472 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



a few inches to several feet. Here, as elsewhere, this sti'atum is 

 neither horizontal nor of uniform slope, but conformeil to the vary- 

 ing inclination of the earth's surface, covering the declivities, and 

 even the summits of the hills, as well as the bottoms of the ravines 

 and valleys. Out of this stratum I have nowhere found gold, ex- 

 cept where a stream has cut it away and made its contents a part of 

 some alluvial formation of comparatively modern date. The sand- 

 bars of some of the mountain torrents, and the gravelly projections 

 formed at the bendings of the streams, are often extremely rich iu 

 metal. A bar in the Rio de los Americanos (at high- water an island), 

 about twenty- three miles above New Helvetia (now called Sacra- 

 mento), and on which some of the earliest explorations were made, is 

 of this character. But where the diluvium has remained undisturbed 

 since the period of its deposition, I am confident no "alluvial" or 

 *' stream " gold has been, or will be discovered, except in connection 

 with it. It is evidently as much '■' part and parcel " of this forma- 

 tion as its associated quartz, greenstone, hornblende, and other peb- 

 bles, and whoever will explain the origin of the one, will at the same 

 time elucidate the origin of the other, for one and the same agency 

 unquestionably spread both of them over the surface of the district. 

 What the latest theory of geologists is to account for the dispersion 

 of drift, I am too isolated from the scientific world to know. Quartz 

 is the only substance with which I have seen the gold intimately 

 united, and these compound lumps seem to show clearly that the 

 original matrix or vein-stone of the metal was a dyke or bed of quartz 

 rock. And we have only to suppose, that when the quartz, with its 

 accompanying rocky strata, was broken up by natural agencies at 

 some former geological epoch, the interspersed or included veins of 

 gold were at the same time reduced to fragments, and these rough 

 and angular fragments subsequently broken and further comminuted 

 and rounded by mutual attrition, to account for the present form and 

 appearance of the gold, and for its constituting a portion of the ma- 

 terials of the drift. But whether these materials with their golden 

 treasure, now occupy the precise geographical position of their pa- 

 rent rocks, or whether they have been transported by aqueous or 

 glacial agencies or both, from some neighboui'ing or perhaps far di- 

 stant locality, is a question which future investigations into the geo- 

 logy and physical geography of the region will better elucidate than 

 the imperfect data at present in my possession. I cannot avoid the 

 fancy, however, in connection with the glacio-aqueous theory, that 

 when the continent was wholly or partially submerged, the materials 

 of the diluvium, including the gold, were transported by icebergs 

 from their parent locality, and when at length set free, left to assume 

 their present position on what was then the rocky and uneven bot- 

 tom of the superincumbent ocean. And we have only to imagine 

 these freighted icebergs stranded by oceanic currents against the 

 partially emerged range of the Sierra Nevada, to account for the 

 great longitudinal extension of the gold region along the western 

 slojje of the mountains, while laterally it appears to extend neither 

 above nor below certain definite limits. 



