PROSPECTING FOR VEINS AND DEPOSITS. 



If the clay is likely to contain the precious metal, it ought 

 to be washed very carefully. In prospecting a stream, should 

 the flow of water hinder digging operations, the course of 

 the stream must be diverted by means of back trenches, cut 

 so that the water may flow through them ; in this manner the 

 bed may be laid bare, and then the large rocks or boulders can 

 be easily removed and the finer gravel thoroughly washed 

 by running water. It is advisable to remember that when 

 gold in alluvial ground occurs, the chances are that auriferous 

 lodes not necessarily payable to work, yet, perhaps, of a far 

 more permanent source of wealth than the gravels will prove 

 traverse the neighbouring elevations of land, and conse- 

 quently the country round about should be searched for veins. 



In the search for mineral veins or deposits other than 

 alluvial, it is not advisable for a prospector to trouble him- 

 self about the comparatively recent formations nor modern 

 volcanic rocks ; for, although certain deposits do occur in 

 the former, and rich auriferous deposits have been worked 

 in Australia and California under formations capped by the 

 latter, it is well to bear in mind that, excepting certain 

 deposits of iron, copper, zinc, lead, &c., and, of course, sur- 

 face diggings, the metal-bearing minerals are chiefly mined 

 for in the rocks of an older date than those of the Coal 

 measures, though some, as in California, Transylvania, and 

 Hungary, belong to a more recent period. It must also be 

 remembered that a granite, diorite, andesite, or metamor- 

 phic rock (schist, quartzite, &c. ) country is always worth 

 prospecting. 



Without entering into a discussion concerning the forma- 

 tion and origin of veins, about which so much speculation 

 has been rife and so many theories propounded, it suffices 

 to say that certain laws applying to veins in one district 

 apply also, more or less, to those in another. For instance, 

 in any particular district the mineral-bearing lodes generally 

 follow the same direction, that is to say their planes have 

 the same compass-bearing, and consequently are parallel, 

 notwithstanding a considerable distance may separate one 

 lode from the next nearest to it. In some mining districts, 

 a second series of veins runs right across the first and 

 principal ; these lodes, however, are either of a different 

 nature of mineral to that of the first, or if of the same, 



