There is a more modern form of it, although the whole process is quite novel, having been introduced only in the nineties of last century. This development, it is almost wearying to repeat, is electrical. Instead of the zinc shavings being used to precipitate the gold out of the solution, the process is electrolytic. A lead anode is used while the process is carried on in a box the bottom of which is covered with mercury, which forms the cathode. The precipitated gold is thus amalgamated, the amalgam being removed at intervals, retorted, and the gold recovered. The idea of recovering gold from the waters of the sea is certainly a most attractive one. To some, it is true, the suggestion may bring thoughts the reverse of pleasant, for there have been several partially successful attempts to delude the public with specious promises of vast dividends to be gathered in the form of pure gold from the inexhaustible sea. Still, there is something in it, and some day the dreams may be realised. The quantity of gold dissolved in sea-water is so small that in 200 cubic centimetres it is impossible to detect it, even by the most delicate tests known. The quantity needs to be multiplied threefold before the quantity of gold becomes even detectable, to say nothing of being recoverable. A writer in _Cassier's Magazine_, a few years ago, related how he had actually obtained gold from the water of Long Island Sound. But whereas he got two dollars' worth, it cost him over 4000 dollars to do it. No company will ever be floated on results such as that. From the mud of a creek near New York, however, he did a little better, for there ten dollars' worth of gold only cost 379 dollars. A company promoter would still look askance at even that comparatively successful undertaking. As usual, authorities differ, but there is a consensus of opinion that in every ton of sea-water there is from one-half to one grain of gold, besides silver and iodine. It seems as if the water were able to dissolve that amount and no more. If, as has been suggested earlier in this chapter, all the gold which is now found in mines and in gravel beds was carried there in water, it is probable that the sea obtains its gold from the same original sources, and that, just as the hot ocean of ages ago carried its burden of gold in solution, so the colder water of to-day has its share, the cold water naturally carrying less than the hot did.