398 METALS—THE NOBLER.
water
indisputably affords more gold than does the sea-water on the Hampshire
coast. Justice Darling, before whom the action was tried, said this
scheme brought to his mind the proposal discussed in Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput, (written by Jonathan Swift, at sixty, 1726,) on the part of certain wiseacres, to "extract sunbeams from cucumbers."
It is alleged that a guinea's worth of Gold has been obtained from five hundred tons of sea-water.
Sea-water,
when frozen to congelation, is found to reject nearly all its saline
particles ; wherefore, on being afterwards thawed, its ice yields water
so fresh that it may be drunk without unpleasantness, or harm. Salt
water may likewise be rendered wholesome, and palatable by distillation.
Sterling
gold consists of an alloy of about twenty-two parts of gold with two
parts of copper. The " New Standard " gold consists of gold in eighteen
parts to six parts of copper. Each of these is stamped at Goldsmiths'
Hall; the former with a lion, a leopard's head, (the mark of the
Goldsmiths' Company), a letter denoting the year, the King's head, and
the manufacturer's initials ; the latter is stamped with the King's
head, the letter for the year, a crown, the number 18, to designate its
quality, and the manufacturer's initials. " Trinket gold " (which is
unstamped) is much less pure than either of those named above ; and the
" pale gold" which is used by jewellers is an alloy of gold with
silver. When gold is beaten into leaves certain animal membranes are
used to lay between the very thin sheets of metal. Fine skins made for
this purpose from the entrails of oxen are known by the name of "
goldbeaters' skin."
