DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 231, 4 July 1872, Page 8

DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD.

Is not eleGtricicy the agent by which gold is deposited in quartz ? I recollect once reading, a few years ago, in a periodical, that a French chemist had succeeded in extracting enough gold from the ashes of trees growing in oi about Paris, to coin three or four forty franc pieces. Further an experiment was made by passing the electrical current between two pieces of clay placed near together ; after a time a de posit of gold was detected, - thus evidently the. work of the subtle fiuifl. By the one fact we liave evidence that gold exists in infinitesimal particlesthroughout the earth, capable of being carried and disseminated by cnpillan attraction among the very fibres of the wood itself; and by the other that electricity — a more powerful agent — will carry these small particles of metal within its currents, and deposit ifc where an obstacle impedes its passage. Quartz veins of a glassy texture — that is, containing a preponderate;of silver — seldom if ever, contain gold, unless in pockets or decayed places, where the electric current might find » passage ; it is those whose base-is of a calcareous nature in which we find gohi, legularly distributed, whioh constitute the class of paying veins. The electric fluid has an attraction for most- metals, and presuming they exist in infinite particles throughout nature, the differ ent veins may have become impregnated with metals simultaneously, and in this character we find them. Thusanalysis shows snlphurets to be com posed of gold, iron, and sulphur : and •what agent so likely to form the combination as electricity? Within the paying districts, where the formation Jias a metallic character, gold seems to abound to a greater extent in. the veins of quartz as well as placers ; ami when one good 'paying vein is <Hscovered others are sure to he' found — showing that .veins of the proper consistency are in these districts, the richest, while the hard f i itv fock which is impervious to the fluid contains as usual nothing.