314 The Scottish Naturalist. 



15 feet deep, the whole of which produces more or less gold — 

 on an average 5 grains per cubic yard of earth." 



In the accounts given both by the anonymous Cottonian 

 English ^ Reporter and by Atkinson of the operations of the Craw- 

 ford gold-mines in the sixteenth century, constant reference is 

 made to zvashing, scouring, water, water-courses, dams, sluices — all 

 pointing, apparently, to the separation of mere alluvial gold from 

 the clays, sands, or gravels in which it is imbedded, though the 

 use of such expressions is quite compatible also with the separa- 

 tion of gold grains from powdered quartz, slate, or other rocks. 



Atkinson says that " their usual manner is, when they seek for 

 gold in combes and valleys, to frame or make a long sough or 

 scouring-place, into which they bring the stream-water to scour 

 away the light earth from the heavy sandy earth, and to cull 

 away the great stones from the heavy sand ; which sand or 

 heavy earth they scrape into their troughs or trays, and by strain- 

 ing it, and by washing the same often, there is found both rain 

 gold, flat gold, pale gold, and black gold." 2 " Bulmer," he 

 says, " brought home a water-course there to wash and scower the 

 natural gold from the earth that had before been descended 

 from the mountains ever since Noah's flood." ^ This is just the 

 principle and practice of gold-washing in its simplest form, as 

 adopted on the alluvial diggings of all auriferous countries in all 

 ages. 



Amid the conflict or cloudiness of the evidence adduced, it 

 cannot be held ox proven by ancient records that gold-quartz was 

 ever worked in the Crawford district, though the probability is 

 that it was. Unquestionably there is not one tittle of evidence 

 to show that gold-quartz was found containing gold in quantity 

 visible to the naked eye — gold-quartz comparable to the Gemmell 

 specimen now in the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh. 



Nor, it must be added, has modern research brought to 

 light any such auriferous quartz as constitutes the staple of 

 imiseiim examples of Wanlockhead gold-quartz. In other words, 

 no piece of gold-quartz so streaked with gold as is represented 



' His English origin would be obvious from his phraseology alone : for 

 instance, his frequent use of the term "gylle" (gill) as a synonym for a 

 small mountain stream — such as in Scotland is known as a burn ; just as 

 Atkinson's nationality is also pointed out by his use of such terms as 

 ' ' combes " for glens. 



* If by "black" be simply meant dark-coloured, his term is intelligible ; 

 otherwise I do not know what he means by " black gold." 



3 Porteous, p. 41. 



