yS Mr. Hatchett's Experiments on the various Alloys , 
it has been so repeatedly asserted by various chemists, and so 
universally believed by all persons concerned in the melting 
and working of gold, that the ductility of it is destroyed, or 
much injured, by very small portions of iron, that, had it not 
been for the determination made, when these experiments were 
begun, to examine, by experiments made expressly for the pur- 
pose, every assertion respecting the effect of alloys, this long 
established opinion would not here have been questioned. 
Indeed, considering how easy it was to ascertain whether 
or not gold could be rendered brittle by the addition of iron, 
it is a matter of astonishment, when we read in the works of 
many celebrated chemists, and when we hear intelligent and 
judicious artists assert, that iron, even in minute proportions, 
injures or destroys the ductility of gold.* 
It is not necessary here to inquire how this erroneous idea 
first originated ; but, that the fact is absolutely the reverse, the 
following experiments will sufficiently prove. 
Experiment i. 
To eleven ounces one pennyweight and three grains of gold, 
23 car. 3* fine, eighteen pennyweights and twenty-one grains 
of clean iron wire were added. 
The iron was soon melted, and was well mixed with the gold, 
after which, the whole was poured into a greased mould of iron. 
* “ Le fer qui y touche, (l’or,) quand il est en fusion, V aigrit aussi, au lieu qu’il 
« adoucit l’argent.” Schlutter, p. 284. 
“ Iron or steel, in a very small proportion, render gold hard and eager, and, on 
“ increasing the quantity of the iron, the mixt continues brittle ” Lewis’s Phil. 
Comm, of Arts, p. 85. 
“ When gold is fused with iron, it is by it rendered pale and brittle.” Gren’s 
Principles of Modern Chemistry, Vol. II. p.339. 
