Headline March 06, 2016/ ''' G O L D ! & ! FEVER *

''' G O L D ! & ! FEVER *

MY GREAT MOTHER  -Lady Ashrafat Jan, -with a solid feudal background-even when she was coasting to a 100 years of splendid existence- 

Never ever lost sight of her gold rings, her gold bangles, and her very beautiful sets of many a gold earrings. She wore them to the very end.

Her wealthy, feudal, younger sister, Gohar Sultan, -who was as beautiful as any Queen,  was laden all over with gold.  So, with these two role-models of great distinction,  -all my sisters and all my cousins, I reckon,  just cloned on, as small imitations.

THE UNITED STATES   -once the world's  largest producer, is now fourth with three percent of the year's new gold,  about 40 + tons.

Third is Canada with  4  percent,  still far behind the two leaders, the Soviet Union whose Asian mines produce 23 percent and South Africa with 52 percent.

It takes almost five tons of ore from South Africa's mines to yield a single ounce of gold, an uneconomical ratio until two Glasgow physicians and a chemist developed the cyanide extraction process.

Gold is beautiful, incorruptible, imperishable, rare. Men die and kill to possess it. To some it is sacred, to others it is disaster insurance. It has been the cause of worldwide epidemic, gold fever .

Frenetic trading of gold goes on around the clock, beginning at morning in Hong Kong, traveling west with the sun to Zurich, London, New York, Honolulu and back to Hong Kong to set off the next day's frenzies.

On the exchange floors, men shriek and gesture in the ritual dance of competitive bidding, while in quieter rooms other men sit at the telephones twice a day, gathering prices from distant exchanges to fix their own day's price.

In the summer of 1980 gold fever was simmering around $410 an ounce. People no longer stood in line for seven hours to sell their heirlooms. as they had on January 21, 1980 when the price soared to $875 [it dropped to $680 the next day, setting records for both a peak and a one-day  descent].

At its top price, one ounce of gold could buy more than a quarter tons of hamburgers; seven pounds of it would pay for a single-family, a suitcase of the bullion was the price of cargo of crude oil together with a small tanker.

The Swiss buy small gold bars a birthday and Christmas present, usually for children. French countryfolk have a tradition of hoarding gold. Billions of dollars worth of gold is in private hands in India and Pakistan-

Where a woman's jewelry has traditionally been her personal fortune. She may wear every item of it on her wedding day, and if her treasures are few she wear them all every day of her life.

Higher prices for gold means a higher price tag on the medical, dental and industrial uses of of gold. Of the three, medicine consumes the least significant amounts.

Once considered a  panacea  for all ills and the prescription for long life, gold today has only one major medical use. Many sufferers of certain types rheumatoid arthritis have recovered when treated with gold injections.    

Dentistry absorbs about  25 tons of gold a year. About 16 percent into the high technology industries. 

In tiny chips, wires or films it serves in the circuitry of computers, calculators, radio and television sets, solar energy devices, telephone systems, rocket engines and the Rolls Royce engines of the SST Concorde airplanes.

It is so malleable that one ounce can be beaten into 170 sq.ft. of gold leaf, so ductile that a thread reaching to the moon and back can be can be drawn from one ton.

A coating six millionth of an inch on astronauts clothing and lifelines shields them from radiation and solar heat. On a firefighter's mask it protects the face from the fiercest temperatures without blocking vision.

With a little electric current it keeps airplanes and  trains  windshields clear of snow, sleet, ice and fog.

Gold lines containers of corrosive gases at high pressure, measures extreme temperatures both high and low, lubricates moving parts, enhances the effects of silver emulsion in photographic film.   

On a skyscraper windows it transmits daylight without glare, blocks outdoor heat and reflects indoor heat, saving both air-conditioning  and heating costs.

Classic architecture  put  gilded domes in buildings for grandeur's sake, but modern architects gild whole buildings with a gold-film bonded to the ceramic tile of outer walls-

Adding not only beauty but durability.

The Honour and Serving of  ''Operational Research''  on Life and Living continues. Thank ya all for reading and sharing forward.

With respectful dedication to the whole world, for loving this unique and beautiful metal. The world's most sought after metal, I must add. 

See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and the Ecosystem 2011:

" Now Fly '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless