The Scottish Naturalist. 359 



Mr Wright's own account of the find has been very recently 

 made public/ and is as follows : — 



" Whilst at that locality [Leadhills] many years ago, a miner 

 brought me the specimen in quartz, saying he had just dis- 

 covered ^ it between Elvanfoot and Leadhills. I immediately 

 put a series of questions to him, and was convinced in my own 

 mind that he was speaking strictly the truth. I obtained the 

 specimen, and within the same hour walked to Wanlockhead to 

 compare it with some specimens from California which I knew 

 to be in the possession of the postmaster, a Mr Laidlaw. My 

 comparison convinced me that it was a genuine Leadhills speci- 

 men. I do not remember now the name of the miner; but 

 on my first visit to the Leadhills I will doubtless be able to 

 ascertain. 



" Allow me ... to state that, having passed my whole life in 

 the study of mineralogy, and that, being conversant with gold in 

 every known form, and perhaps from every locality — including Aus- 

 tralia, Siberia, Siam, Africa, Brazil, Bolivia, Transylvania, as well 

 as the United Kingdom (Wales, and Wicklow, Ireland) — I am 

 not likely to have been deceived by an Aiistralia^i specimen 

 being passed off to me as a genuine Leadhills one." 



But obviously the mineralogical authorities of the British 

 Museum do not regard the Wright specimen as an indubitable 

 native. Desirous of having, in the event of the specimen being 

 regarded native by the Museum authorities, a coloured drawing 

 made of it, in order to its publication as an illustration of some of 

 my future papers on the gold and gold-fields of Scotland, I applied, 

 in April last, to the Keeper of the Department of Mineralogy in 

 the said Museum, who happens also to be Professor of Miner- 

 alogy in the University of Oxford — viz.. Professor Maskelyne. 

 He was good enough to write me (of date April 1878) : " There 

 would be no difficulty in your having any of the gold specimens 

 from Scotland drawn. . . . The specimen you allude to has only 

 the late Mr Bryce Wright for its godfather. It might be Austra- 



1 In a letter by him to the ' North British Daily Mail ' of March 25. 



2 Such discoveries would appear to be by no means unfrequent. A corre- 

 spondent at Wanlockhead, writing in July last (1878), tells me: "Another 

 piece of gold-bearing quartz has been found in the Wanlock glen, a little 

 below the village. It is about the size of a pigeon's egg, with richer gold 

 than the Gemmell find. ... I have not seen it ; but I am told that it does 

 not appear to have been broken from any solid body for a very long time." 

 It is said to be in the possession of Dr Wilson of Wanlockhead. 



