26S NOTES ON THE OCCIRRENTE OF GOED I\ I'REXCI' ALBERT. 



during transportation, otherwise the middle parts would be worr^ 

 more than the ends, since any rolling or sliding would take place 

 on the shorter circumference. 



'Ihc following facts are thus presented : — • 



(i) The gold found lying in the soil has been broken from some 

 reef or reefs. 



(2) The gold has been found at several localities forming a belt: 

 running approximately east and west for at least 40 miles. 



(3) In the immediate neighbourhood are numbers of quartz: 

 reefs, also running east and west, and exactly resembling in size 

 and the nature of the quartz those carrying the gold. None have 

 been obser\ecl running in any other direction. 



(4) The gold has been transported some unknown distance, as- 

 is evidenced by the worn edges. 



(5) The general slope of the country is from the north. 



It thus seems reasonable to assume that the reefs carrying the 

 gold also run east and west, that the outcrop is to the north of 

 the spot where the specimens were found, and that by following 

 the course suggested of removing a strip of soil from the bed rock 

 the outcrop will be found. This work can be carried out easily 

 and rapidly. It is hardly possible that just where the reefs are 

 intersected by the present surface of the rock, they should be quite 

 without gold, though it would be too much to expect that the 

 'tvhole extent of reef should be as rich as the specimens founci. 



When money has been spent on a mining venture without suc-- 

 cess, it is very difficult to raise any more to carry on further opera-- 

 tions, even when it is proved that the money had been wrongh 

 used. This seems to be the case in the present instance, but it 

 should be pointed out that this is a very different proposition from 

 the usual mining venture, in which a mineral deposit is discovered' 

 and money is spent on proving Avhether it is payable or not. In 

 this case there can be no question of the payability of the reef, nor 

 about its existence. Locating it is all that is required. 



There is a fortune waiting to be picked up by the man or. 

 svndicate willing to run some risk. 



NITON. — In a paper l)y Dr. R. W. Gray and Sir William- 

 Ramsay, read before the Royal Society on January 12, the dis- 

 integration theory of Rutherford and Soddy received further con- 

 firmation by the announcement that, as a result of several deter- 

 minations of its density, the atomic weight of the radium emana- 

 tion — for which the authors propose the name of niton — was found' 

 to average 223. This agrees well with the view that radiuuT 

 (at. wt. 226.4), on changing into niton, loses one alpha particle- 

 fat, wt. 4). With regard to the name proposed by them, the- 

 authors point out the desirability of indicating, by similarity of 

 name, that the gas belongs to the argon family. This is regarded 

 as preferable to emphasising its radio-active relations. If the 

 latter were to be indicated in the name, a similar principle would 

 have to be applied to radium itself, which should then be named irj 

 some wav that would indicate its derivation from uranium. 



