The gradual increase of wealth, in houses,
machinery, manufactured and artistic products called for a
corresponding increase in the circulating medium; but this, too, was
easily provided for. An equally painstaking supervision was exercised
over the amount of the precious metal which Dr. Syx was permitted to
supply to the markets for use in the arts. On this side, also, the
demand gradually increased; but the wonderful Teton mine seemed equal
to all calls upon its resources.
After the failure of the mining operations there was a moderate
revival of the efforts to reduce the Teton ore, but no success cheered
the experimenters. Prospectors also wandered all over the earth
looking for pure artemisium, but in vain. The general public, knowing
nothing of what Hall had discovered, and still believing Syx's story
that he also had found pure artemisium in his mine, accounted for the
failure of the tunnelling operations on the supposition that the
metal, in a free state, was excessively rare, and that Dr. Syx had had
the luck to strike the only vein of it that the Grand Teton
contained.
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