1890-91.] GOLD AND SILVER IN GALENA AND IRON PYRITES. 127 



would be precipitated. Then the vein matter being formed it may have 

 been deposited on the bottom of one of these seas or lakes or the 

 solution carrying along in suspension or solution the vein matter may 

 have issued from the lake by some outlet and may have passed through, 

 some fissure which contained detritus. It is certain that a great part 

 of solution would be left to form a vein. We have such veins in the 

 vicinity of Zellerfield and Clansthal, in the Hartz, the gangue being 

 made up of a breccia of country rock which is a clay slate cemented 

 together by baryta, calcite, quartz and carbonate of iron, it is veins of 

 this description that the galena occurs in at that place. In conclusion^ 

 allow me to say that we are too quick at condemning processes which,, 

 perhaps, seem impracticable in our laboratories, but we should not 

 forget that we are comparing the finite with the infinite ; we must 

 remember that when our Creator, God, had the power to resolve this 

 universe, of which we form a part, from a void ; he certainly had the 

 power to form laws, the beauty of which our feeble conception can 

 scarcely grasp, and that these laws operated at his will. Man is slowly 

 gaining an insight into those laws and is making them his servants in 

 the metallurgical treatment of the treasures of the mine as well as in 

 other branches of science, instances being the chlorination and hypo- 

 sulphite processes. The vast extent of these processes carried on by 

 nature is better understood when we take into consideration such 

 deposits as for instance at Huelgoet in Brittany, where, although the 

 principal ore is an argentiferous galena, yet the deposit which I before 

 mentioned yields 30 oz. of silver per ton as chloride, and the pacos of 

 Peru, although having been worked for two centuries, at the beginning 

 of this century had not been penetrated to a depth of 100 feet. 



Note. — In confirmation of the statement in regard to sulphide of gold 

 in this paper, I may say that three days after reading same I was 

 examining a piece of quartz containing pyrites, when, on turning the 

 quartz in my hand, I noticed a dark powder in a crevice which appeared 

 to be plumbago, but on close inspection, and on making an analysis, I 

 found it to be a ferrous sulphide Fe, S, containing sulphide of gold ; the 

 pyrites proved to be iron pyrites containing arsenide of nickel and traces- 

 of gold ; the vein from which it was taken had walls of diorite. 



