GEOLOGY. 55 



half an inch long. Large wire-gold is in wirehke pieces, about 

 a sixteenth of an inch thick, and from a quarter of an inch to 

 an inch long. Miscellaneous coarse gold is in pieces of very 

 irregular shape and size. 



Fine gold is often found without any admixture of coarse ; 

 coarse is rarely found without some admixture of fine. 



The different varieties of gold are often found separate from 

 each other. One gully will have scale gold, another fine wire- 

 gold, another moccasin-gold, another pumpkin-seed gold, and 

 80 on. These different varieties of gold are frequently found 

 very near to each other : a cucumber-seed gully will not be 

 more than a hundred yards from a pea gully. There is a small 

 hill in El Dorado county ; all the gold on one side is fine, all 

 on the other coarse. The gold as it originally comes from the 

 quartz is rough, but by friction among the gravel and sand it 

 becomes smooth. Where all the pieces of gold are rough, it 

 has not moved far from its maternal lode ; where all the par- 

 ticles are small and smooth, the presumption is that it has 

 moved a considerable distance. The larger the stream, the 

 finer and smoother its gold, as a general rule. 



Most of the gold now obtained is miscellaneous coarse ; the 

 little gullies which yielded the delicate varieties are now nearly 

 all exhausted. 



Most of the placer-gold is coarse, in pieces worth half a dol- 

 lar or more. Pieces worth five dollars are very common, and 

 numberless nuggets worth one hundred dollars or more have 

 been found in California. The largest nugget of gold on rec- 

 ord was found at Ballaarat, Australia, on the 9th of June, 

 1858 ; it weighed two hundred and twenty-four pounds Troy, 

 of nearly pure gold, and was called " The Welcome Nugget." 

 The next, weighing one hundred and ninety-five pounds Ti'oy, 

 was found in Calaveras county, California, in November, 1854. 

 The third, called " The Blanche Barkly Xugget," weighed one 

 hundred and forty-five pounds Troy, and was also found iu 

 Australia. Smaller lumps are too numerous to mention. All 

 placer-gold is called " dust," but the particles of the dust are 



