GOLD.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 682, 27 October 1852, Page 3

GOLD.

(From " Mines and Mining," London, 1850) The noblest of the metals has been an object of regard from remote antiquity, owing to its beauty and value, exhibiting, when quite pure, the peculiarly rich colour denominated golden, the only metal of a yellow hue. It is almost always found in the native, or metallic state, but commonly in combination with some alloy, either with silver, which, when important, forms argentiferous gold; or with iron, constituting auriferous pyrites. It occurs in veins, irregularly traversing the hardest rocks, which are opened for the treasure by ordinary mining operations. In this position, the metal may be said to be m situ, or in its natural place, but the expense of extracting it is so enormous, and the yield so scanty, that but few successful undertakings of the kind are conducted. By far the largest quantity is drawn, at a comparatively trifling cost, and in nearly a pure state, from sands and gravel in the beds of shallow rivers, and from extensive alluvial grounds, accumulated in valleys at the foot of high mountains. In this condition, the metal, with the soil accompanying it, is not in its natural place, but a travelled product, auriferous rocks having been broken up by grand operations of nature, or slowly wasted by aqueous and other causes of disintegration, rams, streams, and torrents, officiating in the transport of the debris. By these means, a considerable supply has been placed within the reach of man, which never could have been extracted by engineering skill from the parent site, except at an immense loss; and the soil has only to be turned over, washed, and sifted, in order to collect the metallic particles. Incidents of the kind adverted to are of known occurrence. In the course of the last century, the lightning struck the projecting point of a great quartz vein, in one of the vast highest mountains of Paraguay, detached a vast mass of rock, and shivered the mountain-side into fragments, when a local supply of gold, perfectly inaccessible where it originally lay, or only to be obtained from it at a loss, was cheaply gathered from the disrupted material. Native gold is found in scales, threads, grams, or rolled masses, 'which, when of a cer tarn size, take the name of pepfras, and have occasionally been met with of magnificent dimensions. One of these, oMained from the fertile and picturesque tract of the south Ural mountains, in 1826, during the reign of Alexander, weighed upwards of twenty-two pounds avoirdupois. Of this there is a plaster model in the Museum of Natural History, in Paris. But, in 1821, a mass was found in the United States, in the county of Cabarras, eight or nine inches long by four^ or five broad, and about an inch thick, which weighed twenty-eight pounds. A larger example was discovered* in the alluvium of the island of Haiti, in 1502, which weighed upwards of thirtytwo pounds. California has yielded specimens of very considerable magnitude, one of which, pickjed up in a dry ravine, near the Stanislaus river, in 1848, weighed a little over twenty-five pounds, but c<ntaineu a large admixture of quartz. But far exceeding any of these, is a mass discovered November 7th, 1842, on the Asiatic side of the southern portion of the Urals, under somewhat singular circumstances. In this district, the mines of Alexandrofsky and Nicolaefsky, situated in the auriferous deposits of the river Miass, seeming exhausted, new explorations were made in the neighbourhood, and especially along the little river Targana. Great success attended the search for gold in that marshy plain, and the surface had been completely turned over, except that part of it occupied by the building in which the washing operations were carried on. In 1842, it was resolved to take down the workshops, whereupon sands were met with of immense richness, and under the very corner of a building a monster lump was found, weighing two poods, seven Russian pounds, and ninety-two sololnics, equal to about ninety-six and a half pounds troy. It lay upon a stratum of diorite, at the depth of ten feet. The mass, now in the collection of the Corps dcs Mines, at Peterslmrnh, has an undulated surface, is somewhat porous, free from all trace of matrix, and its value may be estimated at about £4,000, Gold is one of the metals which has been the longest known. It is first historically noticed in connexion with one of the rivers <of Eden : " The name of the first is Pison ; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold ; and the gold of that land is good." It was wrought into ornaments in very early times ; for Abraham's steward, Eliezer, presented to Rebekah "a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bi-acelets for her hands of ten shekels' weight of gold."" Joseph, likewise, received from Pharaoh a chain of gold, to be worn about the neck. In the construction of the tabernacle, and subsequently of the temple, the precious metal was largely used for adornments and implements. The gold districts recorded in the Old Testament are Ophir, Shei3a, Uphaz, and Parvaim,' localities which have given vise to various conjectures respecting their site, but. •which cannot now be identified. It is certain i that all the powerful nations of antiquity, Egyptians, Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians, had command of considerable supplies of gold ; and if in^ the regions which lay within the sphere of their knowledge it does not now occur naturally as an available product, the reason is, that in these long-known districts the supply has been exhausted. Though the gold-producing regions of importance at present are few, consisting chiefly of Hungary and Transylvania, the Ural and Altia mountains, the Andean countries, Brazil, Mexico, I and California, the metal is very widely disseminated, and probably yields only to iron in its range ; but the quantities are too smalji to repay the expense of collecting. It has been met witu in four or five .spots of our own country ; and it is not unlikely that in very early times, the soils and gravels in these situations were somewhat prolinc, supplying the Druids with the material for their ornaments, the tracts being mainl" exhausted by them. Cornwall, North and South Wales, the bordexj of Lanarkshire and Dumfries, parts of Perthshire, and the. county of Wicklow, in Ireland^ are the sites in question. On the southern borders of Lanarkshire, not fur distant from the present Leadhills, during the reign of James v. three hundred labourers were employed in searching for the glittering product, at foui-pence per day — no insignificant sum at that time — but the wages were speedily reduced to twopence, the article becoming more scarce, and the works were soon abandoned as unprofitable. The gold first appeared in the sands of the Elvan, a rivulet which joins the Clyde near its source ; and a place long bove the name of Gold-scour, where the soil was washed. A specimen from another site, the Breadalbane estate, near Glen Coich, in Perthshire, Avhich weighs almost eight sovereigns, is now in one of the minernloqical cabinets of Edinburgh. Towards the ciose of the last century, Wicklow became famous for its gold, principally obtained from the Ballinavalley stream, a tributary to the celebrated "Meeting of the Waters," in that county. The first discovery is traditionally attributed to a schoolmaster, accustomed to haunt the banks of the streams, who grew gradually rich. The secret of his wealth transpired in the autumn of 179G, when a man crossing a brook found a piece in its bed weighing about half an ounce. The news was rapicly spread far and wide. Young and old of both sexes abandoned every other pursuit, crowded to the spot, and examined every river and rivulet for miles around it. At length the place was occupied by the troops of the government, and regular works commenced, which succeeded for a time, became less profitable, and were relinquished. But while the country was in the hands of the peasantry— about two months — it is believed that two thousand five hundred ounces of gold were collected, and disposed of for about £10,000,

Gold is so extremely malleable that a single grain, in the form of gold leaf, may be made to cover a surface of fifty-six square inches. In this state the leaf will be 1 -282,000 th part of an inch thick, and will float like a feather in the air. It is also so ductile that a grain may be drawn out into five hundred feet of wire. Though comparatively a soft metal when unalloyed, it requires a heat equal to 2,016° of Fahrenheit to be fused, and may be kept in the hottest furnace for weeks without loss of substance, ov tindergoing any change, except remaining in a melted state ; nor does exposure to moisture and the atmosphere produce any effect upon it. Gold is applied to many important purposes. Besides being employed for coin, it forms the material of many articles of luxury possessed by the wealthy ; and owing to its malieability, gilding with the costly metal is one of the cheapest modes of ornamenting homely objects, a use to which it is extensively devoted.