| OCR Text |
Show Indestructibility of Gold. Gold may be said to be everlasting, indestructible. in-destructible. The pure acids have no effect upon it. Air and water are alike prohibited from working its destruction ; while to baser metals they are decay, to gold they are innoculous. Bury it through long ages, and when the rude tool of the excavator again -brings it to light, while everything around it, and originally associated with it has returned to dust from which it sprang ; while the delicate form which it adorned has become be-come a powder so impalpable as to be inappreciable in-appreciable ; while the strong bone of the mighty warrior crumbles as you gaze upon it ; while his trusty sword lies a mass of shale rust, the delicate tracery in gold which adorned it, or the finely wrought tiars which encircle the lofty brow of the fair damsel, is there in its pristine beauty, perfect as when it left the workman's hands and became the joy of her fleeting moments. Yes, days, years, centuries, have rolled by; mighty empires have risen and fallen ; dynasties that dreamed their power was to be everlasting have passed away ; armies have marched, con-, quered and become nerveless with decrepit de-crepit old age;, cities, teeming "with population and commerce have become the dwelling places, of the . owl and the bat ; the very pyramids themselves, raised in the pride of power, and destined to be forever, have crumbled, and are CTimb-ling, CTimb-ling, and yet that thin filament of gold has stood unchanged through all these mighty changes. It has withstood triumphantly tri-umphantly the destroying hand of time ;" it is to-day what it was three thousand years ago. Surely it is . a noble metal worthy of all - admiration. Sir Henry Vivian |
