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From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Washington and his aluminum
Message-ID: <32891@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 4-Nov-87 13:48:40 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.32891
Posted: Wed Nov  4 13:48:40 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Nov-87 10:51:56 EST
References: <8711031730.AA07674@mitre.arpa>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 22

In article <8711031730.AA07674@mitre.arpa>, subar%mwcamis@MITRE.ARPA writes:
> --------
>      
>      
> In posting from: com%"concertina!fiddler@sun.com"  3-NOV-1987
>      
> > The cap [of aluminum] on the Washington Monument was close to being
> > as expensive as gold when it was put in place...
>      
> What cap?

According to a National Geogrphic article some years back (I
think it was one of their overview articles on <subject> such
as more recent ones on platinum or Silicon Valley), near the
end of the 19th century the Washington Monument was capped with
an aluminum cover.  I don't know if it is still in place, but
at the time electric refining of aluminum from bauxite had just
been developed and somebody thought it would be a neat idea to
use some of this new metal to cap the obelisk.  At the time,
the cap was worth about the same weight of gold.

	seh