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James W. Marshall

James W. Marshall

:Another James W. Marshall is James Marshall (Postmaster General) James Wilson Marshall (October 8, 1810 - August 10, 1885) was an American carpenter and sawmill operator, whose discovery of gold in the American River in California in January 1848 set the stage for the California Gold Rush.

Biography

James Marshall was born in Lambertville, New Jersey on October 8, 1810. He left New Jersey at age twenty-four (after the death of his father) and headed west. He settled in Missouri after the Platte Purchase, and began farming along the Missouri River. It was there that he contracted malaria, a common affliction in the area. On the advice of his doctor, Marshall left Missouri in the hopes of improving his health. He joined an emigrant train heading west and arrived in Oregon's Willamette Valley in the spring of 1845. He left Oregon in June 1845 and headed south, eventually reaching Sutter's Fort, California in mid-July. It was here that Marshall met John Sutter, the founder of the Sutter's Fort, an agricultural settlement. Sutter was also the alcalde of the area, as California was still a Mexican possession in 1845. Sutter hired Marshall to assist with work around the fort (carpentry, primarily). He also helped Marshall purchase land near the Sacramento River and provided him with cattle. Not long after Marshall began his second stint as a farmer, the Mexican-American War began in 1846. Marshall volunteered and served under Captain John Fremont during the Bear Flag Revolt. When he returned to his ranch in early 1847 he discovered that all his cattle had either strayed or been stolen. With his sole source of income gone, Marshall lost his land and was forced to go back to work for Sutter. His first job was to scout the area for a suitable location for a sawmill. He eventually decided upon Coloma, located roughly 40 miles upstream of the fort. He proposed his plan to Sutter, who contracted Marshall on August 27 to supervise construction at the site. His crew consisted mainly of local Native Americans and Mormons on their way to Salt Lake City. Construction continued into January 1848, when it was disovered that the tailrace portion of the mill was too narrow and shallow for the volume of water needed to operate the saw. Marshall decided to use the natural force of the river to excavate the tailrace. This could only be done at night, so as not to endanger the lives of the men working on the mill during the day. Every morning Marshall examined the results of the previous night's excavation. On the morning of January 18 (although different dates have been given), Marshall was examining the channel below the mill when he noticed some shiny flecks in the channel bed. As later recounted by Marshall:

I picked up one or two pieces and examined them attentively; and having some general knowledge of minerals, I could not call to mind more than two which in any way resembled this --sulphuret of iron, very bright and brittle; and gold, bright, yet malleable. I then tried it between two rocks, and found that it could be beaten into a different shape, but not broken. I then collected four or five pieces and went up to Mr. Scott (who was working at the carpenters bench making the mill wheel) with the pieces in my hand and said, "I have found it."
"What is it?" inquired Scott.
"Gold," I answered.
"Oh! no," returned Scott, "that can't be."
I replied positively,--"I know it to be nothing else." [http://malakoff.com/marshall.htm]

The metal was confirmed to be gold after members of Marshall's crew performed tests on the metal; boiling it in a lye solution and hammering it to test its maleability. Marshall, still primarily concerned with the completion of the sawmill, permitted his crew to search for gold in their free time. By the time Marshall returned to Sutter's Fort, four days later, the war had ended and California was about to become an American possession. Marshall shared his discovery with Sutter, who performed further tests on the gold and told Marshall that it was "of the finest quality, of at least 23 carats." News of the discovery soon reached around the world. The immediate impact for Marshall was negative. His sawmill failed when the all able-bodied men in the area abandoned everything to search for gold. Before long, arriving hordes of prospectors forced him off his land. Marshall soon left the area. Marhsall returned to Coloma in 1857 and found some success in the 1860s with a vineyard he started. That venture ended in failure towards the end of the decade, due mostly to higher taxes and increased competition. He returned to prospecting in the hopes of finding success. 1857 He became a partner in a gold mine near Kelsey, California but the mine yielded nothing and left Marshall practically bankrupt. The California State Legislature awarded him a two-year pension in 1872 in recognition of his role in an important era in California history. It was renewed in 1874 and 1876 but lapsed in 1878. Marshall, penniless, eventually ended up in a small cabin, earning money from a small subsistence garden. James Wilson Marshall died in Kelsey on August 10, 1885. His body was brought to Coloma and buried on the property where he had owned his vineyard. The grave was in a hill that overlooked the south fork of the American River. In May 1890 a monument was erected over his gravesite. A statue of Marshall stands on top of the monument, pointing to the spot where he made his discovery in 1848. In 1927, California's government named the one-acre parcel where Marshall's vineyard stood the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. In 1967, Marshall's boyhood home in Lambertville was saved from demolition and has been restored. The Marshall House now houses an extensive collection of archived items and documents pertaining not only to the Marshall family, but also to the history of Lambertville.

External links

- [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/marshall.htm James Marshall biography on pbs.org]
- [http://www.lambertvillehistoricalsociety.org Lambertville Historical Society]
- [http://www.lambertvillehistoricalsociety.org/marshall.php3 The James Wilson Marshall House]

References

- The West - James Marshall [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/marshall.htm A PBS Wesbite], accessed on August 21, 2005.
- Gold Rush Players - James Wilson Marshall [http://malakoff.com/grpmarsh.htm The California Gold Country Website], accessed on August 21, 2005.
- H.W. Brands, The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream, ISBN 0385720882 Marshall, James Wilson Marshall, James Wilson Marshall, James Wilson Marshall, James Wilson

James Marshall (Postmaster General)

James William Marshall (August 14, 1822 - February 5, 1910) was a United States Postmaster General under President Ulysses S. Grant. Marshall, James William Marshall, James William Marshall, James William

1810

1810 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

- January 10 - Marriage of Napoleon and Josephine is annulled
- January 20 - Tyrolean rebel leader Andreas Hofer executed
- March 11 - Napoleon marries Marie-Louise of Austria
- April 19 - Venezuela achieves home rule: Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a Junta is installed.
- May 10 - Revolutionary occupation of Buenos Aires town hall.
- May 25 - Armed citizens of Buenos Aires expel the Viceroy from Spain and establish a provincial government for Argentina.
- June 8 - Birth of Robert Schumann, German composer.
- June 23 - John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.
- July - Napoleon annexes the Kingdom of Holland.
- July 20 - Colombia declares independence from Spain.
- August 6 - City of Mompos in modern-day Colombia is declares independence from the Spanish Empire
- September 8 - The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six month journey around the tip of South America, the ship will arrive at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men will establish fur-trading town of Astoria.
- September 16 - Dieciséis de septiembre, the Mexican War of Independence of the Republic of Mexico
- September 18 - Chile forms the National Junta, which is their first passage towards independency.
- September 26 - A new Act of Succession is adopted by the Riksdag of the Estates and Jean Baptiste Bernadotte becomes heir to the Swedish throne.
- October 12 - First Oktoberfest: The Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.
- October 27 - USA annexes West Florida from Spain
- November 10 - the Berners Street Hoax - Theodore Hook manages to attract dozens of people to 53 Berners Street in London
- King George III of the United Kingdom recognized as insane
- Amadou Lobbo initiates his jihad in present-day Mali.
- Russia acquires Sukhumi through a treaty with Abkhazian dukes, and declares a protectorate over the whole of Abkhazia.
- Macon's Bill No. 2
- First steamboat on the Ohio River

Ongoing events

- Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)-Peninsular War

Births

- January 3 - Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie, Irish-French geographer (d. 1897)
- February 5 - Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (d. 1880)
- February 22 - Frédéric Chopin, Polish composer and pianist (d. 1849)
- March 2 - Pope Leo XIII (d. 1903)
- May 23 - Margaret Fuller, American journalist and feminist (d. 1850)
- June 8 - Robert Schumann, German composer and pianist (d. 1856)
- July 21 - Henri Victor Regnault, French chemist and physicist (d. 1878)
- September 2 - William Seymour Tyler, American educator and historian (d. 1897)
- September 29 - Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist (d. 1865)
- October 10 - James W. Marshall, American contractor and builder of Sutter's Mill (d. 1885)
- December 11 - Alfred de Musset, French poet (d. 1857)

Deaths

- January 20 - Benjamin Chew, Chief Justice of colonial Pennsylvania (b. 1722)
- February 20 - Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean national hero (executed) (b. 1767)
- February 24 - Henry Cavendish, British scientist (b. 1731)
- March 7 - Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood, British admiral (b. 1750)
- June 7 - Luigi Schiavonetti, Italian engraver (b. 1765)
- July 19 - Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Prussia (b. 1776)
- August 12 - Etienne Louis Geoffroy, French pharmacist and entomologist (b. 1725)
- November 11 - Johann Zoffany, German-born painter (b. 1733)
- November 11 - John Laurance, American attorney, statesman, and judge (b. 1750) Category:1810 ko:1810년 ms:1810

1885

1885 is a common year starting on Thursday.

Events

January

- January 4 - The first successful appendectomy is performed by Dr. William W. Grant on Mary Gartside.
- January 20 - L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.
- January 26 - Troops loyal to the Mahdi conquer Khartoum

February

- February 5 - King Léopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State as a personal possession.
- February 9 - The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii.
- February 18 - Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published for the first time.
- February 21 - US president Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument
- February 23 - British executioner fails to hang John Lee, sentenced of the murder of Emma Keyse. Sentence is commuted to life imprisonment
- February 26 - Final Act of the Berlin Conference regulates European colonisation and trade in Africa.

March

- March-May - North-West Rebellion took place and was put down in Canada.
- March 3 - A subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), is incorporated in New York.
- March 4 - Grover Cleveland replaces Chester A. Arthur as President of the United States.
- March 14 - W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's The Mikado opens at the Savoy Theatre.
- March 26 - The Times reports that "A lady well-known in literary and scientific circles" has been cremated by the Cremation Society in Woking, Surrey. Jeannette C. Pickersgill was the first person to be officially cremated in the United Kingdom
- March 30 - Pandjeh Incident - Russian force routs Afghan troops and drive them across the Pul-iKhishti bridge
- March 31 - The United Kingdom establishes a protectorate over Bechuanaland.

May

- May 2
- Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time.
- Cree and Assiniboine warriors won the Battle of Cut Knife, their largest victory over Canadian forces during the North-West Rebellion.
- The Congo Free State is established by King Léopold II of Belgium.
- May 9-12 - Canadian government forces inflict decisive defeat on Métis rebels at the Battle of Batoche.

June

- June 17 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
- June 24 - Randolph Churchill becomes Secretary of State for India

July

- July 6 - Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies. The patient is Joseph Meister; a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
- July 20 - Professional football legalized in Britain

September

- September 2 - In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15, and forcing several hundred more out of town.
- September 6 - Eastern Rumelia declares its union with Bulgaria. The Unification of Bulgaria is accomplished.
- September 18 - Union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria proclaimed at Plovdiv.
- September 30 - A British force abolishes the Boer republic of Stellaland and adds it to British Bechuanaland.

November

- November 7 - Canadian Pacific Railway finished: In Craigellachie, British Columbia, construction ends on a railway extending across Canada. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald considered the project to be vital to Canada.
- November 11 - George S. Patton, Jr. Born in San Gabriel, California.
- November 14-28 - Serbo-Bulgarian War: Serbia declares war against Bulgaria but is defeated in Battle of Slivnitsa on November 17-19.
- November 16 - Canadian rebel leader of the Métis, Louis Riel is executed for high treason.

December

- December 1 - The US Patent Office acknowledges this date as the day Dr Pepper was served for the very first time; the exact date of Dr Pepper's invention is unknown.
- December 28 - 72 Indian lawyers, academicians and journalists gather in Bombay to form the Congress Party

Unknown Dates

- Creation of the first genuine bicycle, the Rover, by John K Starley.
- John Boyd Dunlop invents the pneumatic tire.
- Cholera epidemic in Spain – one of the victims is the king Alfonso XII
- Third Burmese War begins
- Sitting Bull joins Buffalo Bill
- Nikola Tesla sells a number of his patents to George Westinghouse
- William Stanley, Jr. builds the first practical alternating current transformer device, the induction coil.
- Local anesthetic
- First skyscraper – Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois, USA (10 floors)
- Bicycle Playing Cards first produced

Births

- January 6 - Florence Turner, American actress (d. 1946)
- January 8 - John Curtin, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1945)
- January 11 - Alice Paul, American women's rights activist (d. 1977)
- January 21 - Umberto Nobile, Italian politician and airship designer (d. 1978)
- January 27 - Jerome Kern, American composer (d. 1945)
- January 27 - Eduard Künnecke, German composer (d. 1953)
- January 29 - Leadbelly, American musician (d. 1949)
- February 7 - Sinclair Lewis, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)
- February 9 - Alban Berg, Austrian composer (d. 1935)
- February 13 - Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States (d. 1982)
- February 15 - Princess Alice of Battenberg (d. 1969)
- February 21 - Sacha Guitry, Russian-born dramatist, writer, director, and actor (d. 1957)
- February 24 - Chester Nimitz, U.S. admiral (d. 1966)
- February 24 - Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish writer and painter (d. 1939)
- March 6 - Ring Lardner, American writer (d. 1933)
- March 11 - Sir Malcolm Campbell, English land and water racer (d. 1948)
- March 14 - Raoul Lufbery, World War I American pilot (d. 1918)
- March 31 - Pascin, Bulgarian painter (d. 1930)
- April 1 - Wallace Beery, American actor (d. 1949)
- April 3 - Allan Dwan, Canadian-born film director (d. 1981)
- April 4 - Arthur Murray, American dancer (d. 1991)
- May 2 - Hedda Hopper, American columnist (d. 1966)
- May 7 - George 'Gabby' Hayes, American actor (d. 1969)
- May 14 - Otto Klemperer, German conductor (d. 1973)
- May 21 - Oscar A.C. Lund, Swedish film actor, director, and writer (d. 1963)
- May 22 - Toyoda Soemu, Japanese admiral (d. 1957)
- June 9 - John Edensor Littlewood, British mathematician (d. 1977)
- June 14 - E. L. Grant Watson, writer, anthropologist, and biologist (d. 1970)
- June 22 - Milan Vidmar, Slovenian electrical engineer and chess player (d. 1962)
- July 4 - Louis B. Mayer, American film producer (d. 1957)
- July 14 - King Sisavang Vong, King of Laos (d. 1959)
- July 28 - Monte Attell, American boxer (d. 1960)
- August 1 - George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)
- September 11 - D.H. Lawrence, English author (d. 1930)
- September 22 - Ben Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1951)
- October 3 - Sophie Treadwell, American playwright and journalist

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded¹ from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsman who performs carpentry -- a wide range of woodworking that includes constructing buildings, furniture, and other objects out of wood. The work generally involves significant manual labor and work outdoors, particularly in rough carpentry. Since most of carpentry's required knowledge is gained through experience, the profession can be relatively easy to enter (this varies with the legal requirements from country to country), but the job may not pay well. Many people have become carpenters in order to make a living while pursuing other interests (for example Harrison Ford turned to carpentry while going through a lull in his acting career in the 1970s). Some people have become famous as carpenters, such as Norm Abram. Carpentry is an old profession that is often respected for its importance in society throughout much of history. Joseph (husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus) and Jesus himself are often considered carpenters. In British slang a carpenter is sometimes referred to as a "chippie". American carpenters sometimes refer to themselves informally as wood butchers, and carpentry as the wood butcher's art. slang

Types of carpentry and carpenters

A rough carpenter is one who does rough carpentry; that is, framing, roofing, and other structural or other large-scale work that need not be finely joined or polished in appearance. A finish carpenter (North America) or joiner (traditional name now obsolete in North America) is one who does finish carpentry; that is, cabinetry, furniture making, fine woodworking, model building, instrument making, parquetry, joinery, or other carpentry where exact joints and minimal margins of error are important. Some large-scale construction may be of an exactitude and artistry that it is classed as finish carpentry. A ship's carpenter specializes in shipbuilding techniques (see also shipwright) and carpentry specific to nautical needs; usually the term refers to a carpenter who has a post on a specific ship. A framer builds the skeletal structure or framework of buildings. Techniques include platform framing, balloon framing, or timber framing (which may be post-and-beam or mortise-and-tenon framing). A roofer specializes in roof construction, concentrating on rafters, beams, and trusses. Naturally, a roofer must be good with heights and have good balance as well as carpentry skills.

Training

Tradesmen in countries such as Germany are required to fulfill a formal apprenticeship (usually three years) to work as a professional carpenter. Upon graduation from the apprenticeship, he or she is known as a journeyman carpenter. Up through the 19th and even the early 20th century, the journeyman traveled to another region of the country to learn the building styles and techniques of that area before (usually) returning home. In modern times, journeymen are not required to travel, and the term refers more to a level of proficiency and skill. Union carpenters in the United States are required to pass a skills test to be granted official journeyman status, but uncertified professional carpenters may be known as journeymen based on their skill level, years of experience, or simply because they support themselves in the trade, and not due to any certification or formal woodworking education. After working as a journeyman for a specified period, often ten years or more, a carpenter may go on to study or test as a master carpenter. In some countries, such as Germany or Japan, this is an arduous process requiring extensive knowledge and skill to achieve master certification. In others, it can be a loosely used term to describe a skilled carpenter.

External links

- [http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472031.htm Carpenters] - estimates of U.S. employment and earnings of employed (not self-employed) carpenters, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
- [http://www.servicemagic.com/category.Carpentry.10543.html Carpenter Online Resources] Discusses the current state of carpenters and web presence relating to their occupation
- [http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos202.htm Carpenters] - from the BLS [http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm Occupational Outlook Handbook] ja:大工 simple:Carpenter

Sawmill

A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards. Prior to the invention of sawmills, boards were rived and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a whipsaw using saddleblocks to hold the log and a pit for the pitman who worked below and got the benefit of the sawdust in his eyes. Sawing was slow and required strong and enduring men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had the advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline. Early sawmills simply adapted the whipsaw to mechanical power, generally driven by a water wheel to speed up the process. The circular motion of the wheel was changed to back-and-forth motion of the saw blade by a pitman thus introducing a term used in many mechanical applications. A pitman is similar to a crankshaft but used in reverse. A crankshaft converts back-and-forth motion to circular motion. Generally only the saw was powered and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to steadily move the log through the saw blade. A small mill such as this would be the center of many rural communities in wood-exporting regions such as the Baltic countries and Canada. The output of such mills would be quite low, perhaps only 500 boards per day. They would also generally only operate during the winter, the peak logging season. In the US, early sawmills were imported, mostly from the Netherlands, where the technology was far ahead of the English. The arrival of a sawmill was a large and stimulative step in the growth of a frontier community. Early mills were taken to the forest, where a temporary shelter was built, and the logs were skidded to the nearby mill by horse or ox teams, often when there was some snow to provide lubrication for the log movement. As mills grew larger, they were usually established in more permanent facilities on a river, and the logs were floated down to them by log drivers. The next improvement was the use of circular saw blades, and soon thereafter the use of gangsaws which added additional blades so that a log would be reduced to boards in one quick step. Circular saw blades were extremely expensive and highly subject to damage by overheating or dirty logs. A new kind of technician arose, the sawfiler. Sawfilers were highly skilled in metalworking. Their main job was to set and sharpen teeth. The craft also learned how to hammer a saw, whereby a saw is deformed with a hammer and anvil to counteract the forces of heat and cutting. Modern circular saw blades have replaceable teeth but still need to be hammered. The introduction of steam power in the 19th century created many new possibilities for mills. They could be built away from water and could be far more mechanized. Efficiency was increased, but the capital cost of a new mill increased dramatically as well. By 1900, the largest sawmill in the world was operated by the Atlantic Lumber Company in Georgetown, South Carolina using logs floated down the Pee Dee River from as far as the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina. In the twentieth century the introduction of electricity and high technology furthered this process and now most sawmills are massive and extremely expensive facilities in which almost every aspect of the work is computerized. Today a mill can make many hundreds of thousands of boards per day. Small gasoline-powered sawmills run by local entrepreneurs served many communities in the early 20th century, and specialty markets still today.
Additional Images

See also

- Band saw
- Circular saw
- Saw
- Portable sawmill
- Sawfiler
External links

- [http://www.steamengine.com.au/steam/sawmill/ Steam powered saw mills] Category:Saws Category:Forestry

Gold

Gold is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Au (L. aurum) and atomic number 79. A soft, shiny, yellow, dense, malleable, ductile (trivalent and univalent) transition metal, gold does not react with most chemicals but is attacked by chlorine, fluorine and aqua regia. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks and in alluvial deposits and is one of the coinage metals. For millennia, gold has served as money and is also used in jewelry, dentistry, and in electronics. Gold forms the basis for a monetary standard used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Its ISO currency code is XAU.

Notable characteristics

Gold is a metallic element with a characteristic yellow color, but can also be black or ruby when finely divided, while colloidal solutions are intensely colored and often purple. These colors are the result of gold's plasmon frequency lying in the visible range (due to a relativistic effect), which causes red and yellow light to be reflected, and blue light to be absorbed. It is one of only three metals which have an actual easily-identifiable color; the other two are copper, which is red, and caesium, which has a pale golden color. It is the most malleable and ductile metal known; a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of one square meter, or an ounce into 300 square feet. A soft metal, gold will readily form alloys with many other metals. This can be done to increase its strength, or create several exotic colors, sold for instance in the western United States to the tourist trade as "Black Hills" gold. Adding copper yields a redder metal, iron blue, Silver produces green, aluminium purple, platinum metals white, and natural bismuth together with silver alloys produce black. Native gold contains usually eight to ten per cent silver, but often much more — alloys with a silver content over 20% are called electrum. As the amount of silver increases, the color becomes whiter and the specific gravity lower. Gold is a good conductor of heat and electricity, and is not affected by air and most reagents. Heat, moisture, oxygen, and most corrosive agents have very little chemical effect on gold, making it well-suited for use in coins and jewelry; conversely, halogens will chemically alter gold, and aqua regia dissolves it. Common oxidation states of gold include +1 (gold(I) or aurous compounds) and +3 (gold(III) or auric compounds). Gold ions in solution are readily reduced and precipitated out as gold metal by the addition of virtually any other metal as the reducing agent. The added metal is oxidized and dissolves allowing the gold to be displaced from solution and be recovered as a solid precipitate. Recent research undertaken by Frank Reith of the Australian National University shows that microbes play an important role in the formation of gold deposits, transporting and precipitating gold to form grains and nuggets that collect in alluvial deposits. [http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_1032376.htm]

Applications

Pure gold is too soft for ordinary use and is hardened by alloying with silver, copper, and other metals. Gold and its many alloys are most often used in jewelry, coinage and as a standard for monetary exchange in many countries. Because of its high electrical conductivity and resistance to corrosion and other desirable combinations of physical and chemical properties, gold also emerged in the late 20th century as an essential industrial metal.
- Gold can be made into thread and used in embroidery