274 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



"croppings veins," because their position is shown by the out- 

 croppings. Experience has not ascertained whether Jarge or 

 small veins are more likely to contain gold. It is found in 

 both. The porous quartz, or that containing many cavities, is 

 more frequently found auriferous and richly auriferous, than 

 the very compact quartz. The best gold-bearing veins are 

 usually yellowish or brownish in tinge, near the surface at 

 least ; but very rich specimens are found in white and bluish- 

 white rock. Most quartz veins in California contain a little 

 gold ; the metal seems to have been distributed most lavishly, 

 but unfortunately in nine-tenths of the veins, the proportion 

 of metal is too small to pay. Most of the large veins are sup- 

 posed to run for miles upon miles, though they can rarely be 

 traced clearly on the surface for more than a furlong. The 

 auriferous veins vary much in richness. No vein is wrought 

 for more than a few hundred feet. Beyond that, it is either 

 too poor to pay, or the vein is hidden. Some persons have 

 supposed that there is one great gold-bearing quartz vein run- 

 ning along the side of the Sierra Nevada, from Mariposa to 

 Plumas county, and that many of the richest claims are really 

 in this one vein ; but this is a supposition which cannot be 

 proved now. Sometimes a vein seems to spread out and di- 

 vide into a number of smaller veins, all of which afterward 

 unite again. These points of junction, and the narrower places 

 in the vein, are usually richer than other parts of it. When 

 two veins cross each other, one may be auriferous on one side 

 of the intersection and not on the other ; but in this case the 

 other vein will be auriferous on both sides. It is as though 

 they were streams, one rich, the other barren, and that after 

 meeting, the wealth of the one was divided between them. 

 It is a general rule that metalliferous veins running parallel 

 with the strata of the bed-rock or country are not extensive. 

 In fact they are rather deposits than veins, and though often 

 extremely rich are soon exhausted, while the lodes which run 

 across the stratification run far and deep, and have a regular 

 and straight course and dip. Lodes lying between two difierent 



