Will Science Uy the World With Artificial Gold Under Government Subsidy German Chemists Are Straining to Make the Precious Metal--and If They Do They Will Turn Civilization Topsy-Turvy ¥ % One of the Largest Gold Nuggets Ever Found in America. Twenty-two Pounds and Was North Carolina. man scientists are at last on the track of a formula to produce syn- thetic gold, has created a world-wide sen- sation. One dispatch even goes so far as to say that there is a gram of artificial gold al- 'ready in existence, and that the secret process is being jealously guarded while further experiments are being prosecuted under the patronage of the German Gov- ernment itself. "Well, and what of it?" you may say to yourself after reading thus far. "Let the chemists and scientists rave.. It doesn't interest me." Such a discovery would be, indeed, revo- lutionary in purely scientific circles--but it would be even more revolutionary in the world of business and finance--and in the ordinary workaday world in which most of us live. In fact, it would set the whole world topsy-turvy, and probably bring about TT cabled announcement that Ger Jl It Weighs Unearthed at the Reed Mine in Photo Actual Size. ing herself in this age-old problem is not far to seek. Her war and reparation debts have been fixed by the Allies in terms of gold --or its equivalent -- and Germany owes three times as much gold as there fs in all the mints and treasuries and bank vaults of the entire world to-day. She is like a poker player whose loss is equal to three times all the chips in the game, and in the normal process she would have to win all the chips three times in succession to "pay out." Her present scheme, to follow out tha gambling analogy, is to manufacture the chips which she owes. Now, suppose & man in a poker game actually did this? Suppose he manufac- tured a lot of chips which were exactly Hke those in the game; but which had not been paid for at the "bank"; and Supooso This Is How a Famous Cartoon- ist of the Middle Ages Depicted an Alchemist "at Work Trying to Transmute Lead Into Gold, Sur. rounded by Fami- liar Spirits, Devils and Witches. From an Old En- graving by Jerome Cock. Jupiter Transforming Himself Into a Shower of Gold to Win the Favor Gold in Bars and Barrels, Ready for Shipment from the Vaults of the United States Treasury in Washington. he succeeded in introducing them into the game? ? What would happen when the time came to "settle up"? : Not only would his "manufactured" chips be worth only twenty-five cents on the dollar, but all the other chips in the game would be equally reduced in value. And if the other players imitated the trick and dumped a lot of "manufactured" chips into the game--all the chips would, eventually, become absolutely worthless. One British scientist says: "That is exactly what may happen in the greater world-wide 'game' of bank- ing and finance and business if Germany has discovered and can apply a practical and inexpensive method of manufactur ing artificial gold. fall the lower wil Ta Tomy until, if the process is carried far enough, gold will become of no more value than fron or lead. "And as the monetary and trading sys- tems of practically all countries are based on the 'gold standard,' the entire finan- cial fabric of the world may be ripped to pieces." Staticlans 'say that there's only about eight and one-half billions of dollars' worth of gold coin and bullion in the world, and on that foundation is pyramided a world-wide and system of more than 525 billions. It the gold standard were destroyed, not only would the foundation be wrecked, but the whole superstructure would come of a Mortal Woman. "The Danae." From Titian's Famous Masterpiece in the Vienna Gallery. riedly sailed for Germany to investigate these remarkable reports at first hand. Have you ever asked yourself why gold --rather than any other metal or substance --is so universally prized--why it has been, in all countries and all ages, the standard of wealth and the synonym for riches? Such things do not occur by accident, and the fact that gold is rare--and con- sequently valuable--is' not alone a suf- ficient explanation. There are other metals, other elements, just are rare and valuable, many of them even more valu- able. = Here are some of the additional reasons why gold is so highly prized by mankind: Gold is a beautiful color, bright yellow-- the color of light and the color of the sun, which humanity for thousands of genera- tions worshipped as a god. It has lustre as well as color. It resists oxidation--does not tarnish or turn black. It\is compara- tively soft, and consequently/lends itself easily to the work of the aryist, who uses it in making jewelry, ornaments and other objects of luxury and beauty. It is easily coined into money, and because of its weight, texture and elemental nature is one of the most difficult metals to coun- terfeit successfully. Gold has probably caused more happl- ness and more misery, more wars, more admirable industry, more terrible crime, more conquests, voyages and epics than any other material substance in the uni- verse. It has stood as the symbol for every. thing that is good and everything that fs evil in the human heart. As the golden calf which the Hebrews worshipped in the early chapters of the Bible, it stands for the Mammon of Unrighteousness, and in the latter church symbology based on the Book of Revelations, Heaven itself has streets paved with gold, the symbol of brightness joy. Literature is full of 1t--the classic story of Jason a the Golden Nicene Gulden Appl esperides, story . how Jupiter transformed himself into a shoyer of gold to win a mortal woman-- dia--that sent Columbus across a track- less ocean to discover a new world, and it was the gold of Ferdinand and Isabella that made possible the undertaking. And it is this bright, yellow gold, this strange metal which has been so inter locked with tragedies and the progress of of the world alike, that German chemists, backed by their Government, are secretly trying to manufacture in their laboratories. Such experiments are older than chem- istry itself. They began with the alchem- ists in the early Middle Ages--when science and black magic were akin. Hermes Trismegistus, Nostradamus, Cag- liostro--half the magicians and necromanc- ers of early Europe--tried with the com- bined aid of science and the devil, to wrest from nature the secret of the imaginary "philosopher's stone," which was to trans- mute lead and the baser métals into gold. Some of these went to terrible lengths in their magical experiments. Dumas the Elder tells of how Joseph Balsamo, locked in the depths of his mediaeval laboratory and following advice which he believed came from the spirit world, murdered a beantiful maiden and poured her blood into a mixture of molten metal. Michelet, in his chronicles of early France, tells of even more horrible crimes, and suggests that Gilles de Retz, the monster who was the original of the "Bluebeard" in the fairy tale, and who actually murdered scores of girls and little children, may have been one of these alchemist-magicians. Until the announcement was made to the world recently that Germany was trying to suce with real chemistry and science where alchemy and black magic had failed, there was no record that any modern sci- entist had ever seriously undertaken to make synthetic gold, or believed that such an operation was possible. » Since the announcement was made lead- ing chemists and scientists of nearly every country outside Germany have declared their belief that the thing was absolutely impossible, but the scientific correspond- ent of the London Times, himself 8 man of considerable scientific prestige, is not 80 sure that it is "impossible." "It is dangerous," he says In a recent issue of the British newspaper, "to deny the possibility of any achievement of science, though I do not know of any ex- isting knowledge which suggests that a chemist can transmute the baser metals into gold." A Million Dollars worth of gold would make & cube I9nches deep All the coined and bullioned gold inthe world would make a cibe of gbout 32 Ji feet square Large cube shows size of Germanys war debt and repor- ations compared fo total of world gold 525 Billions in Paper Currency. Nations! Debts (Exclusive man synthetic chemists actually have dis- covered a formula for making goid, it must be based on the new theory of interatomie energy; and says that "the accomplishment of such a trancmutation by means of break. ing up matter into atoms mean a 'revaly ation of all values' infinitely greater than the profound change it would bring in the standard of money. For it would mean the - discovery of a new source of e.ergy far surpassing anything that has ever beem available to the world. Ca i a ot