Carla Anconetani., Age 11., Of Seattle Wash. For her question:
What is platinum?
In Washington D.C., there is a carefully protected metal bar 39.37 inches long. It is one of the cherished possessions of the bureau of standards for it’s the standard length of the meter. You might mistake the metal for silvery but it is an alloy of platinum much harder, much heavier and much more valuable than silver.
Platinum is not a plentiful metals but until about 100 years ago it was quite cheap. Then our age of industry discovered that the silvery metal had certain excellent qualities. Jewelers admired the handsome metal and used it to set off the glittering beauty of diamonds. The price of platinum soared. In 1916 a cubic foot of platinum was worth 12.5 million. This amount of metal would just about fill an ordinary bread box.
Nowadays the same amount of platinum is worth about 5,000, its value varies from a little less to a little more than the price of gold. It weighs a little more than gold and twice as much as silver. Our bread box of platinum would weigh eight times more than the same box filled with aluminum.
Platinum has many of the qualities of gold. It is easy to work and so ductile that it can be pulled into a wire 30 times finer than a human hair, these thin metal threads of platinum are used in delicate instruments. It is a durable metal and refuses to rust in the air. Most acids cannot corrode it. In order to dissolve a platinum rings we would have to soak it in aqua regia, a strong chemical mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids.
A metal of such fine qualities has a wide assortment of uses in industry. It is equally valuable to the jeweler. Aside from its moonlit beauty links of platinum are used to make chains which are far more durable than chains of silver,
Platinum is one of the chemical elements with a place on the periodic table. Its atomic number is 7g., and its atomic weight is 195.2. It is often mixed with other metals, such as gold and silver, to make alloys. The bureau of standards uses an alloy of platinum with 10% iridium to make the standard measures for the meter and other units.
In nature platinum occurs in grains and flakes and nuggets often in the same sands which yield fragments of gold. It was named by the spanish explorers who found the indians using the silvery white metal. The Spaniards did not know its good qualities and gave it little value. They named it platinum meaning little or less than silver.