subar%mwcamis@MITRE.ARPA (11/03/87)
-------- 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?
fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (11/04/87)
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