Strange New England

Gold forms in the heart of dying stars and as a result of their explosions, or novas, it is spread throughout the cosmos as one of the heavier elements. All the gold on earth no doubt came from such an explosion, just as all of the matter for all of the planets and the sun did, too. Maine does, in fact, have some gold in its ground, the first being struck in 1854 in Madrid and later, gold and silver were found in Acton, too. Gold can be found in deposits in the earth, but also dissolved in the waters of Earth's oceans. Since 71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water, it might make sense that all one needs to do is find a cheap way to extract that gold from the water to make a fortune.  Maine is ideally situated for mining gold from water, if that was indeed possible, with its 3, 478 miles of coastline. But there is no method or invention to do the hard work of filtering out the gold. However, such a device was invented in 1897 and put into use in the small Maine town of Lubec. Why it worked and