SCOTIA GOLD VEINS. 67 



pyrites was met gold was found in its vicinity, some lots of quartz yielding 50 oz. to the 

 ton. These finds were followed by barren intervals, so that the limits of the pay streak 

 which extended over several hundred feet, comprised poor quartz, holding rich local accu- 

 mulations. In other veins in the some district, arsenical pyrites predominates, and the 

 gold occurred both free and enclosed in the mispickel. In other veins the same eccentri- 

 city of occurrence has been observed. Thus at Oldham, a lead yielded one nugget of 

 GO oz., and a considerable expenditure showed only barren ground. 



When the relation of these rich zones is studied, it is found that no rule guides their 

 connection with the surrounding strata. In common with all opened sections of veins 

 frequent "feeders " of quartz are thrown out, and often parallel veins obliquely cutting 

 the strata intersect or unite with them. As a rule the intersecting or uniting veins are 

 not themselves auriferous or prove enrichers ; the feeders when directed into bodies of 

 rock not intersected by veins are often auriferous. In one case a vertical cross lead or 

 feeder, some fifty feet long, turned and ran east in a bed of slate, dividing into three veins. 

 These three veins were not rich, while the cross lead yielded handsome returns to a con- 

 siderable depth when it pinched out. The size of the vein does not affect the presence of 

 the pay chimneys, a vein not exceeding one-half an inch in thickness, having yielded very 

 good returns over a considerable space. An instance has been noted where, at a consider- 

 able depth, accident revealed at a distance of a few inches from a worked lead, a thin, 

 parallel vein of quartz having a superficies of a few hundred square feet, and so far as 

 observed totally unconnected with it, but richly charged with gold. 



It not unfrequently happens that the workings of a mine embrace in a width of two 

 or three feet, two or more parallel leads, one of which only is valuable. Here, apparently 

 there have been successive openings, only one of which had directed to it the gold-bearing- 

 agencies. The contemporaneous filling of fissures as they opened one after another would, 

 possibly, explain the last two cases. 



The theory of the undulations would assume that, near the anticlinal, axis the veins 

 would prove, comparatively speaking, larger and more persistent. The well-known 

 Duff'erin Mine of Salmon Eiver, Halifax Co., is a good example of this. It is situated near 

 the axis of the district, and its width varies from two to twelve feet, and at its eastern end 

 where it attains its maximum thickness it forms two " Saddle Backs " branching out as it 

 goes down. From this mine, which has been worked horizontally about 1,200 feet, and 

 vertically about 2.50 feet, about 55,483 tons of quartz have been taken out, yielding 2*7,814 

 ounces of gold, the average yield per ton varying from five penny-weights to two ounces 

 to the ton, and no pay streak being recognised. It has also been remarked of several 

 districts, where the foldings have been pushed to cause overturns of the strata, that the 

 veins are, as regards size and persistency, best adapted for mining. 



In a few cases leads of moderate size have been traced on the surface for several hun- 

 dred feet, and have yielded at all points on their course, amounts of gold constant but not 

 large enough to tempt the miner's ambition. There are also met in numerous districts 

 large veins of compact milky quartz, containing little mineral matter, and yielding to the 

 stamp mill no returns. These veins are j)robabIy among the latest products of the fold- 

 ings, and serve to complicate the study of the subject, unless it be conceded that some 

 essential of heat, time, etc., by its absence or presence, prevented the accretion of the 

 metals, etc. 



