Gold: the precious metal that everyone wants
Everybody is aware that gold is a much sought after precious metal and which for quite a few centuries was also used as money and a means to store value and of course in making jewelry. It is known to occur as nuggets or even as grains found in rocks, especially in underground veins as well as in alluvial deposits, and it has the property of being dense as well as soft and is shiny and even malleable, and in its purest form is bright yellow in color, which from the very beginning has attracted man to it.
Basis For Monetary Standard
Gold is also the basis for the monetary standard and is used by organizations such as the International Monetary Fund or IMF and by the Bank for International Settlements or BIS. In today's modern industry, gold is also used for dentistry as well as in electronics since it has excellent properties of being a good resistor to corrosion due to oxidation. It also does not react with a majority of chemical though chlorine fluorine as well aqua regia and cyanide will attack it.
It is easy to dissolve gold in mercury and it can then form amalgam alloys, though it is not soluble in nitric acid that is otherwise known to dissolve base metals and also silver and is thus part of the method of refining of fold that is called "inquartation and parting". And, if you want to ascertain whether there is any gold present in certain items, you can use nitric acid to test for it and it is this means of ascertaining the presence of gold that has given rise to the term "acid test".
The main use of gold is as a medium of monetary exchange and you will find it to be the standard for monetary exchange in many countries, though it is also used for making coins and also jewelry. However, gold in its pure form is much too soft to be used for ordinary purposes and thus must be hardened by using copper and base metals to alloy it with. How much gold is contained in a particular item is measured in terms of carats or karats and the purest form of it is designated as being twenty-four karats.
In modern times, gold is no longer used for making coins, though because it is a soft metal it can be alloyed with other metals and thus is widely used in making of jewelry, and it is most often alloyed with copper, especially as eighteen karat gold that is used in Russian jewelry.
