GOLD DISCOVERIES IN SAXONY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5330, 27 April 1878, Page 3

GOLD DISCOVERIES IN SAXONY.

A correspondent writes from Dresden, February 11 :—“ During the past six years several goldsmiths in the Saxon town of Zwickau have been repeatedly offered by different persons small pieces of gold for purchase.. This gold was found in quartz stone in quantities varying in bulk from that of a pea to about twice that size, and was in every instance stated to have been discovered on the high road between Chemnitz and Zwickau, principally in the neighborhood of Mulsen —that is, actually on the road itself, and not iu the quarries beside it.. This excited the attention of a goldsmith, who entered into communications on the subject with the proper Government officials. The Saxon Government has in consequence appointed a commission of inquiry into this affair. The first task of this commission is to investigate the quarries and sandpits from which the materials for the road were taken. Nobody will be surprised if these investigations should be without any important results, as the workers in the quarries and .the stouebreakers for the road have never met with gold. On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that for a very long time gold has been obtained in different parts of Saxony. I count in a little pamphlet “On Gold Mining in Saxony, a contribution to the history of Saxon Mining Industry,” published in 1805, no less than 44 different places in Saxony where gold mining has been carried on. At Hohenstein some gold has been from time to time obtained out of auriferous arsenical pyrites. The value of the gold obtained from silver ore is very insignificant, not amounting to more than 50,000 marks (£7000) per annum. On the whole, we are inclined to think the Saxon people have much more reason to pride themselves on wealth of another kind whioli their native land yields in enormous quantities to the industrious miner—namely, coal, of which the supply appears to bo inexhaustible.