224 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



vacla. Hon. T. Butler King has spent much time in examining this 

 region, and is about making a report upon it to the government at 

 Washington ; it will be accompanied by numerous specimens. We 

 have ourselves examined specimens from these quartz mountain- 

 quarries, which are in the possession of Mr. Wright, one of the 

 members of Congress elect from California, who will take them on 

 to Washington. They consist, for the most part, of small pieces of 

 quartz rock, generally of a brownish tinge, and, in some instances, 

 presenting the appearance of a slight incipient decay, or decomposi- 

 tion of the rock formation. In all these specimens the gold points, 

 or particles, are very slightly, if at all visible to the naked eye. The 

 microscope, however, reveals the gold more clearly. Besides these 

 pieces, which Mr. Wright has himself selected with great care, as 

 the fairest average samples of the general appearance of enormous 

 and very numerous veins, or quarries, of quartz, there is also one 

 larger fragment of the same rock, weighing, we should suppose, some 

 ten or twelve pounds, from all parts of which the gold protrudes plain- 

 ly in a state almost pure. This single fraction of quartz, which Mr. 

 Wright by no means regards as an average sample of the quarries, 

 but which he pronounces to be the richest rock-specimen he has seen, 

 is found by the most careful specific-gravity test, as applied to it by 

 Mr. Wright, to contain pure gold to the amount of about six hundred 

 dollars. 



"Mr. Wright has spent much time among the mountains collecting 

 his specimens, and has been assisted by a gentleman conversant with 

 mining operations. The astonishing result brought out by these in- 

 ^ 7 estigations, is, that, in a particular and very extensive vein, four 

 pounds of this rock yielded, upon the average, $11 worth of pure 

 gold, valued at $ 1 6 to the ounce ; that is to say, the yield of gold 

 from these average samples of the rock in this particular vein is nearly 

 $3 for each pound of quartz. Mr. Wright exhibited to us two small 

 masses of gold, each about the size and shape of a large musket-ball, and 

 both presenting the granulated appearance of gold extracted and collect- 

 ed by the aid of quicksilver. One of these contains about $12 of pure 

 gold, and is the largest yield which has been obtained from 4lbs. of the 

 rock in question. The other contains about $10, and is the smallest 

 yield which has been obtained from any of the experiments upon the rock 

 of this vein. We understand that the tests applied have been some- 

 times the operation of quicksilver, and sometimes the test of the com- 

 parative specific gravity of the pure quartz and the gold-bearing quartz." 



The Secretary of the Interior remarks, in his Annual Report: 

 "The gold is found sometimes in masses, the largest of which 

 brought to the mint weighed 89oz. They are generally equal to the 

 standard of our coin in purity, and their appearance that of a metal 

 forced into the fissures and cavities of the rocks in a state of fusion. 

 Some masses, however, are flattened apparently by pressure, and 

 scratched as if by attrition in a rough surface. One small mass which 

 was exhibited had about five parts in weight of gold to one of quartz 

 intimately blended, and both together bouldered so as to form a hand- 

 some rounded pebble, with a surface of about equal quartz and gold. 



