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Edgar Allan Poe: Von Kempelen And His Discovery
Up to the EServer | The Complete Works of Edgar Allan
Poe
VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY
by Edgar Allan Poe
1850
AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of the
summary in 'Silliman's Journal,' with the detailed statement just published
by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course, that in offering a
few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's discovery, I have any
design to look at the subject in a scientific point of view. My object is
simply, in the first place, to say a few words of Von Kempelen himself (with
whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight personal acquaintance),
since every thing which concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of
interest; and, in the second place, to look in a general way, and
speculatively, at the results of the discovery.
It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which I
have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a general
impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from the newspapers),
viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it unquestionably is, is
unanticipated.
By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe,
London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this illustrious
chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question, but had actually
made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the very identical
analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who
although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I say
it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to the 'Diary'
for at least the first hint of his own undertaking.
The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the
rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a Mr.
Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little apocryphal,
for several reasons; although there is nothing either impossible or very
improbable in the statement made. I need not go into details. My opinion of
the paragraph is founded principally upon its manner. It does not look true.
Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam
seems to be, about day and date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam
actually did come upon the discovery he says he did, at the period
designated- nearly eight years ago–how happens it that he took no steps, on
the instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have
known would have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large,
from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man of common
understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he did, and yet
have subsequently acted so like a baby–so like an owl–as Mr. Kissam admits
that he did. By-the-way, who is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph
in the 'Courier and Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must
be confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little dependence
is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well aware,
from experience, how very easily men of science are mystified, on points out
of their usual range of inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at
finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam's
(or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the discovery, in so serious a
tone.
But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was not
designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer, as any
person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself at once by the
slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for example, near the middle,
we read, in reference to his researches about the protoxide of azote: 'In
less than half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished
gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on all the
muscles.' That the respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by
the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence,
no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the respiration
[being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded
by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' A hundred
similar instances go to show that the MS. so inconsiderately published, was
merely a rough note-book, meant only for the writer's own eye, but an
inspection of the pamphlet will convince almost any thinking person of the
truth of my suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last
man in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had he a
more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of
appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might have been convinced
that he was on the right track in the matter now in question, he would never
have spoken out, until he had every thing ready for the most practical
demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments would have been
rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his wishes in regard to
burning this 'Diary' (full of crude speculations) would have been unattended
to; as, it seems, they were. I say 'his wishes,' for that he meant to
include this note-book among the miscellaneous papers directed 'to be
burnt,' I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the
flames by good fortune or by bad, yet remains to be seen. That the passages
quoted above, with the other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the
hint, I do not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet
remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under
any circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large.
That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it
would be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not
to 'realize,' in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with other
property of intrinsic value.
In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the 'Home
Journal,' and has since been extensively copied, several misapprehensions of
the German original seem to have been made by the translator, who professes
to have taken the passage from a late number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.'
'Viele' has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and what the
translator renders by 'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,' which, in its true
version, 'sufferings,' would give a totally different complexion to the
whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess, on my part.
Von Kempelen, however, is by no means 'a misanthrope,' in appearance, at
least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with him was casual
altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that I know him at all;
but to have seen and conversed with a man of so prodigious a notoriety as he
has attained, or will attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as times
go.
'The Literary World' speaks of him, confidently, as a native of Presburg
(misled, perhaps, by the account in 'The Home Journal') but I am pleased in
being able to state positively, since I have it from his own lips, that he
was born in Utica, in the State of New York, although both his parents, I
believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with
Maelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short and stout,
with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing
mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of
his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable for
bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as little like 'a
misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners for a week
about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I
presume that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or four
hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the day, and nothing
that fell from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the
hotel before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was
in the latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or,
rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having made it. This is
about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von Kempelen; but I
have thought that even these few details would have interest for the
public.
There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors afloat
about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about as much credit as
the story of Aladdin's lamp; and yet, in a case of this kind, as in the case
of the discoveries in California, it is clear that the truth may be stranger
than fiction. The following anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated,
that we may receive it implicitly.
Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his residence
at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been put to extreme shifts
in order to raise trifling sums. When the great excitement occurred about
the forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was directed
toward Von Kempelen, on account of his having purchased a considerable
property in Gasperitch Lane, and his refusing, when questioned, to explain
how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at length arrested,
but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty.
The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus
discovered that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and
invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that
labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of the
'Dondergat.' Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a
garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called Flatzplatz,–and,
coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they imagined, in the midst of his
counterfeiting operations. His agitation is represented as so excessive that
the officers had not the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing
him, they searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he occupied all
the mansarde.
Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten feet by
eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which the object has not
yet been ascertained. In one corner of the closet was a very small furnace,
with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible–two
crucibles connected by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of
lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube,
which was close to the brim. The other crucible had some liquid in it,
which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously dissipating in vapor.
They relate that, on finding himself taken, Kempelen seized the crucibles
with both hands (which were encased in gloves that afterwards turned out to
be asbestic), and threw the contents on the tiled floor. It was now that
they hand-cuffed him; and before proceeding to ransack the premises they
searched his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a
paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward ascertained
to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown substance, in nearly, but not
quite, equal proportions. All attempts at analyzing the unknown substance
have, so far, failed, but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be
doubted.
Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went through
a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was found, to the
chemist's sleeping-room. They here rummaged some drawers and boxes, but
discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some good coin, silver
and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair
trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly
across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out from under
the bed, they found that, with their united strength (there were three of
them, all powerful men), they 'could not stir it one inch.' Much astonished
at this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the trunk,
said:
'No wonder we couldn't move it–why it's full to the brim of old bits of
brass!'
Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good purchase, and
pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with an theirs, the
trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the bed, and its
contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was filled was all in
small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a pea to that of a dollar;
but the pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less flat-looking,
upon the whole, 'very much as lead looks when thrown upon the ground in a
molten state, and there suffered to grow cool.' Now, not one of these
officers for a moment suspected this metal to be any thing but brass. The
idea of its being gold never entered their brains, of course; how could such
a wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well conceived,
when the next day it became known, all over Bremen, that the 'lot of brass'
which they had carted so contemptuously to the police office, without
putting themselves to the trouble of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not
only gold–real gold–but gold far finer than any employed in coinage-gold, in
fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy.
I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen's confession (as far as it
went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. That he has
actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the letter, the old
chimaera of the philosopher's stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt.
The opinions of Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest
consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he says of
bismuth, in his report to the Academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The
simple truth is, that up to this period all analysis has failed; and until
Von Kempelen chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma, it
is more than probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu quo.
All that as yet can fairly be said to be known is, that 'Pure gold can be
made at will, and very readily from lead in connection with certain other
substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.'
Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate results
of this discovery–a discovery which few thinking persons will hesitate in
referring to an increased interest in the matter of gold generally, by the
late developments in California; and this reflection brings us inevitably to
another–the exceeding inopportuneness of Von Kempelen's analysis. If many
were prevented from adventuring to California, by the mere apprehension that
gold would so materially diminish in value, on account of its plentifulness
in the mines there, as to render the speculation of going so far in search
of it a doubtful one–what impression will be wrought now, upon the minds of
those about to emigrate, and especially upon the minds of those actually in
the mineral region, by the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von
Kempelen? a discovery which declares, in so many words, that beyond its
intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may be),
gold now is, or at least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von
Kempelen can long retain his secret), of no greater value than lead, and of
far inferior value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to
speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery, but one
thing may be positively maintained–that the announcement of the discovery
six months ago would have had material influence in regard to the settlement
of California.
In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise of two
hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly twenty-five per cent.
that of silver.
THE END
Edgar Allan Poe: Von Kempelen And His Discovery
Up to the EServer | The Complete Works of Edgar Allan
Poe
VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY
by Edgar Allan Poe
1850
AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of the
summary in 'Silliman's Journal,' with the detailed statement just published
by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course, that in offering a
few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's discovery, I have any
design to look at the subject in a scientific point of view. My object is
simply, in the first place, to say a few words of Von Kempelen himself (with
whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight personal acquaintance),
since every thing which concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of
interest; and, in the second place, to look in a general way, and
speculatively, at the results of the discovery.
It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which I
have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a general
impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from the newspapers),
viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it unquestionably is, is
unanticipated.
By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe,
London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this illustrious
chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question, but had actually
made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the very identical
analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who
although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I say
it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to the 'Diary'
for at least the first hint of his own undertaking.
The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the
rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a Mr.
Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little apocryphal,
for several reasons; although there is nothing either impossible or very
improbable in the statement made. I need not go into details. My opinion of
the paragraph is founded principally upon its manner. It does not look true.
Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam
seems to be, about day and date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam
actually did come upon the discovery he says he did, at the period
designated- nearly eight years ago–how happens it that he took no steps, on
the instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have
known would have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large,
from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man of common
understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he did, and yet
have subsequently acted so like a baby–so like an owl–as Mr. Kissam admits
that he did. By-the-way, who is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph
in the 'Courier and Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must
be confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little dependence
is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well aware,
from experience, how very easily men of science are mystified, on points out
of their usual range of inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at
finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam's
(or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the discovery, in so serious a
tone.
But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was not
designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer, as any
person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself at once by the
slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for example, near the middle,
we read, in reference to his researches about the protoxide of azote: 'In
less than half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished
gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on all the
muscles.' That the respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by
the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence,
no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the respiration
[being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded
by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' A hundred
similar instances go to show that the MS. so inconsiderately published, was
merely a rough note-book, meant only for the writer's own eye, but an
inspection of the pamphlet will convince almost any thinking person of the
truth of my suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last
man in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had he a
more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of
appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might have been convinced
that he was on the right track in the matter now in question, he would never
have spoken out, until he had every thing ready for the most practical
demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments would have been
rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his wishes in regard to
burning this 'Diary' (full of crude speculations) would have been unattended
to; as, it seems, they were. I say 'his wishes,' for that he meant to
include this note-book among the miscellaneous papers directed 'to be
burnt,' I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the
flames by good fortune or by bad, yet remains to be seen. That the passages
quoted above, with the other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the
hint, I do not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet
remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under
any circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large.
That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it
would be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not
to 'realize,' in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with other
property of intrinsic value.
In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the 'Home
Journal,' and has since been extensively copied, several misapprehensions of
the German original seem to have been made by the translator, who professes
to have taken the passage from a late number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.'
'Viele' has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and what the
translator renders by 'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,' which, in its true
version, 'sufferings,' would give a totally different complexion to the
whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess, on my part.
Von Kempelen, however, is by no means 'a misanthrope,' in appearance, at
least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with him was casual
altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that I know him at all;
but to have seen and conversed with a man of so prodigious a notoriety as he
has attained, or will attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as times
go.
'The Literary World' speaks of him, confidently, as a native of Presburg
(misled, perhaps, by the account in 'The Home Journal') but I am pleased in
being able to state positively, since I have it from his own lips, that he
was born in Utica, in the State of New York, although both his parents, I
believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with
Maelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short and stout,
with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing
mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of
his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable for
bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as little like 'a
misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners for a week
about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I
presume that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or four
hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the day, and nothing
that fell from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the
hotel before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was
in the latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or,
rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having made it. This is
about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von Kempelen; but I
have thought that even these few details would have interest for the
public.
There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors afloat
about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about as much credit as
the story of Aladdin's lamp; and yet, in a case of this kind, as in the case
of the discoveries in California, it is clear that the truth may be stranger
than fiction. The following anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated,
that we may receive it implicitly.
Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his residence
at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been put to extreme shifts
in order to raise trifling sums. When the great excitement occurred about
the forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was directed
toward Von Kempelen, on account of his having purchased a considerable
property in Gasperitch Lane, and his refusing, when questioned, to explain
how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at length arrested,
but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty.
The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus
discovered that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and
invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that
labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of the
'Dondergat.' Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a
garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called Flatzplatz,–and,
coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they imagined, in the midst of his
counterfeiting operations. His agitation is represented as so excessive that
the officers had not the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing
him, they searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he occupied all
the mansarde.
Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten feet by
eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which the object has not
yet been ascertained. In one corner of the closet was a very small furnace,
with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible–two
crucibles connected by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of
lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube,
which was close to the brim. The other crucible had some liquid in it,
which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously dissipating in vapor.
They relate that, on finding himself taken, Kempelen seized the crucibles
with both hands (which were encased in gloves that afterwards turned out to
be asbestic), and threw the contents on the tiled floor. It was now that
they hand-cuffed him; and before proceeding to ransack the premises they
searched his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a
paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward ascertained
to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown substance, in nearly, but not
quite, equal proportions. All attempts at analyzing the unknown substance
have, so far, failed, but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be
doubted.
Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went through
a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was found, to the
chemist's sleeping-room. They here rummaged some drawers and boxes, but
discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some good coin, silver
and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair
trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly
across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out from under
the bed, they found that, with their united strength (there were three of
them, all powerful men), they 'could not stir it one inch.' Much astonished
at this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the trunk,
said:
'No wonder we couldn't move it–why it's full to the brim of old bits of
brass!'
Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good purchase, and
pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with an theirs, the
trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the bed, and its
contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was filled was all in
small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a pea to that of a dollar;
but the pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less flat-looking,
upon the whole, 'very much as lead looks when thrown upon the ground in a
molten state, and there suffered to grow cool.' Now, not one of these
officers for a moment suspected this metal to be any thing but brass. The
idea of its being gold never entered their brains, of course; how could such
a wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well conceived,
when the next day it became known, all over Bremen, that the 'lot of brass'
which they had carted so contemptuously to the police office, without
putting themselves to the trouble of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not
only gold–real gold–but gold far finer than any employed in coinage-gold, in
fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy.
I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen's confession (as far as it
went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. That he has
actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the letter, the old
chimaera of the philosopher's stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt.
The opinions of Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest
consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he says of
bismuth, in his report to the Academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The
simple truth is, that up to this period all analysis has failed; and until
Von Kempelen chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma, it
is more than probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu quo.
All that as yet can fairly be said to be known is, that 'Pure gold can be
made at will, and very readily from lead in connection with certain other
substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.'
Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate results
of this discovery–a discovery which few thinking persons will hesitate in
referring to an increased interest in the matter of gold generally, by the
late developments in California; and this reflection brings us inevitably to
another–the exceeding inopportuneness of Von Kempelen's analysis. If many
were prevented from adventuring to California, by the mere apprehension that
gold would so materially diminish in value, on account of its plentifulness
in the mines there, as to render the speculation of going so far in search
of it a doubtful one–what impression will be wrought now, upon the minds of
those about to emigrate, and especially upon the minds of those actually in
the mineral region, by the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von
Kempelen? a discovery which declares, in so many words, that beyond its
intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may be),
gold now is, or at least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von
Kempelen can long retain his secret), of no greater value than lead, and of
far inferior value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to
speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery, but one
thing may be positively maintained–that the announcement of the discovery
six months ago would have had material influence in regard to the settlement
of California.
In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise of two
hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly twenty-five per cent.
that of silver.
THE END
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