154 Rev. G. S. Lyman on the 
gold, except where a stream has cut its way and made its 
contents a part of some alluvial formation of comparatively 
modern date. The sand-bars of some of the mountain tor- 
rents, and the gravelly prujections formed at the bendings of 
the streams, are often extremely rich in metal. A bar in 
the Rio de los Americanos (at high water an is/and), about 
23 miles above New Helvetia (now called Sacramento), 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 disco- 
vered, except in connection with it. It is evidently as much 
a part of this formation, as associated quartz, greenstone, 
hornblende, and other pebbles; 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 unques- 
tionably spread both of them over the surface of the dis- 
trict. How 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 shew 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 ac- 
companying rocky strata, was broken up by natural agen- 
cies at some former geological epoch, the interspersed or in- 
cluded veins of gold were at the same time reduced to frag- 
ments, and these rough and angular fragments subsequently 
broken, and further comminuted and rounded by mutual at- 
trition, to account for the present form and appearance of 
the gold, and for its constituting a portion of the materials 
of the drift. But whether these materials, with their golden 
treasure, now occupy the precise geographical position of their 
parent rocks, or whether they have been transported by 
aqueous or glacial agencies, or both, from some neighbour- 
ing or perhaps far distant locality, is a question which fu- 
ture investigations into the geology and physical geography 
of the region will better elucidate than the imperfect data 
at present in my possession. I cannot avoid the fancy, how- 
