464 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



VALUE OF IRON. 



The following calculation has been made to show that mechanical labor 

 expended on iron completel}'- exceeds the cost of the material. 



Iron that may be purchased for five dollars, can be worked into watch 



springs worth $45,000 00 



Blades for pocket knives, 350 00 



Finished buttons, 4,500 00 



Common knives, 190 00 



Sewing needles, 355 00 



Shoes for horses, 15 00 



Cast iron of the same value in shirt buttons would be worth . $29,000 00 



Fancy chains 7,000 00 



Piston of a steamer, 18 00 



Buckles for stocks, 2,900 00 



Rustic work 250 00 



Wire two hundred miles in length. 



VALUE OF GOLD. 



All the gold in the universe, if melted into bars, might be packed in a 

 room twenty-three feet square and seventeen feet high. The gold obtained 

 from Australia and California up to the last arrivals reported in this coun- 

 try and Eui'ope, could be placed with ease in a box eight feet high and ten 

 feet square. 



King David received from the people for the sanctuary about three yards 

 and a half of gold, worth thirty-five millions of dollars, besides which he 

 expended four thousand four hundred and fifty-four millions of dollars, — 

 millions more than the whole national debt of Great Britain, which was, 

 March 31st, 1855, $3,873,986,095. 



Solomon overlaid a room thirty feet square with gold, at a cost of one 

 hundred and ninety millions of dollars. 



One grain of gold may be beat so as to extend over many square feet, 

 and still remain sufficiently compact to prevent a ray of light from being 

 transmitted through it. A cube of gold the size of a thousandth part of an 

 inch, will contain two million five hundred thousand parts visible to the 

 eye through a microscope. A cylinder of gold twenty-one inches long and 

 half an inch in diameter, may be stretched into a Avire thread three hvm- 

 dred miles long. 



When gold is refined from all alloys it is considered pure gold, or twenty 

 four carats fine. This is the standard at the mint. No gold, however, 

 comes up to this standard in reality. If gold is called twenty-two carats 

 fine, it is alloyed with one part silver and one copper, or two parts of silver. 



It is a singular fact that miners can determine with great accuracy the 

 character of metalliferous deposits by their position. Copper veins, for 

 instance, have a westerly and easterly direction in the mine. Lead veins 

 run from north to south. And what is more strange still, if any position 

 of a vein is changed a few degrees by an earthquake or upheaval of the 



