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Only a short time ago, a Japanese scientist announced that he, too, had produced gold by another process, the details of which have not been made public. Now Prof. Miethe's experiment is to be repeated in this country. The announcement was made by Dr. E. E. Free, Editor of The Scientific American. It is to be carried out by Prof. H. H. Sheldon of New York University. An exact replica of Prof. Miethe's apparatus has been brought to this country. The experiment is to be repeated and variations of method tested with a view to bringing down cost so as to make the process commercially practical.
Scientists are highly skeptical of the possibility of producing gold by Prof. Miethe's method. Metals have been broken down before; but it has always been done by a high concentration of energy. The use of 170 volts and a low amperage is what makes the proposal seem almost fantastic. It is now proposed to give the process a thorough test.
Even if the method were found to work, the possibility of cheap man-made gold is probably remote. But could it be cheaply produced, it would work a revolution. In industry and in the Arts, the gold would be used for many purposes which its cost now prohibits.
In finance, the greatest changes of all would take place. Gold, the valued metal, becoming plentiful, would become cheap. The dollar, whose value lies in the fact that it represents a definite amount of gold, would also depreciate—that is, the dollar and all other currencies would become cheap as compared with everything else. Prices would soar. Much the same thing would happen that has happened in Central Europe—debts payable in gold would be practically wiped out; and there would be no possibility of getting "back to the gold standard." Eventually, some other standard of money value, silver or platinum perhaps, would have to be developed.