IV.— CHEMISTRY, 



Art. LXI. — O71 the Occurrence of Bismuth at the Oiven, N.Z- 



By William Skey. 

 [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 18th February, 1887.] 



On the 23rd December last (1886), four specimens of auriferous 

 quartz, as collected from four claims at the Owen diggings by 

 Dr. Hector, were submitted to me for a quantitative analysis for 

 gold. 



One of these specimens (No. 1), when treated with mercury 

 for gold, yielded an amalgam which, rather early in the process 

 of sublimation, darkened feebly upon its surface, and towards 

 the end of the process slightly decrepitated. 



These phenomena showed, of course, that the mercury used 

 had gathered a minute quantity of some base metal fi'om the 

 quartz operated on. 



This metal I found to be bismuth ; but the whole of my 

 operations were upon so small a scale, (being limited as they 

 were by the size of the specimen itself,) that I could get no 

 quantitative determination of it — having barely enough, indeed, 

 of the metal to get those various reactions of this metal neces- 

 sary to establish its presence. 



As yet I am unable to announce whether the bismuth exists 

 in a separate state in this quartz, or as an alloy with its gold ; 

 but this I hope to be able to determine at an early date, upon 

 receipt of further specimens from the claim where this was 

 obtained. In the meantime, I may remark that I could not 

 observe any metallic bismuth in the rock, nor, after panning it 

 off, did I find any metal but the gold. 



Bismuth as a constituent of native gold is stated for in gold 

 from Australia analysed by Northcote.* 



Last Sample for Bismuth from the Owen District. 



" Sir, — Having separated the gold from this sample by simply 

 panning off, without the use of mercury, I was able to get 

 suflficieut gold to test for bismuth, when I was unable to find 

 a trace of this metal in the gold. But bismuth was present in 



• Dana, p. 5. 



