GOLD EXTRACTION PROCESSES. 



FROM very early times the ancients were attracted by 

 the beautiful colour, the brilliant lustre, and the 

 indestructibility of gold, and spared no pains in the en- 

 deavour to acquire it. In the code of Menes, who 

 reigned in Egypt some 2000 years before the time of 

 Moses, the ratio of value between gold and silver is 

 mentioned, one part of gold being declared equal in value 

 to two and a half parts of silver, and it is, therefore, clear 

 that the extraction of both metals from the deposits con- 

 taining them must have been carried on before that time. 

 It is indeed probable that gold was the first metal observed 

 and collected, since it occurs in fragments of all sizes in 

 loose sand, and the operations of collecting the larger pieces 

 and melting them together are so simple. Among the rock 

 carvings of Upper Egypt there are several illustrative of 

 the art of washing auriferous sands by stirring and working 

 them up by the hand in hollowed-out stone basins, and 

 subsequently melting the gold in simple furnaces with the 

 aid of mouth blow-pipes. The earliest of these carvings is 

 supposed to date back to about 2500 B.C. However, in 

 ancient times gold appears to have been mainly derived 

 from India, and that country continued to supply most of 

 the gold used in Europe until the discovery of America by 

 Columbus. 



In order to collect alluvial gold, the sands were 

 washed down over smooth sloping rocks by means of 

 running water, and the particles of gold sinking to the 

 bottom of the stream by reason of their high density, were 

 entangled and caught by the hair on raw hides spread on 

 the rocks. Among the hides used were sheepskins, and 

 hence originated the form of the legend of the Golden 

 Fleece. Stripped of its heroic dress this legend of course 

 describes a piratical expedition to win gold which was 

 being obtained from streams with the help of sheepskins 

 by the inhabitants of what is now Armenia. Similar 



