Part 67

At any rate, it is probable that the discovery of fire led to that of metals. Fires built against certain rocks may have calcined them, and caused the metals which they contained to be fused together. By some it is thought that the first metal discovered was gold, which existed in the sands of the streams, and would naturally attract attention by its shining appearance.

Even if gold were the earliest discovery, it exercised no great influence on the civilization of the human race; but it was otherwise with the discovery of the commoner metals. From the time these were known, the human race made rapid progress, and written history began with them.

The discovery of copper and tin preceded that of bronze, which is an alloy of these two metals. Copper may have been discovered in its natural state, or in combination with other substances, which could easily be removed by the action of fire. The metal was soft and easily fashioned, but there are many purposes which it could not be made to answer. The localities where this metal was first discovered are not positively known. Some contend that it came from India, while others give credit to that part of England known at the present time as Cornwall.

[Sidenote: THE AGE OF BRONZE.]

The alloy of copper and tin for the formation of bronze grew into very rapid use, and it was made of various degrees of hardness, according to the purpose for which it was intended. Wedges, knives, axes, saws, fish-hooks, ploughshares, picks, and a thousand other implements for the uses of peace or of war, were made of bronze. It could be melted and cast in moulds, or it could be hammered and fashioned at the will of the smith. With bronze the art of moulding began. Bronze was used for money. It was cast into utensils for kitchens, and parlors, and other apartments of dwellings. It was fashioned into statuary, and sometimes into statuary of a very vulgar character. Weapons were made of it, such as the heads of arrows, lances, and javelins, swords, shields, and helmets; while it was useful in peace, it was likewise useful in war. A French writer has said, “The art of killing one another will advance at the same time as all the other arts.”

Lead, silver, and quicksilver were discovered about the same time as copper. A long period may have elapsed after the discovery of bronze before that of iron. Doubtless this was in a great measure because bronze supplied all the requirements of the arts of peace as well as of war, and would naturally precede iron, because it was more readily and easily worked. The reduction of iron ore has always been a delicate process, and is attended with more or less difficulty. A strong current of air was required to give sufficient heat to melt the iron. It is quite likely that the first blast furnace was made from the hollow trunk of a tree containing a piston, moving up and down like that of an ordinary pump. This method is still in use among the Malays and the African negroes. While the Polynesians are still in the stone period, the Malays and negroes are just entering the first cycle of the iron period.

Some of the philosophers suggest that this is by the desire of the Ruler of the universe, in order to guide the civilized man of to-day in the study of the early history of his race.

[Sidenote: THE AGE OF IRON.]

For a long time iron was only used in its malleable form. The discovery of cast iron was not a prime necessity, since its place was well supplied by bronze. Historians tells us that cast iron was discovered about the time of the invention of gunpowder. It was used for making shot, and afterwards for making the guns by which the shot were projected. The English were the first to adopt them, and tried them against the French in the battle of Crécy, about the middle of the fourteenth century.

Step by step furnaces were constructed, and almost every decade witnessed some kind of improvements in their management. Then came the invention by which steel could be manufactured on a large scale. The rapid increase in the use of iron dates, as before stated, from the general use of mineral coal.

Pages could be covered with details of the uses of iron and steel. The production and consumption of these metals amount to millions of tons annually, yet the demand never exceeds the supply. They are fast replacing timber and stone for many uses, and they are substituted for bronze in ornamental castings. No tools or weapons can be made without them. They constitute parts of nearly all machinery; and turn where we will,—wherever civilized men are to be found,—we shall see iron and steel occupying prominent places.

[Sidenote: COUNTRIES THAT PRODUCE IRON.]

Deposits of metals are found in all parts of the globe. Great Britain is rich in lead, and tin, and iron, and in some localities gold has been discovered. She furnishes other countries with some of her metals, and those which she does not find in sufficient quantities for her own wants she brings from abroad. Many of the metallic ores of other countries are sent to England to be smelted and reduced. On the continent of Europe there are copper mines, silver mines, iron mines, and mines of nickel, zinc, and tin. Some of the deposits of metallic ores are very great. In one place in Swedish Lapland there is a hill rising out of the swampy ground, where there are veins of iron ore, some of them two hundred feet in thickness. Belgium, in proportion to her size, produces more iron than England. Along the valley of the Rhine and its tributaries there are rich deposits of the various metals, some of them of great extent. Russia is rich in mines; and as we go from European to Asiatic Russia, we find that the richness continues.

France has large supplies of iron, and on a small scale she possesses the other metals. In Spain there is great mineral wealth, and some of the mines of that country have been exploited for thousands of years. The most celebrated quicksilver mine in the world is that of Almaden, situated in Spain; and it has been continually worked for three thousand years. Until the discovery and working of the New Almaden quicksilver mine, in California, the famous mine of Spain controlled the quicksilver market of the globe. In Northern Italy there are many districts rich in metallic ores. Throughout Asia, from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean, there are mines of all the metals, some of them of great richness. Mining industry in that part of the world is still in its infancy, and great discoveries and great progress may be looked for within the next hundred years.

In Africa, as well as in Asia, there are rich mineral deposits, though comparatively little is known about them. The new world is not behind the old in its mineral wealth. Every known mineral substance is found here; and there are evidences that the mines were worked thousands of years before Columbus made his famous voyage across the Atlantic. Some of the largest metallic veins in the world are in America.

Mexico, Peru, and other Spanish settlements on this side of the globe are almost unparalleled in richness. California alone has furnished an immense amount of gold to the hard money circulation of the world, and is destined to furnish still more.

[Sidenote: SILVER IN AMERICA.]

Nevada and the territories lying around it have a wealth of silver unknown, and doubtless inexhaustible. The copper mines of Lake Superior have become famous throughout the world; and the iron mines of the great Mississippi valley and the Atlantic slope may yet supply the world with the most useful and most generally needed metals.

Probably the richest mines yet known are those situated on the famous Comstock lode, in Nevada.

From 1862 to 1865, including both these years, the mines on that lode yielded about forty-eight millions of dollars, and since that time the return has averaged more than twenty millions of dollars annually. The produce of silver from the Comstock vein is about one fourth of the entire amount furnished by all the silver mines in the world. It exceeds the aggregate produce of all European countries, and equals that of the entire western coast of South America.

A French engineer, who visited Nevada some years ago, wrote of it as follows:—

“Its extraordinary productiveness has made the Washoe region more famous for its mineral wealth than many places where silver ores have been found, and mined for centuries. It has attracted an enormous civilized population. It has built cities in the desert, and roads across high mountain ranges, accelerated the union by steam of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America, created a new branch of mining industry in the Pacific states, and given successful employment to large amounts of capital.”

The original mine of the Comstock vein is known as the Gould and Curry. It originally belonged to two men whose names it bears. Gould sold out his share for a pair of blankets and a bottle of whiskey. Curry disposed of his interest for a horse and two thousand dollars. One of the mines on the same vein was bought one day for two thousand dollars, and six weeks afterwards was sold for nine hundred thousand. Some of the most remarkable mining speculations ever known in the history of the world have occurred in Nevada.

A long story could be told of the various countries of the world, and of the productions for which they are famous; but it is hardly necessary in this place, and very likely would become tedious. Scarcely any part of the globe can be mentioned where some mineral of value is not found, and the various substances seem to be distributed in such a way as to develop intimate relations among the various members of the human family, and to draw nations nearer and nearer to each other.

[Sidenote: MINERAL EXCHANGES.]

England exchanges her iron and coal for the produce of other nations. Spain sends her quicksilver. Chili sends her copper. Mexico and Peru send their silver, and receive in return the articles which they need, and other nations can spare. Other countries send their minerals to distant markets, and receive in return the products of the countries where those markets exist. America, with her mines, is comparatively in a state of infancy; but the day will come—and it is not far distant—when she will be the great supplying centre of a large portion of the globe.

LXIV.

DIAMOND AND OTHER SWINDLES.

THE GREAT DIAMOND SWINDLE OF 1872.—HOW IT WAS ORGANIZED.—MAGNIFICENT PLANS OF THE SWINDLERS.—PLANTING A DIAMOND FIELD.—HOW THE FRAUD WAS EXPOSED.—A NEAT SWINDLE ATTEMPTED IN SAPPHIRES.—HOW IT WAS DISCOVERED.—A MYTHICAL COPPER MINE.—FATE OF THE SWINDLER.

The great diamond swindle of California will probably go down in history as one of the most magnificent frauds of this or any other age. There are some facts about the matter which have not yet been given to the public. When the operators first started their “plant,” they went to New York, and endeavored to enlist capitalists in that city. A friend of mine was thrown into contact with them, and from him I learned the points. They wanted half a million dollars for their claim. He looked at the diamonds, which appeared to be genuine, and he was allowed to apply the usual test of rubbing with steel files and with emery. They stood the test, and he offered to put ten thousand dollars into the scheme. Another friend (a friend of my friend) came forward, and as he had some money to spare, he was allowed to investigate the business; the twain were prepared with more files and emery, and they rubbed more of the diamonds.

The test was going on satisfactorily, when my friend, whom I will call Sharpley, happened to lay hold of a stone that yielded to the hard substances against which it was brought. Sharpley tried another side of it, and again it yielded. He was handling a piece of common crystal, and not a diamond, and his eyes were beginning to open. He became inquisitive enough for a son of Paul Pry, and the result of his questioning was, that he didn’t put his money into the speculation. Straightway he sought his friend, and actually found him arranging to draw the check that would have made him a twenty thousand dollar stockholder in the great diamond mine of Arizona.

[Sidenote: DISCOVERING A FRAUD.]

Sharpley talked to him like a Dutch uncle, and with some difficulty induced him to withhold the money for the present. I say with difficulty, for Sharpley’s friend had become as enthusiastic over the diamonds as a damsel of sixteen over her first beau, and was determined to go in anyhow. He half suspected that Sharpley wanted to keep others out so that he could get more stock for himself, and subsequently, when the stock was all taken, he upbraided Sharpley for keeping him out. He does not upbraid much now, but, on the contrary, quite the reverse. When the exposure came out, he thought how his twenty thousand dollars had been saved, and remembered that Sharpley had been the cause of its salvation. He sent a basket of the best champagne to Sharpley’s office, and it was while drinking a glass of the beverage that its recipient told me of his diamond experience.

“It was one of the best laid plants I ever saw,” said Sharpley, “and if it had not been for stumbling on that piece of crystal, I might have been taken in. They tried to explain to me that the crystal got in there by accident; but as they had previously told me that every stone in the collection had been examined by an expert, I knew there was a lie somewhere. They had a few rubies, which they claimed were found in the same locality, or near them. I looked at them, and was allowed to take one of them to a jeweller, who pronounced it genuine. That night I overhauled my encyclopædia, and studied up the character of diamonds and rubies.

“I found that the diamond consists of crystallized carbon, while the ruby, sapphire, and all that class of gems, are crystallized alumina. Next morning I went to one of the best geologists in New York, whom I happened to know well, and asked him if crystals of carbon and alumina could be found in the same locality.

[Sidenote: SCENE OF THE PLANT.]

“‘Most certainly not,’ was his reply. ‘Such a thing may be possible, but I doubt it very much.’

“‘What would you say,’ I asked, ‘if a man showed you a diamond and a ruby, and told you they were found side by side?’

“‘I should ask him if he knew the man that put them there; and if he insisted that they were natural deposits, I should change the topic of conversation for fear of saying something to wound his feelings.’

“I left the professor,” continued Sharpley, “and made up my mind to have nothing to do with the speculation, although I confess I was greatly puzzled. Apart from the statement of the geologist, and the discovery of the crystal which first caused my suspicions, everything appeared right enough. The parties were respectable, polite, intelligent, and wanted a good price for their property, or rather for half of it, as they only desired to obtain money to work their claim. They would not reveal the locality of the discovery, as it was upon unsurveyed ground, and they desired the passage of a bill by Congress to confirm their title to it. The _mesa_, or diamond-bearing ground, was minutely described, and was very much like the diamond-bearing localities of Brazil and India. Professor Janin, a scientist of repute, had been there, and staked his reputation on the genuineness of the discovery. He was sworn to secrecy, in order that there should be no jumping of the claim by the adventurous fellows who abound on the frontier, and to keep off everybody, in fact, until the proper title was secured, and the company was ready to go to work. Several persons who had investigated the matter as extensively as they could, were convinced of its correctness, and were ready to invest.

“Furthermore, the operators were anxious to get the claim to their land, and spent money to get it. General McClellan, Samuel Barlow, and others went into the operation, and you may be sure they don’t risk their money unless things appear pretty certain. McClellan, Barlow, and the rest, whom I will call the New York party for the sake of convenience, offered four hundred thousand dollars for the half interest, and had the money ready to put up. I surely expected the ‘planters’ would take this and clear out, as they would then make a handsome profit on the speculation. But they refused it, and, as they could get no more, they took up their bags of diamonds and went away. This again made the thing look genuine, and I was more puzzled than ever. I began to wish I had put in my money, and it was then that my friend, whose champagne I am drinking, blew me up for dissuading him from investing. I soothed him, and we determined to keep our mouths shut, and wait for what would turn up.

[Sidenote: HOW THE NEW YORKERS WERE CAUGHT.]

“Well, to shorten up the story, the planters went to San Francisco and got Ralston, and the rest of them to go in. When the company was organized, the New York party began to regret not having taken the thing at half a million, and they felt so bad about it that they asked the Ralston crowd to let them in on the bed rock organization. They urged the time, money, and influence they had used to get the grant from the government, and begged so hard that Ralston’s party finally gave them a chance. They won’t tell how much they lost, but I think there were five of them stuck for about twenty thousand apiece. There were other small fry, but they were not of much account.

“Now, there is another thing that hasn’t come out yet, but I am sure it will one of these days. There is a rich deposit of diamonds on this continent of North America, and some of the stones which have been exhibited came from it. Some of the diamonds used in getting up this plant were bought in London, and came from Brazil and South Africa, but there were others that certainly came from no diamond fields yet known. At least that is what some of the experts say, and if all the parties interested in the purchase of the Arizona mines,—I do not mean those who sold, but those who bought the half interest from the swindlers,—if all these parties were catechized searchingly, I have reason to believe that some of them would or could tell something that would be quite as startling as the original story of diamonds in Arizona. They had already taken steps to secure this new locality before the Arizona swindle was exposed, and had it not been for the sudden death of a gentleman connected with the negotiations, the business would have been completed ere this. The negotiations were hindered by his death, and it may be months before they are completed; but you can certainly look for a revelation some time in 1873 of great interest concerning diamond fields of wonderful wealth.”

“Why,” I asked, “did not the Arizona swindlers get up their speculation on the real diamond fields of which you speak? They could have made more money, and avoided the stigma of dishonesty which they must bear as long as they live.”

[Sidenote: A RICH MESA SOMEWHERE.]

“Simply because the swindle was much the easier thing. The real fields are practically inaccessible, except to a large and well-armed party, and under the sanction of another government than our own. A concession to hold and work them must be obtained, and this would take a long time. I will say this and no more—that they are north of the Isthmus of Darien, and are not in the United States. You may guess about their locality as much as you like, but for the present I can say nothing more. You see it was much easier to get up an excitement about Arizona or Colorado, and turn it into money, than to wait and work on the genuine enterprise. Men are not generally inclined to dishonesty unless they can make something by it.”

So endeth what I have to say about the diamond swindle.

Some other transactions of a kindred sort have come to my knowledge, and they may properly be told in this connection. A few years ago I was interested in the study of crystallizations, and made some experiments in the laboratory of a chemical friend. We tried a long time to get up rubies and sapphires, and followed the processes of Ebelman and Gaudin as closely as possible. Artificial crystals of alumina have been produced, but they have always been so small as to require a microscope for their discovery, and any attempt to color them has failed. In the course of our experiment we came in contact with a scientific gentleman of considerable repute. He assisted us in some of our efforts, but we never succeeded in them, not even producing the smallest crystal. Finally, we gave up the enterprise, and turned our attention to something else.

Three or four months later I met this scientist, Professor Blank, in the corridor of the Astor House. He was delighted to see me, and said he had called two or three times on business of importance, which he could only explain at his rooms.

We made an appointment for that evening, and he went away.

I was on hand at the appointed hour, and, after carefully locking the door, the professor became confidential.

[Sidenote: COUNTERFEIT SAPPHIRES.]

“You remember your experiments to produce sapphires,” he said, “and you also remember that I took great interest in them. When you were disheartened and gave up, I did not abandon hope, and at last I have been rewarded. I have produced a perfect sapphire by following another process from yours. You used alumina and boracic acid; I have been using the same things, but have added another acid, and an oxide that gives the color to the stone at the same time that it facilitates the crystallization. Here is the result.”

As he spoke he opened a table drawer, and from a small box produced three beautiful stones. Apparently they were sapphires of correct shape, color, and density, and worth a great deal of money. They reflected the gas light, and for a short time I saw a fortune before me. When I had examined them thoroughly and placed them on the table, the professor continued: “Now, these are sapphires made in my laboratory—just as Nature has made them in hers. They are of the same material as the natural sapphire, and a man can sell them for genuine stones and not be guilty of any fraud.”

I assented to his proposition.

“Here is a fortune in my secret; but to make the secret available, it is necessary to proceed with great caution. The instant it is known or suspected that the stones are made by an artificial process, the market will be ruined. I have thought the whole thing over, and determined upon a plan. We will form a small company, the fewer men in it the better, and fit up a laboratory in connection with a tin shop, or something of the sort. The shop will be a blind to prevent suspicion, and the laboratory can be in the rear, where we will pretend to have a new process for soldering tin. When the stones are made, we can put them on the market slowly, and sell them just fast enough to prevent getting up a panic.”

[Sidenote: A MAGNIFICENT SCHEME.]