How many kinds of metals are there? For what are they used; where found?
Laura.
Answer.—There is a difference of opinion among practical chemists as to the number of existing metals. Professor Youmans affirms that there are at least fifty simple metals, nearly one-half of which are of little importance. Other scientists make the number considerably less. The greater number of metals are rarely or never found in nature in a simple state. They exist in compound forms, and are useful only in such conditions. For example, sodium, the basis of our common salt, cannot be exposed to any moisture, and therefore in its simple state is comparatively useless. Aluminum, as it is found in the ordinary clay, or the alum of commerce, is of great utility, but when separated from its associated elements its use is confined almost exclusively to the laboratory. Of the more important metals iron is the king. In its production Great Britain leads the world. From her furnaces and mills in 1879 were taken 5,995,337 tons of cast and pig iron, and 1,344,297 tons of steel, a ton consisting of 2,240 lbs. During the same year the United States produced 2,741,853 tons of iron, and 1,440,121 tons of steel; Germany, 2,161,192 tons of iron and 800,000 tons of steel, and France, 1,344,759 tons of iron and 561,691 tons of steel. Of the production in the United States, Pennsylvania furnaces yielded about one-half, and those of Ohio about one-seventh. Copper has been in use from early times. Often among the bones of primitive man are found utensils beaten out of this malleable metal. At present it is mined extensively in Wales, Germany, Australia, Upper Michigan, Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, and to a small degree in various other localities. Tin is found either as rock-tin, in veins with rock and other ores, or as stream-tin in alluvial deposits. The principal mines are in Cornwall, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Mexico and China. Not only is it used in the manufacture of tin-plate, but also in the composition of various valuable alloys. Zinc, in the form of a carbonate or selicate, is obtained from mines in Silesia and Belgium, and also in small quantities in Wales, France, and this country. Like tin, it is used in the composition of various alloys, as well as in the ordinary form of zinc plate. Until a recent date, the value of nickel was not known. The Germans, who, out of derision, gave it its name, were accustomed to cast it aside as a spurious or base copper. The mines of Germany and Wales produce nearly the entire amount, although a little has been obtained from mines in Pennsylvania. Its use is mainly confined to its alloys, such as German silver, white metal, and a few minor coins. Platinum, which, owing to its high fusive point and its lack of affinity for acids is peculiarly adapted for the manufacture of chemical vessels, is found in Brazil, and also in Russia. In the production of gold the United States leads all other countries. The yield of our gold mines in 1881 was valued at $36,500,000, while the total yield from 1845 to 1880 amounted to $1,523,678,301. Between the years 1493 and 1875 Austria produced in gold $889,963,800, New Granada $596,501,675, and Russia $590,629,944. The silver of the world for the last four centuries has been produced mainly in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. Since the discovery of America Mexican mines have yielded over $2,600,280,659; Peruvian, $1,065,357,084; and Bolivian, $1,286,999,947. The mines of the United States have yielded since their first discovery about $540,000,000. Mercury is obtained either in the fluid state, inclosed in the rocky receptacles of the earth, or is derived by roasting its sulphate. In Southern California and Mexico, and also in Austria and Spain, productive mines are worked. It is valuable in the construction of thermometers, barometers, pendulums, etc., manufactures, and also in refining metals by amalgamation.
A SHORT HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE.
Woodlawn, Mo.
Please give a brief history of the right of suffrage in this country.
Reader.
Answer.—The history of suffrage has been a record of progress and extension. The most limited form is observed in the first election of the Virginia colony in 1607, and the most extensive to-day is in Wyoming Territory. By the charter granted to the Virginia Company the members of a council of settlers, chosen by a higher council resident in England, were privileged to choose annually a President from their own number. In accordance with this the first right of suffrage that existed in any permanent American colony was exercised by six members of the council, who, in May, 1607, chose Edward Maria Wingfield as the first President. In 1619 the different towns of Virginia elected, by general suffrage, twenty-two burgesses, who, assembling at Jamestown, constituted the first legislative body convened in America. In the following year, a few hundred miles north, the Plymouth Fathers gathered on the deck of the Mayflower, and exercised a still more extended right of suffrage in the choice of John Carver as the first Governor of the colony. These privileges continued, with only a few changes in Virginia, until the American revolution, excepting that eighteen years after the election of Carver, in Massachusetts, their mass assemblies were deemed too large, and a representative government was established. Although democratic in principle, a few laws passed by the New England colonists restricted the privilege of suffrage. No person who had not become a freeman by taking the oath of allegiance was permitted to vote. No man, according to a law of 1631, was admitted to the freedom of the body politic who was not a member of some of the churches within the limits of the same. No Quaker was permitted to become a freeman. The two latter restrictions, however, were soon removed. The power of the people was greatly increased through the results of the revolution, yet in several of the original thirteen States the right of suffrage was restricted to property-holders or rate-payers, and otherwise limited for periods extending in some cases through one or more decades of the present century. The tendency was constantly to the wide limits of manhood suffrage, which was then prevailing rule, but only as regards white citizens, until the fifteenth amendment in March, 1870, extended the same right to colored citizens. The present movement toward the extension of the right to women has been successful in Wyoming Territory and to a certain extent in Massachusetts, which permits women to vote for members of the Board of Education. The agitation, also, of the educational qualification of electors has resulted in late years in a slight limitation of the right of suffrage in a few of the States, notably Massachusetts.