702 



GOLD 



Tho simplest engine is the tin basin. A spadeful of stuff is turned in, and then the 

 pan is dipped into water ; the washer shakes the pan, and tosses up the mass ; the 

 stuff, being free to move, falls ; and the heaviest stuff falls fastest. First, the mud 

 floats away, and lastly, at the bottom of the pan, a small heavy stratum remains, in 

 which a lucky man may find a speck or scale of yellow gold, or a nugget as big as the 

 half of a split pea. The cradle acts on the same principle ; so does Long Tom. Each 

 is a contrivance for rocking or raking drift in flowing water with a still pool for the 

 heavy ore to settle in. The long sluice, however, is the best imitation of the burn 

 itself, and the long sluice does most work. It consists of a long wooden trough with a 

 smooth bottom, ending in a bit of crossed grating like the floor of a boat. Beyond this 

 is a longer trough to carry the water down to the burn. A small lead is made, and a 

 small fall comes in at the head of this wooden model of a Highland strath. 



Fig. 1116 represents the section of a 'claim' in the Kildonau Burn, drawn by 

 J. F. Campbell, Esq., of Islay. Water-worn drift arranged by running water in a 



1116 



groove carved in the edges of disturbed metamorphosed bent beds of Silurian rocks. 

 Most of the gold is found near the rock amongst the biggest stones, and in chinks of 

 the rock. 



Gold in Europe. There are auriferous sands in some rivers of Switzerland, as the 

 Reuss and the Aar. In Germany no mine of gold is worked, except in the territory of 

 Salzburg, amid the chain of mountains which separates the Tyrol and Cariuthia. 



Tho mines of Hungary and Transylvania are the only gold mines of any great import- 

 ance in Europe ; they are remarkable for their position, the peculiar metals that accom- 

 pany them, and their product, estimated at about 1,430 pounds avoird. annually. Tho 

 principal ones are in Hungary: 1, those of the Konigsberg; the native gold is disse- 

 minated in ores of sulphuret of silver, which occur in small masses and in veins in a 

 decomposing felspar rock, amid a conglomerate of pumice, constituting a portion of 

 the trachytic formation ; 2, those of Borson, Schemnitz ; and 3, of Felsobanya : ores 

 also of auriferous sulphuret of silver occur in veins of syenite and greenstone-por- 

 phyry ; 4, those of Telkebanya, to the south of Kaschau, are in a deposit of auriferous 

 pyrites, amid trap rocks of the most recent formation. 



In Transylvania the gold occurs in veins, often of great magnitude. These veins 

 have no side plates or wall stones, but abut, without intermediate gangues, on the primi- 

 tive rock. They consist of decomposing quartz, ferriferous limestone, heavy spar, 

 fluor-spar, and sulphuret of silver. Tho name of Kapnik deserves notice, where the 

 gold is associated with orpiment, and that of Vorospatak in granite rocks ; those of 

 Offenbanya, Zalatna, and Nagy-Ag, where it is associated with tellurium. Tho last 

 is in syenitic rock on the limits of the trachyte. 



In Italy the only gold mines of importance are in the north of Piedmont. Tho 

 principal mines are those of Vallanzasca, Val-Toppa, and Pestarona. In 1866 these 

 mines produced 5,952 ounces of gold. 



In Sweden, the mine of Edelfors in Sm&land may be mentioned, where the gold 

 occurs native and in auriferous pyrites ; the veins are a brown quartz, in a mountain 

 of foliated hornstone. 



In Siberia, native gold occurs in a hornstono at Schlangeborg or Zmeof, and at 

 Zmeino-garsk in the Altai Mountains, accompanied with many other ores. 



