited to cha babeau french chemist working for tori tt charles III of spain who w 0 received r ceia sit a patent for his dincov discovery r i in 17 1783 Chaba biographer r says s s thai t at i the king himself a da dabbler r in 5 t ence used to visit the scientists 2 I a workshop and help with esperi 1 ments once Chaba neau in a rage oh 0 at the apparent inconsistency of is platinum ore threw precious toi hv eions apparatus and all out of thi the pi window vowing never to touch the stuff again 1 finally however success sl I 1 and m k to demonstrate demons the amazing weight we le of this metal in pure form he I 1 la to played a little joke ar placing the shiny four inch cube egl on a table he asked a friend to ird isi raise it the man could not you ai a have fastened it down he said but te Chaba neau lifted it a weight of area re about 50 pounds an Chaba friend would haven have 14 been still more astonished could W he 4 7 have followed the career of this aai metal into the future r 3 at for platinum itself science was to discover does not stand alone M it belongs to a family of six allied ae metals each with its own peculiar and valuable properties for art and it b industry it was combination h with these other metals n that caused the inconsistencies i which upset Chaba calculi V 4 eions other chemists too found esperi L merits ments contradictory sometimes dai wl the platinum substance would beatt come strangely brittle again to fad their surprise it would burn bum de ibi te pending as we know now on how id it was alloyed sg at last however the group stood ste clear and as palladium rhodium ts tiac t osmium osmium iridium and ruthenium i ia appeared in addition to platinum kl fey like rabbits out of the empty hat hatS I 1 lt of a vaudeville magician infant in at ila destries dus tries reached for the shining ti L boon sty plays vital part in industry aie fifty years ago we had no radio W i communication no xray X ray no transi trans i s continental or oceanic telephone to 1 it name but a few man made miracles if in which the platinum metals play sol a small but vital part 1 l in airplanes now platinum is af tr standard contact metal for high ten Ss sion sion magnetos u fountain pens became practical siy when an alloy of two of the platinum k bite e group was found to make a wear arn and acid resisting point wore A farmer who r nay may he tear ar ent to platinum bracelets can still ic appreciate agency as a catalyst in making synthetic ni j ta for fertilizer an in your electric refrigerator and iiii eak thermostat heat control unit a thin ii t strip of metal changes shape as ti temperature rises or falls making i as or breaking electrical contact and aw ar r thus starting or shutting off the motor since platinum offers high resistance to hot electric sparks it liidi is particularly useful here for con tact points acif from obsolete telephone equip j it fc ment thousands of ounces of bic e num palladium and gold are sal vh caged annually minute quantities 1 from each piece after the metal L has been put through 0 special proc esses back into se service arvice it goes in the form of more contact points eints j i platinum and palladium are imbor 1 I 1 tant factors in radio and long dis j tance telephony dentists use a large proportion of 01 j L our annual supply in alloys for 1 bridgework foil and fillings fil lines N q P |
