to leave their homes and travel to other side of the world, to spend years searching for the truth behind the vaguest rumors,even to commit murder? the answer is gold.in this book,we look at the stories of treasure hunters throughout the ages who have gone in search of gold.
Gold was one of the first metals to be worked by humans, and from the earliest times people have loved its glowing, yellow color.gold is a soft metal,so it is very easy to hammer and shape in its natural form.a few ounces of it can be drawn out into a wire many miles long,or beaten flat into a thin Sheet of gold leaf many feet square.
Gold is almost indestructible.it is not affected by sunlight,fire,or seawater; it doesn't become tarnished like silver or corroded like iron. gold objects brought up from the seabed,or found buried deep in the ground, can be bright and gold-colored as when they were first made.it takes a fire of incredible heat to melt gold: 1945⁰ fahrenheit (1063⁰C). compare this to the melting point of lead 620⁰F (327⁰C) or tin 448⁰F (231⁰C). one of the reasons gold is so durable is that it reacts with very few other chemicals or gases.gold is so long-lasting and so valuable that it is used over and over again.it's strange to think that some of the gold in the ring on your finger could perhaps originally have come from the great Inca Empire in South America.