WEBVTT - The Tide of Gold 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.320 On a train coming from Washington. The worthy Minister had 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.000 reposed himself in his birth when in a burst of light, 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.280 the Lord appeared to him and gave into his keeping 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.600 the secret of how gold could be taken from the sea. 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.479 Mr Joern, again having the mystery direct from heaven, was 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:31.479 not one to flaunt it in the faces of the 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.040 uninspired scientists, but kept it locked in his own heart, 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:47.320 as all such revelations should be welcome to stot to 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:56.560 Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey are 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:58.440 you welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind? My name 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.640 is Robert Lamb and time Joe McCormick. And that opening 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.640 reading was from the Hartford Current, from an article from 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.240 January seventeenth, ninety six called Dredging Gold from Seawater. And 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.679 I'm really excited about this episode. We're gonna be talking 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:16.240 about a great, a fantastic historical gold swindle. But before 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.360 we get into the historical details, I've got a question 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:21.000 that I want to think about. This might frame our 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:25.080 consideration of this historical episode. Uh. You know how sometimes 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.080 you see people passing around an article online about some 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:32.679 apparently miraculous new technology that really sounds too good to 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.520 be true. For example, the one that easily comes to 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:41.080 my mind is the various proposed reactionless drives that would 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.919 somehow supposedly move a spacecraft without any propellant or exhaust, 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.880 apparently in violation of the law of conservation of momentum. Now, 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.080 whenever one of these things makes the rounds, I see 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.440 exasperated skeptics responding with, you know, the standard line, if 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.320 something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Now. 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.000 Of course, I totally agree with their skepticism about these 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:08.399 particular technologies, reactionless drives and so forth, But I want 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.960 to ask it like step back and ask a broader question, 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.920 which is, how do you actually know when something is 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:18.760 too good to be true? If if previously unexplored frontiers 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.880 of science are involved in the case of something like 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:26.600 a reactionless drive, actual physicists and aerospace engineers and people 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.480 like that are probably in a good position to swap 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.880 the idea down based on years of familiarity with that 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.000 particular problem space and the solutions available within it um. 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.000 And of course you know their their knowledge of the 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.600 general laws of physics and trying to push against those 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.800 laws throughout a career. But if you're just a regular 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.440 person without any particular expertise, and somebody comes to you 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:54.720 with a claim about some you know, some new technological capability. 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.840 How do you know when it's too good to be true, 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:02.120 especially when the mechanisms that supposedly make possible lie underneath 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.360 the shroud of sub microscopic chemistry or like invisible fields 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:11.040 and forces in physics. I mean, the short answer would 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.359 be like why, or the counter question would be why 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.320 are you coming to me with this? You know, if 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.040 of the you know, if you have some sort of 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.880 zero gravity um uh technique or you know, whatever the 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.840 thing happens to be um Like, why why are you 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.560 coming to me about it? Why are you trying to 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.000 sell me a product that has to do with it 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.360 instead of capitalizing on it yourself. Yeah. I think that's 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.480 a very good point about noticing when these these types 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.120 of technologies or claims are either being sold to you. 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.720 I mean, there's definitely a red flag if somebody's like 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.120 trying to get your money or trying to get an investment. 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.080 It's another thing if there if you're just being told 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.880 about them and sort of asked to buy in intellectually. 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.240 But even then there is something that there is an 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.880 important different between somebody who takes a claim directly to 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.720 say the popular press on the internet versus hashing it 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.040 out in in say journals, where experts would be the 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.840 people arguing about it. Yeah, um, I guess a lot 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.159 of times it implies that there is a lack of 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.360 expertise involved, that this is not a like someone who 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.799 is a professional in their field and there they're claiming 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.240 to have solved a professional level problem. Um. I think. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.400 I think zero gravity, if I remember correctly, is one 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.520 of these that you see where a lot of amateur, 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.520 um individuals, I think they have they have solved it, 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:38.640 and they end up making like the same mistakes that 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.200 other people have made in the past, or mistake the 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.080 you know, the same phenomena as as zero gravity, and 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.960 they'll then submit it to NASA. I think, sorry, do 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.920 you mean like anti gravity? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:57.480 like a like a zero G anti gravity type of technology. 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.760 I'm not as familiar with those, but yeah, that seems 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.040 like that would obviously fit right in with the kind 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.120 of thing I'm thinking about. But like, you can understand 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.640 how the average person could be easily confused here when 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.760 thinking about the cutting edge of of technology, and uh, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.520 you know, especially dealing with microscopic or sub microscopic realms, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.599 because you can make a list of plenty of examples 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.839 of real technology that rely on principles of physics and 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.839 chemistry and biology that are invisible to everyday life, but 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.799 once they were discovered, they unlocked vast and what really 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.560 would be almost magical seeming power and wealth when they 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:35.640 were first harnessed. You know, you you can think of 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:40.640 examples like nuclear power, microprocessors, antibiotics, and to a person 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.680 who didn't understand the underlying science and couldn't see why 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.280 it is that these things worked, all of these ideas 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.400 might have sounded too good to be true. And I 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:52.640 think it's this kind of ambiguity that makes the story 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.560 we're going to talk about today especially interesting, because today 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.440 I want to start off by talking about a fascinating 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.840 historical hoax and swindle that took place in New England 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.520 near the turn of the twentieth century. Now, Robert, I know, um, 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.560 you spent part of your life in Eastern Canada, didn't you. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.640 Did you ever live? Was it in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia? 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.960 It was, well, it was Newfoundland, Oh, Newfoundland. Sorry, I 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.480 said that wrong. No, no, you you said you said 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.520 it the same way that that people who um who 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.640 are not of Newfoundland have never lived there often referred 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:32.840 to it Newfoundland but not in Newfoundland. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.600 I lived there as a child for a few years. Well, 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.680 it's up towards that part of the continent that we're 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:39.960 going to travel. So if you if you look at 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.920 a map and you try to find the easternmost settlement 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.120 on the United States mainland, what you'll have to do 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.800 is you'll follow the east coast up the edge of 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.160 Maine to a point of the US border with Canada. 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.719 And this part of Maine is just across a body 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.799 of water called the Bay of Fundy, and it's across 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.120 the Bay of Fundy from Nova Scotia. Uh So, the 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.960 easternmost human settlement before you hit Canada is a little 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:11.120 coastal town called Lubeck that's spelled lub e C. And 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.520 today Lubec has a population of something like twelve hundred 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.600 people or so. It's between twelve hundred and hundred last 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.680 count I saw, and historically it's it's been kind of 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.000 a fishing town. It got much of its livelihood from 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.440 the sea pulling in fish, clams and lobster, stuff like that. 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.560 But the ocean around Lubec and the Bay of Funding 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:34.840 generally is unusual. I was reading from a article by 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:39.200 Joyce kryshak in Uh in a magazine about Maine called 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.920 Down East, and she's writing about the the the ocean 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.280 in this area. She writes, quote, it's the roiling tide, 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.560 the heartbeat of the ocean which pounds harder here that 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.560 makes Lubec feel at once isolated and enchanted in a 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.520 tangle of islands, channels and ragged bays. The incoming tide 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:02.200 clashes against a submerged mountain and the outflow of the St. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.280 Croix River. It's that's spelled like c r O I X. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.280 I don't know if that's croy or crawl locally, But 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:12.080 she goes on creating chaotic currents, fevered swells, and unusual 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.680 phenomena like whirlpools and water spouts. Uh. And so part 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.440 of what makes the sea around the back so unusual 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.160 is that the whole Bay of Fundy has an enormous 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.840 tidal range. Now, the Bay of Fundy is again this 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:31.200 large body of water between mainland New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.760 and it has some of the greatest title variation of 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.320 anywhere in the world. There places deeper towards the head 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.120 of the bay where the difference between high tide and 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.839 low tide is close to sixteen meters or more than 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.440 fifty feet, which is just unbelievable, and especially if you 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.280 look up pictures of this, it's astonishing to see, like 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:55.320 when the sea retreats, how much land is revealed. But anyway, 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:59.440 I was wondering what causes this huge tidle variation, and 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.440 I was reading about it in a short article by 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.679 a project called Exploring Our Fluid Earth, which is hosted 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.079 by the University of Hawaii website, and they give a 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.080 couple of reasons for this huge tidal range. The first 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.080 is geography, so they say that the bay, you know, 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:16.640 they point out that the bay is sort of V shaped, 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.400 with the wide part of the mouth and the narrow 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.080 part of the head, and this means as the tide 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.080 flows into the bay from the mouth toward the head, 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.240 it gets more and more compressed as it goes. So 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.720 try to imagine a wave of water flowing into a 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.160 trough that gets narrower and narrower along its length, where 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.680 would the compressed water go well as to go vertical 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.480 as to go up. But the second reason for the 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.560 title range is that because of the shape of the bay, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.560 that the water in the bay forms a standing wave. 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.120 And the short version of the way this works is 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.400 that there are there are two different frequencies controlling the 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.440 waves in the bay. One is the bay's natural resonant frequency, 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.920 which is the period across which the water tends to 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.640 slash back and forth within the bay itself, and then 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.520 the other is the broader tidal frequency, which is the 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.040 period across which the ocean at large retreats and advances 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.240 uh against the shore and then the bay of funding. 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.840 These periods are almost exactly the same length, about twelve 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.079 and a half hours, so they pile on one another 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.880 to make these massive differences between high and low tide. Again, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.960 maybe around six meters or twenty ft near the mouth 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.679 of the bay and up to around sixteen meters or 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.360 more than fifty feet near the head. All of this 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.320 to say, I think it's the kind of place where 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.600 if you were a visitor there, you might imagine that 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.000 someone could work miracles from the sea. There's there's a 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.839 strong kind of deep ones energy. Yeah, we're talking it 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.440 just really violent seas at times. And uh and and 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.559 certainly yeah, you look at these pictures of the tide 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.400 differential and it's it's staggering. It looks almost if you 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.680 didn't know what you're looking at, you would think it, um, 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.240 you know, there's something apocalyptic has occurred here. Yeah. Uh yeah. 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.560 They're like great photos of say a marina with docks 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.439 and boats, and then that that at high tide the 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.720 boats will be afloat. But then when the c retreats, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.160 all the boats are just sort of sitting in the sediment. 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.960 But anyway, so to the town of Lubeck, into this 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.880 strange land of lobsters and other worldly tides. In the 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.880 year of eighteen ninety seven there came a couple of 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:24.199 business partners with a really interesting geological scam for the ages. 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.080 Their claim was they were going to turn the ocean 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.640 into gold. Now I want to mention a book here 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.360 because this was one of my major sources. It's a 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.360 book edited by a scholar named Ronald Pescha, called The 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:42.240 Great Gold Swindle of Lubeck, Maine from Arcadia Publishing. Most 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.080 of the text of this book is actually a series 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.600 of articles written by a journalist or a local writer 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.000 from Lubeck named Kerry C. Bangs for the Lubeck Herald 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.880 between nineteen forty nine and nineteen fifty one, and then 0:11:54.920 --> 0:12:00.280 these articles were edited and supplemented by Ronald pescha Um. Unfortunately, 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.000 as this book makes clear, a lot of the history 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.320 here is laced through with conflicting accounts from different sources. 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.040 A lot of the original local reporting from the Lubec 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.319 Herald in the eighteen nineties is lost, and so it's 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.199 only known through Bangs secondary retelling in the nineteen forties. 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:20.320 So this is a story where not all of the 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.679 details are are solidly established and agreed upon. But we'll 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.280 do our best, I think to to keep to the 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.880 likeliest broad strokes. So these two guys who arrived in 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:33.120 Lubec in eight They were Charles Fisher, who was a 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.240 native of Martha's Vineyard who had previously been a floor 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.440 walker in a Brooklyn department store. And the other was 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.079 Reverend Prescott Ford Journe, again also originally from Martha's Vineyard, 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.120 but he became a Baptist minister. He was educated at 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.520 Brown University and he had preached at churches from New 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.080 England to Florida, and he was reportedly given to somewhat 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:59.920 utopian thinking, especially after reading Edward Bellamy's influential utopian novel 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.280 Looking Backward, Robert for you, I've included a picture of 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.480 Journey in here. I was trying to think for a 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.920 while what he looks like, and I realized, to me, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.280 he looks like the brother in Napoleon Dynamite. Do you 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:16.120 remember Kip? Oh, yeah, I do. I have to to say, 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:17.400 when I looked at him, my guy kind of a 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.880 William Sanderson vibe, you know, Oh yeah, I can see that, 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:23.880 or at least he looks like that would be my 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.320 first casting choice. If I could pick, you know, any 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.960 actor from any any era and sort of they can 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.120 choose what age they they are in the casting, I'd 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.560 probably go with William Sanderson. So he got a little 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.240 bit of a JF. Sebastian kind of thing going on. Yeah, 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.360 from Blade Runner, probably his most famous role, but he 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:41.960 he's been a ton of things. He was in Deadwood, 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.480 he was in True Blood, but older listeners may also 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.400 remember him from New Heart, the old sitcom which he 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.920 was one of the trio Larry Darrell and Darrell right, Yes, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.800 flanked by his brother Darrell and his other brothers Darrell. Yes. 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.520 So these two newcomers to Luke back Journe again and Fisher. 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:04.280 They least an old gristmill in North Lubec that, in 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.880 its days of grinding grain had been powered by the tide. 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.120 And I got into this. I didn't really know anything 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:14.960 about it beforehand, but tidal mills themselves are pretty interesting subject. 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:17.760 They essentially work on the principle of water wheel, except 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.280 instead of using natural continuous water flow like in a 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.880 river or creek to power the wheel, they accumulate water 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.280 into a controlled pond or reservoir during high tide and 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.160 then release that water through a gate to drive the wheel. 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.040 Well that's interesting, Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. But so 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.800 so this mill in North Lubec used to be used 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.360 to grind grain, and they took it over and it 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.600 would become the first plant of what Journagin and Fisher 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:50.880 would call the Electrolytic Marine Salts Company. Uh. Now, the 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.200 purchase of this property in Lubec was not the beginning 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.880 of the scam. Jernagin and Fisher had already scammed some 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:02.520 investors by staging Demons stations for a number of potential 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:06.320 investors further south in New England, and the basic scenario 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.080 for these demonstrations went like this. The Reverend Journegan would 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.880 invite the investors to gather on a dock or a 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:17.000 seaside shed to watch as he prepared this device that 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.320 he was calling the accumulator, and it was some kind 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.920 of box into which mercury and sometimes other chemicals were inserted. 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.800 I've read it described in some places as lead lined, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.920 in other places as zinc lined, but apparently you had 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.000 to put mercury into it. And in order to to 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.720 assure his investors, he allowed them to supply their own chemicals. 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.800 So it's like a bring your own mercury party. So 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.280 they show up with the quicksilver, put it into the box, 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.400 and then he would apparently apply an electrical current to 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.240 the box via a battery and then lower it down 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.560 into the sea, where at least what he claimed was 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.880 that the seawater could sluice in and that something about 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:01.560 the way this box worked would accumulate old content from 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.920 the sea water itself. It would be extracted by the mercury, 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.160 and then I believe the idea was that it would 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.680 form an amalgam with the mercury, and then the box 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.560 would be retrieved some hours later, maybe in the morning 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:17.520 or something, and voila, there was actually gold inside. And 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.200 so some of these early investors they were astonished and 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.840 they were like, Okay, I'm convinced. Take my money, you know, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.120 I want to stake in your company now. Before we 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.240 pursued the hoax any further and talk about how it worked, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.880 I think it would be worth asking the question where 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.560 on Earth did the underlying scientific premise here come from? 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.080 Where where did he get this idea of extracting gold 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.160 from sea water? Well, it turns out that this actually 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.720 wasn't without scientific precedent, and maybe we should take a 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:47.560 quick break and then when we come back we can 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.720 talk about the idea of of gold and solution throughout 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:57.960 the oceans. Thank alright, we're back. We're talking about the 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:03.160 claim that one can simply turned to seawater, collected, accumulated, 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.600 and produced gold. Right now, we're focused in this episode 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.959 on on a hoax and swindle in in New England history, 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.760 but there is actually some scientific basis to the idea 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.480 that gold could be extracted from seawater and for a 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.240 quick history of the awareness of this fact, the idea 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.760 that gold and other precious metals could at least potentially 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.760 be extracted from the ocean. I found a good overview 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.840 in a paper by a historian named Brett JA. Stubbs, 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:32.080 published in the journal Australasian Historical Archaeology in two thousand eight, 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:37.000 and the paper is called Delightfully Sunbeams from Cucumbers an 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.080 early twentieth century gold from seawater extraction scheme in northern 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.920 New South Wales. So Stubbs is primarily covering a different 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.800 gold from the ocean plot that took place in Australia 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:52.199 in the early nineteen hundreds, but it's introductory section has 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.119 a lot of good stuff here, and the title actually 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.000 comes that the sunbeams from cucumbers comes from a passage 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.359 in the paper where Stubbs mentioned the there was a 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.720 judge named Justice Darling. I think he's referring to Baron 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.399 Charles Darling of England, who at one point compare the 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.280 quest to extract gold from seawater to a scheme and 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.960 Guiliver's Travels, where a character spends eight years developing a 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.880 process to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. Now I can only 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.240 assume that the part of the idea with getting gold 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.560 out of saltwater probably stems from the reality of panning 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.320 gold from mountain streams. Um. Again getting into the idea 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.160 that perhaps if if you're not super aware of how 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.760 that process is working, you might well extrapol a well, 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.000 if there's you can get gold out of a stream, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:39.960 then look how much ocean there is, there's got to 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:44.480 be even more gold in there. Um. But that doesn't 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:46.560 hold up when you really look at how panning for 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.360 gold works. And um, and I feel like a lot 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.360 of a lot of movies and TV, you know, you'll 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.480 have panning for Gold and it's not really you don't 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.119 really get a good sense of what's going on. H 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.000 But I did find that the Cohen Brothers in the 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:03.000 film The Ballot of Buster Scrugs, the sequence about the 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.159 goal about the prospector titled All Gold Canyon, was actually 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.359 pretty informative. You know. It does a nice overview of 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.760 just how it basically works. You've seen this, right, Joe 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.919 Is where Tom Waits plays the prospector. I have to 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.760 admit I actually haven't finished the movie yet. I started 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:21.840 watching it one day, and I loved it. But it's 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:24.280 it's one of those happens all too often now in 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:25.959 my life where I start a movie that I like 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.040 and I don't finish it, not for any reason of disinterest. Well, 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.200 I encourage you to press on, certainly for this this 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.880 this particular segment. Uh, it's an anthology film for anyone 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.639 who's not familiar with that takes place in the Old West. 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.000 So in this one, we meet a gold prospector and 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.120 he's out there panning for gold and uh and basically, uh, 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:46.560 you know, I'm not gonna spoil any of the plot, 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:48.520 but it does a pretty good job of showing you 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.520 that the planning is generally not a lucrative enterprise in 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.080 and of itself, but it's a way to search for 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.840 gold deposits in nearby rock that that can be mined. 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.560 So you find some some gold us showing up in 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.359 this mountain stream, well then you can use that to 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.760 try and figure out where in this mountainous area you 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.080 might find a proper vein of gold that you can 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.280 then dig for. But you know, that's one thing, But 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.000 what would the oceanic version of this b right, I mean, 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.800 the fluid dynamics of the situation are far more complicated. 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.520 The sea itself is far vaster. Um. It's you know, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.760 when you start looking at the facts involved, Uh, there's 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.399 far from a one to one here, right, And so 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:32.560 the idea of extracting gold from seawater is actually based 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.919 in more of like the misconception version of of panning 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.000 for gold, where you're not looking for a vein of 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.680 gold to exploit, but you are trying to take advantage 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:46.320 of the fact that there is actually gold in the 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.800 water itself. It's dissolved in there. There's these little tiny 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.720 molecules of gold throughout the oceans. Um. So, going back 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.840 to Brett JA. Stubbs paper, beginning in the second half 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:59.960 of the nineteenth century, there were a number of can 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.880 mists and geologists that started to speculate about this. They 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.480 started to say, you know what, I think that you 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:09.359 probably can extract precious metals of all kinds from the sea. 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.800 One early example is in the year eighteen sixty six, 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.520 in a speech to the American Association for the Advancement 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:20.760 of Science, the American chemist Henry Wortz suggested that all 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.040 of the water in the world's oceans quote may contain 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:27.719 more than two hundred and fifty million times more gold 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.119 than the total present wealth of mankind in this metal. 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.840 And this was, in Stubbs words, despite its presence in 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:39.199 concentrations that were so small as to be back to words, quote, 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.520 beyond the limits of our present modes of chemical detection, 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.959 so words couldn't find it yet, but just reasoned, based 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.400 on some other principles of geology and chemistry, that there's 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.359 probably a huge amount of precious metal just existing in 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:56.720 solution throughout the ocean. And Stubbs claims that the first 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:59.960 attempts to actually measure the concentration of gold and see 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:04.520 water we're probably carried out by the English chemist Edwards Sanstat, 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.920 who was known for developing techniques in the eighteen sixties 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.320 for the production of purified magnesium. But Stubbs writes, quote 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.080 Sanstat experimented with samples of seawater from the coast of 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.640 the Isle of Man and concluded that they contained gold, 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.600 but in a proportion certainly less than one grain in 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.680 the ton, and a grain here is is a unit 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:30.240 of measure that is equivalent to about sixty five milligrams, 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.320 so there's not a lot of it in there. Continuing 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.000 with Stubbs, he went as far as to suggest, however, 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:39.320 that one of his methods might be practically applied to 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.040 the exploitation of the golden seawater, which might be received 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.720 at high water in large tanks and emptied at low water. 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.560 Sanstat emphasized in eighteen ninety two that the amount of 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:53.840