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WHAT IS GOLD?
What is Gold, Anyway?
Article # : gold146
What is Gold, Anyway?
Pure gold – like, for example, pure mercury, lead, silver, copper, iron or aluminum – is classified as a metallic element. (By definition, an element comprises only a single type of atom.) For comparable volumes, gold weighs some 19.3 times more than water, 1.4 times more than mercury, 1.7 times more than lead, 1.8 times more than silver, 2.2 times more than copper, 2.4 times more than iron and 7.1 times more than aluminum.
If comparatively rare, gold nevertheless occurs on every continent on earth and in the waters of the sea. It is, according to the Prospectors Paradise Internet site, “mined in deserts, high mountain ranges, in the deeply weathered soil of the tropics and in the permanently frozen ground of the Arctic.
“In America nature was extremely generous. Thirty-two states have recorded significant commercial gold production. The highest yield areas are located within the western states. The recreational gold prospector can find gold in practically every state of the union.”
Treasured by the craftsman, gold, more than any of the other pure metals, can be hammered, bent, drawn and carved into shapes as massive as the dome of an Islamic mosque and as delicate as the web of a spider. “A solitary ounce of gold,” says Prospectors Paradise, “can be drawn and stretched into an ultra fine wire of 50 miles in length without breaking or hammered to the amazing thinness of one hundred thousandth of an inch without disintegrating.” Further, gold resists corrosion and rust even when exposed for thousands of years to seawater, soil, air, heat or cold.
Also treasured by scientists and technologists, gold has been used to treat some forms of arthritis and related conditions. It has been used to tag proteins in studies of human disease. It has been used to tint the visors of astronauts’ helmets, coat the impellers in the space shuttles’ liquid hydrogen pumps, and to coat the mirror of the Mars Global Surveyor telescope.
It is no wonder, as Prospectors Paradise says, that our ancestors “believed gold contained a hidden, internal fire, a gift from the Gods with mysterious healing and magical powers.”
Source: deasertusa.com