The Scottish Naturalist. 53. 



district a few years ago, I may state that just now I have not in 

 my possession any of the pieces, and Gemmell informs me he 

 has none left. Mr. Dudgeon of Cargen, near Dumfries, was 

 gathering all the pieces he could borrow to have the stone made 

 up as near the original as possible, to have a cast taken of it." 



So many finds of gold in Scotland have been reported in the 

 newspapers, which have turned out to be false reports — to have 

 been discoveries only of glittering, yellow, gold-like minerals, 

 such as Iron Pyrites or Mica ; so many of these reports have I 

 myself investigated and found to be untrustworthy, that it is 

 important to establish, once for all, the genuineness or authen- 

 ticity of the Gemmell Quartzite, and its discovery. 



1. There can be no doubt that it is auriferous quartz ; for, in 

 the first place, it was found by a Wanlockhead lead-miner, 

 who is as familiar with gold as he is with lead. The official 

 " Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Scotland," tell us that 

 " for more than three centuries gold has been collected in small 

 quantities from the Alluvia of the streams in the Leadhills and 

 Wanlockhead district."* All the lead-miners of the district are 

 thus hereditarily, as well as by individual experience, gold- 

 diggers ; and I have had occasion repeatedly to point out else- 

 where that the unpretentious, but practical gold-digger is a 

 much better judge of gold, in at least its topographical relations, 

 than the professional geologist or mineralogist. I am not 

 aware of a single gold-field that has been discovered and de- 

 veloped by a professed scientific man : in other words, I know 

 no exception to the rule that, throughout the world, gold-fields, 

 gold-diggings, and gold-mines, have been found out and worked 

 successfully by uneducated, plain, unassuming men, with strong 

 opinions of their own, the physical strength necessary for pro- 

 specting, washing and mining, and the determination requisite 

 for following up or out an object. So far as Scotland is con- 

 cerned, while it was an Australian gold-miner — albeit a native of 

 Helmsdale — Robert Nelson Gilchrist, that discovered and de- 

 veloped the auriferous riches of Sutherland in 1869, and who paved 

 the way therefore for the finding of what deserves to be called in 

 his honour, " The Gilchrist Nugget" it was a Scottish lead-miner, 

 Andrew Gemmell, who in 1872, as a culmination to a whole 

 series of previous gold finds in the same important lead-mining 

 district of Crauford Moor, met with the largest mass of aurifer- 



* Explanation of Sheet 15 : Edinburgh, 1871, p. 43. 



