METALS AND THEIR ORES. 7 



of a mile from the stream we found the characteristic drift of this sec- 

 tion. It consists of a bluish clayey gravel, and contains boulders of 

 schistose rocks, and it lias a depth, wlicre we excavated, of three and 

 four feet. The gold seems to be distributed through the entire mass, 

 though it is nowhere very abundant ; yet, when the road that was several 

 years ago projected from Connecticut lake to the boundary is con- 

 structed, this section will be well worthy of a thorough exploration, 

 especially as the streams are rapid, and the descent of the bed-rock is 

 sufficient to carry away the loosened sand if the hydraulic process is used. 

 It has been estimated* that "earth which contains only the twenty-fifth 

 part of a grain of gold, or about two mills' worth in a bushel, will pay 

 about two dollars a day to a pipe." — J. H. H. 



The Ammonoosuc Gold Field. 



Under the appellation of Ammo7Wosnc Gold Field is included the terri- 

 tory occupied by the auriferous slates and schists along Connecticut river, 

 supposed to belong to the Huronian and Cambrian series, lying mostly 

 in New Hampshire, but partly in Vermont, and possibly extending be- 

 yond the sources of the Connecticut into Maine and Canada. The south- 

 ern limit is near Bellows Falls. Explorations of this field have been 

 desultory and disconnected. The earliest discovery of free gold in any 

 part of it, so far as can be ascertained, was made by Mr, Hanshet, in 

 Plainfield, not later than 1854. This was but a short time before Moses 

 Durkee, of Lebanon, washed gold out of alluvium in both Hanover and 

 Lebanon. In the report upon the geology of Vermont,! published in 

 1861, Springfield, Vt., is given as a gold locality. It was obtained from 

 the gravel, and but a short time previous, according to my note-book. 

 No other proof of the presence of gold in the Connecticut valley is cited 

 in that report, though its existence there is "strongly suspected," $ In 

 1858, while acting as assistant on the Vermont survey, I measured a sec- 

 tion, from Lake Champlain over Camel's Hump and Mt. Washington, 

 which crossed this auriferous field in Littleton.§ The similarity of the 

 ledges to those in the great talcose schist and gold-bearing formations 

 just east of the Green Mountains led us to regard them of the same age 



* Mining Statistics west of the Rocky Mountains, 1S70, p. 478. 

 t Page 683. % Page 849. § Page 521. 



