aqua
regia to remove sulphides, and afterward with hydrofluoric acid to
remove silicates. After this treatment the sperrylite sand is seen to
have increased remarkably in brilliancy, every grain showing extremely
brilliaut crystal faces. It has a tin white color, resembling that of
metallic platinum itself. It is heavy, possessing at 20 degrees a
specific gravity of 10.C. Although this is an interesting occurrence,
no effort has been made to obtain platinum from this source.
Price.—The
price of this metal has advanced at a rapid rate. In 18S3 it was as low
as $5.49 an ounce, but in July, 18S9, had risen to $8. At the close of
1889 a large electrical firm in this country paid $20,000 for 2,000
ounces of platinum, probably in the form of wire, and during the first
quarter of 1890 it is quoted at 2,000 francs per kilogram; this with
the Russian export duty, freight, insurance, and custom-house charges
added, makes the price in the United States about $14 an ounce. The
effect of this price will undoubtedly be to stimulate the production of
platinum in connection with placer gold mining in California and
Canada. The belief has heretofore obtained that the increased use of
electrical appliances which require platinum wire increased the demand
for platinum and consequently the price. It is claimed by those who
manufacture platinum vessels that this factor has been overweighted.
The great demand for platinum vessels in new technical and scientific
institutions in India, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and
even in China and Japan, probably influenced the rise in the price of
platinum. The firm of Johnson, Matthey & Co., the leading dealers
in platinum in the world, has recently had an order from China which,
it is said, would alone take more platinum than an electric-lighting
plant in a city of 100,000 inhabitants would use. Another factor, which
bears somewhat directly upon this point, which has been overlooked in
determining the price of platinum, is in the improved condition of
Russian finances. The ruble has now increased to its standard value,
and the contracts for platinum heretofore made at a certain number of
rubles per ounce still hold, and, as the value of the unit has
increased to the standard, the cost to the consumer has correspondingly
increased. Another element in addition to this is that there has been a
large draft upon the employes in the Ural mines for the building of
the trans-Siberian railway by the Russian government, that has to a
certain extent depleted the mines of their laborers, and this course
has made it difficult to keep up the usual output.
Again,
it is maintained by some that the price of platinum which has been
quoted in the commercial world has been too low; that platinum has been
regarded as a tailing or refuse from the gold mines, and therefore the
cost of production has not been charged against it; that if platinum
had been mined and worked out in the same way that gold and silver have
and the cost of producing and refining it charged to the platinum, it
would today cost as much as gold. In fact, Messrs. Johnson, Matthey & Co. say it will not be surprising if the price of the platinum
