Word: platinum
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Masses of density different from the surrounding rock, tend to deflect the direction of gravity and the change, though almost infinitesimal, from the standpoint of ordinary human experience, is capable of measurement by observing the amount of rotation of a light beam appropriately weighted and suspended on a thin platinum wire. Ore bodies themselves are rarely large enough to cause detectable variations in gravity, but large features such as heavier rock in cores of folds, dome-shaped masses of salt, or bleached cavernous ground can often be recognized by the anomalies caused by them in the gravitational field, and critical...
...many another job. Also they cut at much faster speeds. So efficient are they in stepping up machine shop production and in reducing shop costs, that every machinist must use the new metal, even though its present price is $500 a pound, almost the price of platinum, almost twice the price of gold...
Colombia is prospering vastly, not only on account of major U. S. oil and fruit developments (see Map), but because the taste of Americans is rapidly turning from strong coffee to mild-the kind grown in Colombia, whereas stronger brands come from Brazil. The popularity of platinum and the present Parisian rage for emeralds are also potent prosperity factors, for Colombia is the largest producer of the white metal and the green stone. France is less than half as great as Colombia, in area; New York City is only slightly less in population...
...knocked-out Mr. Daugherty with a blackjack. Then they grabbed little Lottie Pickford and drove away with her, beating and kicking her, taking $75 away from her. They did not get her diamond rings because she hid them in her shoes. While they were trying to rip a platinum bracelet from her wrist, she screamed at them in Spanish. This caused them to stop molesting her and set her free. . . . Thus, the story, as told next day by little Lottie Pickford...
Guarded deeply in a Paris cellar is a long platinum bar. When its temperature is that of melting ice (0° Centigrade, 32° Fahrenheit) two marks on that bar are exactly one metre apart. That Paris metre is the modulus of the world's weights and measures.* If the standard bar were lost, and all its master duplicates in the capitals of civilized countries, scientists would be hard put to recalculate the metre distance, except...