GOLD. [From " Dickens's Household Words."]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 689, 20 November 1852, Page 4

GOLD. [From " Dickens's Household Words."]

Road-mending is pretty general at (his lime of the year, and upon roads now beingnewly macadamised we may pick up a good many different specimens of granite. On the newly-broken surface of one of them, four substances of which it is composed can be perceived with great distinctness. The more earthy-looking rock, in which the other seems to be embedded, is called felspar ; the little hard white stones are bits of quarlz ; the dark specks are specks of horn - blende, and the shining scales arc mica. Felspar, quarts, horneblende, and mica, are the four constituents of granite. These are among the rocks of the most ancient times, which form a complete barrier to the power of the geologist in turning back the pages which relate the story of our globe. Layer under layer —leaf under leaf—we find printed the characters of life in all past ages, (ill at last we come to rocks—greenstone, porphjry, quartz, and others, which contain no trace of life ; which do not show, as rocks above them do, that they have been deposited by water; but which have a crystalline form, and set our minds to think of heat and picssure. These lowest rocks are frequently called "igneous," in contiadislinclion to the stratified rocks nearer the surface, which have been obviously deposited under water. Between the two there is not an abrupt transition ; for above the igneous, and below the ac queous, are rocks which belong to the set above them, insomuch as they are stratified ; while they belong to the set below them —insomuch as I they are crystalline, contain no trace of life, and lead us by their characters to think of heat and pressure. These rocks, on account of their equivocal position, are called metaphoric. Under the influence of air, combined with that of water —water potent in streams, lakes, and seas, but not less potent as a vapour in our atmosphere, when aided by alterations in the temperature—granite decomposes. We noticed (hat one of (he constituents of granite —felspar — was a comparatively earthy-looking mass, in which the other matters seemed to be embedded. In the decomposition of granite, this felspar is the first thing to give way; ii becomes friable, and rains or rivers Wish it down. Capital soil it makes. When the constituents ol granite part in this way, quartz is the heaviest, and settles. Felspar and the others may run with the stream, more or less: quarlz is not moved so easily. Now, as our neighbours in America would put it, "that's a fact;" and it concerns our gossip about gold. Below the oldest rocks there lie hidden the sources of that volcanic action which is not yet very correctly understood. Fortunately, we are not now called upon for any explanation of it; and thrusting below, forces gtanite and such rocks (which ought to lie quite at the bottom) through a rent made in the upper layers, and up into the air, until, in some places, they form the summit of considerable mountains. Such changes are not often, if ever, the results of a single mighty heave, which generates a great catastrophe upon the surface of the earth; they are the products of force constantly applied through ages in a given manner. In all geologic reasoning we are apt to err grossly, when we leave out of our calculation the important element of lime. These lower rocks —then, these greenstones, porphyries, and granites, sienitcs and serpentines —thrust themselves in many places through the upper strata of the earth's crust, in such a way as to form mountain ranges. Now, it is a fact, that wherever the oldest of i the acqueous deposits —such as those called clayslates, limestones, and greywacke sandstones —happened to be superficial, so as to be broken through by pressure from below, and intruded upon by the igneous rocks (especially if the said igneous rocks form ranges lending at all from north to south), there gold may be looked for. Gold, it is true, may be found combined with much newer formations: but it is under the peculiar circumstances just now mentioned that gold may be expected to be found in any great and valuable store. In Australia, the gold discoveries, so new and surprising to the public, are not new to the scientific world. More than two years ago, in an " Essay on the Distribution of Gold Ore," read before the British Association, to which our readers will be indebted for some of the facts contained in the present gossip, Sir Roderick Murchison u reminded his geological auditors that, in considering the composition of the chief, or eastern, ridge of Australia, and its direction from north to south, he had foretold (as well as Colonel Helmersen, of the Russian Imperial Mines) that gold would be found in it: and he slated that, in last year, one gentleman resident in Sydney, who had read what he had written and spokenon this point, had sent him specimens of gold ore found in the Blue Mountains ; whilst, from another source, he had learnt that the parallel north and south ridge in the Adelaide region, which had yielded so much copper, had also given undoubted signs of gold ore The operation of English laws, by which noble metals lapse to the crown, had induced Sir Roderick Murchison to represent to Her Majesty's Secretary of stale that no colonists would bestir themselves in gold-mining, if some clearer declaration on the subject were not made: but, as no measures on this head seemed to be in contemplation, he inferred that the government may be of opinion that th 6 discovery of any notable quantity of gold might derange the stability and regular industry of a great colony, which eventually must depend upon its agricultural products." That was the language used by Sir Roderick Murchison, in September, 1849: and in September, 4851, we are all startled by the fact which brings emphatic confirmation of his prophecy. Bui it is not only about (ho Bhio Mountains, and in other districts, where the gold iff now sought, that the geologic conditions under whicb gold may he sought reasonably ate fulfilled. Take, for example, the Ural Mountain?. In

very ancient times the Scythian natives supplied gold from thence ; and gold was supplied also by European tribes in Germany and elsewhere. ' Most of these sources wprc worked out or for- ' gotten. Russia, for centuries possessed the Ural, and forgot its gold. Many of us were boys ; when that was re-discovered. The mountains had been worked for their iron and copper by German miners, who accidentally hit upon a vein of gold. The solid vein was worked near Eiiaterinburg, a process expensive and comparatively unproductive, as we shall presently explain. Then gold being discovered accidentally in the superficial diift, the more profitable work commenced. It is only within the last very few years thai Russia has discovered gold in another portion of her soil among the spurs of the Altai Mountains, between the Jena and the Lcnisei, and along the shores of Lake Baikal. This I district has been enormously productive, and for about four years before the discovery of gold in California, had been adding largely to the gross amount of thai metal annually supplied for the uses of society. The extent of this new district now worked is equal to the whole area of France; but all the gold-bearing land in Russia is not yet by any means discovered . The whole area of country in Russia which fulfils the conditions of a gold-bearing district is immense. Eastwaid of the Ural chain it includes a large part of Siberia : and also in Russian America there is nearly equal reason for believing that hereafter gold will be discovered. Before we quit Asia, \vc may observe, that the Chinese produce gold out of their soil : and although many of the mountain ranges in that country tend from east to west, yet the conditions of the surface and the meridianal directions of the mountains, too, would indicate in China some extensive districts over which gold would probably bo found in tolerable abunddance. Gold exists also in Lydia and Ilindostan. « Now, to pass over to America," where, as we have already said, (he Russians have a district in which gold may some day be discovered. In many districts along the line of the Rocky Mountains, especially in that part of them which is included in the British territory, gold may be looked for ; the gold region of California has been recently discovered. Gold in Mexico, an here the conditions are again fulfilled, is not a new discovery. Gold in Central America lies neglected, on account of the sad political condition of the little Stales there. There is gold to be found, perhaps, in the United States, some distance eastward of the Rocky Mountains. Certainly gold districts will be found about the AHeghanies. Gold has been found in Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia : it exists also in Canada, and may probably be found not very far north on the British side of the St. Lawrence. In the frozen regions, which shut in those straits and bays of the North Pole, to which early adventurers were sent from EngI land on the search" for gold, gold districts most probably exist, although the shining matter was not gold which first excited the cupidity of our forefathers. Passing now to South America, New Granada, Peru, Brazil, La Plata, Chili, even Patagonia, contain districts which say u Look for gold." There are one or two districts in Africa where gold exists: certainly in moie districts than that which is called the Gold Coast, between the Niger and Cape Verd ; also between Darfur and Abyssinia : and on the Mozambique Coast opposite Madagascar. In Australia the full extent of our gold treasure is not yel discovered. In Europe, out of Russia, Hungary supplies yearly one or two hundred thousand pounds worth : there is gold in Transj lvania and Bohemia ; the Rhine washes gold down into its sand*, from the crystalline rocks of the high Alps. The Danube, Rhone, and Tagus, yield gold also in small quantities. There are neglected mines of gold in Spain. To come nearer home. In the mining fields of Leadhills in Scotland, gold was washed for busily in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It is found also in Glen Turret, in Perthshire, and at Cubemrland in Lanarkshire. Attempts have been made to turn to account the gold existing in North Wales and Cornwall. About sixty years ago gold was found accidentally in the bed of streams which run from a mountain on the confines of Wicklow and Wexford, by name Crogan Kieshela. A good deal of gold was collected by the people, who having the first pick, had soon earned about ten thousand pounds among them by their findings. Government then established works, and having realized in two years three thousand six hundred and seventy-five pounds by the sale of gold, which it cost them more than that amount to get, they let the matter drop, judiciously, Let nobody be dazzled, however, by this enumeration of gold districts, which is not by any means complete. 11 is quite true that there is no metal diffused ,so widely over the world's surface as gold is, with a single exception, that of iron. But with regard to gold, there is this I important fact to be taken into account, that it is not often to be obtained from veins, but is found sprinkled — in many cases sprinkled very sparingly : it is found, mixed with quartz and broken rock, or sand and alluvial deposit often in quantities extremely small, so that (he time lost in its separation — even though it be the lime of slaves — is of more value than the gold . and so (he gold does not repay the labour of extraction. It is only where a gold district does not fall below a certain limit in its richness, that it yields a profit to the labourer. Pure gold in lumps, or grains, or flakes, is to be found only at the surface. Where, as is here and there the case, a vein of it is found deep in connexion with the quartz, it is combined with other minerals from which it can be separated only by an expensive process : so that a gold vein, when found, generally yields less profit than a field. As for gold hunting in general, the history of every gold district unites to prove that the trade is bad. It is a lottery, in which, to be sure, there are some prizes, but there is quite the usual preponderance of blanks. *The villages of gold seekers about Accra and elsewhere, on the Gold Coast, are the villages of negroes more squalid and wretched than free negioes usually are. The wretchedness of gold hunters in the rich field of California is by this lime a hackneyed theme. Take, now, the picture of a tolerably prosperous gold seeker in Brazil. lie goes into the river with a leathern jacket on, having a leathern bag fastened before j him. In his hand he carries a round bowl, of fig-tree wood, about four or five feet in circumference, and one fool deep., He goes into the river at a part where it is not rapid, where it makes a bend, and where it has deep holes. Be pleased to remember that, and do not yet lose sight of what was befoic said sbout the heaviness of quartz. The gold-seeker then, standing in the water, scrapes away with his feet the large stones and the upper layers of sand, and fishes up a bowlful of the older gravel. This he shakes and washes, and removes the upper layer; the gold being the heaviest thing in the bowl, sinks, and when he has got rid of all the oilier matter, which \$ after a quarter of an hour's work or more, he puts into his pouch the residual treasure which is worth two-pence farthing on an average. He may earri in this way about seven-pence per hour— not bad wages j but, taken in connexion with the nature of the work, they do not look exceedingly attractive. Here there is a safe income, at any rate— no lottery.

A lump of gold, combined with quartz, like thai ■which has been dragged from California by its lucky finder — a lump worth more than three thousand pounds — is no I a prize attainable in river washing. Thai lump, its owner says, he got out of a vein, which vein he comes to England to assist in working. Veins of quartz containing gold, when they occur, directly (hey erase to be superficial, cease generally to be very profitable to their owners. But of that we shall have to say more presently. By (his lime we have had occasion to observe more than once that gold and quartz are very friendly neighbours. Now, we will make use of the fact which we have been saving up so long, that when granite decomposes, quarlz the heaviest metal, is least easily carried away, and when carried away is first to be deposited by currents. Gold, also, is >cry heavy; in i(s lightest compound, it is twelve times header (ban walci, and pure gold is nineteen times heavier: gold, therefore, when stiircd out of its place by water, will soon settle to the bottom. Very otlen gold will not be moved at all. nor even quartz ; so gold and qu; rtz remain, wh le formerly existed in (heir neighbourhood are substances which washed away. Or when the whole is sweptaway together, after gold has begun sinking, quartz will soon be sinking loo ; and so, even in shingle or alluvial deposits, gold and quartz are apt to occur as exceedingly close neighbours to each other. How the gold forms in these old rocks we have no right (o say. Be it remembered, (hat in newer formation it occurs, although more sparingly. How the gold forms we do not know. In fact, we have no right to say of gold that it is formed at all. In the present slate of chemistry, gold is considered as an clement, a simple substance, of which other things are formed, not being itself compounded out of others. In the present state ofourknowledge,therefore — and the metals may really be elements — we have no thing to trouble ourselves about. Gold being one of the elements (there arc somewhere about forty in all) of which the earth is built, of course existed from the beginning, and will be found in the oldest rocks. It exists, like other elements in combination. It is combined with iron, antimony, manganese, copper, arsenic, and other things. But il is one great peculiarity of gold (hat il is not easily oxidised or rusted; rust being caused in melals by the aclion of oxygen contained in our air. When, therefore, gold, j in the compound stale, comes to be superficial, the air acting on the mass will generally oxidise the other metals, and so act upon them, more especially where water helps, that in the lapse of lime this superficial gold will have become purified in the laboratory of nature, and may finally be picked up in the pureor nearly pure slate; of else il may be washed equally pure, from the superficial earth, as is now done in the majority of gold districts. But deep below the surface, in quartz veins contained within the bowels of a mountain — though, to be sure, it is not often found in such positions — gold exists generally in a condition far from pure ; the chemistry of the artisan must do what the chemistry of nature had effected in the other case; and this involves rather an expensive process. Surface gold is found comparatively pure, in lumps of various sizes, or in rounded grains, or in small scales. In this state il is found in the Ural district, contained in a mass of course gravel, like that found in the neighbourhood of London; elsewhere il is contained in a rough shingle, with much quartz ; and elsewhere in a more mud-like alluvial deposit. The water that has washed it out of its first bed has not been always a mere mountain torrent, or a river, or a succession of ians. Gold shingle and sand have been accumulated in many districts, by the same causes which produced our local drifts, in which the bones of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, and other extinct quadrupeds occur. The nearly pure gold, thus deposited in every superfical layers, may be readly distinguished from all other things that have external resemblance to it. Gold in this slate has always more or less its well-known colour, and the little aci (ion of the air upon il causes its particles to ; glitter, though they be distributed only in minute I scales through a bed of sand. But there are i other things that glitter. Scales of mica, to the eye only, very much resemble gold. But gold is extremely heavy; twehc or nineteen times heavier than the same bulk of water. Mica is very light ; sand itself being three limes heavier than water. Let, therefore, sand, with glittering scales in it, be shaken, and let us watch (he order of their settling. If the scales be gold, they will sink first, and quickly to the bottom ; if they be mica, they will take their time, and be last to sink. It is this properly of gold— its weight— which enables us to obtain it by the process called gold .washing. Earth containing gold being agitated in the water the gold falls to the bottom. Turbid water, containing gold, being poured over a skin, the gold falls, and becomes entangled in the hairs; or such water being poured over a board with transversegrooves, the gold is caught in the depressions. This is the reason why the Brazilian searcher looks for a pepression in the bottom of a river, and this is also the origin of those peculiar rich bits occasionally found in the alluvium of a large gold field. Where there has been a hollow, as the water passed it, gold continually was arrested (here, forming those valuable deposits, which the Brazilians call Caldeiraos. Sometimes, where the waters have been arrested in the hollow of a mountain, they have, in the same way, dropped an excessive store of gold. This quality of weight, therefore, is of prime importance in the history of gold; il determined Ihe character of its deposits in the first instance ; it enables us now to extract il easily from its surrounding matter, and it enables us to detect it in a piece of rock, where it may not be distinctly visible. There are two substances which look exceedingly like gold : — copper and iron pyrites, substances familiar to most of us. We need never be puzzled to distinguish them. Gold is a soft metal, softer than iron, copper or silver, although harder than tin or lead. It will scratch tin or lead ; but il will be scratched by the other metals. That is to say, you can scratch gold wilh a common knife. Now, iron pyrites is harder than steel, and therefore a knife will fail to scratch it. Gold and iron pyrites therefore, need never be mistaken for each other by any man who has a piece of steel about him. Copper pyrites can be scratched wilh steel. But (hen (here is another very familiar property of gold, by which, in this case, it can be distinguished. Gold is very malleable; beat on it with a stone, and il will flatten, but not break ; and when it breaks, it shows that it is torn asunder, by the thready, fibrous, na(ure of its fracture. Beat wilh a stone on copper pyrites, and it immediately begins to crumble. No acid, by itself, can affect gold; but a mixture of one part nitric and tour parts muriatic acid, is called ' aqua regia,' because in this mixture gold does dissolve. A common lesl for gold, in commerce, is to put nitric acid over it which has no action if the gold be true. There is, also hard smooth stone called Lydian stone, or flinty jasper, by (he mineralogists, and i touchstone 1 by the jewellers, on which gold makes a certain mark; and the character of the streak made on such a stone will indicate pretty well the purity or value of the gold that makes it. We have said that when the gold occurs in a deep-seated vein, combined with other mi

ncrals, its extraction becomes no longar a simple process. Let us now point out generally what the nature of this process is, and then we shall conclude our brief discussion ; for what else we miG;ht say lies either beyond our present purpose, or has been made by the talking and writingof the last two years sufficiently familar to all listeners or readers. Mr, Gardner, superinlendant of the Royal Botanic Garden of Ceylon, thus describes the process of extracting gold out of the mine of Morro Velho. This mine when St Hilaire visited it, was considered as exhausted ; it is now one of the richest mines in Brazil. Thus Mr. Gardner writes of it — " The ore is first removed from its bed by blasting, and is afterwards broken, by female slaves, into small pieces ; after which it is conveyed to the stamping-machine, to be reduced to powder. A small stream of water, constantly made to run through them, carries away the pulverised matter to what is called the Strakes — a wooden platform, slightly inclined, and divided into a number of very shallow compartments, of fourteen inches in width, the length being about twenty six feel. The floor of each of these compartments is covered with pieces of tanned hide, about three feet long, and sixteen inches wide, which have their hair on. The particles of gold are deposited among the hairs, while the earthy matter being lighter is washed away. The greater part of (he gold dust is collected on the three upper, or head skins, which are changed every four hours, while the lower skins are changed every six or eight hours, according to the richness of the ore. The sand which is washed from the head skins is collected together, and amalgamated with quicksilver, in barrels ; while (hat from the lower skins is conveyed to the washing-house, and concentrated over strakes of similar construction to those of the stampingmill, till it be rich enough to be amalgamated with that from the head skins. The barrels into which the rich sand is put together with, the quicksilver, are turned by water ; and the process of amalgamation is generally completed in the course of forty-eight hours. When taken out, the amalgam is seperated from the sand by washing. It is then pressed into chamois skins, and the quicksilver is seperaled from the gold by sublimation" Let us explain these latter processes in more detail. If you dip a gold ring or a sovereign into quicksilver, it will be silvered by it and the silvering will not come off. This union of theirs is called an amalgam. On a ring or sovereign it is mere silvering ; but when the gold is in a state of powder, and the amalgamation takes place on a complete scale, it forms a white doughy mass, in which there is included much loose quicksilver. This doughy mass is presently washed clear of all impurities, and is then squecsed in skins or cloths, through (he pores of which loose quicksilver is forced, and saved for future operations. The rest of the quicksilver is= burnt out. Under a moderately strong heat, quicksilver evaporates, or — to speak- more scientifically — sublimes,; and gold does not. Theamalgam y therefore, being subjected to heat, the quicksilver escapes by sublimation, leaving the gold pure. The quicksilver escapes by sublimation ; but its owner does not wish it to escape quite out of his premises because it is an expensive article. Chambers are therefore made over the ovens, in which the mercury may once again . condense, and whence ilmay be collected again afterwards. But, with all precaution, a considerabl waste always takes place. Other processes are always in use for the separation of gold from its various alloys. We have described that which is of the most universal application. Let us not omit noting the significance of the fact, that a quicksilver mine exists in California.