dissolve
one part of Gold when boiled with it in water. This is the process of
Stahl, and is the one he supposed Moses was acquainted with when
reducing the Golden Calf of the idolatrous Israelites to a fine powder,
and making them drink thereof. But this notion of Stahl's is refuted by
the words of the Scriptural text (Exodus xxxii. 20), " He took the calf
which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder,
and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel to drink
of it." " Not the least intimation is here given" (says Professor
Pepper, Play Booh of Metals), " of the gold having been
dissolved, chemically speaking, in water. After the form of the calf
had been destroyed by melting in the fire, it was stamped, and ground,
or, as the Arabic, and Syriac versions have it, filed, into a fine
dust, and thrown into the river, of which the children of Israel would
drink. Part of the finely-powdered gold would remain, notwithstanding
its greater specific gravity, suspended for a time on the surface of
the river ; in which condition the gold might be swallowed,
distastefully indeed, but harmlessly, together with the water, in the
manner described. If actually the Israelites had drank the gold in a
state of solution they must have thus imbibed a rank poison."
Gold
is altogether insoluble in either of the mineral acids when used
uncombined. Finely-divided gold may be boiled for any length of time in
either nitric, hydrochloric, or sulphuric acid, and no solution of the
metal will take place ; but directly nitric and hydrochloric acids are
mixed together (thus making " nitromuriatic " acid), then the gold, if
immersed therein, will be attacked, and soon disappear ; and then, if
this solution is afterwards slowly evaporated, pure terchloride of
gold is the
