nk is lowered, and the spongy or porous cone of silver is withdrawn
from the retort. The subliming furnaces are ranged in a row, and
communicate by lines of rails with the weigh-house.

* * * * *

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT PLATINUM.

After an excellent day of weakfishing on Barnegat Bay and an exceptionable
supper of the good, old fashioned, country tavern kind, a social party of
anglers sat about on Uncle Jo Parker's broad porch at Forked River,
smoking and enjoying the cool, fragrant breath of the cedar swamp, when
somehow the chat drifted to the subject of assaying and refining the
precious metals. That was just where one of the party, Mr. D.W. Baker, of
Newark, was at home, and in the course of an impromptu lecture he told the
party more about the topic under discussion, and especially the platinum
branch of it, than they ever knew before.

"Our firm," he said, "practically does all the platinum business of this
country, and the demand for the material is so great that we never can get
more than we want of it. The principal portion, or, in fact, nearly all of
it, comes from the famous mines of the Demidoff family, who have the
monopoly of the production in Russia. It is all refined and made into
sheets of various thicknesses, and into wire of certain commercial sizes,
before it comes to us; but we have frequently to cut, roll, and redraw it
to new forms and sizes to meet the demands upon us. At one time it was
coined in Russia, but it is no longer applied to that use. We have
obtained some very good crude platinum ore from South America and have
refined it successfully, but the supply from that source is, as yet, very
small. I am not aware that it has been found anywhere else than in
Colombia, on that continent, but the explorations thus far made into the
mineral resources of South America have been very meager, and it is by no
means improbable that platinum may yet be discovered there in quantities
rivaling the supply of Russia.

"A popular error respecting platinum is that its intrinsic value is the
same as that of gold. At one time it did approximate to gold in value, but
never quite reached it, and is now worth only $8 to $12 an ounce,
according to the work expended upon it in getting it into required forms
and the amount of alloy it contains. The alloy used for it is iridium,
which hardens it, and the more iridium it contains the more difficult it
is to work, and consequ